Taking cue from Israeli action against Palestinians, authorities in India used bulldozers to terrorize Muslims in New Delhi in mid-April 2022.
Bulldozers, trucks and police force reached New Delhi’s Jahangirpuri, Shaheen Bagh and Madanpur Khadar and some 3,000 other low-income, Muslim majority localities on the pretext of removing illegal encroachments. What used to be the job of police, investigating agency and courts is now being done by the municipal authorities and states.
Other state leaders in India are replicating the trend that was started by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in 2018. The UP government has been using bulldozers against alleged mafias and gangsters in the state. While the opposition parties in the state have been criticizing the government for its insensitivity, the Yogi government has claimed the method has helped maintain law and order in the state. This has even earned Yogi the title of ‘Bulldozer Baba’.
Following Yogi’s footsteps, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan carried out a similar drive in his state of Madhya Pradesh earlier this month. Sixteen houses and 29 shops were razed to ground after the communal riots broke out during the Ram Navami procession. The lawmakers alleged that the houses belonged to Muslims who pelted stones at the Hindu religious procession. Even before an investigation could be carried out in the matter, the state government sent in bulldozers to raze structures occupied by Muslims.
Incidentally, some of the demolished houses were built under the Central Government Housing Scheme. Chief Minister announced later that the houses would be reconstructed.
While the opposition parties in the state have been criticizing the government for its insensitivity, the Yogi government has claimed the method has helped maintain law and order in the state. This has even earned Yogi the title of ‘Bulldozer Baba’.
Retired police officer Vibhuti Narain Rai, who has witnessed several such riots during his career, recalls: “There have been times when a bulldozer reached to demolish a house from where stones were pelted at religious procession. On reaching the site, the officers learnt that the house belonged to a Hindu and Muslims lived there as tenants. So instead to demolishing that house, they demolished the adjacent house that belonged to a Muslim who had no role in rioting.”
He adds, “Even if one or two members of the household were involved in the riots, the act of demolition of the house punishes also other family members who probably were not involved in the violence.” And, then, the state announces to rebuild the structures, only to further burden the exchequer.
Polarisation: BJP’s Time Tested Formula
For the incumbent BJP, polarisation is a time tested formula for winning elections. The recent incident at Shaheen Bagh is meant to keep the communal sentiment brewing ahead of the municipal elections due in New Delhi.
New Delhi has no dearth of illegal structures and encroachments. Street after streets are filled with such structures. But rolling in bulldozers in Shaheen Bagh drives across a strong message.
This is the same locality whose women carried out almost four months long protest in 2019-20 against the Citizenship Amendment Act. The Shaheen Bagh protests, also referred to as a new chapter of the Civil Disobedience Movement, had caused great embarrassment to the Modi government. Bulldozing Muslim households in the name of illegal constructions was probably one possible way of settling scores with the residents.
The recent incident at Shaheen Bagh is meant to keep the communal sentiment brewing ahead of the municipal elections due in New Delhi.
Fascist-Nazi and RSS
Bulldozers have been used by fascist regimes in the past. German dictator Hitler’s project to redevelop Berlin as Germania involved bringing down over 23,000 structures, most of which belonged to Jews. These homeless Jews were later put into concentration camps, and then into the gas chambers.
The Israel government too has time and again used bulldozers to demolish the Arab settlements along the West Bank.
Flipping through the pages of Indian history, when democracy had come under threat under the regime of Indira Gandhi, New Delhi witnessed a similar scene. During the months of India’s Emergency in 1976, slums and illegal settlements were flattened at Delhi’s Turkman Gate. Several shops around Jama Masjid too were demolished under the garb of beautification.
Dr Tasleem Rehmani of Muslim Political Council of India says, “Bulldozer has been a tool used by all fascist dictators and right wing groups, from Hitler to Mussolini, from Israeli leaders to India’s former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The RSS- BJP too has learned from Fascists and Nazis who are their ideological mentors.
But just as all dictators were made to bite the dust, this regime too will face the same consequence, if it fails to work within the constitutional framework of India.”
