Book 'Lynch Files' seeks to decipher the hatred behind lynchings

A new book pieces together stories of people at the receiving end of mob violence and seeks to find out what triggers lynchers to flout laws with impunity.

In recent years, cases of mob lynching have increased to an alarming extent and the emergence of mobocracy has put India's secularity and democratic constitution to test, says Ziya Us Salam in his book 'Lynch Files: The Forgotten Saga of Victims of Hate Crime'.

He says the mob giving out instant justice is not the way our Constitution makers had planned.

From Dadri and Una to Alwar and Hapur and from Rajkot to Dimapur, each of these stories points out to a lapse in security, he says.

"The modus operandi in lynching cases (related to cattle smuggling) remains the same, the 'common maximum programme' almost identical. In almost all cases, it starts with unproven allegations of cow smuggling or cow slaughter," the book, published by Sage, says.

So what prompts a 'gau rakshak' to take the law into his hands? "In a society like ours - troubled overpopulation explosion, scarcity of resources, limited job opportunities, widening gap between the rich and the poor, and hopelessness emanating from all-pervading corruption - people tend to feel a sense of existential void and powerlessness," the book claims.

"The result is anger," it says.

Salam also discusses the Supreme Court judgement against lynching and says it has given some hope.