The “bulldozer justice” which became synonymous with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s stern action against illegal encroachments continues to irk the Islamo-leftist cabal who have been asserting that somehow the bulldozer action is “retributive justice” exclusively against Muslims. In this vein, Foreign Policy published a propaganda piece on 07th January titled “How the Bulldozer Became a Symbol of Modi’s India”.
“Bulldozers are ubiquitous on construction sites the world over. But in India, they are also something more. Bulldozers have become a symbol, a perpetrator of a divisive and violent brand of retributive justice that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has developed since Modi first came to power in 2014 and, despite growing political and judicial resistance, continues to propagate. Used to target Muslims under the guise of governance, the bulldozer reflects India’s current imbalance along religious lines,” the opening paragraph of the propaganda piece reads.
The article authored by Ambreen Agha then discusses how bulldozer action first gained popularity in Uttar Pradesh under the leadership of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. However, the author argues that CM Yogi has regularly ordered the ‘extrajudicial’ use of bulldozers against houses, businesses, properties, and places of worship of Muslims accused of criminal activities or ‘protests’ against the government. It further lamented that CM Yogi’s “bulldozer model” was replicated in other BJP-ruled states including Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi also endorsed bulldozer action.
The Foreign Policy piece mentioned the case of demolition of 11 houses belonging to Muslims in Madhya Pradesh’s Mandla district after the police found that the accused Muslims had kept beef (cow meat) in their refrigerators and rescued live cattle kept for smuggling. The propaganda piece, however, failed to mention that the 11 houses belonging to Muslims were illegal structures erected on government land. Apparently, Ambreen Agha chose not to delve into the cow smuggling angle in the matter and cherry-pick the “beef in the refrigerators” part to insinuate that somehow Muslim minorities are being targeted for the ‘food preferences’ completely disregarding the fact that cows are of religious significance to Hindus and its slaughter is illegal in most Indian states.
Citing the case of bulldozer action against the house of one Naseeb Chaudhary in Rajasthan, the Foreign Policy article said that his house was demolished as it was built on temple land after Naseeb and his son’s “involvement in a knife attack at a Hindu temple” came to the fore. While the Foreign Policy subtly downplayed the Muslim man’s crime to suggest that somehow Naseeb stabbing someone is not the thing to focus but how his illegal house was demolished should be lamented. It must be noted that bulldozer action was taken on the illegal encroachment of Naseeb Chaudhary, the main accused in the stabbing incident during the kheer distribution program of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Karni Vihar area of Jaipur. In October 2024, the administration demolished Chaudhary’s house, which was built illegally in the temple premises. Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) had issued a notice on illegal encroachment a day before and after this, the demolition action was taken by the bulldozer.
Over the years, both Indian leftist media and its foreign allies including The New York Times have long been peddling a mendacious narrative that the BJP government is specifically demolishing the properties of Muslims to punish and exact revenge. This, however, is far from truth. If dreaded criminals Mukhtar Ansari and Atiq Ahmed’s properties were bulldozed then the properties of Vikas Dubey and Vijay Mishra were also bulldozed and confiscated. However, since they were not Muslims, those incidents won’t find mention in Foreign Policy’s article.
OpIndia earlier reported that out of the top 62 noted land mafias, from which a large chunk of the illegal properties was confiscated by the government, only 12, that is 19.3% are from the Muslim community. The BJP government in Uttar Pradesh freed up to 67000 hectares of land from the illegal encroachment of land mafias. However, the impact of continuous propaganda and spinning of the Muslim victimhood narrative by the Islamo-leftist outlets has been such that back in 2022, two USA senators Bob Menendez and Cory Booker claimed that Hindu right-wing in New Jersey ‘marched with bulldozers’ which the two called “a weapon in the hands of the BJP government to destroy Muslim homes and livelihoods.”
Coming back to the Foreign Policy propaganda piece, after presenting cherry-picked cases without context to further its agenda of portraying the BJP government as incessantly hateful towards Muslims, the article lamented how bulldozer has become a symbol of ‘Hindu-nationalist’ political iconography and so popular that several people got bulldozer tattoos inked on their bodies besides songs being made glorifying CM Yogi Adityanath as “Bulldozer Baba”.
Ambreen Agha cried hoarse over Hindu nationalists using religious imagery and idioms as what she called “tools in the politics of belonging and othering.” She cited the popular “Batenge toh Katenge” slogan given by CM Yogi Adityanath first in August 2024. While the slogan was actually a warning to people against opposition parties trying to foment divisions in the society, especially the Congress partie’s repeated attempts at widening the caste fault lines in the Hindu community, author Ambreen Agha insinuated that somehow the Batenge toh Katenge slogan was a call of unity to Hindus against Muslims. At a public event in Agra, Yogi Adityanath warned that divisiveness would lead to violence and anarchy, citing the attacks faced by Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh following the toppling of the Sheikh Hasina government.
