Click to play videoIn the week of Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary (October 2), CNN-IBN takes a look at how Bapu's ideal of non-violence has almost been destroyed in independent India. In the special series ‘Murdering the Mahatma’, we explore the reasons why India is getting violent and angrier.
Bhagalpur (Bihar): A month ago, shocking images of a lynch mob bringing to ‘justice’ a thief in Bihar’s Bhagalpur town were splashed across newspapers and became a staple topic of discussion in televiosn newsrooms. The incident also proved how it’s vigilante justice and not Gandhi's principles of non-violence that thrive across rural and some urban centers.
A mob doesn't wait for anybody, has scant regard for the law and believes in ‘instant justice’. The Bhagalpur mob too had little patience. They continued to beat the thief, Salim, till he was half dead and then chained him to a motorcycle to be dragged around. All the while, policemen stationed in the area remained party and participative.
Bhagalpur is just one of the many small towns in India with no faith in the criminal justice system. The necklace that earned Salim a merciless thrashing is back with its owner Shanti Suman. Her husband Rajeev Prasad Singh, who works in a bank in Bihar, says if something like this happens again, he will join in the violence.
“I am of the opinion that the criminal should not be taken to the court. Punishment should be given then and there,” he says.
Many parts of India are following the age-old path of vigilante justice. But what's new here is that the police are openly joining in.
The policemen in Bhagalpur are unrepentant about the brutality of their peers towards Salim.
“They did their duty. I believe all policemen should do the same,” says Secretary, Bihar Police Men’s Association, K D Paswan.
Not an isolated case of police criminality, the incident only showcased a larger breakdown in bihar. It was also about the mob frenzy of the residents of this small town who cheered when Salim was dragged along the road. They supported the police action in the name of crime control..."
Thirty-year-old Om Prakash is one of hundreds of unemployed graduates on the streets of Bhagalpur.
It’s a society battling to keep its youth occupied and violence comes easy in a town simmering with restlessness.
Ankit and Shubham were playing on nearby on the day Salim was beaten up. Old enough to understand what their elders did, they say they would have done the same thing
“Had elders been not around we would have beaten him up,” they echo.
Those who beat up Salim are absconding, the FIR implicates unknown people.
The Gandhian movement seems like an aberration, an exception, as the town streets wait for the next act of mob fury.
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