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Mob justice: India's Daughters, Jaya Bachchan and a dead body in Nagaland

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Nadim Asrar
Nadim AsrarMar 11, 2015 | 12:09

Mob justice: India's Daughters, Jaya Bachchan and a dead body in Nagaland

Two days after actor-turned-politician Jaya Bachchan dared the government to hand over the December 16 rapist to "them" so that they could "take care" of him, a mob in Dimapur stormed a prison, pulled an undertrial suspected of raping a woman out, dragged him naked through the city and beat him to death; his dead body tied to a fence as onlookers with cellphones took pictures.

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The killing becomes even more piquant and diabolic when it was known that the 36-year-old man, identified as Syed Farid Khan, was not an illegal Bangladeshi. Some shock laced with a misplaced notion of patriotism was also expressed when it was found that his family from Assam produced a number of soldiers for the Indian Army.

But that is perhaps only faux outrage over what was clearly an example of extra-judicial mob justice that in India is exemplified by a wide range of loonies across the political spectrum. What perhaps remains less discussed as we wrap our heads around a banned British film on one of the most shocking rapes in India and the lynching of a man in Nagaland to avenge for a suspected rape.

The filmmaker behind India's Daughters has defended the film, perhaps more passionately than what was tasteful for India, which has been accused of giving a voice and a face to one of the six rapists who brutalised the 23-year-old medical intern that cold December night more than two years ago. For Leslee Udwin, the brief moment in the film when Mukesh Singh justifies his heinous act by blaming the woman-being-out-at-night-with-a-male-friend is only to underline what is already an old and familiar trope in cases of sexual violence in India, and endorsed by a large majority of fathers, brothers and their conscience keepers across the religious and class divides. But when it comes to sexual violence, what is again mainstream in India, is this rapacious desire to account for the crime then and there in utter violation of the laws that bind us together as a nation? The notions of "shame" and "honour" are repeatedly invoked to make the "revenge" much more dubious and regressive that it already is.

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It was the same internalisation of that notion of shame and honour that provoked Jaya Bachchan to stand up and claim her right to take care of Mukesh Singh outside a court of law, which, by the way, is still hearing the case.

The act, apart from legitimising what is a popular yet anti-constitutional position, also brings into focus the selective outrage that has now become a hallmark of the popular discourse. India's Daughters almost stalled Parliament. Why doesn't the Nagaland lynching?

Last updated: March 11, 2015 | 12:09
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