Bharat Bhushan: Political significance of Uttar Pradesh’s bulldozer demolitions

By Dilip -
NB: The RSS/BJP government is destroying the rule of law in plain sight of the judiciary, bureaucrats and police, all of whom are sworn to uphold the Indian Constitution. It takes a minutes or hours to destroy a home and the hearts of its inhabitants; but it will take decades to restore the faith of ordinary citizens in the integrity of our public servants. The cabal now running the country are without conscience and without any principle aside from the worship of power and brute force. The consequences are terrible to imagine, but who cares? DS

The Yogi Adityanath administration has left nobody in any doubt about what the bulldozer demolitions in the state are really about. He and his police force decide who is a ‘criminal’ and dispense justice by demolishing their homes. The judiciary is sought to be propitiated by using the veneer of municipal building planning laws while the demolitions serve a larger ideological purpose of generating fear in the minority community. This has been a successful strategy in Yogi Adityanath winning a second term in office.

Recall that even Prime Minister Modi had endorsed Yogi’s use of bulldozers in the run up to the state assembly elections. Laying the foundation stone of the Ganga Expressway on December 18, 2021, he had said, “When the bulldozer runs over the mafia … the bulldozer runs over the illegal building but the person who is nurturing it feels the pain. That is why the people of UP are saying, ‘UP plus Yogi, bahut hain upyogi (UP plus Yogi is most useful)’.” No court has ever ordered demolition of the home of even a convicted criminal as a form of punishment. This is because there is no law in India which prescribes the demolition of a convicted person’s house as penalty for any offence. The votaries of a ‘strong’ law-and-order state therefore need to hide their use of brute force in the shadow of violation of municipal planning laws.

That municipal building laws are only a fig-leaf to rationalise bulldozer action is evident. Yogi Adityanath has said that the “bulldozer action” is against “criminals” and that he will not spare history-sheeters and mafia. His advisor, Mrityunjay Kumar, referring to the protests that followed on Friday June 10 over insults to the Prophet and the demolition of houses of protestors thereafter, has warned protestors: “Troublemakers must remember -- for every Friday there is a Saturday”. The action is indeed the Yogi government’s “return gift for protestors” as a ruling party legislator described the police brutality against the protestors.

If building laws and planning permissions were indeed implemented uniformly, half the properties in Indian towns and cities would have to be demolished either partially or fully. A recent survey published in national newspapers, for example, found that 35% of a sample of buildings surveyed in Gujarat -- in Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot and Vadodara – were illegal. Not one of them has been demolished. There is no reason to believe that the situation is very different in cities and towns in other states.

Cleaning the Augean stables of planning departments of municipal bodies has been beyond the ken of governments and city administrations up to now. If demolishing illegal constructions was being pursued using bulldozers, then they would have been seen in the houses of all those MPs and Ministers who have constructed illegal home offices, reception areas and guest accommodation within the premises of their vast bungalows in Lutyens Delhi.

One must therefore recognise that the Yogi government in UP is partnering with the ‘official experts of illegalities’ in municipal planning departments of Prayagraj, Saharanpur, Moradabad, and Ambedkar Nagar to pursue its ideological objectives. Working in tandem with the local planning bodies also permits the state government to present the use of bulldozers as an activity that is apolitical, non-ideological and neutral. The cover of municipal planning laws allows the ideological state to thus “normalise” the use of bulldozers for demolition of homes of a targeted class of citizens – mostly Muslim.

However, that is not enough for the brute strength of the state. It also needs to be put on display to consolidate the support of the faithful and instill fear in the hearts of the minority community. It must be a lesson for those who might think of protesting against the state or opposing its policies through mobilising mass demonstrations – they must fear that the next house to be demolished could be theirs. This can only be done if each demolition is publicised and converted into a public spectacle. 

The demolitions in UP (and elsewhere in other BJP-run states) have been telecast live by a pliant media – television, still cameras, reporters broadcasting live - which record the event and underline its theatrical effect. For the benefit of those who could not be eyewitnesses to the demolition, the footage is then repeated in prime-time TV discussions for days on end. This further amplifies the ideological message in which the majority community is expected to take pleasure at the pain of the minority, whose homes are being destroyed in blatant defiance of any sense of justice or human values. Without its theatrical effect, the demolition of homes means little and earns no political capital.

The irreversible process of destroying a home and along with it the lives of real people without a proper judicial process is the new norm for a ‘new India’ being shaped. There is no redressal for it. The strategy seems to be to isolate, contain and control the minority by criminalising entire families and also collectively as a community. Muslims of India are quite likely to see this as part of a systematic attempt by the majoritarian forces to strangulate them economically, socially and culturally. The question, however, is what does the majority community think and how far is it willing to go to protect the idea of a constitutional, secular and inclusive India. Would writing a letter to the Chief Justice of India by a few retired judges be enough or does there need to be a more political response from the mainstream parties?

https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/political-significance-of-uttar-pradesh-s-bulldozer-demolitions-1118558.html



