Pratap Bhanu Mehta - Thoki Raj: Creating order by trampling on law is one of the elements of Adityanath’s ideological success

By Dilip - Friday, July 10, 2020

NB: The inclination to lawlessness is embedded in the political culture of the so-called Sangh Parivar; moreover it has spread through civil society. Some resist it, others encourage it and use it. The tendency was clear in the murder of Gandhiji, not to mention the involvement of the Congress in the mass carnage of Sikh citizens in 1984. Private armies, privatised violence and ideological subversion of policing and the justice system are destroying Indian democracy, and no one's hands are clean. Those who swore loyalty to the Constitution upon taking office and then proceeded to destroy it for their selfish purposes are criminals, nothing more, nothing less. They need not complain about Maoist violence, all they need to do is look in the mirror. DS

Thoki Raj: Creating order by trampling on law

The killing of Vikas Dubey and the chain of events leading up to it throw a spotlight on governance in Uttar Pradesh and police reform more generally. The Adityanath political dispensation in UP is unique. Many Indian states tolerate acts of impunity and selectively suspend the rule of law. The Adityanath regime is explicitly ideologically committed to what is colloquially known as “thoki raj,” named after a statement attributed to the chief minister, “agar apradh karenge toh thok diye jayenge.”

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This was evidenced in the way the cases against the CM himself were withdrawn. It was even more frighteningly in evidence in the way in which the government sought to quell the anti-CAA protests, by arbitrarily attaching people’s properties in ways that had no legal backing and prejudged guilt. Independent journalist Neha Dixit’s brave reporting on police violence in UP has been showing that, by the government’s own admission, even as early as February 2018, UP police was conducting four encounters a day, killing up to 40 people. The UP government seems to deploy the National Security Act against a variety of offences, as if using this Act were imposing a minor fine. Nowhere has a use of state violence been elevated to such an ideological raison d’etre. Creating order by trampling on law is one of the elements of Adityanath’s ideological success.

So while the killing of Vikas Dubey has parallels elsewhere, there is also a specific ideological context here. Dubey comes across as the kind of gangster who epitomises both the banality and horror of UP politics. He allegedly killed eight policemen with impunity, and was accused in several heinous crimes. But he was also part of a social and political power structure whose needs he served. In a political culture where demand for the rule of law is considered cruelty, and vengeance is considered humanising, no one is likely to lose sleep over this killing. But it is important we don’t lose sight of three points….

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/vikas-dubey-encounter-case-up-police-6499823/

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