Mob Violence: Will we see an end to it?

Parvin Sultana

"How do we understand the rising vigilantism? Why do a large number of people spontaneously agree to undertake such a violent act? Do they believe their act is justified and hence they are immune to legal action?

Vigilantism in fact is a reflection of the displacement of culpability by the state. While state blames people for taking violence in their own hands, the people justify their action by pitting it against state inaction.

Vigilantism is anything but recent. However it is the rising frequency which is alarming. What is also alarming is that the rise of such vigilantism is seen across the Indian subcontinent. Pakistan and Bangladesh as well is reeling under the threat of self appointed legal guardians which continuously undermines the state authority and institutions."

Recipe for engineering a communal division: the case of Basirhat

Arkady Gaider

Arkady Gaider offers a detailed ground-level perspective on the genesis of the ongoing communal riot in Basirhat Subdivision, North 24 Parganas, West Bengal. He elaborates upon how the TMC allowed the riot situation to develop with the help of Hindu and Muslim communal groups despite mass resistance on the ground. Translated from Bangla by Suchetana Chattopadhyay.

On Riots in Basirhat

Suchetana Chattopadhyay 

The unfolding situation in Basirhat in North 24 Parganas, West Bengal, where communal tensions have surfaced and which is currently under para-military occupation, inexorably leads to certain grim observations. In a sense, this riot is a microcosm of a subcontinent historically torn by religious strife, a compressed zone of ideas, strategies, actions with echoes of the colonial past and bleak ramifications for the late imperialised present.