<p>This week, parts of north-east Delhi burned in a pogrom. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won seats in the recent state elections there. Lower middle-class Hindus and Muslims live in proximity here. Delhi Police had information about tension mounting up over several days. This was over protests, against and for the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the National Register for Citizens and the National Population Register. The former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and now BJP leader Kapil Mishra made an incendiary speech. Once again, like other leaders in his party, he has gone unpunished for incitement. If someone can get away with press-the-button-so-hard-so-that-the-current-is-felt-in-Shaheen-Bagh comment, what is a mere Mishra or Anurag Thakur?</p>.<p>In many instances, Delhi Police either stood as a bystander or watched as individuals studiously collected bricks to throw or beat up people, forcing them to sing the national anthem. At one point, the public relations officer of Delhi Police, M S Randhawa, said the “situation [is] under control”. In the Jamia Milia Islamia violence, Delhi Police played the role of the violator. In the Jawaharlal Nehru University attacks, it was the passive perpetrator. In the recent conflagration, it was both. As we know, the proportion of Muslims in India’s police forces is very poor. The Delhi victims have included Muslims, Hindus and policemen. Muslim and Hindu residents of this area have complained that their calls to the police for help went unheard. Having had prior intimation, what authorities will account for those deaths? Who will have to answer for the damage to lives, livelihoods and property?</p>.<p>If the condition of a police force is the barometer for the health of a society, these last few months mark the death of Delhi. As an idea, as a feeling, as an emotion, surely, as the capital of India, as a place that holds real power in the imagination of a country, second by second, day by day, week by week, month by month, Delhi appears to represent the everyday disgrace it is to be Indian. If such programmed mayhem can take place in the capital, what must be the fate of the rest of the country?</p>.<p>While a part of India hems and haws over calling out the home ministry – under whose jurisdiction the Delhi Police swaddles – what about the just re-elected chief minister of Delhi? For long, we have been fed the fact that the Delhi state doesn’t control Delhi Police. Granted. But our federal framework isn’t so weak as to make any state within the Union toothless. In tense times, as has been reported, the Delhi state can call in the Army. If Delhi Police, and by extension the Union government, can be questioned over their commitment towards law enforcement, the sitting chief minister’s office has much to answer, too.</p>.<p>We know the ideological moorings of the majority party in power at the Centre. Over the last months, as their election campaign bruised apace, Arvind Kejriwal seemed wary to keep away from the citizenship agitations and focus on the highlights of his tenure. The AAP won hands down, but there is no doubt that extremist inflaming shored up BJP’s vote share. Through large parts of Delhi’s Hindu worlds, there is a proclivity for Hindutva. Essentially, the public discourse framework is such that no opponent of the current Union government must be perceived as being concerned for non-Hindus. For a party that voted against the CAA in Parliament, why have Kejriwal and the AAP been careful about confronting it in public? And, what does this say about their commitment to constitutional values in practice?</p>.<p>In this writer’s opinion, like some other countries, today’s India cries out for more devolution and decentralisation. India might be too big a country to have one capital, and that too Delhi, an old feudal ‘city’ with the culture of a durbar. The capital of India had not even public transport of any quality till the onset of the last decade. A place that is so confused about its own identity. Is it a state? Is it a city? Is it a region? Is it all these things at once? This muddled status makes it easy to manoeuvre power as any authority can pass the buck of responsibility. In the process, Delhi’s poor and weak labouring class are putty in State hands. For the sake of its harrowed people, ending its status as national capital, might not be a bad idea. But before that, who will get them justice?</p>
<p>This week, parts of north-east Delhi burned in a pogrom. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won seats in the recent state elections there. Lower middle-class Hindus and Muslims live in proximity here. Delhi Police had information about tension mounting up over several days. This was over protests, against and for the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the National Register for Citizens and the National Population Register. The former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and now BJP leader Kapil Mishra made an incendiary speech. Once again, like other leaders in his party, he has gone unpunished for incitement. If someone can get away with press-the-button-so-hard-so-that-the-current-is-felt-in-Shaheen-Bagh comment, what is a mere Mishra or Anurag Thakur?</p>.<p>In many instances, Delhi Police either stood as a bystander or watched as individuals studiously collected bricks to throw or beat up people, forcing them to sing the national anthem. At one point, the public relations officer of Delhi Police, M S Randhawa, said the “situation [is] under control”. In the Jamia Milia Islamia violence, Delhi Police played the role of the violator. In the Jawaharlal Nehru University attacks, it was the passive perpetrator. In the recent conflagration, it was both. As we know, the proportion of Muslims in India’s police forces is very poor. The Delhi victims have included Muslims, Hindus and policemen. Muslim and Hindu residents of this area have complained that their calls to the police for help went unheard. Having had prior intimation, what authorities will account for those deaths? Who will have to answer for the damage to lives, livelihoods and property?</p>.<p>If the condition of a police force is the barometer for the health of a society, these last few months mark the death of Delhi. As an idea, as a feeling, as an emotion, surely, as the capital of India, as a place that holds real power in the imagination of a country, second by second, day by day, week by week, month by month, Delhi appears to represent the everyday disgrace it is to be Indian. If such programmed mayhem can take place in the capital, what must be the fate of the rest of the country?</p>.<p>While a part of India hems and haws over calling out the home ministry – under whose jurisdiction the Delhi Police swaddles – what about the just re-elected chief minister of Delhi? For long, we have been fed the fact that the Delhi state doesn’t control Delhi Police. Granted. But our federal framework isn’t so weak as to make any state within the Union toothless. In tense times, as has been reported, the Delhi state can call in the Army. If Delhi Police, and by extension the Union government, can be questioned over their commitment towards law enforcement, the sitting chief minister’s office has much to answer, too.</p>.<p>We know the ideological moorings of the majority party in power at the Centre. Over the last months, as their election campaign bruised apace, Arvind Kejriwal seemed wary to keep away from the citizenship agitations and focus on the highlights of his tenure. The AAP won hands down, but there is no doubt that extremist inflaming shored up BJP’s vote share. Through large parts of Delhi’s Hindu worlds, there is a proclivity for Hindutva. Essentially, the public discourse framework is such that no opponent of the current Union government must be perceived as being concerned for non-Hindus. For a party that voted against the CAA in Parliament, why have Kejriwal and the AAP been careful about confronting it in public? And, what does this say about their commitment to constitutional values in practice?</p>.<p>In this writer’s opinion, like some other countries, today’s India cries out for more devolution and decentralisation. India might be too big a country to have one capital, and that too Delhi, an old feudal ‘city’ with the culture of a durbar. The capital of India had not even public transport of any quality till the onset of the last decade. A place that is so confused about its own identity. Is it a state? Is it a city? Is it a region? Is it all these things at once? This muddled status makes it easy to manoeuvre power as any authority can pass the buck of responsibility. In the process, Delhi’s poor and weak labouring class are putty in State hands. For the sake of its harrowed people, ending its status as national capital, might not be a bad idea. But before that, who will get them justice?</p>