By suspending Durga Shakti Nagpal, an upright IAS officer, the Samajwadi Party has shown the scant regard it has for the secular law of the land. Worse, it has pandered to both criminal goons and communal thugs
A crude joke is doing the rounds in Uttar Pradesh — with a name like ‘Durga Shakti’, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to survive in a Government job under the current Samajwadi Party dispensation headed by Akhilesh Yadav which has been plumbing new depths of crass appeasement to pander to its twin vote-banks comprising criminal goons and communal thugs.
The joke, if at all that’s the right word for the grim situation that prevails in India’s most populous State with the largest number of representatives in the lok Sabha, is no doubt an exaggeration, but then so is the assertion that Uttar Pradesh has a Government. Yes, the Samajwadi Party is in power but this power is wielded without any accountability to the people of this benighted State or responsibility to any higher authority, for instance the Constitution of India and the judiciary.
let’s begin with the facts which tend to get lost in the monkey chatter of news television anchors competing for eyeballs and the hideous clutter of real estate commercials (who is buying property in these hard timesIJ) that crowd newspapers, making it difficult to spot the stuff that’s supposed to fill the space between advertisements.
On July 27, the young, upright and exceptionally hard-working Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Greater Noida, Durga Shakti Nagpal, was peremptorily suspended, ostensibly for disturbing communal harmony. Her offence: She had earlier in the day asked the residents of Kadalpur, a small hamlet, to demolish the wall of a mosque illegally constructed on public land.
Contrary to what has been alleged by Durga Shakti Nagpal’s tormentors, she neither ordered nor supervised the demolition of the wall. The story, as is often the case, has been twisted to a point where truth is indistinguishable from fiction.
The mosque was being built with donations from Muslim villagers. It was to be named ‘Mecca Masjid’. The local Samajwadi Party leader, Narinder Bhati, who is chairman of Uttar Pradesh State Agro-Industrial Corporation ltd, which accords him the privileges of a Cabinet Minister, is said to have contributed Rs 51,000 towards the masjid fund.
Those building the mosque were fully aware that it was being constructed on public land, and hence was illegal. But their concerns, if any, were laid to rest by Bhati who asked them to go ahead and build the mosque and not to worry about permission. Bhati’s name shall surface again as we meander through the byzantine lanes of this strange story of non-crime and punishment.
That did not go down well with other residents who complained to the police. The police, in turn, drew the civil administration’s attention to the illegal construction. The District Magistrate decided the wall had to go and this was conveyed to those building the mosque. They were also given the option of demolishing the wall themselves, which they did.
A team of police and civil administration officials visited the area on July 27. Durga Shakti Nagpal was part of the team. By the time she reached Kadalpur, the wall had been demolished by the villagers who also removed the rubble from the public land.
Were they happyIJ Of course not, but they had grudgingly accepted the fact that they had built the wall without necessary clearance and approval. “We will now seek permission before rebuilding”, a villager has been quoted as saying.
Why did the wall have to goIJ Could the district administration have turned a blind eyeIJ The answer to these and other related questions can be found in a 2009 judgement of the Supreme Court prohibiting the construction of temples, mosques, churches, gurdwaras and any other place of worship on public land, parks and streets. The court instructed strict compliance of its ruling and held the administration responsible for implementing its order irrespective of consequences by way of law and order problems.
By disallowing the construction of a mosque on public land, the district administration of Gautam Buddh Nagar, comprising Noida and Greater Noida, was diligently implementing the Supreme Court’s order. Hence, if Durga Shakti Nagpal is indeed guilty of any deed, it is of doing what the highest court of the land had instructed the administration to do.
Yet she was punished. Bhati had called the District Magistrate and District Superintendent of Police to stop the demolition of the illegally-built wall. When that did not work, and the wall came down, he spoke to Samajwadi Party chieftain Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son-cum-Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. “Within 41 minutes,” as Bhati has subsequently disclosed, “she was suspended.”
The tape containing the disclosure also shows the loathsome attitude of this senior leader of the Samajwadi Party towards women. But that’s neither here nor there —worse has been said of women by Congress leaders and politicians tend to be careless about the need for political correctness.
Male chauvinism apparently works and is equated with machismo which fetches votes. The lowest common denominator of the electorate is not particularly bothered about abusive behaviour. That’s a fact of life in this wondrous land of ours. To deny it makes no sense.
Indeed, to get fixated on Narinder Bhati’s impolite language is no more than a distraction from the far more important aspects of this story which tells a tale of high corruption and bogus secularism. So let’s move on.
During her less-than-a-year tenure as Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Durga Shakti Nagpal had taken on the powerful mafia involved in illegal sand-mining. It is common knowledge that illegal sand-mining is a flourishing racket, worth tens of hundreds of crores of rupees, in western Uttar Pradesh. It is also common knowledge that political patronage is provided by the party in power in lucknow.
Whispered stories suggest that by taking on the sand-mining mafia, Durga Shakti Nagpal had stepped on too many tails, including that of Bhati. The mafia bided its time and struck when the illegal wall of the mosque was demolished, knowing full well it would provide Akhilesh Yadav with a cover to remove the upright officer from Greater Noida, thus removing the obstacle she had erected.
And thereby hangs the tale of Durga Shakti Nagpal, victim of avarice and vote-bank politics. By getting rid of her, Akhilesh Yadav has mollified the mafia which runs the sand-mining racket. He has also sent out a message to those Muslims who believe secular laws are a hindrance to their faith and it is their right to build mosques wherever they wish to.
The reason cited by Akhilesh Yadav for punishing Durga Shakti Nagpal is in keeping with his move to set free Muslims facing trial in cases related to terrorism. It explains why western Uttar Pradesh has turned into a simmering cauldron of communal hostility and mounting Muslim intolerance. Recently two Hindus were killed when Muslims ran riot to protest the singing of bhajans during Ramzan. It was the 28th incident of communal violence since the Samajwadi Party came to power a year-and-a-half ago.
Sadly, corrective action is unlikely. The Congress, which is competing for the same Muslim vote as the Samajwadi Party, is happy to play along. Those who stand up and voice opposition are painted ‘communal’ and subjected to a revolting harangue on the ‘idea of India’. If this is the ‘idea of India’ we have to live with, perhaps, as my fellow columnist Swapan Dasgupta once suggested, some of us should consider packing our bags.
(The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi)