Vigilantes about, so be vigilant
2007 saw the release of a successful film called Shootout at Lokhandwala. I haven’t seen the film, but I do know it has a song that must rank as one of the most offensive I’ve heard in a while, “Ai Ganpat, chal daru la.” (Hey Ganpat, get the booze – for the uninitiated!)
Shootout… is based on a true incident involving a policeman called Aftaab Ahmad Khan, who headed the Anti-Terrorist Squad and who, as the story goes, took out a bunch of former Dawood Ibrahim aides who were allegedly counting their stash of Rs 70 lakh in the Lokhandwala complex. All the terrorists were summarily gunned down in an extra-judicial ‘encounter,’ but the money was never found, a bird tells me. Rumour was that Khan was only doing the bidding of Dawood, who wanted his former aides killed. Of course, nothing was ever proved.
Now, why am I writing about Khan in a blog about the English language and its abuse? Because post-retirement, Khan started a security services agency called Vigilante Security Services, headquartered in Mumbai but with branches in Bangalore and Pune. The Bangalore office is located near my home, and I pass it frequently enough for it to get my goat.
Vigilante /vijilanti/ means ‘a member of a self-appointed group of people who undertake law enforcement in their community without legal authority.’ In other words, they are people who illegally take the law into their own hands. (OED)
To be on the safe side, I consulted Merriam Webster to check the American usage. MW too tells me that a vigilante is a member of a volunteer committee organised to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law are viewed as inadequate) or broadly, a self-appointed doer of justice.
The origin of the word is from the Latin vigilant, which means watchful.
These examples illustrate the difference.
- When there were several burglaries in my locality, I became more vigilant.
- When he did not get justice from the courts, he became a vigilante and went after his tormentor.
I’m sure Mr Khan wanted his staff to be vigilant or watchful but I doubt he would want them to turn into ‘vigilantes.’
However, given the rumours and conspiracy theories surrounding the real incident at Lokhandwala, could this be a Freudian slip?
