Relevance: GS Paper II (Polity and Governance)
Why has this issue cropped up?
Rumours on WhatsApp that there are child kidnappers and cattle traders roaming around have led to mob lynchings.
The debate
Consequently, a debate has been framed around the growing use of technology by the “ignorant” masses and the responsibilities of a technology platform.
Is this debate justified?
- This is a shallow understanding that distracts us from the harder, vexing questions on the deepening divide that is damaging fraternity within society, and the structural reforms necessary to restore law and order.
- The first fact is that the government maintains no central data on public lynchings. The legal framework in India does not have any anti-lynching offenses either.
- The second fact is that in the absence of official data or a substantive law, media reports which quote the police become the principal source to build a public narrative. In the lynching cases this year, it is claimed that the common factor is the use of WhatsApp to spread rumors relating to the abduction of children, ostensibly for the purpose of forcible organ harvesting. These grotesque details underplay and ignore the fact that the victims of mob lynchings are quite often members of nomadic tribes and religious minorities.
- The third fact is that these lynchings are not removed from the trend of mob lynchings spurred by cattle preservation laws.
- Taken together, these three facts indicate our willingness to reach for quick and easy fixes which are harmful public policy prescriptions.
- This is not to say that WhatsApp does not need to act with greater responsibility in supporting fact-checking or making technical, product choices which would stem the tide of misinformation without compromising on digital rights. But WhatsApp cannot and should not perform the duties of our democratically elected government.
- Our problematic framing is leading to public officials and police departments escaping accountability as they continue to place the onus of governance on a private corporation for maintaining an ordered and democratic society.
Conclusion
As Paul Brass notes, it is the duty of public commentary to “fix responsibility and penetrate the clouds of deception, rhetoric, mystification, obscurity and indeterminacy”.
