Popularly elected governments using bulldozers in the name of efficient governance is nothing but height of barbarism. That is what the country witnessed recently in North India. In the three states where bulldozers have been put to use to discipline people resorting to violence -- Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and the National Capital Delhi -- the worst affected are the poor marginalized Muslims. 

Not only have their life’s savings been reduced to rubble in a matter of minutes, but their livelihoods too have been destroyed. Ours is supposed to be a democracy based on a written Constitution which guarantees fundamental right to life, livelihood and property.

Have our civil servants, the police and the judiciary lost their belief in the rule of law so completely that they obey the illegal orders of elected representatives of the people without applying their mind. As a reporter who has covered Hindu-Muslim conflict in North India in the 1980s and 1990s, I am convinced that riots are deliberately planned and executed by politicians with the connivance of local administration and the police with ulterior motives.

Polarising the population on religious and caste lines is a very sure way to win elections. Riots help in dividing the people. Delhi Municipal elections are overdue; elections to some states are not far away. Riots are engineered also to reduce a particular religious or caste group, which is doing well economically, to penury.

Obviously, there is method in the madness. The bulldozer operation has taken the popularity of the Chief Ministers of both Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh to new heights. While Yogi Adityanath has become ‘Bulldozer Baba’, Shivraj Singh Chouhan has become ‘Bulldozer Mama.’

In Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi, most of the arrested and the accused are Muslims. Most of the people whose houses and shops have been demolished are also Muslims. In Madhya Pradesh, three Muslim youths who have been in jail when riots took place have been named in the FIR registered against the rioters. A Muslim youth who lost both his arms in an accident has also been accused of stone-throwing.

In Delhi, bulldozers continued to operate for two hours even after the Supreme Court of India ordered status quo to be maintained. In this context what senior advocate Dushyant Dave said in the Supreme Court is very pertinent: “This case raises far-reaching questions of constitutional and national importance…Is bulldozer an instrument of state policy? Particular section of the society is being targeted. This is the warning constitutional framers gave us. They spoke about this eventuality.” 

“There are 731 unauthorised colonies in Delhi with 15 lakh people. How do you target only one area since you target only one community? All homes in Jahangirpuri are more than 30 years old and shops are 50 years old. Most people living here are poor. If you want to remove encroachments, come to Sainik Farms, come to Golf Links where I stay where every second home has an encroachment. But you do not touch it at all,” Dave added.

Encroachments are a serious problem all over India but the issue is that only Muslims are being associated with encroachments. When processions are carried out and frictions occur, houses of only one community are bulldozed.

There are several illegalities in the demolition and subsequent action carried out in the Muslim dominated areas of Jahangirpuri. No notice whatsoever was issued to the owners of the shops and wayside stalls that were demolished. 

The demolition drive in Jahangirpuri was launched after communal clashes on Hanuman Jayanti celebrations on 16th April. On 17th April, following the communal clashes, Delhi BJP President Adesh Gupta had asked North MCD Mayor Raja Iqbal Singh for the identification and demolition of “illegal encroachment” and constructions by those arrested in the Jahangirpuri violence. Bulldozers should run over the constructions made by those arrested, Gupta is reported to have told the Mayor.

On 17th early morning, 17 people were arrested, 14 of them Muslims, and charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the stringent National Security Act. Therefore, it was very clear whom the BJP president had in mind when he said that the bulldozers should run over.

Mayor Iqbal Singh whose North MCD has the maximum number of complaints about encroachments (more than 4000 complaints are pending) wasted no time to launch a heartless and brutal demolition drive in the Muslim-dominated areas of Jahangirpuri. The demolitions continued for two hours after the Supreme Court directed the MCD to stop it. Part of a Masjid which was built more than 40 years ago too was demolished. However, the Mandir situated opposite the Masjid was spared. 

Union Home Minister Amit Shah held an exclusive meeting with Delhi BJP leaders on April 20 to discus the aftermath of the communal flare up and the ruthless demolition drive. This was different from the normal practice. In the past, whenever peace was disturbed in the National Capital, the Home Minister used to hold an all-party meeting to discuss steps to be taken to restore peace. What transpired in the Home Minister’s meeting is not known.

But the BJP’s intentions have been made clear by Baijayant Panda, the party vice-president and in-charge of Delhi, in his interview to the Indian Express (April 21). ‘Just like certain places in Europe, Sweden, Holland and Belgium – it seems illegal immigrants (read Muslims) have created no go zones in Delhi,’ Panda said. “We have seen them using illegal arms and working from illegal constructions. You can see the demeanour of those people, dressed like dons,” he added. 

The poor marginalized Muslims of Jahangirpuri who eke out a living by collecting and selling scrap, or second had clothes, or even rag picking have been overnight given the status of dons by Panda, who, one will do well to remember, was until a little while ago was the chief spokesperson of Biju Janata Dal.