Their origin and non-liability are, in fact, situated within our own homes and communities, enabled by a discriminatory state, readily placing the blame on victims and their communities, as though they are responsible for their own lynching and everyday discrimination.
’Indian tradition’ and ‘culture’ sits too comfortably with discrimination based on caste, class, gender, physical ability, geography, language, and increasingly, religion. These discriminations go well with the backdrop of the lethal weapon wielding angry ‘hero’ who perform macabre acts of violence and vandalism, legitimised and sanitised by labels such as rakshak and kanwariya. This cosy alliance is further sanctioned and emboldened by an immoral State and a degenerate media. The other eager participants are the health system, the police and judiciary who have better relationships with the murderers than with innocent citizens. The entire structure is such that lynching is inevitable rather than unexpected.
On March 31 2023, Idrees Pasha was brutally murdered in Ramnagara, Karnataka just a few metres from the Sathanur police station by Puneeth Kerehalli, who, according to the media, was the ‘President of the Rashtra Rakshana Pade’- labels that set the stage to project murderers as extra-judicial heroes and the murdered as having violated social norms and laws. Pasha’s arm showed marks of electrocution and his body of bruising, but autopsy downplayed these, in what is an oft recurring pattern, to claim that he died of ‘cardiac arrest’. According to the media, Kerehalli was known for livestreaming his ‘cow rescuing missions’. “In videos, Kerehalli is purportedly seen carrying a baseball bat and a stun gun while intercepting vehicles carrying cattle.” Indian Express (6 April 2023).
A mob lynching is an extrajudicial, violent act in which a crowd of people or a mob, under the pretext of administering justice without trial, execute a presumed offender, often after inflicting torture and corporal mutilation, demonstrating extreme disrespect for human life. It is perpetrated by a collective upon individuals who serve as representatives of another collective.
Some of the factors that set the stage for mob lynching are
Rationalising discrimination.
Caste-based discrimination propagates the belief that certain communities are meant to be treated inferiorly and that they cannot expect similar rights. Hierarchy is ‘normal’ for Indian society, and, in fact, anything that has the potential to change this status quo is perceived as a threat. The intuitive response to someone of another collective being abused, harassed or discriminated, is to presume that he or she must have done something wrong to ‘deserve’ that punishment. There is a mental checklist which many of us have as a reference point for those ‘crimes’ that deserve extreme punishments – those that break artificially created diktats around touch, food, marriage, relationships, friendships, aspirations drawn and defined by caste, class, gender and religion among others.
This collective is often a group of strangers who are drawn together and behave like a single entity when key triggers are activated. There is cohesiveness in what this collective perceives are its own victimhood and threats versus the individual representing another collective that has been painted as the other and the enemy. There are members of the aggressive collective who enact the violence, there are those who rationalise and justify it, there are others who offer impunity, and another large majority that stays silent. The mob functions on factors such as anonymity, suggestibility, contagion, collective identity, impunity and deindividualization. In the last, an individual loses personal moral restraint and reasoning.
‘Moral disengagement frequently entails treating the victims as less than human beings, dehumanizing them – allows for disassociation from the moral ramifications of harming another human being’
Rezwanul Haque, 2024.
Valorising extra-judicial killings
Whether it is by the police, by an action hero on cinema or by a mob, there are some ‘crimes’ for which we feel due process of the judicial system is too slow, ineffective or inadequate. The ‘heros’ or rakshaks who vandalise, murder, mutilate, torture etc. become vicarious atonement for what is perceived as systemic failures to curb ‘offenders’. For a society steeped in a discriminatory mind-set, whether people are, in fact, offenders or not, gradually becomes irrelevant. Markers such as their religion or caste or tribe becomes sufficient ground to murder them.
People who engage in these most brutal, inhuman and pathological acts often use euphemistic language such as Jai Shree Ram as a form of moral disengagement. It should, in fact, make every practicing Hindu’s blood crawl to see the name of Ram becoming analogous with these acts.
A recent report by Delhi-based NGO Common Cause and the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) mentioned that, “35% of police personnel interviewed for the survey think it is natural for a mob to punish the “culprit” in cases of cow slaughter, and 43% think it is natural for a mob to punish someone accused of rape.”
“Police surveillance itself may also be more frequently directed against socio-economically vulnerable groups such as Dalits, Adivasis, and religious minorities due to the larger structure of discrimination and criminalisation of these communities within the police system.”
Status of Policing in India Report 2023: Surveillance and the Question of Privacy
Thus it is not at all surprising that in many States of the country, there is a shifting of burden of proof on victims and consequently a presumption of guilt, which leads to FIRs being registered against them with words such as smuggling, terrorist, thief, illegal etc. being associated with the victims. Murderers are labelled as rakshaks !!
Impact on targeted individuals and communities
Targeted acts of violence and discrimination can have devastating, irreversible and long term impact on individuals and communities. The message that goes out to the victim’s community is that they are the ‘other’ and of lesser social value; that their identity can be the sole reason for one group as a collective to target another group as individuals and that this will be done with the complicity of media, political parties, elected representatives, the police, the judiciary, informal leaders and religious leaders.
Those who have survived, witnessed (virtually or in reality) or even escaped from a mob attack can experience several short and long term physical, psychological, social and economic effects, with one contributing to or leading to the other.
