By KK Muktan
Our nation is bogged down by a severe crisis of ‘Authority.’ There is a brazen disobedience and disregard of authority not only of the government, or the constitutional authorities but also of the judicial courts. The NGT, a constitutionally formed judicial body, after careful examination of all the aspects of the matter, banned the rat hole mining of coal with a view to saving the fast degrading environment of Meghalaya. However, it allowed transportation of the already extracted coal which were stacked over ground. Taking advantage of this, the coal miners continued to operate the mining and transportation of coal in complete disregard of the order of the NGT. So much so that, of late, coal-laden trucks started smuggling the black gold down to Guwahati in broad daylight with impunity. This practice which was continuing for the last few years has attracted sharp disparagement of social activists and culminated in the ugly incident of brutal attack on CSWO President Agnes Kharshiing and her associate Amita Sangma at Tuber Sohshrieh on November 8, 2018.
A day before the incident, Agnes Kharshiing had detected five coal laden trucks parked at Mawiong Rim in Shillong which were later seized by police. This cowardly attack on the RTI activist by the coal mafia was widely condemned by all right thinking persons. Different NGOs and citizens of Shillong held a meeting on October 10, to demand that the state government should conduct an independent enquiry into the incident. In another incident, on March 20, Poipynhun Majaw who was the president of Jaintia Youth Federation and an RTI activist from East Jaintia Hills, was found murdered in Khliehriat for acting against the cement companies. These kind of incidents of defying the rule of law and authority by some vested interests and eliminating the one who opposes them has become the order of the day since quite some time all over India. We may recall the murder of Gauri Lankesh 55, a prominent journalist of Bangalore who was a fearless speaker against Hindu nationalist idea. Two motor-bike borne killers knocked at her door, shot at her point blank and vanished. Police were clueless about the killers for quite some time. Her killing was preceded by three cases of assassination, those of Malleshappa Kalburgi, a litterateur, Narendra Dabholkar, rationalist and Govind Pansare, a CPI leader in quick succession. This indicates a complete breakdown of law and authority in the country that has sickened the conscience of every sensible person. That can be called a clear pointer to the fact of diabolical tendencies that are making inroads into the social and political psyche.
A praja-sakti syndrome has hijacked the minds of the people as they seem to take the law into their own hands. This unusual proclivity of men which is partly instigated by politics was amply visible in the cow vigilante that lynched Muslims in the name of protecting the cow. On May 30, 2018 a Mangalore resident Hussainabba (62) was lynched to death by cow vigilantes and dumped at the road side at Udupi. What is more surprising is that the incident happened just in front of a police station and the police remained silent spectators. Hussainabba was going home to Mangalore from Udupi with eleven heads of cattle which he bought at Udupi when he was waylaid.
In another incident, on 20 July, 2018 Akbar and Aslam were ferrying two cows to their village in Haryana from Rajasthan when five vigilantes attacked and beat them mercilessly. Akbar died on way to hospital. This happened in Alwar district of Rjasthan when Arjunram Meghwal, Union Minister from Rajasthan tried to cover up the murder terming it as a minor case. Another Union Minister Jayant Sinha is alleged to have garlanded the accused cow vigilantes when they were released on bail. In this way the killing of innocent persons was directly encouraged by the police and political higher-ups who are at the helm of authority.
The Sabarimala temple case is another classic example of direct interference on the Supreme Court judgment by vested political interests. A five-judge bench of the Apex court of India struck down the religious ban on women aged 10 to 50 from entering the temple in Kerala on the grounds that it was discriminatory against the women and their right to worship at the place they like. The Chief Justice Dipak Misra said that the ban in place violated constitutional principles and that women’s rights cannot be subverted as they are in no way less than that of men. But the BJP, under the leadership of Amit Shah its President came out strongly against the Supreme Court judgment saying they will lie down at the entry points and block the women from entering the temple. The Shiv Sena workers threatened to immolate themselves if women tried to enter the shrine. Thus the judgment of the highest court of India has been subverted by BJP, the government in power itself leading to the extreme nadir of ‘Crisis of Authority’.
Nearer home, two Assamese youths of respectable families of Guwahati, Nilotpal Das, an audio engineer and Abhijeet Nath, a digital artist happened to visit Karbi Anglong in June, 2018 when the residents of Panjuri Kacharigoan (Karbi Anglong) suspected them to be child lifters. The villagers dragged them out from their vehicle, tied them and they were beaten mercilessly. One died at the spot while the other died on way to hospital. It is stated that 200 to 250 people gathered at the site within half an hour to join the mob which responded to a rumour on WhatsApp. This is not an isolated case in Assam. Many people have been killed by mobs for alleged practice of witch-craft. The government of Assam has miserably failed to curb the insanity and the proclivity of disobeying the law.
At this rate India is sinking into an abyss of lawlessness. Who will restore the rule of law?