There is a particular pattern to the recent mob assaults on young people – especially young women – that are generally being seen as moral policing run wild. The attacks are carried out in areas that are otherwise supposed to be safe — immediately outside a bar in the centre of town, say, as in Guwahati, or in a private residence, as in the attack on the Mangalore homestay last week. Usually, voyeuristic visuals of the attack – played on a loop by local and then national channels – precede by some time the arrival of the police. The police themselves first blame the victims rather than cracking down on the perpetrators. Some unknown right-wing group denies, or is assigned responsibility. Unsurprisingly, given the impunity with which such attacks are carried out, and the half-sympathetic response of the administration, they are becoming more and more frequent.
The attacks in Mangalore were particularly distressing. A mob of about 20 people invaded the “Morning Mist Home Stay” in the suburbs of the Karnataka town, where they were convinced a “rave party” was happening — at around five o’clock in the afternoon. The prevalence of the ridiculous “rave party” myth, that they are everywhere and a threat to law and order, is a tribute both to the imagination of the police and the credulity of some in the media. During the recent police raid on a Mumbai hotel, it became clear that even the most common and unremarkable get-togethers can be incessantly and unquestioningly described as “rave parties”, as some form of moral justification. The power of the myth was such that what appears to have been a standard birthday party in Mangalore was overrun by a violent mob that has been described as having connections with a right-wing outfit that calls itself the Hindu Jagarana Vedike.
The biggest problem, however, lies in the actions of law enforcement. Not only did the police fail to arrive in time, and to stop visuals of the attack from being passed on to television channels, but they reportedly allowed locals to further invade the homestay’s privacy by leading tours through it, in response to demands that neighbours “be satisfied” that there was no law-breaking inside. Satisfying the neighbours of assault victims is not the police’s job. Of course, it was then declared that the homestay in question did not have licences in order — in India, there is always an out-of-order licence that can be discovered; anyone can be turned into a lawbreaker. Subsequently, senior local policemen have chosen to blame homestays in general, and have asked college principals for lists of owners of paying-guest locations — implying that it is the owners’ fault for allowing boys and girls to get together in houses they own. Presumably there is a licence, too, for that. The matter was made worse by the Karnataka State Women’s Commission, whose chairperson announced that the proper direction for investigation was: the antecedents and families of the boys who were acting as hosts. “The boys had some other motives in inviting the girls to the party,” she said. “That has to be probed.”
Eight people have finally been arrested. Eventually, on Saturday, the supposed leader of the attacks was too. Still, in spite of the arrests, it is clear that the response of the forces of law and order is not what it should have been — and empowers further such attacks. Moral policing only becomes dangerous when proper policing is absent.