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India cannot become a nation where the powerful negotiate with the law, the powerless wait indefinitely for justice, and angry citizens eventually decide to enforce it themselves
That is the dangerous direction we risk taking when public faith in institutions begins to erode.
The Blackbuck case is a warning. The 1998 incident involving Salman Khan tested whether celebrity, wealth and influence could place someone beyond the reach of the law. A Jodhpur trial court convicted Khan in 2018 and sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment. Nearly three decades later, his appeal remains unresolved. A protected animal deserves the protection of the law, regardless of who allegedly killed it. The same principle must apply to human beings. No celebrity, politician or party functionary should stand above accountability—and no one should become a target of violence merely because a crowd has declared them guilty. A legitimate demand for justice cannot become a license for threats or private punishment.
The 2024 rape and murder of a trainee doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College triggered nationwide protests demanding women’s safety and accountability. A trial court convicted Sanjay Roy in January 2025 and sentenced him to life imprisonment, while criticising the handling of the case by hospital authorities and police. The public anger was understandable. A young doctor was killed in a place where she should have been safe. Yet anger must be directed towards evidence and independent scrutiny, not the manufacture of convenient villains. What was she to reveal? It is alleged that she saw drug trafficking of expired or used pharmaceuticals and human trafficking of organs, and was to expose it all.
In the Sandeshkali case of rapes, allegedly by Mafia Don Shahjehan, strange occurrences of witness intimidation and accidents have occurred. Wasn’t the RG Kar doctor a witness who was silenced?
The same caution applies to the deaths of Sushant Singh Rajput and Disha Salian in 2020. They allegedly were to expose drug trafficking and sex trafficking at KWAN, the talent management company that Disha Salian had worked at. But Disha Salian’s witness and friend, Steve Pinto who in hashtags exposed it all, met the same fate as Dr. R. N. Chugh. Chugh was the doctor who could have revealed PM Lal Bahadur Shastri’s death in Tashkent in 1966, was based on poisoning.
The same evidence should have been discovered, analysed and exposed in Sunanda Pushkar’s case, SSR’s case, and even Sridevi’s case.
Recurring protests over women’s safety, corruption, recruitment and institutional accountability reveal a common concern: people want to believe the system works for them, not merely for those who control it.
Nepotism deepens that distrust when public office appears to become a family inheritance. We see nepotism in the TMC ruled West Bengal regime of Mamata Banerjee promoting her nephew, Abhishek Banerjee. The MVA Government of the Thackeray family was all about nepotism, as is the Congress Party in New Delhi. Allegations of corruption must be investigated independently, regardless of the party involved. No political party should be granted immunity, nor condemned through allegations that have not survived evidentiary scrutiny.
The danger is what happens when citizens conclude that elections change governments but not the culture of impunity. When investigations move slowly and the powerful seem insulated, frustration can harden into cynicism. Some may then embrace vigilantism. That is how the foundations of democratic order begin to crack, resulting in anarchy.
India must pursue two objectives simultaneously: accountability for wrongdoing and protection against mob justice. Investigations must be independent, evidence preserved, whistleblowers protected and trials concluded without unreasonable delay. Transparency is not an attack on the state. It is what makes the state worthy of public trust. The answer to Goonda Raj cannot be another form of Goonda Raj, or a political form of the British Raj with Indian family members in charge. Justice must be visible, impartial and credible—or the vacuum will be filled by those promising revenge.
In the hit-and-run case, how did an Ex-Solicitor General get paid off to exonerate the convicted murderer in the case on a technicality? Wasn’t the sworn testimony of a police constable witness to the crime sufficient? But Ravindra Patil was silenced.
India stands at a choice. We can strengthen the institutions that make justice possible, or we can normalise a politics in which every grievance becomes a license for retaliation. The answer cannot be another viral accusation or act of revenge. It must be evidence, due process and justice that is delivered. When justice is denied, society becomes angry. When revenge replaces justice, society becomes dangerous. A democracy must never allow the distance between those two conditions to disappear.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.