The recent spate of attacks on individuals shows the police and legal system have failed us
The murderous attack on a Bengali migrant labourer in Rajasthan who was apparently burnt alive has aggrieved people across the country. While some in the media have put a communal spin to this horrific murder the fact is that there are hundreds of cases every month where people are attacked on a variety of pretexts and there is no recourse to justice for the victims and their families. Police forces in this country have become highly sectarian, divided by caste and religion.
The Indian judiciary too has a lot to answer for and the lower judiciary is manifestly inefficient; the Supreme Court has admitted that there is corruption at the lower levels of the judiciary and even at higher levels, many ostensibly open-and-shut cases take two to three decades to resolve. It is clear that the average Indian has little or no faith in the law and as a result lumpen of every description people are indulging in vigilantism and blatant abuse of the law. Murder and rape are ‘common crimes' which are now recorded and shared using mobile phones. What it says about us a society is scary, but even scarier is the fact that even with such video evidence available, unless there is high-profile media attention there is no follow-up. Urgent reforms are needed in the police and judicial system. This will not be easy as rent-seekers and other entrenched interests will do their utmost to prevent change.
And it will be especially difficult for the Narendra Modi Government because police reforms in particular will need the proactive involvement of all States, many ruled by its implacable political foes who oppose everything that is proposed by the Centre on political grounds. Judicial reforms will need the judiciary at all levels to buy into them. Much like the Real Estate Regulation Act which several States desperately tried to dilute, reforms in the police and judiciary will also be challenged by States under various guises, often aided and abetted by the misinformation spread by a section of the media, sometimes maliciously. The bottom line remains that people believe that they can get away with murder, particularly on grounds of religion and caste — a blatant demonstration of how low Indian policing has fallen to a new low. Those with money and political patronage are convinced the law can't touch them. In fact, if there had been no concerted media campaigns, the murderers of Jessica lal and Nitish Katara would have gotten away too. The American network television show How to get away with murder would not have much of a plot in India because it is really is easy to get away with it if one is wealthy.
The Constitution promises that every individual is equal in the eyes of the law but its upholders have become wilfully blind to that promise. We have normalised police brutality to such an extent that we telecast police beating up citizens on television in 10-second clips. And the eternal debate topic ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’ is quite invalid in India as justice is almost always delayed. This is why the average Indian has lost hope in the 'system’ and indulges in vigilantism. At the same time the presumption of innocence is ignored and undertrials spend decades incarcerated, often for longer than the punishment due for the crimes if they did indeed commit them. Something needs to change, and fast.
