Mob Lynching: Changing Patterns of Communal Violence in India
THE year 2018 saw 84 incidents of mob lynching. Mob lynching defined in section I of this report has assumed unprecedented proportions in the discourse of violence in India.
According to CSSS findings, 60 lives were lost and 102 persons were injured in 84[2] incidents of mob lynching reported in five newspapers. For mob lynching too like incidents of communal violence, CSSS monitored Mumbai editions of five newspapers namely, The Indian Express, Times of India, The Hindu, Safahat, and Inquilab. Out of these 84 incidents, 25 incidents of mob lynching were related to cow vigilantism or cow vigilantism related violence and inter-religious marriages.
To that extent, the incidents related to cow vigilantism and inter-faith relationships will be analyzed in detail since they come directly under the purview of communal violence and the narratives that are weaved to demonize the marginalized communities.
Though cow vigilantism related violence and violence related to inter-faith relationships constitute communal violence due to its aim to demonize communities based on religious identities and also such violence arises out of communal narratives, CSSS attributes the overall culture of mob lynching to blatant impunity given to lumpen elements to achieve communal agenda of the powerful.
The Culture of Mob Lynching: Triggers and Discourses
If the 84 incidents are carefully analyzed, some pattern in terms of the relationship between the violence and popular narratives spread through social media, political propaganda or rumours etc can be discerned. Thus CSSS has categorized the incidents of mob lynching in the following broad categories: Cow vigilantism or cow vigilantism related, inter-religious marriages, child lifting, theft related and others. In 2018, majority of incidents of mob lynching are related to child lifting (41) followed by cow vigilantism (16), inter-religious marriages/ relationships (9), theft (8) and others (10).
Legislations are passed in most of the states to punish smuggling or slaughtering cow. But what is victimizing marginalized communities most is the impunity with which the cow vigilante groups are operating. These groups enjoying patronage of those in power indulge in violence fearlessly by targeting the marginalized on merely suspicion. The law is not allowed to take its course while the groups lynch the victims assuming they are already guilty.
Similarly, Muslim community is demonized by spreading the falsehood that Muslim men “lure” Hindu women into relationships and marriages to convert them into Islam. In fact it was alleged that Hindu women are then recruited into terror organizations and networks.
To probe this accusation the state ordered a NIA probe into the case of Hadiya. It is incredulous that the state deployed the NIA to probe the personal relations of citizens. Though the National Investigation Agency (NIA) clarified that it didn’t find any credence in the accusations of Hindu women being forcefully converted or recruited in terror networks, there are still state supported groups which hound innocent citizens who are entitled to their fundamental rights and liberties. There are 9 incidents of mob lynching related to inter-faith relationships in 2018.
