Catharsis of Cognition !!

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!!)