Trigger Warning: Violence.
I remember that evening clearly when I was seated at my work desk, scrolling through my Facebook timeline. I came across the viral video where a grievously injured human was screaming to convince people that he is Assamese.
Neelotpal Das and Abhijeet Nath had gone to Karbi Anglong, in Assam, where they were brutally lynched to death on June 8, 2018. They were accused of being child-lifters based on a viral WhatsApp message. Nelotpal had to scream to convince the mob that he and his friend are Assamese.
I was disturbed. I wondered what needs to make a human to convince his fellow humans about their ethnicity? I came up with a conclusion that since they ‘didn’t look native’ they had to try convincing a mob of ‘natives’ that they are from Assam. This is the problem, I feel, with the greater ‘Indian Culture’ which conditions its followers to hate anyone out of their clan. The Indian culture is a culture of hatred, be it casteism, communalism, nationalism or any other anti-human value, the Indian Culture will express its solidarity to it.
There were groups protesting against this heinous crime and demanding the death penalty for the convicts. People belonging to the Karbi Tribe had to face brutalities in Guwahati and other cities by the non-tribals. Various groups had to come to help them secure a safe place amidst the brutalities conducted by the protestors demanding justice. The upper-caste privileged ones don’t leave a stone unturned to direct their brutalities against a minority tribe, and this was evident over here too.
I remember Facebook posts demanding for the accused to be handed over to the public. Sheer irony is this that the protestors were demanding a mob lynching while protesting a mob lynching.
I wonder what the demand of protestors was. Blood lust against blood lust? This shows the ingrained hatred that incites a mob lynching. The society is no different. The lust for vengeance and blood is no different than the ones who participate in a mob lynching.
After two years of this incident, various news portals have been reporting how justice has been denied to the family members of the victims. What justice are they talking about? The accused ones are behind bars without bail, but the blood lust of the public has not been satiated yet.
I will call the ones demanding death penalty for the convicts (once proved) to be idiotic. This crime is no doubt heinous but does not fall in the category of ‘rarest of the rare’ and hence, demanding death penalty is nothing less than an idiotic ignorance of the law of this country. Moreover, they also should introspect on the potential convicts they can be of any future mob lynching out of their sheer hatred.
I came across news reports where Assam CM, Sarbananda Sonowal, had assured the public of strict action against the perpetrators of this crime. He further stated that he is following the proceedings and the state will be appointing a good criminal lawyer who will seal the loopholes through which the ‘perpetrators’ may escape.
I must say, irony died many deaths here since the CM of Assam is from the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP). BJP is the party which has opposed a law against mob lynching at Rajasthan. BJP members had celebrated the bail of the accused persons involved in the lynching of Tabrez Ansari in Jharkhand.
What Orwell said in his book Animal Farm, that “some animals are more equal than others,” comes into life when BJP seemingly discriminates against the victims. Abhijeet and Neelotpal don’t sound to be Muslim names and hence they are more equal than Pehlu Khan or Tabrez Ansari. Strict action has been assured by a CM belonging to the BJP for the convicts of these non-Muslim names.
At times when mob lynching has been a new normal in India, people need to discuss the ways that can remove this crime from our society. Demanding stringent punishment is, in no way, a solution. These crimes are resultant of the hatred that is ingrained in our minds against our fellow human beings. We need to introspect if we indulge in this crime out of our sheer hatred.
The lynching of Abhijeet and Neelotpal was instigated by someone and carried out by others. All incidents involve sheer hatred against fellow human beings. Here, hatred against humans not following a culture was displayed. We need to question this rotten culture of ours which ingrains hatred.
How many humans protesting the brutal mob lynching of Abhijeet and Neelotpal have actually thought about defeating this hate-instigating culture?
The judiciary believes in restorative justice. Incarceration in India is viewed as a reformative process and not a punitive one. It is high time popular discussion raising awareness about restorative justice is initiated.
Demanding death penalty displays our blood lust, similar to the perpetrators of violence. Death penalty is no less than mob lynching to satisfy the greater public consensus, a consensus which is rotten, a consensus which lusts for blood and violence against our fellow human beings. There is no data proving that the death penalty has ever reduced crimes in society. Under such circumstances, demanding the death penalty for a fellow human makes us more involved in their crime.
No crime is committed independently of societal influence. Removing ourselves from the reformation process of the convicts will, in no way, help in curbing the crime from society. It is shameful that civil society demands and celebrates a brutal death penalty.
Justice to the victims will be served only when the crime is curbed from society. For this, democratic voices demanding restorative justice are mandatory. The voices should be firm against the death penalty, against hatred, against the ones involved in politics of hatred, against Nellie Massacre, against xenophobia, against the present Government, against the Citizenship Amendment Act, and against all the injustice around us.
Justice will never be served when the politics of hatred is intact, when the media agencies propagating fake news are intact, when hatred is inherent and when we as a society ignore our role in a crime and the reformation of the convict to demand the hatred-filled death penalty.