Opinion Asad Ahmed encounter: The problem with peddling Uttar Pradesh’s ‘suraksha’ story

It is a fact that, in popular opinion in India today, extra-judicial violence is considered a necessary mode of achieving what former Chief Justice of India S A Bobde referred to as “instant justice”. This owes a lot to the failure of investigative agencies, police and judiciary. Institutions do not deliver and the bureaucracy and public representatives are often found to be in cahoots with criminals. Lawlessness and institutional failure are embedded in the workings of the nation`s political economy and do not seem to have a self-corrective mechanism. This is similar to the banal and routine corruption that has deep institutional roots.

At a descriptive level too, the article fails to raise questions regarding the social background of those who have been “encountered”. Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav has rightly asked why people of certain castes are spared from this “effective” policy if it is about law and order and about making the state more attractive to investors. The question should be about how generic distrust of institutions and lack of security is being summoned to further and consolidate a certain kind of caste Hindu religious majoritarianism. This may or may not be true. Without using social demographics, simply re-stating the dominant narrative that is being offered and reading it on the basis of “anecdotal evidence” could be a way of validating the narrative without saying so. It becomes part of the same echo chamber that is sought to be created through such policies.

This is observable in the context of many other policy formulations of the current regime. For instance, gas connections are given but gas cylinders are made unaffordable. The government will tell you the first part, not the latter.

In 2019, there was a similar encounter of alleged rapists in Hyderabad. The public mood was of consent and even jubilation because of the gruesome nature of the crime. But soon the Justice Sirpurkar Commission found the encounter to be false and recommended action against the 10 policemen who accompanied the accused to the site where the alleged encounter took place. It can be observed that as and when the judiciary has stepped in to check extra-judicial killings, people rethink their consent. If institutions deliver, it will be difficult to get immediate consent for unaccounted state violence. Then, it may not so unproblematically contribute to the soaring popularity of such “encounters” as the writer concludes.

Finally, any analysis has to raise follow-up questions, not necessarily to moralise but to check if what is claimed is true. There is no evidence, historical or otherwise, that the use of extra-judicial methods has actually worked to improve law and order or helped in the reduction of crime. Laws such as TADA and POTA were repealed because they created “righteous lawlessness” without containing crime or terrorism. In fact, they add another layer of legally sanctioned illegality. What often happens with extra-judicial violence is that it begins with a specific targeted group (Maoist groups for instance) but becomes a generic mode of dealing with all forms of dissent — criminal or otherwise. In Telangana, such methods were sanctioned in the name of containing the “Maoist menace”. Special forces (such as the Greyhounds) were formed to this end and quick promotions were offered to police officers who used these techniques “effectively”. While these methods failed to contain the Maoists, what they ended up doing was targeting journalists investigating nefarious land deals and dubbing them as “unidentified Naxalites” (The case of Ghulam Rasool, a journalist who was investigating land deals, is the most glaring example of this).

If similar incidents continue to occur in UP, what will ensue is righteous lawlessness. It will create a state and police system that will remain unaccountable, while crime rises. The challenge of how to effectively contain crime is what we should be reflecting on further.

The writer teaches political science at JNU. His most recent book is Politics, Ethics and Emotions in ‘New India’