Why it is more than a law and order issue :Delhi violence.

Highlights :

• The death toll in northeast Delhi communal violence rose to 17, according to GTB Hospital authorities

• NSA Ajit Doval visited violent-hit areas and met top police cops

Valay Singh

Coming on the heels of a massive Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) victory and in the middle of US Presidential Donald Trump’s visit, the large scale communal violence in the national capital has shaken every section of Indians, be it the urban middle class or the rural countryside. In Delhi itself fear has gripped large parts of the city and scores of riot-vulnerable neighbourhoods have seen people stocking up on rations and scurrying for safer places.

Amidst this crisis, the ‘system’ — the entire central and state administrative machinery, political parties and perhaps most critically, the mainstream media —needs to take urgent collective actions putting stability and peace above narrow interests.

After more than 48-hours of organised and targeted communal violence, which has left 13 people dead, the helplessness being felt by its large majority of peace-loving people is likely to turn into complete disillusionment with the system if immediate steps are not taken to restore peace, and law and order in the national capital.

Instead of looking for who cast the first stone or the petrol bomb or struck the first blow, and who gains from the violence, the central and state political leadership needs to come out on the streets and send a message of peace. There will be a time to point lapses in intelligence, the laxity in taking preventive measures, and the inevitable blame-game, but now is the time to demand from the system to stop the communal inferno from spreading further.

If the police can’t do it or, and in fact, isn’t trained to do it, then perhaps it is time that the Delhi government officially requests the Centre to send in the army — that one institution that still enjoys the confidence of most Indians.

The Delhi Police should, meanwhile, focus on making preventive arrests beginning with hate-mongers of the likes of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kapil Mishra. This is the least that the police can do after the mountain of evidence showing its personnel behave like the cavalry of the mobs. That the Delhi Police has for years been overburdened and understaffed is known to both the authorities and those who observe it closely. According to the National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) 2018 data, Delhi’s north east district sees the highest share of heinous crimes and rioting, and yet its police remains the most understaffed with 25 percent vacancy.

Trumps’ visit added to the Delhi Police’s workload, which has been already stretched due to the ongoing anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests. Although deadly communal violence of this scale is inexcusable under any circumstance, what renders the Delhi Police irredeemable is the shocking incompetence it has shown by ignoring loud and visible signs of trouble.

Had the police clamped down on the very first incident of stone-throwing a few days ago, it would have deterred the spread of similar incidents to other areas. However, what the police did was to treat it in a seemingly cavalier fashion and hope that the communal cauldron would simmer down on its own. It hasn’t yet, and it won’t till the authorities wake up and take action against organised rioting by extremists of all hues.

The present rioting might seem distant and even abstract to the middle class of the megalopolis, but make no mistake, this ring of fire will soon be singeing the entire city if people don’t demand peace and justice as a right from the government. The burning down of homes, businesses and places of worship, looting of shops, lynching of people affects everybody and everything because it spreads fear and uncertainty, it causes panic and instability.

As citizens it is time to question the government on the cost-benefit analysis of increasing lawlessness and mob-violence. Social stability and rule of law are constitutional precepts without which there can be no economic growth. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, violence cost India about 9 percent of its GDP in 2017. That amounts to nearly $1.2 trillion (₹80.1 trillion), a humongous amount of the nation’s economic wealth lost to a broken justice delivery system.

These are times when India is going through a economic slowdown, and more worryingly it is also a time that the country is going through its most divisive phase since Partition. The violence in Delhi is like a jagged rock thrown at democracy and peace itself. Our collective response to this violence will determine whether we hurtle down the path of chaos and instability or not, and whether we will let people kill each other in the name of religion, country or a piece of legislation, or not.

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