Mob violence seems here to stay

My earliest memory of being afraid comes from when I was a child, when I was young enough to race into my parents' bed after a nightmare. It was the voices that scared me – of a loud group of men speaking over each other so thoroughly that you couldn’t make out a single coherent word in the final sound muddle. My imagination added the yellows of fire to the soundtrack, as if they were carrying burning sticks in their hands, and I fled from my bed.

For a long time I considered the memory a real vestige from the 1984 riots. But on hindsight, my parents wouldn’t be sleeping soundly with such commotion outside. I guess the neighbors were seeing a movie on high volume and I must have seen the serial Tamas in the recent past.

But I never forgot the memory.

And India forgot it too soon.

Mob violence has a long history in India, indeed, as long as its political existence – beginning with the Partition. The mayhem of the times should have been a lesson. Instead, every time minorities found themselves at the receiving end – be it Sikhs in Delhi or Muslims in Gujarat or Pandits in Kashmir – the authorities proved at best apathetic and impotent, and at worst, participants in the crime.

For instance, here’s what Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had to say after his mother’s assassination in 1984, a period marked by genocide of the Sikhs. [By their genocide, I refer to mobs barging into their houses, grabbing the men of the house out of their hiding place, hooting as they dragged them out, flinging tyres around their necks and setting them afire, with their families looking on.]

But, when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it does shake a little.

Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat went one better. After the Godhra incident – when a train bearing Hindu Kar Sevaks was set on fire – every one knew there were going to be riots. I remember because it was the day I got married. All our guests took first flights out as soon as the ceremonies were over, expecting a spillover to reach Bombay any moment.

But Modi failed to rein in the police into action at a time when he should have actually called in the military for help. Worse, as several journalists found out, he was complicit in the riots.

[I know many do not believe that the pogrom was premeditated, that it was a spontaneous reaction of aggrieved Hindus; perhaps this will change your mind ]

This time, the excuse for violence was – they deserved it. A whole community of people deserved being raped, burnt alive, diced by swords, getting their wombs ripped off, because someone else from their religion had committed arson [by the way, arson by Muslims in Godhra was never proven, only conjectured].

Some of my friends went to Gujarat soon after, when the stench of carcasses and fear still hung in the air. While visiting affected localities, they saw these posters on walls: "Christians, you are next.” The man-eaters were boldly looking for the next victim.

Welcome to Orissa.

Once again, the perennial top favourites – rapes, and people burnt alive.

Once again, criminals getting away with it.

Worst, once again, a group who thinks the victims’ community had it coming and deserved every bit of the ‘punishment.’

Unfortunately, people will always find plenty of excuses to murder their neighbors. The lack of prison sentences for such murders has let loose a whole host of mobbing throngs in India, who are striking with increasing regularity. Unless the instigators [read politicians] and executors [read mobsters] are put behind bars, there will be no end to such violence.

The tone needs to be set: bestiality, no matter what cause, is unacceptable. Adrenalin, no matter how high, isn't a pardon from the gallows.