Physical injuries can be fatal either immediately or subsequently. Physical trauma can lead to blood clots (hematomas), internal bleeds into vital organs, fractures, organ rupture, lacerations, and contusions. Injuries to the head can lead to fractures and bleeds into the brain which can lead to loss of consciousness, death and other cognitive and neurological damage – both temporary and permanent. Head injuries can progress to loss of vision, loss of hearing and focal seizures.
Trauma to the chest can fracture ribs leading to lung and heart injuries causing collection of air, fluid, blood in these organs. Major arteries can be damaged. Abdominal trauma can damage the spleen, liver, kidneys, intestines and reproductive organs. The liver being fragile can bleed excessively which is often very difficult to control. Injury to the kidney can cause blood in the urine and later, possible acute kidney failure. Intestinal injuries can cause obstruction and severe infections (peritonitis/sepsis). The pathological mind-set of the abusers can be identified by their gleeful stripping of their victims and inflicting injuries on their genital areas. Injuries to the pelvic area can cause pelvic fracture, damage to major blood vessels, rupture of the urinary bladder and genital tract injuries. Major surgical interventions maybe required to control the bleeding and salvage vital organs.
Even if a person survives a lynching attempt, they can subsequently suffer from sepsis, obstructions, embolisms, haemorrhage, multi-organ failure etc. Those who do survive can have long term consequences requiring prolonged hospital intervention, medical/surgical support and pain management. This can lead to inability or difficulty in continuing to work/earn and economic catastrophe for the affected families. Chronic stress, reduced sleep and appetite can make people more vulnerable to infections, lowered immunity, hypertension, diabetes, ulcers, depression, heart disease etc.
The psychological impact of attempted lynching by an angry mob can lead a person to develop long lasting psychological damage –post traumatic stress disorder, depression, excessive rage, panic attacks, suicidal thoughts and even suicidal attempts. Feelings of isolation, rage, distrust, fear, helplessness, anger, anxiety, hopelessness can occur. Depression can manifest as feelings of despair, disinterest in usual activities, sleep disturbances etc. Communities and individuals who are targeted, often for no reason other than their identity, can gradually or drastically reduce their access to public spaces, reducing their opportunities for enjoyment, social interaction, celebration and community participation. The start shrinking within a larger society to avoid being visible. We have yet to fully comprehend and address generations of caste-based discrimination which has pushed entire communities to the periphery and creating structural barriers to accessing even basic rights such as education, food, shelter, public spaces, healthcare etc. Religion is now rapidly becoming the political and social tool for similar practices.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is not very well documented in India, but could definitely be a diagnosis in many people who have survived or witnessed a violent attack by a mob. They can have intrusive and vivid thoughts that cause them to relive the incident even years after its occurrence, interfering with day to day functioning, with avoidance of social or even intimate interactions, detachment, emotional numbness with exaggerated responses, irritability, hypervigilance, extreme startle reactions etc. Substance abuse can become a way of handling the chronic and intense stress.
Each act of lynching is a public spectacle that sends out a message to the community that the mob belongs to that they can carry out similar acts with impunity against a ‘common enemy’ as an act of heroism and nationalism, becoming simultaneously law makers and implementers of these vicious diktats.
In most of these crimes, the larger society can participate, enable, collude, silently observe, rationalise, justify, glorify, valorise, reward, offer protection and impunity etc. Those who pride themselves on being animal lovers, climate activists, environmentalists, vegetarians, vegans etc. should seriously explore how their positions enable and legitimise these acts of violence.
Very often the spotlight is on the imagined transgressions of the victims themselves. The human rights violators are often rewarded with bails, garlands, positions of power. This sends out a disappointing message to society. According to Haque, witnessing lynching can have severe psychological and societal impact, with erosion of social cohesion and trust in the legal system. In India, the erosion of trust encompasses elected representatives, media, judiciary, police, health system and religious leaders. There is even erosion of trust in ones colleagues, neighbours and other acquaintances.
Effect on society
The effect on a community that is consistently targeted cannot be undermined or overstated. It leads to loss of feeling of belonging to a community, alienation, a strong sense of betrayal and discrimination. Young people can respond to this in several ways. They may hesitate to form close relationships, may be fearful of public spaces and may have inordinate fear of strangers and new places. Families of targeted communities can become extremely protective of each other, leading to reduced opportunities for economic progress and social interactions. Community members can become ‘paranoid’ and this is not without a reason leading to increased aggression in an attempt to control other family members to keep them ‘safe’. Even a routine train journey can become fatal event.
Mob lynchings have serious and complex repercussions that affect not just the victims and their relatives, but the entire community by feeding a cycle of violence, mistrust, fear and terror. There is often irrevocable damage to social cohesive factors such as compassion, inclusion, diversity, kindness etc.
Shukla explains how mob violence may be a form of pathological normalcy – unhealthy behaviours, which appear so commonly in society that they are considered the norm.
‘Pathological normalcy can also be understood as pathological processes that become so socially widespread that they lose their individual character and come to be regarded as common and acceptable. Disturbed or unhealthy behaviour – such as display of irrational hatred, or support of violence – becomes very common, and such persons find much to share with many other individuals having a similarly unhealthy mentality. In this situation of an unhealthy herd mentality, the fully sane and objective person may find themselves in a relative minority and may even feel isolated.’
India is thus in a state where the pathological is normal. This is a dangerous stage for the country to be. It sets the base for barbaric acts of violence layered on deep rooted prejudices and misconceptions. We need to unravel our thought processes and cull out every of our thoughts, words and actions that lend complicity and normalcy to these inhuman and macabre acts that are performed for us every day.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.