When those we elect to rule us disrespect the law, they lose the right to impose it. Has this message gone home to Bulldozer Baba as his admirers call him? When he saw trains and buses being burned in his own state last week, did Yogi Adityanath discover that bulldozers may terrorize those whose homes they crush, but they are incapable of bringing law and order? This happens only when the state is seen to be fair, compassionate, and just. Not even his most ardent fans would use these words to describe the Chief Minister of our largest state.
They see him as a tough ruler who shows no mercy to those who dare to protest or dissent. They applaud the rough justice meted out by their hero when bulldozers are sent into areas where Muslims have protested, and the protests have turned violent. They cheered on primetime shows and social media when the home of Javed Mohammad was reduced to rubble in Prayagraj without proof that he was the ‘mastermind’ of the violence and without proof that it was his house. After his family home was reduced to rubble on live television, it turned out that the house belonged to his wife who inherited it from her father. No questions have been asked yet about why his whole family should be punished for his unproven crime.
In Uttar Pradesh asking too many questions can get you into trouble. And in any case, you are unlikely to get answers. A video of policemen lining up a group of young Muslim men in a Saharanpur police station and beating them mercilessly has been viral for more than a week. But when local police officers were asked about it, they denied that any such thing had happened in Saharanpur until NDTV sent its reporters to identify the youths and talk to their distraught families.
Evidence that rough justice never works came last week when Uttar Pradesh was one of the states in which mobs of angry protestors resorted to arson and vandalism. They turned violent because they believed their dreams of joining the army were being destroyed by the Agnipath scheme which seeks to introduce short-term military service that will render more than 75 per cent of recruits unemployed after a four year ‘tour of duty’. When asked by reporters why they were so angry, these youths said that they had been training to join the army for years and may now find that they were too old to be recruited. The government responded by raising the age limit by a year. Clearly no lessons were learned from the farmers agitation last year. Had they been, then this reform, that may well benefit the army, would have been explained more fully to those who it seeks to benefit. But I digress.
The only point I wish to make this week is that when the state is seen to be lawless, unjust, and partisan, it inevitably loses the authority to impose the law. There are not enough JCBs in India available to tear down the homes of the thousands who rioted last week. Using bulldozers to enforce the law anyway is a primitive idea of justice that gained currency once Bulldozer Baba won a second term. On behalf of the Uttar Pradesh government Harish Salve argued in the Supreme Court that all demolitions were carried out only after due process and proper notices were sent. As one of India’s most compelling lawyers, he persuaded the court not to put an end to bulldozer justice. The court merely said that demolitions should not be done with revenge as a motive.
The judges should have paid attention to what the Home Minister of Madhya Pradesh said when a Hindu religious procession was pelted with stones as it passed by a mosque some weeks ago. The Home Minister is on record saying that those who threw stones would find their homes reduced to stones. It is time to state clearly that revenge, especially against Muslims, has been the main reason for the use of bulldozers. It is time to admit that serious harm has been done to the image of the Indian state because of this bulldozer justice.
A government with an iota of compassion does not order the demolition of homes even when they belong to criminals whose crimes have been proven in a court of law because punishing whole families is not justice but brutality. If Bulldozer Baba has so far gone without censure it is because in the atmosphere of communal hatred that prevails currently, too many people appear to derive pleasure from bulldozers flattening the homes of Muslims. They are ‘traitors’ and ‘anti-national’ after all and so they deserve it has been the unspoken consensus. What happens now?
We know for certain that the angry young men who set trains and buses on fire last week and blocked roads and railway tracks were doing this out of a passionate desire to serve the nation by joining the army. They were enraged only because they believed their dream was being shattered by this new scheme. Will their homes be demolished? Will they be brought to trial at all? Will there be people demanding that their passports, ration cards and all other government benefits be seized from them because of the way they destroyed public property paid for by honest taxpayers? Unlikely.
