Mob Lynching and Vigilantism in India: Analyzing Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36676/ijl.v2.i4.37Keywords:
Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Mob Lynching, VigilantismAbstract
Lynching in the US, especially after Reconstruction, symbolises racial injustice and white domination. Lynching was not limited to African Americans, although they were disproportionately targeted. Lynching began as frontier justice during the Revolutionary War but became a tool of racial terror and social manipulation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In lynching analysis, the "frustration-aggression" hypothesis suggests that economic hardship, demographic shifts, and political discontent may exacerbate mob violence. When people or organisations are irritated by perceived threats to their social or economic status, they may behave aggressively, including lynching. The term "lynching" comes from Revolutionary War Virginia colonel Charles Lynch. Lynch and other local landowners created an informal court system to combat governmental power breakdown and protect their communities from theft and other crimes. Under "Lynch's law," criminals were captured, prosecuted, and punished without due process. Lynch's law expanded to include other forms of extrajudicial vengeance in the US. Vigilance committees, popular in areas without strong law enforcement, sought to quickly impose extralegal vengeance.
References
As with many terms, the origin of "lynching" is a matter of some dispute. It has been traced back to a number of people, including the Charles Lynch mentioned here, a contemporary named William Lynch, and a 16th-century British nobleman named Lynch Fitzhugh. Cutler (1969) analyzes the various theo- ries, and settles upon Charles Lynch as the most likely source for the term in America; Webster's Unabridged Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary concur.
Because of this variability, the lynching process general way rather than through a single specific case. from Cutler (1969), McGovern (1952), Raper (1969), Commission (1931), Smead (1986), and White (1969), accounts in the New York Times
Chapter 8 of Christopher Waldrep, The Many Faces of Judge Lynch: Extralegal Violence and Punishment in America (New York: Palgrave, 2002).
Joyce King, Hate Crime: The Story of a Dragging in Jasper, Texas (New York: Anchor, 2011) and Ricardo Ainslie, Long Dark Road: Bill King and Murder in Jasper, Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004).
The Strange Career of Judge Lynch: Why the Study of Lynching Needs to Be Refocused on the Mid-Nineteenth Century Author(s): WILLIAM D. CARRIGAN Source: Journal of the Civil War Era , Vol. 7, No. 2 (JUNE 2017), pp. 293-312 Published by: University of North Carolina Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26070518
The Political and Ethical Aspects of Lynching Author(s): Alfred Pearce Dennis Source: International Journal of Ethics , Jan., 1905, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Jan., 1905), pp. 149- 161 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2376381
Mob Violence And Vigilantism In India Author(s): ISHAN GUPTA Source: World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues , WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER), Vol. 23, No. 4 (WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER)), pp. 152-172 Published by: Kapur Surya Foundation Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48566204
Waldrep, Many Faces of Judge Lynch, 1–12. This brief history is, of course, a simplification that does not account for regional variations and idiosyncratic usage outside the mainstream press.
The Strange Career of Judge Lynch: Why the Study of Lynching Needs to Be Refocused on the Mid-Nineteenth Century Author(s): WILLIAM D. CARRIGAN Source: Journal of the Civil War Era , Vol. 7, No. 2 (JUNE 2017), pp. 293-312 Published by: University of North Carolina Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26070518
The Political and Ethical Aspects of Lynching Author(s): Alfred Pearce Dennis Source: International Journal of Ethics , Jan., 1905, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Jan., 1905), pp. 149- 161 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2376381
An indication of this is the fact that the majority of lynch victims were already in official custody when they were seized by the mob and would most likely have been rapidly tried and executed (Brundage 1993:39). Tolnay and Beck show that "the majority of black victims-more than two thirds-were accused of crimes that were frequently punished by legal execution" (1995:92). This percentage would be closer to 100% for victims of public torture lynchings.
Penal Excess and Surplus Meaning: Public Torture Lynchings in Twentieth-Century America Author(s): David Garland Source: Law & Society Review , Dec., 2005, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Dec., 2005), pp. 793-833 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Law and Society Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3557638
Lynching of slaves did occasionally occur (for case studies, see, e.g., Cashin 1997; Dyer 1997).
Ray Abrahams, Vigjkmt Citizens: Vigilantism and the State (Cambridge, 1998), 53-54, 67, 72.
Richard Maxwell Brown, Strain of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism (New York, 1975), 96-97, 118,126.
Chapter 8 of Christopher Waldrep, The Many Faces of Judge Lynch: Extralegal Violence and Punishment in America (New York: Palgrave, 2002).
Waldrep, Many Faces of Judge Lynch, 112
Hubert Howe Bancroft, Popular Tribunals—Volume 1, vol. 36 of 38 of The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft (San Francisco: History Company, 1887).
Penal Excess and Surplus Meaning: Public Torture Lynchings in Twentieth-Century America Author(s): David Garland Source: Law & Society Review , Dec., 2005, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Dec., 2005), pp. 793-833 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Law and Society Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3557638
Mob Violence And Vigilantism In India Author(s): ISHAN GUPTA Source: World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues , WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER), Vol. 23, No. 4 (WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER)), pp. 152-172 Published by: Kapur Surya Foundation Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48566204
Mob Violence And Vigilantism In India Author(s): ISHAN GUPTA Source: World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues , WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER), Vol. 23, No. 4 (WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER)), pp. 152-172 Published by: Kapur Surya Foundation Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48566204
Mob Violence And Vigilantism In India Author(s): ISHAN GUPTA Source: World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues , WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER), Vol. 23, No. 4 (WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER)), pp. 152-172 Published by: Kapur Surya Foundation Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48566204
(“Supreme Court upholds Cow Slaughter Ban”, The Times of India, 27 October 2005, online at https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
(Brad Epperly, Christopher Witko, Ryan Strickler and Paul White, “Rule by Violence, Rule by Law: Lynching, Jim Crow and the Continuing Evolution of Voter Suppression in the US”, Perspectives on Politics, March 2019, pp1–14, online at https://www.cambridge.org)
Mob Violence And Vigilantism In India Author(s): ISHAN GUPTA Source: World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues , WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER), Vol. 23, No. 4 (WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER)), pp. 152-172 Published by: Kapur Surya Foundation Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48566204
(Sheryl G Stolberg, “The Senate Apologises, Mostly”, The New York Times, 19 June 2005, online at https://www.nytimes.com)
Mob Violence And Vigilantism In India Author(s): ISHAN GUPTA Source: World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues , WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER), Vol. 23, No. 4 (WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER)), pp. 152-172 Published by: Kapur Surya Foundation Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48566204
(“Temple Announcement about Beef Triggered the Lynching: Police”, 2 October 2017, The Economic Times, online at https:// economictimes.indiatimes.com)
Mob Violence And Vigilantism In India Author(s): ISHAN GUPTA Source: World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues , WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER), Vol. 23, No. 4 (WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER)), pp. 152-172 Published by: Kapur Surya Foundation Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48566204
Mob Violence And Vigilantism In India Author(s): ISHAN GUPTA Source: World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues , WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER), Vol. 23, No. 4 (WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER)), pp. 152-172 Published by: Kapur Surya Foundation Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48566204
Section 103 Clause (2), Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
Mob Violence And Vigilantism In India Author(s): ISHAN GUPTA Source: World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues , WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER), Vol. 23, No. 4 (WINTER 2019 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER)), pp. 152-172 Published by: Kapur Surya Foundation Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48566204
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