This is the result of the migration of rhetoric to the extremes. We're seeing a situation where both the Democratic Socialist party and the right wing Hindu nationalist party have come together in agreement that in order to protect their girls, some boys are going to have to be sacrificed to the mob. That's grotesque. In the case of Khan, it wasn't enough that he was imprisoned pending investigation less than a week after the accusation was made, and in the event of Bachchan's comments, it wasn't even enough that the man was on death row pending a final appeal, unless the accused's human rights are completely and utterly trampled immediately then it's not justice in their eyes.

It's a relevant gender issue because the seeds of this atrocity still lurk, even in western society. It's the same motivations, at its heart, that lead people to label a man, whom it appears was innocent of any wrongdoing, a rapist, even after he's been murdered without so much as a chance to dispute the charges levied against him. It's the extreme outcome of "listen and believe" rhetoric, that should have been left behind with the tongued ones of ancient british law, playing out before our eyes once again as it played out across America for two shameful centuries, and as always, it's those least capable of defending themselves upon whom the mob vents its wrath. Lynching is a fault line where the mob privileges the word of one class over the very lives of the less powerful. We strung up black men by the thousands in the name of "defending the honor of our women," and now, while we watch the same mistakes being made, we've cowed ourselves into self imposed silence. While a corpse was being lashed to a clock tower in Dimapur, we made small talk about an academic. We're watching justice be murdered in the name of social justice.