Shikha Mukerjee | On bulldozers, bail and bad faith in the Leviathan state

When the Supreme Court pulled him up on the issue of following rules for bulldozing built structures that encroach on public land or violate the rules of municipalities and municipal corporations, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s response is a classic example of delinquency. “Bulldozer chalane ke liye himmat chahiye”. It takes courage to use bulldozers, he said. In other words, the law is not important, the ability to use force is all that matters.

Not happy with the political challenge he faced after the rap on the knuckles, Mr Adityanath lashed out: “Those who bow to rioters and mafia – how would they use bulldozers?” He tried to defend his actions by returning to his familiar attack of accusing the Samajwadi Party and its leader Akhilesh Yadav of harbouring criminals and mischief-makers.

For Mr Adityanath, it was irrelevant that the Supreme Court held him responsible for the misdeeds of his government; he was unaware that the petitioners who argued that the rule of law should be upheld by the governments of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Haryana were not necessarily rioters or the mob. By turning the issue into a political confrontation, the BJP leader justified the violations that the Supreme Court had found disturbing.

This chest-thumping, toxic display of authority is a form of government intimidation, like punishment meted out by kangaroo courts. It not only violates the rights of citizens, it is also a violation of the law.

A bulldozer government destroys the checks on power that the elected executive must exercise to do its job in good faith.

Bad faith or misconduct seems to be gaining the upper hand as more and more actions by various governments are prompting the judiciary to react in shocking terms in a democracy that prides itself on being a democracy for over seven decades. The Supreme Court pulled up Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami over the appointment of a director of the Rajaji Tiger Reserve, it was reported to have observed: “The Chief Minister cannot take such a decision… We are not living in the feudal era where raja jaise bole waisa karein” (the king must be obeyed).

Every time the Supreme Court reminds an ‘agency’ of the Union government that bail, not jail, is the rule of law, it is a warning that survival of the fittest is becoming the norm and that prolonged incarceration is possible simply because the ruling regime feels an individual should remain in prison.

The problem is that judicial decisions must be enforced. When a government justifies the use of bulldozers or insists that jail time, not bail, must be the norm, regardless of what the Supreme Court says, then democracy is surely in danger.

The BJP can be put in the dock for electing leaders who seem to have little faith in the rule of law and a constitutional structure of governance in which the functions of the executive, legislature and judiciary are fairly clearly separated. If Mr Adityanath is considered the inventor of bulldozer justice, then Mr Dhami is the epitome of a new feudal order and Prime Minister Narendra Modi the role model for creating the cult of a leader who had the “courage” to get things done, like the sudden announcement of demonetisation and the shock of a sudden lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since 2014, the idea that a majority of seats in the legislature is a license to push aside the opposition and critics has become normalized. The ease with which public perception believes that, with power concentrated in the hands of the elected executive and used to manipulate decision-making by independent and autonomous institutions, not excluding the judiciary, underscores that “government” means unchecked power.

Blaming the BJP for producing negligent leaders and making things unpleasant for the common man is wrong. There is a growing decline in public trust in all institutions, be it the government in power which is seen as manipulative, the legislature which is seen as a rubber stamp of the ruling majority party and even the judiciary which is suspected of being biased towards those in power, is bad for democracy.

The public outcry over the rape and murder of the junior doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata is a case in point. The public that has been protesting on the streets for the past month believes that certainly not the ruling Trinamul Congress, nor any other political party or institution, can be trusted to reveal the facts, identify the culprits and deliver justice to the victim. It all comes down to perceptions.

The lynching of Aryan Mishra, a class 12 student in Haryana, is just another tragedy that seems to have failed to evoke outrage. Lynchings by cow vigilantes have become the second order of collective protests against the government’s failure to maintain law and order. When perceptions determine the scale of crime, there is a danger that other crimes will temporarily become the focus of public attention, and other crimes will be downgraded to a lesser order of misconduct.

This widespread belief that all political parties are equally bad once in power distorts the way voters make choices when elections come around. When rules-based governance is seen as the exception, governments become a mere facade and power is in the hands of a parallel “system” where deals are made and illegalities are managed. The only remedy for an aggrieved citizen is to go to court. As the perception has grown that the lower courts do not deliver justice through impartial application of the law, the Supreme Court has become the last and desperate resort.

There is a danger in this desperation. It upsets the balance between the various institutions for maintaining the order of things within the state. A popular judiciary is as much a danger to democracy as an overly populist government. There is a difference between mafia raj and elected rajas and prime ministers who believe that it takes courage to use bulldozers and a reasonably healthy elected government that will act in good faith. Political parties can dream of running a Leviathan state; that should not deter the voter from thinking and acting differently.