A common factor connects the several separate incidents of mob molestation of a teenage girl in Guwahati graphically captured by video footage, the brazen diktat issued by a khap panchayat (village council) forbidding women to venture out of their homes without a male escort or use mobile phones, and incidents involving celebratory gunfire in Uttar Pradesh, which recently killed and maimed several children. This common factor is growing disrespect, bordering on contempt for the law. It’s quite clear the perpetrators of these heinous acts which have shocked the conscience of right-thinking members of society, entertained no fear of law enforcement authorities or the justice dispensation system. Pervasive disrespect of law which characterises contemporary Indian society is a natural outcome of the low priority accorded by the Union and state governments to the important issue of maintaining law and order, the primary duty of government. Currently, the country employs a mere 143 police personnel per 100,000 people against the UN norm of 222 and 200-250 per 100,000 police personnel employed in developed OECD countries. And with a substantial percentage of police squads deployed for VIP security duty, it’s unsurprising that even in state capitals such as Guwahati, beat policemen are a rare sight and gangs and mobs have almost total freedom to run riot. Moreover it’s hardly a national secret that the majority of the country’s police force is under-trained and demoralised because of poor pay, lack of housing facilities and the omnipresent threat of transfer because of rigid government control of the police. Several National Police Commission reports, notably of the Rustomjee Committee (1975) and the Justice Malimath Committee (2003), which suggested major police reforms have been cold-storaged by the Central and state governments. The low priority given to law enforcement by government and society is compounded by neglect of the justice dispensation system. Curiously, despite being one of the few nations worldwide to levy a justice tax (ad valorem court fees on civil litigation), contemporary India offers its citizenry a mere 12-13 judges per million people compared to 107 in the United States, 75 in Canada and 51 in the United Kingdom. As a result, over 30 million cases are pending in the country’s chaotic courtrooms labouring under archaic procedural laws causing routine delays of a decade between filing and disposal of civil and criminal suits (appeals excluded). Consequently within the criminal and anti-socials’ communities, there is little fear of speedy trial, and intimidation of plaintiffs and witnesses is the rule rather than exception. Police and judicial reforms coupled with strict accountability have become an urgent necessity for orderly governance of the nation. But for these reforms to be implemented, the pressure will have to be exerted by the country’s influential middle class and intelligentsia — which have the most to lose from spreading anarchy — upon the compromised political class which is patently comfortable with the status quo. India’s Arab spring opportunity During the bloody french revolution of 1789, writer and philosopher Pierre Vergniaud warned it could “devour…
