By Sushil Kutty
Is the United States tough on crime? The answer is yes. How about compared to India? Forget it! India isn’t tough by half. India is too full of democracy and judicial activism. The Indian judiciary pardons more than it punishes. Criminals and potential criminals don’t fear the judiciary. The system favours the rapists and murderers. Investigation is riddled with gaping holes. Criminals get away with murder, literally. The criminal justice system leaves people scratching their heads or banging their heads. Rapists of 4-year-old toddlers are let off with “even sinners have a future.”
What about the 4-year-old’s future, don’t innocents have a future? Right question. But who is going to question the honourable justices? Therefore, the popularity for bulldozer action and bulldozer justice. For Chief Ministers like Yogi Adityanath, bulldozer justice serves two purposes. One, it makes a dent on crime and criminal intent. Two, it pays politically. It is a counter to judges and justices who have a soft corner.
Of late, there is a hue and cry over ‘bulldozer justice’. Among those talking tough on ‘bulldozer justice’ are the right honourable Supreme Court justices. Media too has chipped in against ‘bulldozer justice’. Hacks by the dozens aren’t mincing words. Most journalists view Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath the last of the barbarians on dearth.
Yogi Adityanath with the clean-shaven pate should hold his bulldozer back is the talk of the town after neighbouring Madhya Pradesh saw its own bulldozer justice when the Madhya Pradesh Police oversaw the demolition of the palatial mansion of a Congress leader who happened to be Muslim and Muslims are fair game for bulldozers, so went the narrative.
It is another matter that Madhya Pradesh’s BJP Chief Minister Mohan Yadav had picked a thing or two in dealing bulldozer justice from the Yogi. Simple: Bulldoze illegal encroachments and by the grace of the Almighty, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath makes sure all his targets are illegal encroachments. The palatial mansion that Mohan Yadav ordered razed to the ground also happened to be the fruit of a criminal enterprise.
Point is, how can all the illegal encroachments be the handiwork of Muslims alone, nabbed for different acts of crime? Somebody should research and write a thesis. Chief Ministers Yogi Adityanath and Mohan Yadav shouldn’t be given excuses to justify ‘bulldozer justice’. What can the courts do if the homes and bakeries of rapists and murderers turn out to illegal encroachments, government land grabbed under the very nose of government babus hand in glove with criminals?
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s police and governments officials just recently demolished the bakery of the rapist who raped and impregnated a 12-year-old girl of the Nishad community. The Samajwadi Party, to which the rapist belonged, went ballistic, especially former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, who has since promised that the state’s bulldozers will head for Yogi’s Gorakhpur Matt if and when the Samajwadi Party returns to power.
It was a threat. Akhilesh Yadav has given notice to Yogi. The Chief Minister laughed off the threat. Beating the Yogi in 2027, the year when the next UP assembly elections will be held, won’t be a piece of cake though beating the BJP in the soon-to-be held bypolls in 10 assembly segments is anybody’s guess.
The tough talk of both protagonists, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Samajwadi Party Supremo Akhilesh Yadav, is setting the stage for the bypolls and the bulldozer justice dealt by the Yogi is right in the middle of the election campaigns of both parties. The Yogi is consolidating Hindus around bulldozer justice and Akhilesh Yadav is spreading his ‘PDA’ around the highhandedness of ‘bulldozer action’.
Now, the Supreme Court has intervened and the Opposition is with fingers crossed. The SC made it clear that no government can carry out indiscriminate bulldozer action. The feeling is that henceforth, Chief Ministers Yogi Adityanath and Mohan Yadav would think twice before taking bulldozer action. The top court has its “eyes” on the bulldozers.
The Yogi on his part didn’t seem to flinch. The top court actually praised the Yogi’s bulldozer action as the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister had made sure his bulldozers always downed illegal structures. Uttar Pradesh is jam-packed with illegal encroachments — on the riverbanks, on forest land, on Wakf properties, on railway land…
Yogi’s bulldozers are finding targets across Uttar Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav got into the act only recently, but he has tasted blood! Make no mistake, bulldozer justice will be dealt despite and in spite of the Supreme Court’s intervention. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath says his bulldozers go after criminals only and it is nobody’s fault that Samajwadi Party is a criminal enterprise.
A valid criticism that Yogi Adityanath faces is that his police and demolition squads raze to the ground not just a criminal’s residence but that of an entire family’s home. What is the fault of the wife and children of a criminal? The children and wife of a rapist and murderer; in some instances, children of more than one wife!
The Yogi is unfazed by such criticism. If the USA is tough on crime, it is because police and local administration in US cities, plagued by the frequent shootings in schools and malls, arrest the perpetrator’s father and mother for the crime committed. In a latest, the father of the 14-year-old Georgia high school shooter was arrested. and charged with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree murder and cruelty to children.
“He “knowingly allowed his son to possess a weapon,” said the FBI.
So what is anti-bulldozer justice folks complaining about? Bulldozer action on the homes of alleged perpetrators is a deterrent and a warning to potential rapists and murderers. Bulldozer action and bulldozer justice has made Yogi Adityanath extremely popular among Hindu voters. The chief ministers of all BJP-ruled states are into bulldozer action. The Supreme Court’s promised guidelines will not slow down the bulldozer action of the three musketeers. (IPA Service)
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