Auto driver to juice shop owner, they’re taking on bulldozer raj

It was the longest two hours of 61-year-old Rashid Khan’s life. As an autorickshaw driver who earns Rs 1,000-1,500 a day, Rashid had borrowed and saved for years to buy a four-room house for Rs 16.5 lakh. On the morning of August 17, he found his life’s savings being torn down brick by brick by a bulldozer. By 1pm, there was nothing left but rubble. “After seeing your savings destroyed before your very eyes, it is hard to have faith in anything,” Rashid says.But hope sprung anew this week after the Supreme Court directed states to pause demolitions till October 1. “Even if there is one instance of an illegal demolition… it is against the ethos of our Constitution,” the court observed, while hearing pleas which alleged that properties of the accused were being demolished illegally in several states. The apex court proposes to lay down certain guidelines on the issue that would be enforceable across the country.Rashid’s house is a case in point. Udaipur authorities claim the building has encroached on forest land and was, therefore, razed. However, the trigger for the bulldozer was a crime Rashid claims he only has a tenuous connection to. 113553830It all started when an argument between two 16-year-olds in school turned violent and one kid (from the minority community) stabbed the other. The Hindu boy succumbed to his injuries setting off a chain of violence. Properties of the minority community were attacked, vehicles set ablaze, shops ransacked and within hours, there were calls for ‘bulldozer justice’ (a term coined in Uttar Pradesh which subsequently spread to BJP-governed states as well as some like Rajasthan where Congress was in office.) In Udaipur, the accused was arrested and sent to a juvenile detention center. But that was not the end of the matter. When the juvenile’s father woke up the next morning, he found a demolition notice slapped on the house which he had rented from Rashid.Within a few hours, bulldozers had lined up and the property was destroyed. Rashid says he screamed himself hoarse trying to explain that he was the property owner and had nothing to do with the crime, but the wheels of injustice had already begun to turn. “When I found out about the notice, I took my file with the sale deed, tax receipts, documentation for water and power connections to show that I had followed the law. But no one paid attention,” Rashid says. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tAxN9NkZuAUnlike other victims of bulldozer justice, Rashid took the matter to court. Lawyer M Huzaifa from the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), one of the lawyers representing Rashid in SC, says punitive demolitions have become a stark symbol of brute state power. “The SC warning that the executive cannot act as judge is a long-awaited powerful statement. There is a need for a commission of inquiry and reparations to restore justice and uphold the rule of law.” Arbitrary response masquerading as instant justice?An Amnesty International report says there have been “punitive demolitions” of 128 properties impacting over 600 people in the states of Assam, Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh following episodes of communal violence and protests between April and June 2022.Following a court order, the Assam govt has paid Rs 30 lakh in compensation to six victims whose homes were demolished in Nagaon in May 2022. Prof Khalid Anis Ansari, sociologist at the Azim Premji University, says such demolitions violate the right to life for the individual and the community. “We find that many of the state interventions appear to offer instant justice but instead this is an arbitrary, muscular response that has been taken without due process of law. The SC has spoken against this. It has condemned punishing a family on the mere suspicion that one member may have broken the law. The family whose home has been destroyed suffers from trauma and alienation and this goes against the principle of nation building,” he says. ShowQuotesIn Delhi’s Jahangirpuri, Ganesh Gupta, owner of Gupta Juice corner, was at the receiving end of “bulldozer justice” after the area witnessed communal riots in April 2022 during a Hanuman Jayanti procession. Gupta’s shop at the busy Kaushal Cinema chowk, a landmark since the 1970s, was demolished just hours after the riot, even as he continued to plead with the authorities that his land allotment was legal. Gupta, who has approached the SC for compensation, says, “I went to court because I knew I had all the paperwork, and I could legally take on the authorities. Over the years, I have paid lakhs in rent and followed all the rules. I will continue to fight till I get justice.” Days after his shop was torn down, Gupta went to the authorities trying to get relief with no success. Unable to restart the shop for six months, he had to borrow money from family and friends to get by. “I could not pay the children’ school fees for two months. My daughter was to get married in November and I had to postpone the wedding. I took a loan of over Rs 5 lakh to build the shop again because the refrigerator, juice machine...everything was destroyed. What was left was taken away by the municipality,” he says. A debt of Rs 3 lakh weighs on him. medium113553792Barely a week before Gupta’s shop fell to bulldozers, 41-year-old Amjad Khan lost his bakery in Khargone, Madhya Pradesh. Amjad had seen his father sell rusk toast on a handcart growing up. He started the bakery in 2012 and slowly expanded it to a business of Rs 3 lakh a month, sending his biscuits to Gujarat and Maharashtra. On April 10, 2022, Khargone in Madhya Pradesh saw stone-pelting and arson during Ram Navami processions in which around 80 people were arrested. The next day the authorities razed many homes. Amjad’s bakery was among them.Lawyer Syed Asshar Warsi, who represents those affected by Khargone and Sidhi demolitions in MP, says, “In all the cases, victims were from the minority community whose homes were built 20-30 years earlier. Our main contention is why this haste to demolish without due process? It is a violation of the people’s right to life and shelter.” Amjad, whose plea is before the MP courts, is now waiting for the SC verdict. “We live in fear but there is no choice but to move on,” he says.