Ten persons were killed by an angry mob on September 13, 2007 in Bihar state of India. A few days before, another person suspected for theft, was attacked by a mob in Bihar. In this incident, a police officer also participated by dragging the suspect around by his legs tied to the officer¡¦s motorcycle.
On August 30, 2007 the Maoists killed 12 policemen in Chhattisgarh state. Bodies of three police officers killed in the incident were recovered with their eyes gouged off. The killing of 12 police officers was the latest incident in the ongoing triangular conflict in that state between the state police, a state sponsored private militia ¡V the Salwa Judum, and the Maoists.
The above incidents, showing contrasting pictures, are the latest in the ongoing internal turmoil in India. Violence committed against the state agencies, particularly against the local police, and those committed by mobs against suspects of crime are not isolated incidents in India, though the extent of brutality as depicted in the above incidents are rare. A video clip of the recent incident in Bihar is available here.
In the past few years incidents of violence committed in the name of ‘justice’ are increasingly reported from India. These are acts of violence, is resorted to by either the state agents or the people for executing what they think is justice. Such violence indicates that the public perception of justice in India is rapidly changing ¡V changing for the worse.
The people’s perception of justice depends upon how the justice dispensation mechanism in a country functions. In theory, India has a reasonably good legislative framework within which laws are drafted, debated and implemented. But in practice the drafting and debating of laws remain mostly outside the scope of any public discourse. The acts of the legislature are often dominated by caste, religious and partisan political sentiments as opposed to welfare and betterment of the people.
In addition to the limited scope of people’s participation in the legislative process, the justice dispensation organs of the state is also suffering from ineptitude and fatigue due to mismanagement. The delay in court proceedings and a failing policing system are two classic examples. For an ordinary Indian, the courts in India make a mockery of the term ‘justice’ by delaying proceedings for years. Long periods of delays are often exploited by those who can manipulate the system.
Law enforcement agencies are also exploited and manipulated by the same group of individuals. Instead of serving the general public, the law enforcement agencies in India often tend to serve those who have power and money. It appears that the law enforcing agencies in fact allow themselves to be manipulated so that these agencies could also exploit the resulting opportunity for their benefit. The result is selective justice, often to the detriment of the ordinary people. This situation also facilitates widespread corruption in the society.
For the ordinary person the presence of justice is evident in the functioning of the local police and the local courts. These are the two important institutions in any state structure that provide protection and guarantee to a person’s life and property. Due to the proximity of these two institutions to the people and their life, the functioning of these institutions is under the constant scrutiny of the people. When these institutions fail to perform reasonably well, the people will exploit its weakness and will also disregard them.
A failing judiciary, inept law enforcement agencies and widespread corruption is the cocktail for disharmony and violence. The convergence of the failing justice mechanisms is the meltdown of the public perception of the justice by the state. When the state fails to provide security and guarantee to its own people, people take law into their own arms. The result is what India is experiencing today.
Such experiences do not suggest that India is poised to become a leading economy by 2020, but is the death knell of an alarmingly weakened and failing democracy.
