UP CM has no moral right to lecture Mamata on law & order

Even as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was blaming the West Bengal’s TMC government for poor law and order situation in the state during an election rally, a Dalit man in UP’s Hathras was killed by the molester of his daughter. The man, belonging to an upper caste, has been arrested.

BJP has been striving hard to make cow smuggling and love jihad as major electoral issues in West Bengal. Even Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have been desperately trying to use these two issues to fire the imagination of the Hindus of West Bengal. But they have not succeeded in their mission so far.

These two issues have been featuring prominently on the agenda of the BJP leaders only for the reason that are somehow related to the cultural ethos of the Bengali society. If they succeed in their efforts to prick these issues, they could claim to have achieved success in their mission.

In the initial stage, the prime minister and his lieutenant Amit Shah have tried to project their governance to underline the failure of the Mamata’s administration. They would continue to lay emphasis on development and good governance. Modi coming to the state on March 7 will focus extensively on it. But their main thrust would be on love jihad and cow smuggling as they know these religious-emotive issues will arouse the Hindu emotions.

Yogi does not feel ashamed at the large scale killing of innocent poor people in UP, but he is worried that Mamata Banerjee’s “appeasement politics has turned Bengal into a lawless state”. He said, “Love jihad is being executed here. We made a law in UP, but here things are different owing to appeasement politics. It is because of this that the state government is unable to stop cow smuggling and love jihad dangerous activities that will show results in times to come.”

Mamata Banerjee is under moral obligation to clarify about the increase in crime, but Yogi ought to do more introspection. In just four years, crimes against women increased in Uttar Pradesh by over 66 per cent. Registered cases of crimes against women have consistently risen nationwide since 2015, according to a 2019 report.

In 2019, there were 3,486 cases of rape against Scheduled Caste women including girls, and 3,375 cases of assault, each constituting around 7-8 per cent of total crimes against Scheduled Castes. Cases of rape and assault on SC women have increased by 37 per cent and 20 per cent respectively since 2015.

In 2019, UP alone accounted for nearly 15 per cent of all registered crimes against women in India. With 59,853 registered cases, the state saw 164 such crimes on average per day. Despite an increased number of cases, Uttar Pradesh’s vast population – the largest of any other state – kept its crime rate against women relatively low, at 55.4 cases per 100,000 people.

The state has to its credit filing of highest number of sedition cases. People are scared of speaking their minds. Terror reigns UP. Obviously it does sound good when a person like Yogi tries to preach Hindus living in other states. He is on the mission to divide the society on communal lines.

He also claimed that Durga Puja is prohibited in Bengal, cows are forcefully slaughtered during Eid and people’s sentiments are being ignored. From what he says it is absolutely clear that he lives in the fools’ paradise. His party’s Bengali Hindu leaders should have briefed him that even in this worst time when the corona epidemic has been ravaging the state, the Bengalis celebrated Durga Puja with enthusiasm.

It is another thing that BJP leaders were denied of the opportunity to communalise the Durga puja. It is a well known fact that the BJP leadership has chalked out the nefarious design to communalise the Puja and unfortunately for the saffron brigade, their design was opposed by a section of the BJP cadres and leaders. The design was prepared by the “imported” leaders those who do not know of the cultural and social ethos and implications of the Puja. Yogi must know that Durga Puja is Shakti Puja, the power of the women, precisely motherhood.

If Yogi has any respect for women and the motherhood, he would acted sternly in the Hathras gangrape and murder case (2020) and ensured that the guilty should have been penalised. But it did not happen. He preferred to ignore the crime committed by the members of his own Rajput clan.

In the Hathras incident, the family of the victim belonging to the Valmiki community has shared how the Thakurs in their village still practise discrimination by telling them not to walk on a certain side of the road. Such practices clearly fall within the definition of atrocity under Section 3 and warrant legal action.

It is unfortunate that Yogi Adityanath, who by virtue of being the chief of the religious mutt of Gorakhpur in UP is the star campaigner of the BJP in Bengal, is not aware of the implication of giving precedence to intoning Jai Ma Durga over chanting 'Jai Shri Ram' .

Yogi was vilifying the Bengali society and its culture by saying that raising of Jai Shri Ram slogan is not allowed in Bengal. People in fact chant Jai Siya Ram. The Jai Shri Ram is a political slogan which is why people in Bengal do not endorse it. It is shocking that a political slogan was being projected by Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and Yogi as the symbol of Hindu religious sentiments.

(The above article is sourced from a syndicated service. Views expressed are personal)