Law, state and right-wing extremism in India

ABSTRACT

The past few years in India have seen an increase in coordinated vigilante violence by right wing groups on issues such as gaukashi (cow slaughter). This has led to the mob lynching of persons belonging to religious minorities. Killings of rationalists and dissidents, and a few cases of bombings targeting Muslims, have also been attributed to right wing groups (RWGs). The recent elections for the Indian Parliament have sparked debate over the role of investigative agencies and the criminal justice system in the handling of bombings attributed to RWGs. An examination of state policy and legal responses to the violence that has characterised right wing extremism (RWE) in India shows that the association of religion with RWE does not explain its distinctiveness. The RWGs in India have become significant because of their relationship with the ruling party in India and the dominant political ideology of Hindutva. An examination of public discourse and legal responses to RWE shows a relationship between the dominant ideologies of political regimes and the construction of terrorism. This has implications for constitutional democracy and the rule of law.

KEYWORDS:

• Right wing extremism
• political regimes
• vigilante violence
• anti-terror laws

Acknowledgement

I would like to acknowledge with thanks the comments received from the three anonymous referees and suggestions from Kent Roach, Anupama Roy and Anushka Singh.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The paper has relied on the terror case documents on the NIA’s official website, including charge sheets and judgements, as well as reports of civil society organisations and newspaper reports.

2. Special police forces set up in states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar.

3. See Punyani (2015) for a detailed discussion.

4. Abhinav Bharat is an organisation based in Pune in Maharashtra. Founded in 2006 by retired a major of the Indian Army Ramesh Upadhyay and Lt. Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit, it seeks to revive the vision of the Abhinav Bharat Society set up by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1904 to resist the British colonisers through armed action. It ceased to exist from 1952.

5. Aseemanand became the main accused in the Samjhauta Express case. He later retracted his confession. On 20 March 2019, he was acquitted in the Samjhuata case, as the NIA was not able to establish charges against him. (Press Trust of India, 2019).

6. The FactChecker website notes that the National Crime Records Bureau does not collect data on cow-related hate crimes, as was informed by the Home Ministry to Parliament on July 25, 2017. The FactChecker website has collected data on ‘Hate Crime-Cow Related Violence’ from reports in the English media. The website claims that ‘all reported incidents were cross-referenced to eliminate discrepancies and, where needed, verified with local reporters or those who had filed original stories’, https: lynch.factchecker.in, accessed on 1 June 2019.

7. Tehseen Poonawala vs. Union of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No.754 of 2016, judgement delivered on 17 July 2018. Accessed from https://indiankanoon.org/doc/71965246/, on 1 August 2019.

8. Seventh Report of the VII Law Commission of Uttar Pradesh on Mob Lynching, Uttar Pradesh Law Commission, Lucknow, 2019.