Mob Lynching and Vigilantism in India: Analyzing Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023

Abstract

Lynching in the US, especially after Reconstruction, symbolises racial injustice and white domination. Lynching was not limited to African Americans, although they were disproportionately targeted. Lynching began as frontier justice during the Revolutionary War but became a tool of racial terror and social manipulation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In lynching analysis, the "frustration-aggression" hypothesis suggests that economic hardship, demographic shifts, and political discontent may exacerbate mob violence. When people or organisations are irritated by perceived threats to their social or economic status, they may behave aggressively, including lynching. The term "lynching" comes from Revolutionary War Virginia colonel Charles Lynch. Lynch and other local landowners created an informal court system to combat governmental power breakdown and protect their communities from theft and other crimes. Under "Lynch's law," criminals were captured, prosecuted, and punished without due process. Lynch's law expanded to include other forms of extrajudicial vengeance in the US. Vigilance committees, popular in areas without strong law enforcement, sought to quickly impose extralegal vengeance.