Is BJP using bulldozer politics to counter paper leak and Ram Mandir rows?

Disruption has always been key to political change. This is why Opposition parties and civil society often resort to it. But the government responding to it with equally scary strong-arm tactics, including, for example, using bulldozers against opponents, is, at any rate, too jarring to be ignored by anybody anymore.

Delhi woke up to a rude shock on Saturday morning, July 18, as a gaggle of plainclothes men from the Delhi Police physically lifted a frail activist, Sonam Wangchuk, from his makeshift bed at Jantar Mantar. He has been on a hunger strike there for the last 20 days in protest over recent examination paper leaks.

Also read | Why Wangchuk's strike may not become an Anna Hazare-like movement

He was put into a waiting ambulance and driven away to Safdarjung Hospital, leaving his comrades aghast. The incident signifies the government's impatience with protests, though the excuse for the action against Wangchuk is a Delhi High Court order to monitor his health. The government decided to monitor it at the hospital rather than at the protest site.

Govt faces growing discontent

The government’s step is also indicative of its desire to avert the storm brewing because of not only the recent paper leaks but also other similar episodes, such as the alleged Ayodhya Ram Mandir donation theft. The idea is to contain the damage and save the ruling BJP from public ire.

Obviously, this is being taken up more urgently due to the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh. Yet, the BJP governments in Delhi and Lucknow are visibly, or may well be deceptively, unfazed so as to appear more confident and resolute in the face of the growing unrest among the youth mainly, and devout Hindus or Ram Bhaktas generally, than might be expected, given the rising level of mass ennui.

The powers that be have mostly been quiet over the students’ demand for the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan before the police action against Wangchuk, and, at best, wishy-washy about grilling the top temple management brass to conclusively work out the virtual loot of public offerings made to the shrine.

So, is the government too rattled by these unseemly happenings to say anything for months now and thereby address the mounting public concern in order to check the likely loss of its credibility?

But since today's rulers know that it is not easy to convince everybody about their mysteriously muted or muddled stand on these issues, the best they could come up with is to find fault with others too.

Bulldozer politics meets education

This is how former UP Minister and Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan is being castigated once again by the UP administration. The Mohammad Ali Jauhar University, founded under his watch through an Act passed by the UP Assembly in his hometown of Rampur, has now been identified and marked as "unauthorised" and runs the risk of being bulldozed any day, at any time, unless the courts intervene.

Also read | Ram Temple row could influence UP Assembly elections, says survey

But, strangely, the Jantar Mantar protesters, led by Sonam Wangchuk and Abhijeet Dipke, seeking quite a few reforms in the education system, are unmoved by the possibility of an entire university being demolished. This is so even though the institution, catering to about 3,000 students, has so far been free of any blemishes, such as paper leaks, through 20 years of its existence. This is quite unlike the elite nationwide examination bodies against which Wangchuk and Dipke are agitating.

And so has been the case with Congress MP Rahul Gandhi as well. He held a nearly hour-long dialogue with a huge gathering of students through select students, parents, and a teacher brought onto the stage with him in Dehradun on Friday evening, July 17, to discuss the issue of paper leaks.

But unlike Rahul, Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Ajay Rai held a press conference at the Lucknow Congress headquarters on the same day (July 17) to question the timing and intent behind the move to demolish Rampur's Jauhar University. He claimed that the state government had issued the demolition order only to shift attention from the alleged theft of donations and offerings at the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

One of the SP MPs from UP, Dimple Yadav, has also raised her voice against the administration's Rampur plan. She is reported to have blamed the authorities for "using bulldozers to crush students' futures" while referring to the Rampur move and questioned why the government has not so far taken similar action over the alleged financial embezzlement at the Ram Mandir.

Majoritarian politics takes centre stage

Significantly, orders have been passed for razing most of the buildings of Jauhar University despite, and in disregard of, an earlier warning by the Supreme Court against the indiscriminate use of bulldozers in UP and other states without following due process of law.

These are some of the incongruities that today baffle and confound the public mind. There are no answers or solutions in sight even as Opposition parties and civil society on the one side, and the government on the other, vie to browbeat each other. A no-holds-barred battle is, indeed, on, with elections in mind instead of the larger interests of the people.

Also read | Ram Temple scandal threatens BJP's grip on UP ahead of 2027 polls

To think that the BJP is simply unresponsive to the crisis would be rather naïve. Its response is steeped in its standardised majoritarian politics, where all troubles could be swept onto the doorsteps of minorities, particularly Muslims, or their leaders.

Targeting Azam Khan and Rampur in these electorally febrile times points to this. Both the bustling town and its beleaguered leader are being made an inconvenient example for the minority-dominated western UP and nearby Uttarakhand, which is also set to go to the polls alongside UP early next year.

The steps initiated against Khan and his university by the UP government under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath aim at upending the Ram Mandir and paper leak crises that have recently come to gnaw at the very core of the BJP's support base.