Recently, I had an interesting debate / discussion with a
friend of mine. The discussion started after she described an incident that she
noticed while returning from office which seemingly had stirred her up from
within. The incident was something that many of us would have heard of or may
have even experienced firsthand.
“A thief while trying to break into a car was caught red
handed. All the people around got their act together and beat the thief
black-and-blue, short of having reduced him to a pulp, till the cops arrived
and the just-about-alive thief was handed over”. Perfect example of
mob-justice.
She was baffled with the fact that none intervened to stop
the treatment meted to the person (okay – the thief) by all and sundry. She was
more vexed by the inhuman, almost fiendish, nature of humans especially the way
everyone enjoyed reducing the accused into a pulp. Her contestation was simple.
Have we all become cathartic of cognition? Wasn’t there a single upright “human
being” in the crowd who could have prevented the mob-justice and did the right
thing of handing over the culprit to the police? Who gave us the right to provide
justice the way it was done?
I tried to disceptate that while the incident in itself was
sordid and despicable when viewed from a noetic standpoint, for the layperson
the means appointed was the best and easiest form of justice. My argument was
that in a country where getting access to the law(through the police) is as
difficult as its execution(70% of the prisoners in India are under trials), citizens
vent out their frustration time and again by applying means that are legally untenable
at best and socially abominable at worst. According to me the manifestation of
pent up anger occurs in the form of mob-justice which is the worst form of
justice and the best form of liberation. Everyone is partner in the crime but
no one is guilty.
(The discussion between me and my friend ensued into a
debate by then)
My friend argued, the
mob may have been unjust and unapologetic of its actions but wasn’t there a
single sane mind in the huge crowd who could bristle up to the occasion and do
the right thing of letting the appropriate institutions (the police in this
case) decide the future course of actions. I contested that in a nation where
the institutions are incapacitated by the filth of corruption and incompetence people
lose trust on the justice system. (The single best example of such a trust deficit and the ensuing action was the formation of a civil society team to draft the Lok-Pal bill). The actions of the lynch mob are certainly
not what “nyaya- comprehensive concept of realized justice that affects the
world that emerges out of the actions pursued” should be but can certainly
be justified as a course correction “neeti – organizational propriety
and behavioural correctness”- although devoid of propriety. As Prhalad Kakkar reckoned in a recent chat
show “the action of the lynch-mob is a signaling mechanism for the failure of
democratic institutions”. In a fractured democracy like ours where all the
three pillars – legislature, executive and judiciary – are found shaking, the
lynch mob –justice forms an appealing proposition to the masses while it
certainly forces the lumpen institutions to be proactive.
But coming back to the heart of the issue – Is Creating Justice
by perpetrating Injustice the right way? If we zoom out of the current example and
pan our focus on the broader context of bail being denied to the multiple
accused in cases such as 2G scam, CWG scam etc., we shall realize that even the
Supreme Court of India has failed to deliver “nyaya”. After all, as the
law stipulates “for offences upto 7years bail is a rule unless there are
alarming facts such as someone perpetrates terror”. Shouldn’t therefore,
reasonably, the accused not be let free as personal liberty and presumption of
innocence are foundation stones of our constitution?
Notable philosophes from Voltaire to Immanuel Kant to AmartyaSen have argued upon the importance of Reasoning as they noted that “bringing
reason to the world raises hope of humanity”. However, I would like to dig
deep into my vault of courage and beg to disagree with the eminent scholars and
so with my friend, who was disgruntled with the unreasonability and cruelty of
mob-justice. My line of reasoning toes the fact that we emphasize a lot on
rationality and reasoning at the expense of other considerations such as humans’
non-rational and emotional sides, variations in thinking and valuing across
cultures and individual freedom of choice.
According to me the fabric of our society shouldn’t just be
about a well ironed reasoning, rather it should also encompass crumpled individual
volition and emotions.
(The debate continues!!)
