Mob lynchings are no longer an anomaly in contemporary India’s troubled social life.
In 2015, we witnessed the gruesome killing of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri; the next year, came the news of the brutal flogging of Dalit youths in Una and as recently as 2020, two sadhus were lynched by a mob in Palghar.
The desperate mob delivers instant “justice” without civility and thought for constitutional processes or the fear of the law.
Equally, lynchings demonstrate the failure of state institutions (mainly the police) and the lack of a humane social order.
The recently released Netflix documentary, Murder in a Courtroom: Indian Predator tells the tale of a case that shocked the nation in 2004.
Around 50 women from a Dalit basti in Nagpur had barged into the civil court in a broad daylight and brutally killed Akku Yadav, a person with a long criminal history.
Some in the media and certain social and political groups celebrated this act as an example of women’s bravery and collective action, which annihilated a dreaded rapist.
Though the documentary frames the killing as a vengeful act of justice and endorses the claims of the victim, it also opens parallel tracks to showcase the wretched social and class conditions under which Dalits live.
Within the social science discourse, Maharashtra in general and Nagpur in particular are often celebrated as locations of assertive Dalit social and political movements.
It has often been argued that Dalits in the region are well-educated, have a greater chance at middle-class mobility and are conscious of their rights.
Further, the conversion to Buddhism has provided a dignified and robust identity to the community.
In the documentary, however, we do not see any glimpses of this.
Instead, we see a detailed exploration of exploitative conditions, wretched sites of poverty and lawlessness in which the Dalit locality, Kasturba Nagar, has been surviving.
The documentary exposes the grand promises of the modern democratic state, economic liberalisation and urban development.
We see how suffocating an “unauthorised” locality can be, how a “squatter” lacks the basic facilities for a dignified life.
The people are living in small, dilapidated houses made of mud, wood or plastic sheets.
The narrow pathways are surrounded by cramped jhuggis, open drains and garbage.
Dirt and smoke add a layer of precarity to the visual.
The documentary also shows women as the hardworking segment in Kasturba Nagar.
They work in the nearby bungalows of the better-off.
Further, the documentary illustrates how state institutions have failed to provide security and dignity to women from marginalised social groups.
It demonstrates that even in urban centres, Dalit women face similar forms of atrocities and exploitation as they do in the feudal-rural setup.
The tales of the criminal acts of Akku Yadav make the audience witness the negligence and lethargy of the police as the criminal mocks, harasses and violates Dalit women with impunity.
The documentary is also about the absence of social and political awareness among the victims.
We do not see a bold intervention by any Dalit leader, civil society activist or political party during the crisis.
Dalit men are shown as powerless.
The media, though made aware of the growing crimes, remained mute.
It’s almost as though Kasturba Nagar was in some distant, alien land.
The documentary skillfully weaves the context of the killing in the courtroom.
It shows that the depressed classes, especially the women among them, periodically confront the criminal.
The basti collectively plans the act and breaks the norm that being a Buddhist-Ambedkarite community, it shall abide by the constitutional practices and seek justice only through legal means.
Dalit social resistance and political assertion have elevated Indian democracy.
The teachings of Babasaheb Ambedkar have dominated Dalit movements and they often operate within the ambit of modern civil society, trusting the institutions of the state.
However, on certain occasions, such aspirations and values appear to be a chimaera, especially for those groups that are still living in precarity and poverty.
Murder in a Courtroom is a reminder that such people too must be included in the larger story of empowerment, assertion and development.
The writer is assistant professor, Centre for Political Studies, JNU Karnataka: Cong wants CM Basavaraj Bommai, home minister to resign ‘immediately’ over graft charges source