Hathras case manifests the deep rot of a lawless state

What Hathras Shows

The overwhelming feeling that comes to mind about the manner in which the Uttar Pradesh administration has handled the alleged rape and barbaric murder of a Dalit girl by her upper caste neighbours in Hathras, and the way the ruling party has responded to the unfolding sordid events, is like that of an occupation force that is at war with the people of India. Long lost are ideas of decency, fairness and at least the modicum of, at least the pretense of, adhering to the rule book and norms that are accepted and understood by all sides in a nation that got its freedom way back in 1947.

We are in a different territory here. This is a new kind of administrative species, not exactly an occupying power but in some cases worse, that invents its own rules, that can be trusted to hit at the victims and perpetuate an atmosphere of fear and control to silence anyone who asks questions. This is the continuing slide in governance of the nation and a continued decimation, indeed eradication, of the very idea of democracy from a nation that had for long remained the lone hope of democracy in the developing world. If there was a democracy meter, we have long fallen below where we were during the Emergency. If there was a governance meter, we have long fallen below some of the nations that are known as banana republics.

The facts of the Hathras case are too horrific to recount. Note that the unpardonable acts of UP police are happening under the direct command of the state’s Home Minister, who is also the state’s saffron-clad Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath. This is a CM who told a TV channel soon after the rituals for the Ram temple in Ayodhya: “My duty is to provide security to the 24-crore people of the state. It is my duty and my religion. And my religion says that evil should be destroyed and good should be promoted…”

He clearly likes to take charge and direct operations. It is the same TV channel that has now been compelled to ask the government how the telephone conversation of its journalist covering the Hathras case was tapped into and then leaked in an attempt to malign and undermine the heroic efforts of the journalist in covering the case against all odds.

What this reveals is the preponderance of illegal activity that is being run straight and direct from important centres of power in India, where sans any legal framework, the people in power are taking arbitrary decisions to arm themselves to fight political battles, to malign anyone standing up to them and spreading hatred and fear among the ordinary citizens of India. This is the same telltale signature of the crime that we can see in part in the case of Sushant Singh Rajput, where WhatsApp conversations were leaked to select channels and every attempt was made to sell a particular version of a story by political operators who often twisted what actually happened in the case.

The nation continues to suffer from horrific crimes against the weak, the downtrodden, the backwards and the Dalits. As it is, UP leads the nation in crime, though the numbers by themselves do not tell us the full story. This takes an uglier turn when we have a government that acts like in a Hollywood Western, gun on the hip, ready to shoot and even take pride in that crime. The number of encounters seen in UP is a cause for alarm. An independent investigation into those who were targeted, killed and reportedly their houses demolished, equally illegally, will tell us a very different story from what the government might wish us to believe. It is beyond doubt that the illegal killings we see in UP are usually against the members of the weakest sections of society.

How can the weaker communities feel safe under such a regime? How is it ever possible for a Yogi Adityanath to control crime when the big picture itself is of lawlessness by the State? The answer, of course, is even more lawlessness, in a downward spiral that will mean more violence, more friction, more deaths in the name of fighting “evil”. Indications are already there. Consider the culture that allows the general secretary of the BJP, Kailash Vijayvargiya, saying this: “Vehicles can overturn anytime in Yogi Adityanath’s state”. He was, of course, referring to the encounter killing of the gangster Vikas Dubey in July at the hands of the UP police. The brazenness of that incident that raises questions of a killing in custody, and the citing of that brazenness to set the stage for more crime, tells us about the depths we have fallen to.

When it comes to handling the administrative machinery of the state, any
state, there is only one rule, one law and one method, and it is called due process. Anything that violates due process promotes crime. Anything that follows due process holds the administration to account for its actions. The police will dare not ever cremate the body of a rape victim, her family locked up in their home, not able to stand by and perform the last rites, a tortured victim on the pyre like a discarded, unwanted body, if it is given a clear message that the rule of the law is to be followed, that due process matters and that any violation will mean that they will have hell to pay. Such liberties are only taken when the team feels it can get away and maybe even get rewarded by pleasing one or the other boss. We must act against the police on the ground. But we must hold the leadership to account.

What has happened in Hathras is a terrible and ugly reminder of the wages we will have to pay when we have a lawless administration running riot on its “evil”-cleansing drive. The Hathras case is only the latest and a cruel reminder to the people of India about where “evil” actually resides.

(The writer is a journalist and faculty member at SPJIMR)

(Syndicate: The Billion Press)