“I read Rebecca John’s name as a member of the drafting committee and decided to back MASUKA,” replied a young journalist when I asked her about her reasons for supporting a draft law titled The Protection from Lynching Act, 2017 or the “Manav Suraksha Kanoon” (Human Lives Protection Act). She is not alone in being drawn to draft by the stature and reputation of Rebecca John, a senior criminal lawyer at the Supreme Court.
Only, John had nothing to do with the draft of MASUKA.
A Case of Name-dropping?
John was contacted by people behind the draft law in the month of June to be a part of the committee. She agreed to take a look at the draft and comment on the same once something was put on paper. Shortly afterwards, she left for a holiday and was out of communication. Upon her return she found her name all over media as a member of the drafting committee for MASUKA.
The draft of MASUKA, a new law proposed by the National Campaign Against Mob Lynching – founded by “youth leaders” Tehseen Poonawalla, Shehla Rashid, Kanhaiya Kumar and Jignesh Mewani - was released at the Constitution Club in New Delhi on 7 July. “I have fundamental disagreements with the draft,” says John. She spared no time in communicating the same to the committee and asked for her name to be taken off the list. However, by then a lot of civil society members had assumed she was behind the draft and reserved their criticisms, if any, in deference to her. One such Delhi-based activist admits, “People like me, who are not lawyers and respect Rebecca for her legal mettle, were hesitant to critique the draft.”
Do We Really Need MASUKA?
“I don’t think the existing provisions in the Indian Penal Code are inadequate. There are no gaps in the law. There is only a problem of implementation, as with everything else in India. Having more laws does more damage than good. For example, even the innocent bystanders could be defined as mob and charged for a crime they did not commit,” John shares. Upon being asked about the demand for defining lynching as a separate offence, John replies, “Even encounter killings are not defined in the IPC. Don’t they get dealt with?” John also opposes the demand for special courts and fast-tracking of trials. “These days every crime has become special. What is going to happen to the general cases, then?”
Why should a ‘non-special’ case of murder be pending in the court for more than a decade while that of a lynching gets fast-tracked? We don’t need such unnecessary hierarchies.Rebecca John, Lawyer
When she shared her concerns regarding the draft with some of the “youth leaders” behind the MASUKA campaign, they were “brushed aside with remarkable casualness.” John then wrote to Hegde, her colleague, and requested not to be associated with the draft. Finally, her name was taken off the drafting committee members’ list.
Disagreement does not mean dissent. It is possible to support the same cause while retaining one’s individual approach.Rebecca John, Lawyer
“We cannot trample upon the principles of democracy in our internal dealings while taking a public stand against authoritarianism,” she concludes.
Glorious by Association?
There are already some murmurs about how the MASUKA activists are piggybacking on the Not In My Name campaign. While the latter is a citizen-led protest, forbidding any political sloganeering or banner-waving, real or metaphorical, people like Tehseen and Shahzad Poonawalla wear their political affiliations on their sleeves.
The Not In My Name campaign has been successful in establishing itself as a credible platform for condemning sectarian violence through the core committee’s decision to stay strictly apolitical. Could the same be said about the MASUKA campaign?
Why The Haste?
The haste in announcing the draft has also been questioned. Apoorvanand, a Delhi University professor associated with the MASUKA campaign, also reportedly wanted a rigorous legal vetting of the draft before putting it out.
Side-lining such concerns, using social activism and professional credentials of public figures to serve their ends, and the hijacking of an organic, apolitical citizen-led movement engender suspicions about what the draft law really seeks to achieve.
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