Law unto themselves

A newspaper is a most interesting and open space. A few minutes ago I had been going through one of the most popular English dailies of Kolkata. One of the editorials has, justly I should add, welcomed a judgement of the Dhaka High Court upholding the right of women to dress as they please. This event is then interpreted as part of a larger showdown between the current government of Bangladesh and social and political forces intent on enforcing an extremist version of Islam. The judgement, because it coincides with an attempt by the ruling authorities to restore the rule of law in the country, represents a moment of hope for all freedom loving Bangladeshis. For some reason though, I felt much less upbeat than the editorial should have otherwise made any right thinking individual feel.

The reason, although I could not pin it down clearly at the moment, did not take too long to present itself. This time it related to a part of my own state. At a village in Bankura district, informed a report in the same newspaper, more than fifty irate villagers have beaten three alleged eveteasers so brutally they are unlikely to be fit enough to face arrest or trial within the next several months. Some of the villagers, on being asked details about the incident, held the late arrival of the police forces at the site solely responsible for the ghastly affair. The Police Chief of the district, in his turn, laid the blame on the pathetic condition of the roads, unwittingly conceding the point about their delayed response.

Let us leave these silly claims and counterclaims aside for a moment for in reality such happenings unfortunately are not exceptional. Rural India is not exactly a safe haven for young women and the police forces are seldom relied upon by the poor as an impartial upholder of the rule of law. Indeed, the worldview that approves the late arrival of the police on the spot as a good enough reason, and an ideal opportunity, to inflict instant punishment on alleged offenders is the very stuff that Kangaroo courts are made of.

While it is easy to dismiss as uncivilized brutality the actions of the Bankura villagers, such instances of mob violence occur far too regularly in all corners of the country, including its capital, for us votaries of rule of law not to think harder. There is a large body of literature on vigilantism in circulation and the media too occassionally devotes some space to the issue. However, it is not always recognized that the way society has come to promote, and indeed glorify, instant celebrityhood and instant notoriety, also feeds into this popular desire for instant conviction and immediate sentencing. It is this popular desire for justice to be seen to be done that we as a society obsessed with grand spectacles have come to approve of and desire as a legitimate means of satisfying our individual and collective longing for retributive justice. In other words, the villagers as a collective felt as though beating the life out of these three alleged eveteasers was just. Not only did the villagers decide the quantum of punishment, they went ahead and arrogated to themselves the right to enforce it as well.

Debates will continue to rage about the battle between the forces of obscurantism and the incumbent government in Bangladesh in the coming months. No journalist, or media organization, is however going to follow up on what would now happen to these three alleged eveteasers. Who is going to pay for their treatment? How is the police going to charge them? Is the quantum of retribution inflicted on them commensurate to their offence? These and many more questions will forever remain unaddressed. The media picked up the case for a solitary report only because it had been a spectacular manifestation of popular outrage against ceratin forms of crime and the perceived inefficiency of the agencies entrusted with the delivery of justice.

Chasm about chashm

Chashm is the official name of a batch of pressurized heavy water nuclear reactors that China is planning to sell to Pakistan over the next two years or so. Although they are clearly meant to produce nuclear power, and as such belongs firmly to the realm of civil nuclear cooperation, opinion is divided in the Indian media establishment on how India should react, diplomatically, to this announcement by China. More specifically, the concern relates to how much, and in what specific ways, this proposed deal is going to affect India's strategic concerns. There is some amount of suspicion in some quarters that Pakistan might use them to augment its nuclear weapons program while others suggest that India has no business getting alarmed since this deal is unlikely to boost Pakistan's nuclear weapons capability in any significant way.

One school of opinion points to the alleged violation of a key norm of nuclear reactor supply as stipulated by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, of which China is a member since 2004. The norm in question provides that nuclear reactors may be supplied to only those countries that that has full-scope safeguards in place. Secondly, concern is expressed also about the long history of China Pakistan strategic cooperation fulled by their traditional hostility to India, a partnership that India's rising stature in the international stage or its deepening ties with the United States including the recently concluded civil nuclear cooperation program has done nothing to dilute either in depth or in scope. However, advocates of this line suggest no immediate retaliatory step such as lodging a protest with the NSG, of which India is not a member anyway, or working towards concluding a matching deal with a friendly nation. For the moment, they advise that India follow a wait and watch policy without lowering its guard, and remain prepared for a matching deal, if it becomes a necessity at a later stage.

The other school is of the opinion that the deal is not going to contribute much to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. China has defended the sale as part of an agreement concluded well before its entry into NSG. Now if that is a sufficient defense is something that is best left to the discretion of NSG members, given that India's opinion on the issue is unlikely to influence the eventual decision. Second, these reactors are going to be open to regular IAEA inspection, making it very difficult, if not altogether impossible, to divert fissile material from these reactors towards making more nuclear warheads.

On a closer study, the difference between these two schools of editorial opinion turns out to be more a matter of degree than kind. Both of them strongly advise against a knee jerk reaction, looking clearly to move beyond the hyphenated framework within which the security concerns of the two south Asian had been bracketed by everyone concerned till very recently. Indeed, the zero sum game attitude that had formerly enveloped the defense establishments in these countries is slowly and steadily moving out, so far as India's approach to these issues are concerned. It is a most welcome development although India would do well to continue to study the developments with utmost attention and an open mind.