The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government is of the opinion that there is no need to define lynching in the Indian Penal Code. This evasiveness has been a central feature of the BJP’s strategy to resist remedial measures, legal or otherwise, to curb incidents of mob lynching that registered an exponential rise under the watch of Narendra Modi and his regime. The BJP’s inertia on the matter has been rather consistent. In 2019, the Union home minister informed Parliament that since such killings — murder — could be dealt with under different sections of the IPC, the need for a separate definition for the crime did not arise. Yet, state governments, three of them ruled by the BJP’s political opponents, appear to have read the situation on the ground differently — and with the necessary alacrity. Rajasthan, Bengal, Jharkhand and Manipur — the BJP is in power in this state — had felt the need to pass legislation specific to lynching to send out a signal of deterrence. But these bills have been in limbo for several years simply because of the absence of a concrete definition of ‘lynching’ in the existing statutes. The Centre’s obduracy is one more example of the BJP’s willingness to further strain the spirit of federalism. What must also be mentioned in this context is that the Centre and the Supreme Court have taken very different positions on the need to do away with the legal vacuity against lynching. In 2018, the Parliament had been directed by the highest court to frame a separate law for the said offence. Incidentally, the Union home minister is on record saying that the government wishes to overhaul the IPC, presumably to bring it on a par with the changing times, and that a committee would deliberate on the issue of lynching. Yet, the Lok Sabha has also been told that the data on lynching are ‘unreliable’.

This smokescreen of assurances and doublespeak will not do. A clear definition of lynching in the legal codes, something that would facilitate the implementation of the bills passed by the states, must be instituted. Permitting violent mobs to intimidate citizens and take their lives — most of the victims are Muslim — cannot be acceptable in a land that is supposedly protected by the rule of law. What explains the BJP’s unhurriedness to deal with the scourge? Does it fear that a national anti-lynching legislation would take the sting out of its polarizing, but politically-rewarding, rhetoric?