In Madhya Pradesh, Shiv-raj or jungle raj?

In India’s political discourse, “jungle raj” does not conjure up the image of Madhya Pradesh; the phase normally evokes the lawlessness of Uttar Pradesh or Bihar. But the Supreme Court was anguished enough on March 14 to use the phrase for Madhya Pradesh’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan government, as the two judges -- Justices D Y Chandrachud and M R Shah -- discovered to their shock that the state’s police had failed to arrest an accused in the case of the murder of Congress leader Devendra Chourasiya over two years ago.

The accused, Govind Singh, the husband of BSP MLA Rambai Prajapati, is absconding, and the arrest warrant issued against him remains unimplemented. What the judges found even more galling was that the additional sessions judge of Damoh district, who ordered the arrest in February this year, was compelled to write to the apex court seeking safety of his own life, alleging that the district Superintendent of Police had threatened to implicate him in false cases.

“This is jungle raj,” observed the judges while ordering MP Director General of Police Vivek Johri to immediately ensure the arrest of Govind Singh. “If you cannot make the arrest, admit that you have failed to conduct the administration as per the Constitution,” Justice Shah said.

The police’s failure to nab Govind Singh is a sordid reflection on the survival politics that has come to dog the state since the Congress came to power in the 2018 Assembly election with a fractured mandate and was ousted by the BJP through defections.

Govind Singh was named prime accused by the son of Chourasiya, who was murdered in February 2019. But the then Kamal Nath government dilly-dallied on Singh’s arrest as his MLA wife Rambai’s support was considered crucial to cobble together a majority. The Kamal Nath government fell nonetheless, paving way for the BJP, and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, to return to power -- with support from Jyotiraditya Scindia, who switched from Congress to the saffron party.

Unlike his predecessor, Chief Minister Chouhan didn’t need outside support as the BJP added a dozen more MLAs to its tally in the by-elections for 22 seats in November last year, thus fortifying his government’s stability.

Yet, his government risked public opprobrium and the top court’s wrath in not going after Govind Singh, perhaps calculating that it might need his wife’s support in future.

As the BJP is set to celebrate the first anniversary of its snatching power from Congress on March 22, Chouhan doesn’t seem confident in his seat. Unlike his three previous terms, when he had ruled with a certain moral authority, having led the party to victory in successive elections since 2008, Chouhan is no longer as sure-footed as in the past. His style of functioning has changed remarkably, so also his language. He had never before uttered words such as “I will bury you 10-feet under,” which he used recently while warning land mafias. This is just one example of many such foul utterances, including against political opponents.

During the 13 years of his uninterrupted rule from 2005 to 2018, Chouhan was regarded as a moderate and polite leader, and seen as the inheritor of Atal Behari Vajpayee’s political legacy in the party. However, in his fourth term, Chouhan is seen as having attached his bandwagon to Yogi Adityanath than to Vajpayee.

The change in his disposition was striking almost as soon as he assumed office this time. The Covid-19 pandemic had begun to spread in the state. In April, a sizeable number of Tabligi Jamaat members had fled from their congregation in Hazrat Nizamuddin to their respective homes in Madhya Pradesh. But without any empirical basis, the Chief Minister blamed the Jamaat event as a pandemic ‘super spreader.’ His remark deepened hatred in the Hindu community towards Muslims at large, and in many places in the Malwa region, led to attacks on Muslims.

Several Muslim youths were interned in the state under the National Security Act on the charge of attacking medical teams. On the other hand, saffron activists were allowed to undertake religious functions such as Kalash Yatra in public in utter disdain of the Covid protocol of the district administrations. The BJP channelled the aroused religious fervour amid the pandemic to its election campaign for the 22 by-elections necessitated by the resignations of Congress MLAs loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia, with whom they switched over to the BJP.

The BJP’s spectacular victory in the by-elections further emboldened the party and the Hindutva forces alike and Chouhan veered towards even more aggressive posturing. A month after the by-elections, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) activists took out bicycle rallies in the Malwa region in the name of collecting donations for the Ram temple in Ayodhya. They specifically targeted Muslim areas in Mandsaur, Indore and Ujjain and vandalised homes and mosques. The government acted swiftly -- not to arrest the culprits, but the victims. The houses of several Muslims were razed to the ground on the district administration’s order.

The Chief Minister announced a harsh law to deal with “stone pelters” from the Muslim community, holding them squarely responsible for the communal flare-ups in the Malwa region in December. To keep up the Hindutva momentum, the ‘love jihad’ law was announced. It was finally passed by the state Assembly in March, with provision of jail term up to 10 years for the ‘guilty’.

In January, stand-up comedian Munavar Faruqui was jailed on the complaint of a BJP MLA’s son on the suspicion that the artiste might crack some jokes to insult Hindu gods and goddesses. It took 45 days and the Supreme Court’s intervention to grant bail to Faruqui for a ‘crime’ he had not committed. The apex court severely censured the Chouhan government for its bias in the case. Such is the stuff of which “jungle raj” is surely made.