When Yogi Adityanath was appointed the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state and the state with one of the largest minority populations, a part of secular Indian democracy died. A man with a chest-thumping divisive communal agenda had been rewarded with the plum post. And yet, BJP sympathisers said at the time that the man should be given a chance to prove himself. Social commentators expressed the hope that leadership would make him more responsible. Recent headlines seem to suggest that hopes were misplaced and apprehensions about the man were not unfounded.
Uttar Pradesh has the dubious distinction of being the most lawless state in India, with the highest per capita crime rate among all Indian states. Yogi had indicated that fighting crime and restoring law and order was among his top priorities as a CM. To this end, the so-called anti-Romeo squads were unleashed upon an unsuspecting public; there were clampdowns on ‘illegal’ slaughterhouses. Other measures that may have been taken to improve the law and order situation remain unclear.
Now the Uttar Pradesh government has ordered the withdrawal of about twenty thousand cases pending against various politicians. Just to be clear, these cases relating to the breach of peace and violation of prohibitory orders cut across party lines. It just so happens that the cases include ones against Yogi himself, as well as UP’s deputy CM and other BJP MPs.
Yogi has said that the cases against him and many others are ‘politically motivated’. Now the state government has ordered the withdrawal of cases and an amendment to the law will effectively end all cases that are pending before magistrates before 31st December 2015. The Chief Minister has used the state machinery to discontinue his own prosecution; in effect, he has absolved his own alleged wrongdoing.
The inflammatory statements made by Yogi against minorities and specific individuals from minority communities are well known. He has said that those who do not want to perform yoga should leave the country. He had compared Shah Rukh Khan to Pak terrorist Hafiz Saeed and wanted him to leave the country as well. He said that Mother Teresa was part of a conspiracy to Christianize India. He has often cautioned people against the mythical menace of ‘love jihad’. He has also said in a video that ‘if one Hindu is killed we will kill 10 Muslims’ and that if ‘they take one Hindu girl we will take 100 Muslim girls’. He had also expressed the desire to install Hindu deities in Muslim places of worship.
He is a known critic of the Women’s Reservation Bill and has been known to bizarrely pronounce that “when women develop masculine traits (by engaging in occupations that to his mind are in the male domain) they become demons." These are just some of his views that are in the public domain; none of which he has disowned.
At the time of assuming office in March 2017, Yogi Adityanath had multiple cases pending against him including an attempt to murder, criminal intimidation, rioting, defiling a place of worship, destroying a landmark by fire or explosive and promoting enmity between groups. He has previously been reprimanded by the Election Commission for his conduct as well.
The BJP had a landslide victory in UP perched on the development and economic growth planks. When Yogi was appointed the CM, there were sharp reactions from international media as well as parts of Indian media (those media houses who were not busy breathlessly reporting about his love for cows and his barber’s skills, that is).
The New York Times had described the appointment as Mr. Modi’s perilous embrace of Hindu extremists, and as a shocking rebuke to minorities. The appointment of Yogi was widely perceived as an abandonment of the development agenda and the embrace of the Hindutva agenda. Yet many recommended the ‘wait and watch’ doctrine.
UP being amongst the most lawless, poorest and most malnourished Indian states, the challenges before any new CM were tremendous. However, Yogi Adityanath has not covered himself in glory after assuming office. He has acted in ways that overtly target minority businesses. He then removed the Taj Mahal from the UP tourism booklet. When he waived farmer loans, it was revealed that the scheme was so poorly implemented that some of the loans amounted only to a few rupees in many cases.
So we waited and watched. In the nine months of Chief Ministership, we have not seen the face of UP change. In fact, we saw callous negligence in hospitals in Yogi's own home province, Gorakhpur resulting in tragic deaths of many children.
Short of one year in office and the chief minister is withdrawing cases against himself; prompting us to question whether one can absolve himself of his own crimes. As a citizen one has to ask – is this what the UP public voted for? Is this what Yogi Adityanath was appointed to do as a CM?
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