Dear Friends,
We wish to share with you the following article from The Times of
India Blogs written by Amish Tripathi.
Asian Human Rights Commission
Hong Kong
-------------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AHRC-FAT-012-2017
11 July 2017
An article from The Times of India Blogs forwarded by the Asian Human
Rights Commission
Pehlu Khan, a Muslim, was lynched by Hindu criminals, professing to be
cow vigilantes. The incident fills one with grief and anger. Around
the same time, Farook, a Muslim atheist in Coimbatore, was lynched by
Muslim criminals, claiming to be true believers.
Search deeper and you will find the case of a Hindu doctor lynched by
a mainly Muslim mob, over a cricket dispute. Hindu rail passengers
lynched a Muslim youth, in what began as a dispute over seats. A Dalit
man was beaten brutally and nearly killed by a Muslim mob because his
son fell in love with a Muslim girl. There was a case of tribal
vigilantes, lynching both Hindus and Muslims because they suspected
them of being child traffickers. And this is only in the recent past.
All these cases are horrifying. And all of them reveal patterns. But
sadly, many in the public debate space only find patterns which
validate their biases. Therefore, many leftists cherry-pick cases
where the criminals are Hindu upper castes, and the victims Muslims or
Dalits; and then build a narrative of recent Hindu majoritarianism
ripping India apart. Events involving cows get particular attention;
with a byline that Hindus value cows more than humans.
The right-wing likes to pick cases where the criminals are Muslim, and
the victims can be anyone else (Hindu upper castes, Hindu Dalits,
Muslim atheists, etc), and then build a narrative of Muslims being
inherently violent. Some have even given a communal colour to the
horrific Delhi gang rape case, since the victim was Hindu, all the
rapists caught and punished with the death penalty were Hindu, but the
juvenile who got away was a Muslim.
Interestingly, when both Hindus and Muslims are victims, the events
are usually ignored. When other animals, besides cows, are involved
(lynchings happen over goats as well; crimes involving animals form a
significant portion of property crimes in rural India), it does not
excite interest.
Some may refuse to buy the biased left-wing and right-wing narratives
and prefer to examine the lynching data in India with an open mind.
They may not want to use these terrible incidents to score political
or conversational points. They may actually want these lynchings to
stop. What should they do?
The answer is obvious. Mob violence and vigilantism happens because
the criminals expect to get away with it. Many victims don’t
complain because they don’t expect justice to be done. And this
happens because our criminal justice system is horribly inefficient.
According to government data, there are more than three crore cases
pending in our judicial system. Justice VV Rao of Andhra Pradesh high
court had said that at the normal rate of dispersal, it will take 320
years to clear the backlog in our courts! India is amongst the 10
worst countries in the world in terms of the percentage of undertrials
as a proportion of total prisoners.
It was naively believed that a few high-profile convictions would lead
to a tipping point. For example, the Jessica Lal case was supposed to
suddenly put the fear of the law into the powerful. While justice was
done in the Jessica Lal case, did things change at a systemic level?
More than a decade later, we must admit the obvious: Nothing has
changed. Many unfortunate people, who can’t possibly be tracked by
TV studios in Mumbai and Delhi, continue to suffer systemic apathy.
This situation has led to the corruption of our society. Why do the
disempowered vote for criminals and strongmen? Because they know that
they will not get justice in a gummed up judicial system. So, the
practical thing to do is to elect a strongman from your community and
expect him/her to use political power to protect you.
Why are encounters tolerated by our society? For the State to take
away life without due process is a moral corruption that is not worthy
of a civilised society. But encounters have been occurring in India
since the 1960s, when efforts were made to control the Chambal valley
dacoits. Thousands of criminals, and perhaps many innocents, have lost
their lives.
Yet, many encounter cops are celebrated in blockbuster films. Why?
Because the common Indian sees this as a pragmatic way to maintain
order, especially when crime or terrorism reaches unbearable limits.
Encounters are only opposed, selectively, when it suits someone’s
political agenda.
The only long-term solution is a clean-up of the criminal justice
system. Police reforms (as ordered by the Supreme Court in 2006) must
be implemented to give the force autonomy from political interference,
better-trained and more manpower, and modern weapons.
We must invest in more competent prosecutor systems, which ensure that
police investigation is converted into proper charge sheets and
professional arguments in court which lead to convictions. We
desperately need more judges. Court records must be digitised (we can
use reCaptcha techniques here) and court procedures computerised, so
that the time wastage of witnesses, lawyers and judges is reduced.
Date delays must be stopped. Judges should stop wasting time on
frivolous PILs.
I know that arguing, even fighting, for these reforms, does not make
for an exciting TV debate or a grandstanding op-ed. But if you
actually want mob violence and lynchings to stop, this is perhaps the
only way to ensure it.
……………..
The views shared in this article do not necessarily reflect that of
the AHRC.
# # #
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) works towards the radical
rethinking and fundamental redesigning of justice institutions in
order to protect and promote human rights in Asia. Established in
1984, the Hong Kong based organisation is a Laureate of the Right
Livelihood Award, 2014.
Read this Forwarded Article online
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