<img title="A mob during the 1992 riots in Mumbai" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2017/jul/mob.jpg" alt="A mob during the 1992 riots in Mumbai" /> A mob during the 1992 riots in Mumbai
Speaking over the phone from Simla, Dr Harshvardhan Singh is quite matter of fact when talking about the attacks he has faced or witnessed while working at the casualty ward of Dr Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College, at Tanda, Himachal Pradesh.
"When you are in the casualty ward, you become the first point of contact when patients and their attendants come to the hospital for treatment," says the 40-year-old. Recalling one incident, typical of others, he says, "There was a bus accident and two people who were injured in it were brought to the hospital. With them, came almost a hundred others as attendants. It was night time and many were drunk and agitated," says Singh, who worked at the hospital between 2009 and 2014.
Addressing the crowd - already short on temper and expecting shoddy treatment from the hospital - together. Not addressing them would be worse. "So, I identified two people from the crowd and addressed them as representatives of both, the patient and the crowd. It was to these two that I communicated what line of treatment was being given, when an IV line had been inserted, and what the next course of action would be," he adds. The next thing, he says, helped put to rest the unease that had been building up. The 'representatives' took the responsibility of getting the rest of the crowd out of the hospital.
Earlier this year, 4,000 resident doctors across Maharashtra went on strike to protest a string of attacks against the men and women of medicine. But, mobs come in all causes and sizes. While last month, the killing of 15-year-old Haifiz Junaid on board a Mathura-bound train, shocked the nation, on July 12 a 19-year-old was stabbed to death by a mob in Delhi after being accused of being a thief.
The mob, in many ways, is ever present in India. Ready to pick up a stone and break windowpanes of a bus if the administration doesn't live up to a promise. But, can a mob's behaviour be predicted? And, therefore, can you break through an angry crowd of people and bring quiet, peacefully?
<img title="A mob during a street battle in Bapunagar on March 1, 2002, in Ahmedabad, Gujarat" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2017/jul/Gujarat.jpg" alt="A mob during a street battle in Bapunagar on March 1, 2002, in Ahmedabad, Gujarat" /> A mob during a street battle in Bapunagar on March 1, 2002, in Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Hope for a leader Former Mumbai police commissioner Rakesh Maria recalls an incident from just after the 1993 bomb blasts that rocked the city. At the time, Maria was DCP (Traffic). "The city was still recovering from the riots when the blasts happened. There had been blasts near Sena Bhavan, Plaza Cinema and Century Bazaar, and rumours were flying high. Near Worli, I heard that a crowd had gathered and was stopping vehicles, pulling out people and assaulting them." He adds, "There were leaders there who the crowd was looking toward. I told them that this was not a communal incident. It was a war against the state and we needed time to detect the case. The leaders then dispersed the crowd."
In both cases - Singh's and Maria's - the crowd responded to leaders.
"That was fortunate. If the mob is leaderless, there's no way of telling how it will react," adds Maria.
<img title="MNS activists attacking North Indians who appeared for the Railway examination at Vidya Bhavan School, Nerul, in 2008" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2017/jul/Nerul.jpg" alt="MNS activists attacking North Indians who appeared for the Railway examination at Vidya Bhavan School, Nerul, in 2008" /> MNS activists attacking North Indians who appeared for the Railway examination at Vidya Bhavan School, Nerul, in 2008
The decision-making power Maria says that while poor administration, an accident or even a rasta roko, could spark off mob violence, the worst mobs are those fuelled by communal hatred.
"A mob that is demanding something - say a speed breaker be installed on a road prone to accidents - remains localised. Whereas those born of communal or caste conflict, fuelled by rumours in a time of Internet and Whatsapp, are more difficult [to tackle]."
Award-winning photographer Arko Dutta, whose 2002 photograph of Qutubuddin Ansari, begging for mercy during the Gujarat riots, became the defining image of the violence, recalls when he first saw the Gulbarg society massacre in which 69 people, including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, were brutally killed.
"We came across a burnt room that was full of water, the burnt bodies inside. The mob had locked the people inside, filled the room with water and then electrocuted them. This was sadism, not anger," he recollects, adding that in the mobs that he witnessed in the riot-torn state, there was no leader. "No one could have lead them or stopped them."
In a recent publication by Penguin RandomHouse India, Dangerous Minds, authors Hussain Zaidi and Brijesh Singh, discuss a case from 1993 in which a Special Task Force (STF) of the CBI, led by the DIG S C Jha and Police Inspector Raman Tyagi, were tasked with arresting terror accused Jalees Ansari from his house in Mumbai's Madanpura area. It was meant to be arrest-and-leave op: "But word of the officers' silent operation had spread in the locality. As soon as Jalees walked out of the building along with the policemen in plain clothes, the small team of officers was suddenly besieged by angry men. The team was not armed and unprepared for a violent mob reaction. Tyagi could see the size of the mob swelling by the minute, and he knew that one wrong move would prove costly. His interest in literature on philosophy and psychology came handy in gauging the mob's mentality. The intelligence of a mob is usually equivalent to that of the man with the lowest IQ among them. So anything the mischief monger says will be enough to ignite the passions of the mob," he says.
