Boris Johnson arrived in India. Rabble-rousers know that the world's media attention will follow; and they use this opportunity to garner some of the spotlight. It's just a shameless ploy to get their names out.
Such is democracy, I guess.
And the Guardian doesn't help by adding flame bait such as this:
"In the capital, Delhi, bulldozers have demolished the homes of Muslims accused of rioting."
Illegal construction, encroachment on public land will sometimes get this response. Of course, due to vote bank politics, this may not always happen; but it does.
> Illegal construction, encroachment on public land will sometimes get this response.
Illegal construction is rampant in india. Please contextualize the act of bulldozing with the riots that happened. Let's not be blind to the clear use of power and authority to specifically root out people of a certain cast.
The level of politics being played out in India is nearing to the intellect of a badly scripted bollywood movie and people are turning the other way or even worse making excuses for it.
And bulldozing happens in non Muslim areas as well. Sometimes even middle class homes illegally built.
Just as cities in the US clear homeless encampments.
"who destroyed government or private property during a protest, strike or riot, and that if necessary, the property of the accused would be seized and auctioned to recover the money" — Narottam Mishra, Home Minister
If you’re a Muslim living in an illegally-built home and you were _accused_ of being involved in riots, they will bulldoze your life.
The extremists argue that this is well-deserved. Even if you agree with that, why should an entire family living under a shared home suffer for the actions of one person? They’re not just forcing “rioters” to be homeless, they are ruining the lives of uninvolved people. Where will all of the displaced kids go? What would you tell them when they riot because of what was done to them?
Rioters and protesters come from oppressed and impoverished communities. Nobody speaks for them. The media speaks for the rich and powerful politicians. It’s weird how the actual victims are portrayed as the wrongdoers here.
Sure, again, context matters. A lot of Delhi, and probably a lot more of Mumbai is just illegal construction, if you were to apply the law squarely, a large part of the cities would be rubble.
You're (perhaps rather knowingly) ignoring the nuance here.
Agreed but this is not unique to the current federal government at all. Whoever is in power at the state or national level has used this power for their benefit.
Case in point, office of a prominent Indian actor was broken by a state government which is the political rival of the government at national level, even after a high court order preventing them from doing so.
I seriously don't want to engage with whataboutry, but I'm going to reply to you with the tiniest hope that you might be willing to listen to reason.
So first, i agree with you that power structures have always taken advantage of their position to shutdown their opposition.
The reason that this has become significant enough in India for someone to take note and take action, is because of the blatant and frequent application of authority in this manner and that too targeted towards a specific community. The scale is enormous and is not showing any signs of decreasing.
If you really want to discuss with civility, don't start with an accusation. I agreed with the commenter that there is definitely political motive to these demolitions and it is definitely not right to not follow procedure even if these are illegal. My point is against this belief that this is something recent. It has been always like this, no matter who is in power. It might have increased or decreased; that I don't know without stats. I am old enough to have seen media being used to create narratives like WMD in Iraq to know not to go forward with the narrative pushing in media.
> The reason that this has become significant enough
> The scale is enormous and is not showing any signs of decreasing.
There is also a narrative in media that these communal incidents have increased recently. When I looked at data on this the last time in 2020, the crime record data pointed to much higher rates of communal violence in 80s and 90s than 2010s, so I will not be sure if it has increased or is it just fanned more in media.
I am also aware it can very well be that cases are being registered less that's why the stats seem lower.
> that too targeted towards a specific community
This is something I am concerned about though. There seems to be definitely increase in overt bigotry.
> Why would you compare violence from 1980's to 2020? You realise thats a gap of 40 years?
I said 90s too which is a gap of 20 years. I skipped 00s because I don't recall the data completely now, but I will check.
> In terms of trends in the 20th century, there's been a clear noticeable jump after the current government came in, which is what should matter.
00s had clearly more terror incidents in India than 10s. There were several major metros and big cities hit with blasts every year. So, one form of communal violence has definitely gone down. Even early half of 10s had much more of these than the latter half. There is a whole Wiki article that lists these incidents, you can have a look at that.
This is a very ingenuous take, trying to shield the wrong doings by Current Gov.
First, Illegal encroachments were not bulldozed. People had valid documents proving the legitimacy of their houses.
Also, the Supreme Court ordered for the demolitions to stop, but the houses and shops of people were still razed to ground.
The Rabble rousers were people who were undertaking religious processions with swords and guns raised in front of mosques, mocking and troubling Muslims. They even hoisted saffron flags over the mosques.
Rabble rousers are those who are continuously giving calls for genocide of Muslims in Dharm sansads, publicly.
And PM of India has stayed mum all through out.
What Guardian said is absolutely right. It's not flame-bait.
Such is Democracy, I guess.
Such is democracy, I guess.
And the Guardian doesn't help by adding flame bait such as this:
"In the capital, Delhi, bulldozers have demolished the homes of Muslims accused of rioting."
Illegal construction, encroachment on public land will sometimes get this response. Of course, due to vote bank politics, this may not always happen; but it does.