Fake news is fast converting social media into a medium of deception. People become crowds, crowds become mobs that kill while our political leaders remain silent and add fire with their vicious comments. And often police openly support the mobs that have become violent. We saw in UP these days where three men in uniform shamelessly escorted the lynching mobsters along with the victim being literally dragged to death. Maybe we have to ask: Is this our India? Who makes good people lynching mobsters? Maybe we have to also ask, ‘who benefits from these heinous crimes?’ Are we so mindless that we cannot notice how monstrosity has become the main stream?
We seem to be living in a fast lane of moral decadence. Some say that a particular ideology is surrogating this violence. Most violence seems to be legitimated in the name of God and love of our nation. How can God permit killings? Unfortunately, most religious violence is performed in God’s name across time and space. How can love of a nation produce hate of a bonafide national? How can a human be less than an animal whether sacred or profane?
We seem to have lost our sense of reasonableness. Thinking that we have become sanskari, we kill, hate and divide people. How does our violence become sanskari? Our silence is fast becoming dishonesty. Some of us may say our silence has become criminal.
Without yielding to the grammar and hierarchy of reigning cultural power, we may have to view the condition of humanity in our country. Sometime back a survey conducted by Al-Jazeera showed that ruling parties, particularly the BJP is using WhatsApp as a campaigning tool to spread its divisive ideology. BBC says India is caught in a fake news fire storm. Almost all lynching seem to have its basis in the spreading of rumour and people instead of taking the matter to the law enforcement agencies take the law into their own hands and the rest is nothing but disaster.
What does this mean? Have our people lost faith in our police or law and order agencies in our country? Does that mean that our Governments were these lynchings occur are unable to govern? Has the coming of social media made policing and governance that much difficult? Or is there an active exploitation of the social media platforms to fan ideologies of hate and intolerance?
Lack of trust and polarisation seem to have reached an all time high in our country. We simply smell blood on the basis of suspicion. The fake news that is produced and circulated via social media has very real consequences for peace in our society. There is a dark side of the social media. We knew of honour killing of the khap panchayats. But today simply a rumour threatens to trigger a riot. Lynching mobsters are on the prowl and public lynching has become a new normal in our society. Does this mean that we have to redefine the lines of sanskar in our country? Does what may be called sanskari killings to save the sacred cow bring our age old civilisational values under trial? When Socrates was put under trial by the Athenian democracy, it was not just that Socrates was under trial but it was also democracy that came under trial. Hence, do the killings of some individuals to save the sacred cow put Hinduism and its principles of peace under trial? With the trial and the death sentencing of Socrates, Athenian democracy manifested its dark face.
With the condemnation of Galileo, the Catholic Church also exhibited its vulnerability to obscurantism. What type of Hinduism is showing up today? Are the highest ideals of peace and ahimsa no longer sacred to Hinduism? Has the rise of Hindutva taken away something precious out of Hinduism? These are some tough questions that emerge in the context of violence and lynching that has failed to come to a halt in our society today. The quint.com counts that 54 Indians have been hunted down by lynch mobsters since 2015. Hence, we do have reasons to feel concerned.
Rapes of young girls and children shook our collective conscience and we all stood together against these heinous crimes. Why do we compromise our values when it comes to mob lynching? A significant number of concerned citizens did begin a strong not-in-my-name campaign yet these killings do not seem to stop. Both rape and sanskari killings only portray a pathetic condition of humanity in our country. We in Goa also have seen the rise of rapes in our society. We in our country seem to have lost our moral compass and have collectively landed into barbarism. Do we think that a severe crime ceases to be so when it is committed in view of the protection of the sacred cow?
Maybe we have to think about these sanskari killings with a cool mind. We will soon discover that the identity of the victim and the perpetrators as well as the discourse adopted by the ruling class both in the main stream and social media play a vital role in production and sustenance of mob violence in our society. Available data shows that most of the victims of the violence related to the holy cow are Muslims and Dalits in recent days. Like Jihad in several cases, mob lynching seems to have become a holy war on a vulnerable community and we cannot be bystanders watching innocent human life being taken in a mob rage triggered by fake news on the social media platforms. Often unproven allegations like beef eating, cow smuggling, child trafficking, as well as heinous crimes like rape can become easy means to orchestrate lynching mobsters on a murderous killing spree.
We have the responsibility to save ourselves and the society from stepping into horrific crimes of inhumanity and save our ancient civilisational values of peace for us and the generations to come.
(The author is Professor of Rachol Seminary)
