Vigilantism and Democracy

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Governance

DR. V SUNDARESWARAN
T JOSEPH BENZIGER

In any form of government, the main task of government is to maintain law and order. The first duty of a government is to ensure that the weak are not harassed by the strong; the poor are not humiliated and intimidated by the rich. There should not any bias or prejudice in the enforcement of laws. Irrespective of the position, all the citizens should be treated equally and the law of the land should be respected by all. Nobody should be able to violate it with compunction.

In democratic form of government, the people get the opportunity to choose their representatives and entrust the power of running the government for a specific period. On expiry of the prescribed period, they are able to change their representatives or retain them to run their government on their behalf.

Ideally, in a democracy, the people should never be dissatisfied with the functioning of their government because it is run by those whom they elected. But we find the people agitate and resort to violence in democracies on a number of occasions. If they had realized their responsibilities and properly discharged their responsibility of choosing the right men as their representatives, they would not have to agitate now and then against the very same persons whom they installed in power.

In many of the democracies, the political parties are allowed to function in order to make the political system simpler and more efficient. The political parties are supposed to have set of policies, principles and programs in all political matters and are in charge of educating the people in the issues of governance. They specialize in politics and offer their men as candidates during elections. If there are many parties, the people get a choice to elect the candidates of this or that political party; and the party who have secured victory in majority of the places are able to form government. The existence of many political parties gives rise to cut-throat competition among them. Each party wants to prove that all other parties are bad and corrupt. The party in power wants to strengthen its position before the current term comes to an end, so that it could fight the next election wielding more power of money and muscle. Thus, in the democracies in which the people could be easily misled, each election means further degeneration of political standard.

The instances when the political parties try to fish in the troubled waters and when they trouble the waters when it is not troubled are not rare. This they achieve by several methods like magnifying the issues, by dividing people and creating dissensions among them etc. Sometimes they organize agitations and introduce violence in them with the help of criminal elements supported by them. It is a known fact that almost all the political parties admit criminals in their parties and allow them to occupy important positions in the party.

On several occasions when the political parties organize strikes, bandhs, rallies etc., criminals within those parties think that they are a law unto themselves and cause loss to lives and properties. They are confident that the police would not take any action against them; and even if they take action in some cases, they can easily come out using the influence of the parties to which they belong. The innocent members of public become victims of such agitations. The ruling parties also do not want to take stern action in such cases, because they know that sooner or later they would have to exchange roles and engage in such criminal activities.

Sometimes those who organize a movement for or against something target a person or group not in agreement with their line of thinking; and damage their properties and even take away their lives. Even if the movement is for a good thing, they should not be allowed to take the law into their hands. A vigilante is a person, who punishes those, whom he considers to be bad. Such activities, if allowed, would undermine the authority of government and would encourage many criminals to engage in similar activities.

Vigilantism is defined¹ as “Taking the law into one's own hands and attempting to effect justice according to one's own understanding of right and wrong; action taken by a voluntary association of persons who organize themselves for the purpose of protecting a common interest, such as liberty, property, or personal security; action taken by an individual or group to protest existing law; action taken by an individual or group to enforce a higher law than that enacted by society's designated lawmaking institutions; private enforcement of legal norms in the absence of an established, reliable, and effective law enforcement body.”

For example, abortion happens to be a controversial issue. There are a number of groups, who want to stop abortion on religious grounds; and as political parties hardly leaving anything outside their purview, abortion has become a political issue as well in many countries.

In Kansas, United States, Dr. George R Tiller was an abortion provider. Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion extremist shot Dr. George Tiller in the foyer of his church on May 31, 2009, as he was handing out bulletins. This murder is a clear instance of vigilantism. The defense attempted to show as though the murderer was somehow less culpable because of his fevered opposition to abolition and his outrage that abortion rights were constitutionally protected.² He should have kept his views on abolition to himself; or should have given expression in legally accepted manner. He had no right to express his views by murdering another citizen.

But the trial was very significant because it involved a basic question on the concept of ‘Rule of Law’. The million dollar question was how the jury would react to the defense’s arguments. Would they, by any chance, give any weight to the arguments of the defense?

The American jury convicted the accused for first degree murder, totally rejecting the argument of the defense and upholding the Rule of Law. Reporting this, the New York Times observed:

The fact that the jury convicted Mr. Roeder after deliberating just 37 minutes was a stunning rejection of that argument. The verdict’s clear-eyed response to an ugly act of vigilantism should be welcomed on both sides of the political divide over abortion rights. When people turn to violence to further their political or moral beliefs, it amounts to an attack on our whole democracy and civil society.

The state judge in the trial, Warren Wilbert, also deserves credit for refusing to allow the jury to consider convicting Mr. Roeder of the lesser crime of manslaughter based on his opposition to abortion.

Political beliefs, no matter how sincerely held, do not lessen accountability for murder.”

The act of vigilantism can be attributed to the governments as well. When the executive wing of a government opts for the ugly acts of vigilantism, forgetting its duty to preserve ‘Rule of Law’, it is equally bad. The modern democracies run on party-lines, very often forget the values that should be preserved by them and behave like local gang leaders!

In addition to aggressive theoreticians who take recourse to vigilantism, in India there are instances when governments choose it to have their ways in short cut! Recently, Chhattisgarh government arrested one Dr. Binayak Sen, a human rights activist, when it came to be known that he belonged to the banned Maoist party. While nobody can question the right of the government to do this, it was certainly a vindictive act to refuse bail to him; especially when the persons convicted of heinous crimes are getting bail just as a matter of routine. Dr. Binayak Sen is an active medical practitioner and he had himself appeared before the authorities when he came to know that they needed to enquire him. He had to remain in Chhattisgarh prison for two years! At last the court found that none of the witnesses produced by the police were able to corroborate the charges raised against him. The Supreme Court needed only two minutes to take a decision in this matter and release him on bail. How can anybody compensate for the loss of two years in the life of a medical practitioner?

While reporting the case of Dr. Binayak Sen, the Hindu observed:⁴

Welcome though the release of Dr. Sen is, it is essential that public attention continue to remain focused on the appalling state of affairs in Chhattisgarh. The State government’s vigilante anti-insurgency campaign known as Salwa Judum is currently under the scanner, thanks to a PIL pending before the Supreme Court. A specially commissioned report by the National Human Rights Commission has catalogued scores of gross human rights violations and the apex court, by way of interim instructions, has asked the State authorities to provide compensation to the victims of Salwa Judum and facilitate their rehabilitation.

Not only has the Raman Singh government dragged its feet on this crucial matter, it has also targeted the activists and the NGOs that are trying to help the internally displaced tribals who want to return to their native villages. On May 16, for example, the State authorities demolished the premises of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram in Dantewada run by the respected Gandhian, Himanshu. The pattern that is emerging from the State’s actions is very clear: Chhattisgarh does not intend to tolerate any criticism of its policies. It is imperative for the re-establishment of the rule of law and the protection of the basic rights of the people that Salwa Judum is abandoned so that the tens of thousands of people whose homes and livelihood have been destroyed by the cycle of vigilante and Maoist violence are given a chance to return home.

It is imperative if the democratic institutions should become well-established in the world, the acts vigilantism should be curbed, whoever might have indulged in them; and the Rule of Law should be upheld quickly and effectively. The punishments inflicted on the vigilantes should be such that they prove to be deterrent enough to the active and prospective criminals.

Sources

Dr. V Sundareswaran is the Professor and Head of Department, Department of Media Sciences, Anna University, Chennai.