In Kasturba Nagar, Nagpur, five women arrested in connection with the lynching of notorious criminal Akku Yadav were released on personal bonds of Rs 5,000 each by a local court on August 18. The women had claimed that Yadav was a serial rapist who had ruined the lives of many women and that he didn’t deserve to live
I share the anger of the women of Kasturba Nagar, Nagpur, who lynched a local goon in court. I am assuming that all the facts as reported in the media are correct, and that the man had indeed raped and abused numerous women in the locality, kept the entire population terrorised and they all found that neither the police nor the legal system were providing redress.
What they did has a rationale and justification of its own. And yet, if I were the judge hearing the case, this would be the biggest dharamsankat of my life. I would not have the heart to declare these women guilty and sentence them to a prison term. Yet if I say that they should not be tried for murder that would amount to saying that citizens can take the law into their hands, very much like the Angry Young Men of Bollywood who go on murderous sprees to avenge personal or social wrongs. We cannot afford to romanticise this brand of vigilante justice.
Just because we do not trust the police and the lower judiciary, it does not mean that each citizen should be free to decide what punishment needs to be meted out for what crime. We cannot be the aggrieved, the advocate, the judge and the executioner all rolled in one. At the same time, I am only too aware that most people in this country are deeply enraged and frustrated at the utter lawlessness of the law and order machinery. They can’t be told to hold their patience forever.
This incident reminds of a similar dilemma we faced in the early 80s. During the early days of Manushi, in the late 70s, we too felt similarly frustrated by the active complicity of the police in protecting the perpetrators of domestic violence and murder in lieu of hefty bribes. Therefore, instead of pleading with the police to do their job honestly we began to organise protest demonstrations outside homes of families accused of murder and torture, asking neighbours to socially ostracise such people even if law courts and the police were not doing their jobs. The protest led to massive media coverage and that in turn led to this form of protest being replicated in a spate of actions across the country. The movement spread really fast. People who had exhausted all other avenues for getting justice found a new means of gaining redressal.
But we took a conscious decision to stop such social boycott demonstrations when we found that irresponsible politicians and other unscrupulous people were using this method for blackmailing families. The big turning point for me came when a political party organised a demonstration, and hoodlums mobilised by that party went on a rampage. They set fire to the family car and stoned the house and nearly set it on fire.
Our movement was eminently successful and we were celebrated as the defenders of women’s rights. But I felt very uneasy at how this method of protest could lead to a free-for-all anarchic situation in which innocent families could be targeted.
We realised that the form of protest legitimised by us had the potential of turning into an endless series of kangaroo courts and therefore lent itself to easy abuse. Unscrupulous elements were getting in and using the threat of such demonstrations for blackmail. People came to us with business propositions: you come with the Manushi flag and we will be there with 100 people for a demonstration outside so and so’s house and we will even give you money for lending your name. They expected us to become hireable revenge brigades.
This was not the role we wanted to play. Therefore, we consciously stopped all such demonstrations and explored other ways of seeking redress. Manushi and some others may have stopped such instant public trials but this trend continues unabated. Look what happened at the World Social Forum meeting in Mumbai. A judge was accused of rape. Activists organised instant demonstrations. They passed instant judgement without as much as a preliminary enquiry and declared him guilty. The incident made a big splash, his entire life was ruined and at the end of it, the charge turned out to be bogus. This is a major problem with meting out instant justice.
The Nagpur-type action appeals to us when we are completely frustrated with the existing system. We can even rationalise it. Some see this as a "radicalisation" of the women’s movement, others celebrate the "Durga-Chandi" roop of these women. But romanticising violence as a sign of radicalisation has spelt disaster wherever it has been tried. Look at the way many of the Naxals and the Maoists have become indistinguishable from criminals. Many are murdering and terrorising the same poor people whom they claim to defend, because they do not get the required support from them. When we legitimise the use of violence for settling scores, we are in a direct way legitimising the criminalisation of society.
My message to the women of Kasturba Nagar and others like them is: Do not wait so long that your anger has to take a murderous turn. Learn to react early on. Act with resolve and take determined action in the first instance and prevent petty goondas in your neighbourhood from becoming uncontrollable demons. If all of us focus on making our respective neighbourhoods safe for women by organising everyday vigilance, we will be making a big contribution towards bringing down the levels of crime in our society.
The women of Nagpur have given us a warning that we cannot afford to ignore. The fact that these women have received such widespread endorsement from the public is a no-confidence motion against the law and order machinery. It is time to put a concentrated effort into bringing about far-reaching reforms in our police and judicial system.
Today, our police stations are addas of crime and courts are reeking with corruption and inefficiency. The lawlessness of the police far surpasses the lawlessness of citizenry. Therefore people have lost respect for law. Instead of simply critiquing the police and the judiciary, it is time to sit down with responsible people within these two establishments and expedite the process of making these institutions worthy of a vibrant democracy.
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The author is a well-known social actvist and editor of Manushi
