Why bull of lawlessness is raging in UP

THE onus of safety of persons in police custody lies with the police under Section 55A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). Nevertheless, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had vowed in the Assembly on February 25 that incarcerated gangster Atiq Ahmad and his ilk would be made to bite the dust (“iss mafia ko mitti mein mila denge”). Today, the law itself has been reduced to dust.

The well-armed mafia aspirants can be seen as pawns in the game of power politics during the twin murders as they raised the slogan, ‘Jai Shri Ram’. That, more than anything else, underlines why the mafia will stay and flourish so long as it continues to serve the needs of the ruling politicians. The Supreme Court missed the point altogether in the instant case. In declining Atiq’s appeal to intervene to pre-empt the inevitable, the court ignored that it was not just the individual’s security but the rule of law that was under threat.

The FIR in the murder case of the gangster brothers of Prayagraj, Atiq and Ashraf, has recorded that the three young assailants were seeking notoriety to gain ‘mafia status’ for themselves. This is nothing unusual in the world of crime. UP itself has seen this trend time and again — for instance, Munna Bajrangi, a politician and mafia member, was killed in an allegedly arranged jail shootout in 2018; Atiq himself had killed his mentor, Chand Baba.

A sure sign why the UP Police are most ill fitted to reverse this tradition is seen in the most flat-footed reaction of the heavily armed escorting policemen in the face of the swift gunning down of the brothers. The semi-automatic guns used in the attack are not a rarity any more, indicating a booming crime culture in this region, Yogi or no Yogi.

In fact, the well-armed mafia aspirants could be seen as pawns in the game of power politics during the twin murders as they raised the slogan, ‘Jai Shri Ram’. That, more than anything else, underlines why the mafia will stay and flourish so long as it continues to serve the needs of the ruling politicians.

The Supreme Court missed the point altogether in the instant case. In declining the prayer of Atiq to intervene to pre-empt the inevitable, the court ignored that it was not just the wretched individual’s security but the rule of law under threat. The harsh reality is that the constitutional courts or human rights commissions are unable to monitor any state supporting a ‘favourite’ mafia or competing with a discarded mafia.

Public support for the killings comes as no surprise; it is to be stomached as a cathartic response. No UP policeman would be expected to mourn the mafia deaths either. But to celebrate lawlessness is another dimension altogether and UP presently seems to be falling into that abyss.

How else do you explain that even after 183 killings in police encounters during six years of Yogi’s rule in UP, there should still be a strong echo of the ‘professional’ arguments to traverse the same violent path?

What is signified here? Unflinching will of the executive wing of the state to showcase exemplary retaliation against the mafia through its encounter-oriented law and order machinery or the state’s admitted inability to provide suitable and effective legal protocols to timely enforce the rule of law with a view to stifle the mafia. There would be many more related issues to ponder, including the cancerous judicial delays and selective political patronage of the mafia.

The next mafia-dominated scenario similar to the broad-daylight murder of a principal witness along with his escorting policemen may not be too far off; or the next police encounter with even more hollow claims of the improved law and order in the state.

The raging bull of lawlessness needs to be caught by the horns and, judging by the debate, it still does not look like happening anytime soon.

There is a sense of despondency among a section of the right-thinking police officers that the ongoing killings of a rogue clan by the UP Police, complimenting the anti-mafia boast of the Chief Minister, are being seen by another dominant section of their professional fraternity through the prism of the seeming popularity of the tough stand adopted by Yogi Adityanath. So long as it pays electorally, it never gets changed in politics. Will this equation one day threaten the rule of law itself?

Frédéric Bastiat, a French economist and prominent member of the French National Assembly in the 19th century, had cautioned: “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorises it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

UP cannot be viewed as an isolated case in a global village. Sudhanshu Sarangi, an IPS officer and visiting professor at IIM-Sambalpur, has stated that all 193 countries under the United Nations have constitutions, laws, courts, police etc. But out of these 193, almost 100 countries are struggling to create credible state institutions.

Societies have to trust the elite to allow strong institutions to emerge and that wouldn’t happen unless societies feel confident that they can control these institutions. We need a ‘shackled leviathan’. When state institutions can’t be controlled by society, the state becomes dictatorial (eg China and Russia). When society doesn’t allow credible state institutions to emerge, there is the ‘absent leviathan’, like in Afghanistan or Yemen.

Most of these 100 countries are struggling between these two polarities of a dictatorial state and an absent state. That sums up the plight of their police.