Dear Editor,
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly’s famous novel Frankenstein or Modern Proetheus was published on March 11, 1818. In the novel, Shelly tells an interesting story that gives its readers an insight into the danger of pampering a monster. The story shows how a monster who was created by Dr. Victor Frankenstein at the university of Ingolstadt, took revenge against his creator after facing rejection by the society.
Just like Frankenstein’s monster that went to take revenge even against his own maker, the Mob if pampered can go even against those who have been pampering the crowd. The danger of going soft against cow vigilantism is that the Mob after tasting blood and power out on the streets dares go wild and tries to run a parallel government.
The first casualty in that case will be the law of the land. The lynching of an ASI Dev Chand Nagle in MP’s Chhindwara district is a harbinger of that reality. It is reported that the 53-year-old assistant sub-inspector was hacked to death by an alleged criminal and his associates in Jamunia village under Umreth Police Station of Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh when the ASI went there to arrest him.
There must be a strong public opinion against any kind of lynching as it throws down the gauntlet to the law of the land. Lynching is done after giving a victim a bad name like child lifter, canibal, witch, dacoit, love jihadi, cattle smuggler etc. But it poses a serious challenge to the government as the lynching brigades want to run a parallel one. As a matter of fact, lynching monsters always want to be a law unto themselves. Moreover, it wants to establish a jungle raj where only the might is the right and creates a laboratory for human beings for turning themselves into brute murderers. The need of the hour is a stringent law against lynching crowd and more importantly a quick justice delivery mechanism.
Yours,
Sujit De, Kolkata