Tyagi, today the superintendent of Police with the CBI, says one approach of dealing with a mob would be to divide the group. "There are always some passive members who tag along. Convince them that their violence is not helping their cause, that they will be given all legal recourse and there will be nothing to worry about. Once the passive members withdraw themselves, the more violent ones will stop."
Asked, how does a leaderless mob, work as a unit, making decisions about how and when to attack, Tyagi says, "Initially, there will be somebody who gives direction. Then, they recede in the background and those with the least IQ take command."
Sujata Sriram, professor and dean of the School of Human Ecology, at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, says that the fringe elements within a group are more likely to be incited to mob violence. "It's their way of reclaiming the power and respect that's been taken away from them."
She cites the example of violence against North Indians incited by political leaders of the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. "There was the emotional factor of jobs being taken away by the 'bhaiyyas'. Now, it would be the fringe elements of the party, not the core group of leaders, who are responsible for the act."
<img title="Rakesh Maria" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2017/jul/rakesh-maria.jpg" alt="Rakesh Maria" /> Rakesh Maria
Shared, diluted responsibility Why do human lose the sense of guilt when hurting someone when part of a larger mob?
Tyagi says that being part of the group, with decisions being taken by somebody else, also means that the total role one has played is reduced. "For instance, in a lynching event, someone will say that their own role was limited to four hits," he adds. The collective responsibility is also perhaps why convicting a lynch mob poses a tough task. Even, as a 2004 case proved, when the attack happens inside a court premises.
On August 13, 2004, Bharat Kalicharan alias Akku Yadav was lynched inside a courtroom by a mob that included 50 women. All the 21 accused were acquitted by the same court a decade later. Yadav, a serial killer, rapist and extortionist - who troubled residents of Kasturba Nagar slums - was hacked to death inside Court No. 7 in the Nagpur district and sessions court premises. The public prosecutor in the case, Ravi Bhoyar, says, Akku had come to court that day for a hearing in another case and one of the women present in the courtroom threw chilli powder in his eyes. Then, a melee ensued and others assaulted him with knives and stones. Most of these were old women from the village.
"Nobody knew who actually attacked, therefore guilt was reduced. The investigation was conducted by the CID. When the defence cross-examined the witnesses who had come forward and asked them, 'how could you see what you claim to have seen standing where you were' it seemed that from that location, it was quite impossible to see the attack. In mob cases, exactly who made the killing strike is difficult to say."
<img title="Sunil Gavaskar" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2017/jul/gavaskar.jpg" alt="Sunil Gavaskar" /> Sunil Gavaskar
Questions of legitimacy Clifford Stott, Professor of Social Psychology at UK's Keal University, says the notion that violence in a crowd is a product of irrationality is being rejected.
Be it a lynching case for beef consumption or an attack on a doctor, Stott says the violent episodes "relate to a certain sets of beliefs and integral relations that are important in the Indian context. The violence reflects power relations and beliefs of illegitimacy. For instance, consumption of beef is unacceptable for powerful groups."
He adds that extreme incidents of collective violence represent failure of management of that crowd. Reducing the chances of violence means effectively managing perceptions of legitimacy prior to the incident.
For instance, "If in the case of a hospital attack, if the police were to address that the doctors haven't done anything wrong and are working to the best of their capacity, and the crowd accepts the message, then when a situation arises someone will say 'no, the doctor has done nothing wrong' and the rest will realise that it doesn't make sense. The crowd will then not riot."
Behind the loudspeakers But, where must this message come from? The police should have the powers to intervene and resolve perceptions of conflict before they occur, and politicians should be held accountable for messages they send out. A layman's word will not have equal power.
During the 1993 riots, cricketer Sunil Gavaskar was on the terrace of his Worli house when he saw a mob attacking a family. Gavaskar rushed down and, placing himself between the mob and the family, told them, "Whatever you do to the family, you will have to do to me first." Predictably, the mob dispersed.
Sriram says a layman instead of Gavaskar, a known and revered cricketer, would not have had the same results. "So, an Amitabh Bachchan will have greater persuasive power over a crowd."
The question, she asks, is who is giving the message. Indeed.

Rising incidents of lynching beg the question: can the behaviour of an angry crowd of people be predicted? Those who have dealt with and studied mobs, examine the phenomenon

Why does a mob lynch? Getting into the mind of an angry crowd

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Why does a mob lynch? Getting into the mind of an angry crowd

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