Last week, I said that the real victims of the bulldozers in Khargone were the rule of law and the Indian Constitution. Sadly, this has happened again. This time in a Delhi slum. It has also become clear that there is nothing random about where the bulldozers go. There is a pattern. So, the homes and businesses smashed to smithereens in Delhi were in a Muslim area from which stones were thrown at a Hindu religious procession. The BJP chose its most aggressive spokesmen to defend this policy on primetime. “Who are these secularist lawyers who manage to get to the Supreme Court so quickly?” screeched one particularly belligerent spokesman before asking “why is it always Azhar and Ahmed that violate the law and not Arjun or Ajay”. To name this spokesman would be to dignify the hate and venom he spewed. Suffice it to say that he is virtually the TV face of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Meanwhile, in the Supreme Court, the Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta, had this to say. “It is an ongoing demolition drive… No one can point a finger that a particular encroachment was removed just because the encroacher belonged to a particular community or participated in the communal riots.” To say that it was just a coincidence that bulldozers turned up at the exact spot where the Hindu procession was attacked is disingenuous. But personally, I have been disappointed more with what Opposition political leaders have said. Those who hotfooted it down to this neglected, relatively obscure slum concentrated on making the point that it was Muslim homes and businesses targeted. Not true. Among the saddest images from this bulldozer attack was of a small Hindu boy picking through the debris of his father’s juice shop to retrieve what little he could. The other was of a Bihari Hindu paanwala weeping over the wreckage of the frail handcart from which he sold his ware.
The bulldozers did not distinguish between Hindus and Muslims, nor did they distinguish between legal and illegal structures. There are clear rules that must be followed before demolition squads arrive, and these were not followed in Delhi, just as they were not followed in Khargone the week before. The message that the bulldozers hammer home is that the Indian State is prepared to disrespect the rule of law to instill fear and obedience. If the rules of the jungle are needed to silence those who oppose the might of the State, then so be it.
What sickened me most about the events of last week was the support that the demolition squads got from major TV anchors. One famous anchor tweeted jokingly about how there could soon be a shortage of bulldozers in the country. And another famous lady anchor declared in a panel discussion before a live audience that people should be careful not to defy the might of the State. These ladies showed a lack of empathy and servility that prove that the Indian media is now truly worthy of being called ‘godi media’.
If there was one pillar of democracy that stood tall, it was the Supreme Court. It has stopped the bulldozers for 15 days to examine what really happened and whether rules were broken. And it has said clearly that it will take very seriously any instances of the bulldozers continuing with their bulldozing after it issued orders to stop. Municipal officials in charge of the demolition squads did continue their activities in defiance of the Supreme Court until Brinda Karat, whom I am proud to have known from school, physically stood in front of a bulldozer with the order in her hand. As the heroine of the day when she was later interviewed on television, she said that what was truly distressing was that the victims of the bulldozers were among our poorest citizens.
This was something that disturbed me too, because it brought back horrific memories of Sanjay Gandhi’s ‘beautification drive’ during the Emergency. The poorest of Delhi’s citizens had their sad little homes bulldozed that time as well and they were ‘resettled’ across the Yamuna. They were thrown on to a wasteland on which tiny plots were marked out in chalk to indicate where they should build their new homes. The result was that slums like Jahangirpuri came into existence. Somehow, the resettled people managed to survive and even thrive despite not being given any of the utilities that municipalities provide, like water, electricity, and garbage collection.
Instead of slums on this side of the river, India’s Capital now has slums on the other side of the river where visiting prime ministers and presidents do not go. They stop as Boris Johnson did in Rajghat. Speaking of Boris, did nobody warn him that posing for pictures on a bulldozer was very bad timing? What does it matter, though, since the people whose homes and businesses have been bulldozed have no time to worry about visiting dignitaries.
What does matter to them is what the Supreme Court will decide. We must hope that it declares in the clearest possible terms that when the officers of the State start to violate the rule of law, they lose the right to uphold it. The Supreme Court cannot show weakness, or in India we could be in serious danger of having blindfolded Lady Justice replaced with a new symbol. The bulldozer.
