But Ram Rajya remains a distant dream

A grand Ram mandir in Ayodhya is set to become a reality soon, but ‘Ram rajya’, or the goal of ideal governance, still remains a distant dream for Uttar Pradesh.

This is all the more ironic since UP, India’s most populous state, has been crucial in determining the country’s political destiny in the aftermath of the Ram temple movement of the late 1980s. While Lord Ram has been used by political parties to influence and shape vote banks for many years, the BJP’s battle-cry of ‘Jai Shree Ram’ eventually took it ahead of its rivals in large parts of the country, including UP.

The political power of Hindutva reached its zenith in the state in 2017, when saffron-clad Yogi Adityanath took oath as chief minister amidst resounding chants of ‘Jai Shree Ram’. With Adityanath’s elevation – he was the ‘mahant’ of the religious seat of the Gorakhnath temple – the BJP made it seem as though it was ushering in ‘Ram rajya’. It had promised to rescue UP from the lawlessness, corruption and inefficiency fostered by its political rivals over the past decades.

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Despite his controversial track record, which was not without connections to crime and criminality, no one disputed Yogi Adityanath’s personal financial integrity. This led many to nurture hopes of a sea change in the system of corruption-laden governance.

However, what has transpired since has been only a bombardment of official statistics and data to obscure ground reality. Not only that, there has been plenty of drama to liven up things when statistics became too boring. But no semblance of ‘Ram rajya’.

Indeed, the chief minister went to the extent of staging a theatrical replay of Lord Ram’s return to Ayodhya after his 14-year exile. Three theatre artists playing Ram, Sita and Lakshman, were flown in to Ayodhya in a helicopter that was meant to represent the mythical pushpak viman. They were received with due honours by the chief minister on the eve of Diwali – to mark the reinstatement of ‘Ram rajya’.

All the while, things continued to go out of hand when it came to governance. Law and order is in a shambles, crimes against women are on the rise, inefficient systems in governance prevail and corruption continues unabated.

Lack of experience and understanding of governance made Adityanath opt for knee-jerk reactions to the deep-rooted problem of crime. He took recourse to ordering large-scale ‘encounters’. This was spelt out in his very first major interview barely a few months after becoming CM. “Jo apradh karenge, thok diye jayenge (Those who commit crimes will be shot),” he told India TV in June 2017, even following it up with the official announcement of Rs 1 lakh rewards for teams carrying out ‘encounters’.

Ahead of Republic Day in 2019, his government was busy publicising its “3,200 encounters and 79 killings” in its list of ‘achievements’. But widespread criticism, including remarks from the highest judicial courts, and the realisation that the “thok do” (shoot down) approach had failed to curb crime, may have eventually compelled him to rethink encounters. Most of those gunned down in these encounters were not hardened criminals.

According to the latest available National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, UP topped the country in crimes against women in 2018 (59,445 crimes). This amounted to a 7% increase in such crimes from 2017, when Adityanath assumed office. The state also recorded the highest number of gang-rapes and the second highest number of rapes (4,323 cases) in the country, including horrific crimes by a BJP legislator and a former BJP MP, both considered close to the CM. Dowry deaths, crimes against children, crimes against senior citizens, all have recorded increases since 2017. The state ranked the highest in reported murders – 4,324 cases in 2017, the last year for which the figure is available.

Despite this reality, the state government never feels shy of patting its own back or lauding its police force. In fact, anyone, whether in the official machinery or in the media, raising valid questions on the state of the rule of law in UP is not tolerated.

Surya Pratap Singh, a retired IAS officer, who dared to charge the government with fabricating data on Covid-19 count had two FIRs registered against him. He was even charged under sections of Disaster Management Act, 2005, and the Epidemic Act, 1897, besides being accused of inciting people, spreading false news and misrepresenting facts. The common man has been made to believe that the state is carrying out more than 1 lakh Covid-19 tests a day. How the figure rose from 25,000 to 1 lakh in a span of less than a week is anybody’s guess. Media organisations that are critical of the government are made to face the music.

It is understood in UP that whatever data is put out by the official machinery is meant to be quietly accepted by everyone – be it creation of nine lakh jobs for migrant labourers (in all, about 23 lakh have returned to the state) pouring back from Maharashtra, Gujarat and the southern states, or the distribution of free food and rations to ‘crores of poor people’ during Covid-19 time. On corruption, the story gets hardly better. Every ill plaguing the state is conveniently blamed on previous dispensations.

The people of UP will see the Ram temple come up soon, but the same can’t be said for ‘Ram rajya.’

(The writer is a Lucknow-based senior journalist and political commentator)