The anatomy of bulldozer justice : The Tribune India

Nov 21, 2023

Follow Us

Epaper

Login / Register

A-

A+

Updated At:Aug 18, 202305:58 AM (IST)

Illegal construction: There is a procedure that has to be followed before the bulldozer is brought into play. PTI

Julio Ribeiro

THE bulldozer was used in Haryana to mete out justice. It brought down houses, shops, hotels and restaurants, starting from the very first building on the road in Nuh along which a Hindu religious procession was organised by the VHP. Hundreds of buildings or shanties were razed by the state before a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court intervened.

The BJP’s goal of the consolidation of Hindu votes has succeeded to the extent that the party is now in the pole position in the electoral race.

Dispensing bulldozer justice was the brainchild of Yogi Adityanath, the BJP Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. A known Muslim-baiter who has mellowed down, he conceived of ‘encounter’ justice to keep criminals in check. Since poverty is the recruiting ground for crime, he would kill two birds with one stone. It is because of poverty that many of the state’s criminals hail from the Muslim community.

CM Yogi became vastly popular in UP with his directions to the police force to bring down notorious criminals. To his credit, it must be said that he tried not to discriminate between the two communities, especially in really bad cases. Vikas Dubey, who had a dozen or so policemen killed in an ambush, was himself shot by a police party.

Yogi then thought about taming rioters who damaged public property. The bulldozer became the symbol of punishment. Those who were suspected of destroying property had their dwellings demolished. The legal explanation for ’encounter’ killings was self-defence. Since this excuse was not available when the bulldozer was brought into use, irregular construction was advanced as the reason for municipal or government action.

The Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court has been scathing in its observations of the bulldozer’s use in Nuh. It noted that all the assets destroyed belonged to just one community and asked if the intention of the government was sinister. It also pulled up the government for not following its own rules before demolishing built-up structures. The most basic requirement is to give a written notice of its intention to demolish, which was not done!

The rioting in Nuh started when the VHP took out a religious procession through a Muslim locality. The intention, of course, was to provoke the minority community to react, which it did. Was such a procession taken along that particular route before? Why was it permitted? Why was Mohit Yadav aka Monu Manesar, a known trouble-maker owing allegiance to the Bajrang Dal, and wanted for the murder of two Muslim cattle traders, allowed to circulate a video urging Hindus to join the VHP procession in large numbers?

The entire episode of rioting in Nuh, which spread to Gurugram, a commercial hub where many big-ticket corporates have their offices, smacks of an organised attempt to stoke communal passions prior to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. If my guess is correct, the next conclusion that can be drawn is that the Sangh Parivar is not sure of victory in 2024 and hence its recourse to division and provocation to nudge fence-sitters to join the majoritarian clamour.

The two judges of the High Court must be complimented for standing up for what is right and just. How can the executive go about dispensing ‘bulldozer justice’ which is not sanctioned by law? Even the reasonable and normally law-abiding Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has indulged in this monstrosity. No judicial authority had sanctioned demolition and yet it was effected!

Municipal and local government bodies are empowered to demolish illegal constructions. But there is a procedure that has to be followed before the bulldozer is brought into play. If unauthorised construction is in progress, a ‘stop work’ order is first issued. In Nuh, the buildings were in existence for many years. How were they allowed to be built and who was responsible for stopping the illegality? Were the erring municipal or local government officials ever punished? If not, why was this particular occasion chosen to punish the occupiers without proof of their participation in the riots?

If punishment to such offenders includes destruction of their homes and their sources of income, there should be a law passed to enable that to be done. There is no such law at present, which means that the state itself has turned rogue! The majoritarian state cannot let its animus against the minority community lead it to commit patent illegalities.

Around 50 panchayats in Haryana have decided not to allow Muslims to trade in their respective jurisdictions. Such instructions offend the Constitution’s provisions. A legitimate source of livelihood cannot be denied to any citizen of this country, and certainly not because of his or her religion.

I had a good friend who had settled in Ahmedabad after he retired as the head of the state’s police force. He was a devout Hindu who walked every day barefoot to the nearest temple. But he had no prejudices against people of other faiths. His privately employed driver was a Muslim. During the 2002 disturbances, VHP activists phoned him daily to get rid of his Muslim driver! Not only did he refuse to stoop to that level, he also kept the man at his house for two months till the communal frenzy had abated. My friend had been Ahmedabad’s Police Commissioner and knew the VHP’s operatives who used to phone him.

The BJP’s goal of the consolidation of Hindu votes has succeeded to the extent that the party is now in the pole position in the electoral race. It is time to revise the strategy now, lest the unity required for the country to progress is destroyed irreparably. Characters like Monu Manesar need to be reined in. That will require a signal from the PM or the Home Minister.

#Nuh

A-

A+

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

India retains tag of world’s fastest-growing major economy a...

There’s no clarity on the agenda of the session

Decision on dissolution of panchayats backfired and caused h...

In addition to vibrations recorded during Pragyan rover’s na...

The top court’s Registry said a fake website, imitating the ...

View All

The Tribune, now published from Chandigarh, started publication on February 2, 1881, in Lahore (now in Pakistan). It was started by Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia, a public-spirited philanthropist, and is run by a trust comprising four eminent persons as trustees.

The Tribune, the largest selling English daily in North India, publishes news and views without any bias or prejudice of any kind. Restraint and moderation, rather than agitational language and partisanship, are the hallmarks of the newspaper. It is an independent newspaper in the real sense of the term.

The Tribune has two sister publications, Punjabi Tribune (in Punjabi) and Dainik Tribune (in Hindi).

Remembering Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia

Designed and Developed by: Grazitti Interactive