Months later, PM Modi emphasised the need for unity to prevent the Congress from fulfilling its nefarious agenda and called for unity among pthe eople. While addressing a public meeting in Dhule, he emphasised, “Ek hai toh safe hai (We are safe as long as we are united).” The call for unity is reminiscent of the popular slogan ‘Batenge toh Katenge.’ During his speech, the Indian Prime Minister cautioned, “We need to stay united and foil the dangerous game being played by the Congress and continue to walk on the path of development (vikas).”
Isn’t it amusing that the BJP’s call for unity is perceived as ‘divisive’ by the Islamo-leftist cabal, however, when opposition parties call for the eradication of Sanatan Dharma, demand caste census and caste-based wealth redistribution it is deemed ‘social justice’, ‘progressive’ approach and whatnot?
“India’s diversity is reduced to a religious binary, with Muslims depicted as a group that poses a threat and needs to be disciplined. The bulldozer enacts this discipline,” the Foreign Policy article reads.
This argument, however, is fundamentally flawed. Not because Muslims pose a threat and require to be disciplined with measures like bulldozer action but because there is no communal motivation behind bulldozer action. It is the ideological imperative of the Islamo-leftist propagandists that they attach more importance to the Muslim identity of the person whose properties were demolished than to the fact that those structures were illegal encroachments.
While the Foreign Policy’s propaganda piece hinges on the notion that somehow bulldozers in Modi’s India have targeted disproportionately Muslim-owned properties insinuating a wider BJP-spearheaded communal ‘revenge’, the BJP government has taken bulldozer action even against non-Muslims involved in illegal activities.
In May 2022, the residence of Pravesh Shukla who was arrested for urinating on a tribal man, was demolished using bulldozers under the same BJP government’s same law-and-order approach. The administration bulldozed his illegally constructed structure on encroached land in the Kubri region. It was reported that the administration demolished the encroached part of his house.
In February 2024, the Bareilly Development Authority (BDA) conducted a demolition drive to clear illegal colonies in the area. Five illegal colonies were being constructed in Zulfikar village near Pilibhit road. These illegal constructions involved both Hindu and Muslim accused and without any discrimination, the administration bulldozed the illegal encroachments.
How encroachment removal for infra development was also called ‘anti-Muslim’
Interestingly, this “BJP government taking revenge against Muslims” trope is not new. Similar claims were made by the same Islamo-leftist ecosystem when the CM Yogi-led government in Uttar Pradesh undertook the demolition drive of illegal houses constructed and occupied in the Akbar Nagar area of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Several Islamists on social media platforms claimed that the Yogi Adityanath government was deliberately targeting the Muslims in the state post-elections. The Islamists online joined by the likes of Teesta Setalvad claimed that only Muslim families living in the Akbar Nagar area of Lucknow were being asked to vacate their homes before bulldozing their illegal properties for allegedly voting against the BJP. However, OpIndia reported that hat not only Muslims, but several other Hindu families have also faced evacuation from the area and even the Supreme Court had upheld the demolition of illegal encroachments.
There is a deliberate failure on the part of the propaganda piece’s author to acknowledge that these demolitions occur under legal directives. While the Supreme Court last year ordered that the houses or properties belonging to someone accused of rioting or other criminal activities cannot be demolished simply because the person is an accused or even convicted, it did not bar the government from acting against illegal encroachment and called for a more streamlined process. The “bulldozer action” is not aimed at persecuting a particular community but is aimed at uniform implementation of law and ensuring that those violating municipal regulations are held accountable and are not allowed to blatantly violate the law simply because they happen to be Muslims or of any particular community.
In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled that money collected from persons accused of damaging public property during the anti-CAA agitations in Uttar Pradesh be returned, however, the court made it very clear to all that the government can issue fresh notices against the rioters and can re-attach the properties under the new law the Uttar Pradesh Recovery of Damages to Public and Private Property Ordinance, 2021, that was brought by the UP government. The point of mentioning this here was that even the courts do not restrict the government from recovering damages from the rioters and demolishing illegal encroachments, of course, not without following due process.
Contrary to the assertion by the Islamo-leftist propagandists and politicians, bulldozer action is not a symbol of divisive politics, extrajudicial violence or retribution against the Muslim community but a symbol of the BJP government’s commitment to act against those who illegally encroach lands and properties and commit crimes thinking that they will remain untouched since they belong to a particular community.
