Justice is something for the government to mete out, not an angry mob.
If the government is not doing its job, India has a representative form of government, and they can vote in a more responsible government.
In every case without exception vigilantism is an expression of the failure of an inadequate or corrupt government and ineffective or nonexistent law enforcement. Blame these, not the citizens. If the law is "in their own hands" it is because it was put there.
No doubt true in the abstract. But when the thieves and killers are right outside your door the view tends, I believe, to take on a certain urgency and the next election cycle becomes far less important than simply ensuring you and your family can live unmolested.
The main problem with vigilante justice is that sometimes it is not just at all. The wrong fellow is strung up or a member or members of the vigilance group takes advantage of the situation to exact revenge on an enemy who committed no crime. Governments make the same mistakes and commit the same crimes but we entertain the hope that the process has enough oversight and accountability built in to keep such miscarriages to a minimum. But it should be pointed out that not all governments are equally rigorous in keeping the system upright.
If I lived in a country where police and courts are arbitrary, corrupt and generally unreliable I think I might be very much tempted to take matters into my own hands. And if others shared my concerns I would join with them. I would try and make things as just as possible and in some places that would be an improvement over the “justice” meted out by corrupt police, judges and government officials.
If I read history correctly societies will normally adhere to the rule of law IF the rule of law exists at all. Generally it seems that vigilantes crop up where government fails or is virtually non-existent. In those cases to appeal to the government is a waste of time and maybe even dangerous.
It's all in the definition. If vigilantism is a mindless angry lynch mob, as Hollywood defines it, then it is bad. If vigilantism is committees of citizens deliberatively bringing law and order and safety to an area without law and order and safety, as in many instances of American history, then it is good.
I see vigilantism as a last resort, and I suspect these people do, too. When it gets to this point, the "justice" angle is secondary to the "deterrence" factor.
If the government is not doing its job, India has a representative form of government, and they can vote in a more responsible government.
Right. In the meantime, people still have every right -- and in many case, an OBLIGATION -- to protect their lives an property as they see fit.
Sometimes it "is" a good thing, when the only alternatives are worse.
"Justice is something for the government to mete out, not an angry mob."
See above, somethmes the government will NOT do it's job, and sometimes government IS the problem.
"If the government is not doing its job, India has a representative form of government, and they can vote in a more responsible government."
Sometimes that isn't possible, even with a supposedly "representative form of government". To say otherwise is a nice idealistic sentiment.
It has always been understood government is a social contract. The individual cedes a measure of his natural law right to self defense to the government in return for impartial enforcement of natural law. The extent to which goverment refuses to enforce natural law is the extent to which said government has deviated from legitimacy.
When governments renege on their obligation to the terms of the social contract, the right to self defense devolves back to the individual.