The phenomenon of mob justice, often described as vigilantism or extrajudicial punishment by an enraged crowd, reflects the breakdown of formal legal institutions and the growing public frustration with the procedural justice system. It is rooted in both historical contingency and social psychology, where legality is eclipsed by collective fury. Though often seen as a spontaneous response to crime or moral outrage, mob justice is neither new nor culturally isolated.
Its conceptual origins can be traced back to the term "lynching," associated with Charles Lynch, an American revolutionary who presided over extralegal trials in Virginia during the late 18th century. This gave birth to the phrase "Lynch Law," which later evolved into modern mob justice. While the term gained prominence in the American context, particularly with racialised violence against African-Americans, the concept has universal relevance, especially in postcolonial and transitional societies like Bangladesh.
In theoretical terms, mob justice challenges the Weberian notion of the state as the sole legitimate wielder of coercive force. Max Weber emphasised the state's monopoly on violence as the foundation of modern bureaucratic rationality and legal order. Mob justice defies this principle, representing a usurpation of power by the collective. Instead of justice being delivered through codified laws and institutions, it is enforced by popular sentiment and raw emotion.
This indicates a society where rational-legal authority is either ineffective or delegitimised. Émile Durkheim's theory of anomie-social normlessness-also illuminates the psychological conditions under which people abandon legal channels of recourse. When institutions are perceived as corrupt, slow, or aligned with the powerful, ordinary citizens may resort to mob actions as a form of "people's justice." However, what appears to be justice often devolves into chaotic violence, reinforcing a culture of impunity and lawlessness.
In the context of Bangladesh, mob justice is both a symptom and a symbol. It emerges not merely from criminal acts but from a deeper malaise in the legal and political system. Public confidence in the judiciary, law enforcement, and bureaucratic mechanisms has steadily eroded. Delayed trials, biased investigations, and high-profile corruption have led to an informal consensus among many that institutional justice is inaccessible.
This perception fuels extrajudicial behaviour among citizens who feel justice must be immediate, visible, and punitive. From thieves being beaten to death in rural markets to alleged child kidnappers being lynched in front of crowds, Bangladesh has witnessed alarming examples of mob justice, particularly in areas with weak law enforcement presence.
The tragic lynching of 13-year-old Samiul Alam Rajon in 2015 in Sylhet, who was accused of theft and tortured to death while the incident was live-streamed on social media, marked a turning point in public discourse. It revealed the terrifying normalisation of collective violence and the perverse public appetite for punitive spectacle.
Similarly, in 2019, rumours about child kidnappers collecting heads for bridge construction led to widespread lynchings in various parts of the country, including the murder of Taslima Begum Renu, a single mother who had gone to a school to inquire about admissions for her child. These incidents show how rumour, fear, and moral panic can be weaponised in a society teetering between legal rationality and mass hysteria.
Interestingly, in recent years, the trend has evolved beyond spontaneous violence into more politically motivated mob actions. Several government high officials and politically affiliated individuals have been either directly or indirectly targets of mob resentment. While not always resulting in physical lynching, there have been symbolic acts of collective punishment, such as forcing government officials to apologise publicly, humiliating them on camera, or vandalising their property.
In the post-2024 political transition in Bangladesh, sparked by the student-people uprising demanding reform and accountability, there were several instances of public fury directed toward individuals perceived as corrupt enablers of the former regime. These were not isolated acts, but part of a broader social reckoning in which mob justice became an instrument of popular sovereignty against the failures of bureaucratic justice.
From a Foucauldian lens, mob justice reflects the collapse of the disciplinary society and the reemergence of sovereign punishment. Michel Foucault, in "Discipline and Punish" (1975), described the transformation from public executions to invisible institutional discipline. Mob justice reverses this arc: it returns punishment to the public arena, where visibility and collective participation define its legitimacy.
The spectacle of punishment, whether in markets or on social media, becomes a tool for reasserting moral order in a society that feels structurally betrayed. However, this reversion comes at the cost of reason, legality, and the rule of law.
Is mob justice ever justifiable? From a consequentialist perspective, some argue that it restores the fear of wrongdoing and acts as a deterrent when state justice fails. But this is a dangerously slippery slope. It undermines legal institutions, encourages wrongful punishment, and breeds cycles of retaliatory violence.
In the long run, it corrodes the very foundations of civil society and democratic governance. In Bangladesh, where law enforcement has often been politicised and the judiciary compromised by elite influence, mob justice may appear as the last resort for the disenfranchised. Yet, it ultimately mirrors the state's failures and erodes the possibility of structural reform.
To restore public trust and reduce incidents of mob justice, the Bangladeshi state must fundamentally reform its justice system. That includes ensuring swift and impartial trials, depoliticising law enforcement, and educating citizens on legal rights and responsibilities. Civil society organisations, religious leaders, and educators must actively counter the normalisation of violence as a mode of social correction. Only then can the public be weaned off the emotional seductions of mob justice and reoriented toward legal recourse.
Mob justice, while born of historical injustice and institutional breakdown, cannot be the answer to the crisis of governance in Bangladesh. Its rise marks the failure of democratic institutions and the decline of civic norms. In confronting it, Bangladesh must choose between the path of legality and the peril of lawlessness. The question is not whether mob justice is good or bad-it is whether the state and society can recover the legitimacy to make that judgment through lawful means.
The writer is a researcher and development worker
