‘Who lives if
India dies’
Like the deadly Guillotine of the French Revolution, the
Bulldozer has become a symbol of state power in New India. Thousands of people
were beheaded in public by the Guillotine during the 1789 Revolution without trial. Instead of fearing the death machine, the French peasants celebrated the
guillotine, composing boisterous songs in its praise, deriving a vicarious
feeling of power over their enemies. The masses loved the revolutionary chaos
and felt exhilarated by the rendering of quick justice to those suspected of
being enemies of the Revolution. It looks that for the rulers of New
India, the Bulldozer is set to do what the Guillotine did for the French Revolutionaries.
The parking of bulldozers at the UP-Assembly election rallies of Yogi
Adityanath amply demonstrated this reality.
We saw a sizable section of Indian people rejoicing
the bulldozing of shops and houses of the poor, particularly of the minority community,
for alleged ‘illegal encroachment’, and getting a sadistic pleasure in the instant
justice. We saw recently the bulldozer as the avenging arm to punish those who dared
to violate the sanctity of Hindu religious processions- no matter how provocative
and violent they turned out to be- carried to celebrate Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti,
without proving them guilty. Why follow the due process of law when the people
who matter have identified the culprits! What does it matter if any of those
living in the demolished houses or earning their livelihood through the wrecked
shops were innocent! Even assuming that the accused persons were guilty of
stone pelting during the processions, how do we justify the collective punishment
of the entire family, rendering them homeless, and loss of their livelihood!
It is a crime against humanity. That the organizers of the processions didn't' have the police permission and the people were brandishing the arms-sticks knives, swords and guns- raising offensive slogans in front of mosques meant no offence. This is the New India, that makes every proud Indian feel outrageous and hang his head in utter shame
The Jahangirpuri incident in North Delhi on April
20,2022 is a continuation of the model which has been successfully tried out in
UP and MP. The UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath considered it a badge of
honour when he is nicknamed the ‘bulldozer baba’ for using the heavy-duty
machines against those who protested against the CAA and those declared ‘anti-social
‘elements. Taking the cue from Yogi, MP
Chief Minsker Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been using bulldozers against the
alleged violators of the law, belonging to one community. In Khargone, the
clash was between the police and some processionists. However, it was used as a
ruse to demolish the houses in the compound of a mosque. The authorities conducted
themselves as the accuser, the judge and the executioner. The bulldozer has now
become a symbol of brute state power and a revolving mascot to intimidate
minorities.
Where is India heading? A Hindu supremacist society seemingly
without humanity which is violent, targeting minorities, and the state acting
above the law. According to Rammanohar Reddy, Editor, The India Forum, “Our ‘Naya’
India is one of revenge and hate towards an imagined other… It is one where, across
India, gangs go about terrorising Muslims …It is one where the leadership of
the dominant political party is silent-because this violence solidifies hate
and reaps electoral dividends …It is one where the victims of violence are turned
into suspects and thrown into jail without bail.” The bulldozer violence is the new trend in the
march of state-encouraged communal violence. It is the consolidation of the
vote on communal lines. And “it is pointless to ask the political leadership to
speak out against mob violence when it is a part of a larger political
atmosphere that has been harnessed so successfully at the polls.”
In his article, ‘With Eyes Wide Open’ (IE 21/4)
Pratap Bhanu Mehta observes: “It is a measure of our perversion as a society that
Ram and Hanuman are now tropes to prepare the ideological groundwork for pogroms.
The communal frenzy that has accompanied Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti should
leave us in no doubt about the direction in which India is headed… All the
arguments that we used about majoritarian communalism in India no longer hold …The
orgies of hate and prejudice are not aberrations. They are now the norm…. It is
the one factoid they are looking for to sustain their insidious lie that Hinduism
will not be safe unless minorities are shown their place if not erased.” Justice
A.P. Shah, former Law Commission Chairman, in an interview with Karan Thapar,
said, the institutions are used to kill democracy, with polarization of people on
communal lines becoming a national character, and weakening of the constitution
systematically. He says, “these are dangerous
times.”
More than hundred ex-bureaucrats, including Julio Ribeiro, former Mumbai Police Commissioner and DGP Punjab, wrote a letter to Narendra Modi on April 26, expressing concern for hate- filled destruction in the country. They spoke: “the relentless pace at which the constitutional edifice created by our founding fathers is being destroyed…The escalation of hate violence against the minority communities, particularly Muslims, across several states-Assam, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, all states in which the BJP is in power, barring Delhi (where the Union government controls the police) has acquired a frightening new dimension…What is alarming is the subordination of the fundamental principles of our Constitution and of the rule of law to the forces of majoritarianism, in which the state appears to be fully complicit.”
The politics of revenge must end. Unless the agent provocateurs, bent on fueling hatred and violence and spreading communal venom, and the bureaucrats responsible for the demolition of shops and houses, without following the due process of law, and applying criminal laws arbitrarily and selectively are punished, there can be no justice. Otherwise, it may lead to civil unrest, disturbing peace and communal harmony in the country. The Stat should be seen to be an impartial arbiter of justice. It is the denial of justice that breeds criminals.
The beloved mother India is bleeding. In the present context, it is important to invoke the slogan
that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru raised during the freedom struggle: “Who lives if
India dies.” What happens to India, if a
diverse multi-religious -cultural society is destroyed?
The Ex-bureaucrats hit back at their peers' letter to Prime Minister Modi. In a letter to Modi on April 30, a group of retired judges and civil servants have questioned the motive behind the open letter dated April 26 to Modi by the ex-bureaucrats (108) seeking his intervention to end the hate politics in the country. In their letter, the group, compromising 8 former judges, 97 former bureaucrats and 92 retired officers of the armed forces, have accused their peers of issuing “agenda-driven politicized statements.” The signatories include ex- Sikkim High Court Chief Justice Permod Kholi, ex-foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal, ex-RAW Chief Sanjeev Tripathi and ex-Delhi Police Commissioner B.S.Bassi. They accused their peers of “anti-Modi government exercise…attempting to engineer hate against the present government… This is a way for them to release their frustration that public opinion remains solidly behind Prime Minister Modi as recent state elections have shown. Their anger and anguish is not only empty virtue-signaling they are actually fueling the politics of hate.” The public-spirited citizens are not even expected to express their concern with their Prime Minister. Instead of the PM responding to their letter, the group has taken the responsibility of defending the hate mongers, thus attempting to preempt any response from the Modi government. This is a new disturbing trend in public discourse in the world’s largest democracy, making any reasoned discussion and debate impossible.
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