Vigilante Justice in India - The New York Times Editorial, May 28 2017

The New York Times - MAY 28, 2017

The Opinion Pages | EDITORIAL

Vigilante Justice in India
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

A protest against the killing of Mohammad Akhlaq, a 52-year-old Muslim farmer, in Mumbai last year. Credit Rafiq Maqbool/Associated Press
A shocking rise in vigilante violence is threatening the rule of law in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is partly to blame for encouraging Hindu furor over the slaughter of cows. Underlying the problem is a lack of faith by many Indians in the ability of the police and the judicial system to deliver justice.

Mob killings of Muslims and Dalits, members of India’s lowest caste, suspected of killing cows or eating beef have occurred with alarming frequency. Seven people were killed recently in two separate episodes. In both cases, the attacks were blamed on a message circulated on WhatsApp warning of child abductors in the state of Jharkand.

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Yet, in one case, local strongmen intent on preventing the victims from buying land may have helped stoked the crowd’s anger. Even worse, one survivor said police officers egged the crowd on. In the other case, the three victims were Muslim cattle traders, casting doubt on that theory as the only motive.

A shocking video, widely circulated last week on social media in India, shows a man in one attack covered in blood, cowering on the ground and begging for his life before a mob kicks and beats him to death. Two officers in charge of police stations in the area have been suspended, some 20 people have been arrested and an investigation has begun.

Meanwhile, many of India’s police officers are poorly trained, underpaid and corrupt, and the country’s judicial system is staggering under an enormous backlog of cases. More than 40 percent of high court judgeships remain unfilled.

Prime Minister Modi spoke out last August against right-wing Hindu cow vigilantes after four Dalits accused of killing a cow were brutally beaten by a crowd, but he has remained conspicuously silent since, despite an alarming increase in mob violence. Mr. Modi and senior members of his party need to condemn rumormongers bent on mayhem, many of them connected to local politicians and Hindu militant groups. Mr. Modi also needs to bring the same zeal to overhauling India’s policing and judicial system that he has brought to other issues, lest law and order in India give way to the bloodlust of the mob.