Every child grows up watching some or the other superhero story where the hero fights the villain and brings them to justice for all the crimes they commit. As innocent kids, we never understood why the police were against a superhero like Batman, a guy who was trying to make a change in the society by defeating the bad guys.
But when we put fiction in retrospect with reality, we understand why the police think vigilantes are hostile to public order. A vigilante is a civilian or an organization that acts in a law enforcement capacity without legal authority. The definition of the bad guy vigilante use is what makes them a threat to peace. In India, this term is more commonly known as “Gau Rakshaks” (cow protectors) who are a group of elite extremely motivated believers who think their generations old religion is under threat in a country where they form the majority in number.
The BJP is a clever party as it knows how to manipulate people with a continuous flow of events. If you think you are starting to understand one flaw in their governance they will come up with another which will overshadow the previous one as if it was nothing. For example, if you think a case of lynching is disturbing, then in a matter of days you’ll hear about some tragedy with children. You would not even be over the preposterous nature of the crisis that another rape would be in the news.
If you’re still thinking about the same grave issue then the newest trick in the bag is the use of fake news because Nehru’s religion is more important than the death of children in 2019. And you must be an idiot if you believe you’ll ever see the news about farmer crisis or the water crisis because those things can’t be blamed on a single or group of individuals.
While we had our focus on the death of children in Bihar, some people in Jharkhand decided to be the Batman of their village. A 22-year-old Muslim man named Tabrez Ansari was beaten while being tied to a pole by a mob that caught him allegedly trying to steal a bike. The bizarre turn in the event was that he was asked to chant “Jai Shri Ram” (Hail Lord Ram) and “Jai Hanuman” (Hail Hanuman) while he was getting beaten up.
Now with the rise in the public divide which is included in the exclusive package of achche din (better days) the people of India have chosen these chants are disturbingly no surprise as we’ve already seen countless similar cases, but what is really disturbing is how the police have responded to this particular issue.
The Indian Express reported that the village pradhan Subhash Mahto said, “People started beating the thief after he was caught. We tried calling police but could not get them on phone. So whoever came to know of the thief was beating Ansari.”
The police has been said to reach the crime scene hours later and took Ansari in their custody where he was denied medical attention and when one of his relatives asked for him to be taken to the hospital, the police threatened him and still did not take any actions to take Ansari to the hospital until it was too late. The ineffectiveness of the police in not just reaching the scene of crime but in providing basic medical attention to a victim of mob lynching makes you lose faith in the people who are supposed to protect us.
A report by the fact-finding team of the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha for this case of lynching said that Ansari was stopped in the middle of the night and the people asked his name and then tied him to a pole and started beating him. We are now living in times when if you’re from a minority community then even saying your name out loud can get you killed. If we don’t see any change from the current regime in vigilante activity like this, then the day isn’t far when the only way to protect a child would be to name them Ram.