India, July 1 -- A train passenger beaten up for refusing to swap his seat with a politician; a state bureaucrat thrashed by local politicians for not being sufficiently effusive in his conduct towards a strongman; and a highways authority officer assaulted by a sitting state minister during a site inspection. In this regrettable string of recent incidents where lawmakers broke the law, two things stand out. The alleged crimes were reported from disparate corners of India (one was in Madhya Pradesh, another in Odisha, and a third in Himachal Pradesh), cutting across the political divide. What was common was an overarching sense of impunity nurtured by political patronage and the belief that the law can be bent at will. Politicians and the...