Mobocracy: A monster for Indian Democracy

Mobocracy has been a culture which is the perverted form of Nationalist movement. In fact this culture has been inspired by the Nationalist movement. But difference is that, means are the same but ends are completely different. Aim of Nationalist movements were very positive & broad but the unworthy child of nationalism, mobocracy has very narrow vision. It’s illusion among the people who does so that they are doing all these things for the nation. In fact it is against the core value of Indian nation. So I may call these activities as anti-national activities. It is so because nation runs of rule of law. Mobocrats don’t follow rule of law and become Judge, Jury and executioner.

Nature of mobocrats are same for all the cases. It is on the line of Taliban style justice system and Naxal style justice system. A group of people decides the case at their own discretion by executing all three functions of Judge, Jury & executioner. The only difference is that mobocrats put religious flavor on the top along with the case which they deal. Process of putting religious flavor by compelling to say slogan is not natural but a frustration. Arif Mohammed Khan, a famous writer & intellectual recently in his interview with “The wire” rightly told the reason behind this frustration which has been inculcated in the mind of people through debates with Ulema & extremist Muslim leaders.

Culture of mobocracy is not a spontaneous thing but it has slowly been inculcating in the mind of people since Independence movement. We teach freedom movement to our generation as glory just to show that non-violence is prior to the unconstitutional mean. But we forget that unconstitutional mean give birth to the non-violence. In the same fashion people of our country are still following the same unconstitutional mean. There are two sources of violent nature of our people. First, it has been inspired by the so called glorious king stories of the past. Second source of violence among the mobocrats are from their religious philosophies. People misinterpret it and deem it as a  justification for violence on the name of ‘truth’.

In Hinduism, we take the debate between Krishna and Arjun to justify the killing of our own people for doing unjust. How will unjust be proved ? We Indians don’t have such superpower to decide the unjust without trails & evidences. In Islam, violence is justified on the name of defense by doing Jihad. Here again defense has been contestant. Famous writer and Indian intellectual Arif Mohammad Khan criticized the Deobandi texts for misleading the people where it has been written that one who rejects the Islam, should be killed (Wajib ul Qatal). This way we learn violence from religious philosophies and unconstitutional mean from nationalist movement. Mobocracy is nothing but the unworthy child of these two (Nationalism & Religious Philosophies) which we see in our society.

Gandhi Ambedkar debate has been very famous with respect to Nationalist movement. Ambedkar always warned Gandhian mean of executing the movement. This is why Ambedkar didn’t believe in Gandhian way. Dr Ambedkar is his famous speech of constituent assembly namely “Grammar of Anarchy” claimed that mean of attaining any objective must be constitutional. When there was no way left for constitutional methods there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods like Lynching. That’s why Ambedkar called unconstitutional mean as “Grammar of anarchy” which needs to be abolished.

One more serious & valid question were arose that why lynching happens with Muslim community in particular. It happens with all in general. My view is on the same line of what has been told by Arif Mohamed khan. He claimed that these things are not unilateral. It is so because in India other minority also exists but it doesn’t happen with Sikh, Christian or Parsis. Reason behind it is that people belonging to other minority community never support incidents like Pulwama by saying “How’s the Jaish” against the Uri movie slogan “How’s the josh”. Such things inculcate hatred & frustration among the people. It’s unfortunate that frustration with political class gets passed to the innocent people.

Now question is that why people prefer unconstitutional mean ? It is so because balance between individual rights & state rights get disturbed. It must be the Golden mean of Aristotle, i.e. neither state should be prior to individual nor individual should be prior to the state. Whenever state starts exercising excessive power then fascism comes into picture and whenever individual starts excessive power on the name of right (hak aur hukuk) then mobocracy comes to the people where law & order get disturbed. For example during the emergency of 1975, what govt does, is an example of state exercised excessive power and sloganeering done against the country in JNU on the name of freedom of speech, is an example of individualism. Thus it must lies between individualism & idealism.

Lastly, what could be done for making our society peaceful & progressive? It is well said that the antidote to poison is a poison, not nectar. In the same way, this problem could be eradicated but mean should be constitutional. Civil society should stand up and work upon it. In the long term, the parent must educate their children about their society. It is so because I think home is the first school & parents are the first teacher. Never go to any religious institution at a very young age. They will definitely mislead society because it works as fuel for their business. Its natural reality is that nobody can care & concern about the child except parents. This initial education must be done by parents. It will lead to predicament NOT only to lynching but other problems also whether it is rape issues or bad touches.