Popular posts from this blog

Third degree torture used on Maruti workers: Rights body

By Dilip -
The People’s Union for Democratic Rights on Tuesday alleged that third degree torture methods were used by the Gurgaon Criminal Investigation Agency while interrogating workers of Maruti Suzuki India Limited’s Manesar plant who are accused of involvement in the killing of an HR manager and the violent attack at the plant on July 18. The PUDR alleged that the Gurgaon CIA investigation “did not seem” to be directed at solving the crime or probing the involvement of the arrested workers in the incidents and crimes recorded in the FIR but instead was based on their involvement in trade union activities. Grave doubts  “The use of third degree torture in police custody, and the securing of arrestees’ signatures on blank papers by the police, gives rise to grave doubts regarding the ability of such an investigation in effectively identifying or arresting those guilty. The police and the State seem keener to reassure Maruti Suzuki Ltd. and ensure that production continues,” the ...
Read more

Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

By Dilip -
According to Murakami, “1Q84” is just an amplification of one of his most popular short stories,   which (in its English version) is five pages long. “Basically, it’s the same,” he told me. “A boy meets a girl. They have separated and are looking for each other. It’s a simple story. I just made it long.” One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl. Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert..." read the story: http://www.youmightfindyourself.com/post/22131227...
Read more

Albert Camus's lecture 'The Human Crisis', New York, March 1946. 'No cause justifies the murder of innocents'

By Dilip -
The morning after a great historical crisis, you feel as sad and sick as after a heavy night. But there is no aspirin for historical hangovers .. The world is no longer divided into the just or unjust, but into masters and slaves. He who is right is he who enslaves.  Albert Camus     La crise de l'homme : THE HUMAN CRISIS   (Text read by Viggo Mortensen on March 28 2016)   Ladies and Gentlemen: when I was invited to give a series of lectures in the United States of America, I felt some doubt and hesitation. I am really not old enough to give lectures, and I am more at ease with the process of thinking than I am making categorical statements... since I don't feel I have any claim on what is generally called the truth. I shared this reservation and was very politely told that my personal opinion didn't matter. What mattered was that I'd be able to offer some facts about France so that my listeners could form their own opinions. It was then suggested...
Read more

The Almond Trees by Albert Camus (1940)

By Dilip -
Image
'Do you know', Napoleon once said to Fontanes, 'what astounds me most about the world?  The impotence of force to establish anything.  There are only two powers in the world: the sword and the mind.  In the end, the sword is always conquered by the mind' Conquerors, you see, are sometimes melancholy.  They have to pay some price for so much vainglory. But what a hundred years ago was true of the sword is no longer true today of the tank. Conquerors have made progress, and the dismal silence of places without intelligence has been established for years at a time in a lacerated Europe. At the time of the hideous wars of Flanders, Dutch painters could still perhaps paint the cockerels in their farmyards. The Hundred Years War has likewise been forgotten, and yet the prayers of Silesian mystics still linger in some hearts. But today, things have changed; the painter and the monk have been drafted - we are one with the world.  The mind has lost that regal certai...
Read more

Etel Adnan - To Be In A Time Of War

By Dilip -
NB: Etel Adnan, writer, poet, artist and musician was born in 1925 and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. Her mother was a Greek from Smyrna, her father, a high ranking Ottoman officer born in Damascus. This prose poem is the final chapter of her book  In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country .  Read more about her here  - DS To Be In A Time Of War To say nothing, do nothing, mark time, to bend, to straighten up, to blame oneself, to stand, to go toward the window, to change one’s mind in the process, to return to one’s chair, to stand again, to go to the bathroom, to close the door, to then open the door, to go to the kitchen, to not eat nor drink, to return to the table, to be bored, to take a few steps on the rug, to come close to the chimney, to look at it, to find it dull, to turn left until the main door, to come back to the room, to hesitate, to go on, just a bit, a trifle, to stop, to pull the right side of the curtain, then the other side, ...
Read more

After the Truth Shower

By Dilip -
Dear Readers Thank you for reading my blog for the past eleven years. (This is a link to the new one) During this time it has had nearly 1.7 million hits; and I have posted over 9500 posts covering a variety of themes. From July 11 to 19, 2022, my blog was withdrawn by the Blogger administration on account of what its machinery suspected to be 'Impersonation'. It took over a week and the efforts of several well-wishers to get it back online I thank them all for their kindness and goodwill  My blog has always been - and remains - non-commercial. I have used it for academic purposes; and to foster a culture of debate and informed commentary in civil society. Because it contains a large amount of material gathered and collated for over a decade, I cannot afford to lose its contents. I hope it will remain undisturbed now and function as an archive. However, I have decided to use a new blog on WordPress as a platform for my newest comments and posts The new blog is titled After the...
Read more

James Gilligan on Shame, Guilt and Violence

By Dilip -
Shame, Guilt, and Violence / James Gilligan During the past 35 years I have used prisons and prison mental hospitals as "laboratories" in which to investigate the causes and prevention of the various forms of violence and the relationships between these forms and to what I will call (with a nod to William James) "the varieties of moral experience." In the course of that work, I have been struck by the frequency with which I received the same answer when I asked prisoners, or mental patients, why they assaulted or even killed someone. Time after time, they would reply "because he disrespected me" or "he disrespected my visitor [or wife, mother, sister, girl-friend, daughter, etc.]." In fact, they used that phrase so often that they abbreviated it into the slang phrase, "He dis'ed me." Whenever people use a word so often that they abbreviate it, it is clearly central to their moral and emotional vocabulary. But even when they did n...
Read more