Is the Rule of Law simply a myth in India that cannot be applied in reality? They seem like screenplays from films. These encounters by the police across the nation have been celebrated by the public, with the popular media disregarding all ethics when it comes to sensational polls and provocative commentary mostly by the television channels. While most police encounters are no more than an accepted euphemism for orchestrated and deliberate extrajudicial killings—which have been debated by many over the years—the number of encounters by the police and extrajudicial killings by security forces have only increased in the last few years. This kind of vigilantism has often been at loggerheads with the rule of law.
And while we face that question, the other that’s worrisome is the voyeurism that’s been fuelled by playing over and over again the last moments of Atiq Ahmed and Ashraf after they were assassinated on live TV.
What have we become as a society? Where do we go from here? That’s what we explore in this issue among other things.
What makes for a cover story in a magazine? For us, a cover is a showcase of what we at Outlook see as an issue that must be reconsidered and reconfigured. The Supreme Court is live-streaming the hearings of petitions seeking the legalisation of same-sex marriage—and marriage equality is everyone’s right—and that’s an issue that remains an important one as it talks about equality.
The third issue that made us think about the politics of control and abstinence is the news about the Dalai Lama, who was caught on camera behaving inappropriately with a child. In this issue, we pay attention to the politics of equality; of encounter justice; and, of celibacy, while foregrounding the role of the media in the same. Hence, the split cover. Each one of these is important issues of our times. For us, who are in the media, even more so to understand our role as the fourth pillar of democracy and to engage with news with accountability keeping in mind the ethics of journalism, and to question what needs to be questioned.
