Apex court on lynching

The last word is yet to be said but the Supreme Court’s initial reflexes on the issue of lynching have put into sharp relief the political executive’s regrettable wink-and-nod approach to informal public executions of largely Muslims by cow vigilante groups. Public attention is currently focused on a spate of lynchings over child lifting rumours in states as far apart as Tripura and Maharashtra. But it is the cow vigilante groups that have exacerbated societal tensions and also shamed India in the wider world. State governments, as expected, have been responsive to victims of child lynching more because there are no powerful politically-oriented interest groups backing such on-the-spur crimes that were committed on the back of a climate of suspicion and fear whipped up by social media posts.  

The violence being generated due to differing sentiments on the importance of cows and their slaughter or consumption has greater repercussions than the equally unfortunate victims of child kidnapping rumours. The court has put the magnitude of the crime in sharp focus by identifying it as an act against humanity by declining to identify the vulnerable groups — which might have exacerbated communal tensions — and holding that the compensation will be determined on the basis of the nature of injury. The court’s politically-neutral approach should aid societal endorsement of the Supreme Court’s forthcoming observations on the prevention of such crimes, prosecution of offenders and compensation of victims.

It was obvious that the political messaging behind such acts may have contributed to inefficiencies by state governments that were cut from the same ideological cloth as the perpetrators. A mention must be made of the Jharkhand Government that secured the conviction of all the 11 accused in the first lynching under the BJP-led state government. However, this cannot be said about other state governments where incidents of lynching have been followed by delays in investigations and a lack of enthusiasm to book the accused. If only other states had shown similar reflexes and alacrity, the political executive would have been spared the embarrassment of being informed about the basic tenets of good governance.