Since taking over the reins of UP five years ago, Yogi Adityanath has done everything Dhamma ordains to make the life of subjects better
The original Ashokan Lion Capital in the Sarnath museum had lions on a pedestal and a wheel resting over them. It depicted lions or the State as the custodian of the ‘Dhamma’, the eternal wheel of righteousness. When it became the emblem of India, somehow that wheel rolled off. And all that remained were the lions watching the subjects from a vantage point. Of course, reality took some time to catch up with the metaphor.
Uttar Pradesh, where Sarnath is, saw the wheel rolling back to the State five years back. The State was to become righteous or self-righteous in the next five years. Yogi Adityanath of Uttarakhand became the UP Chief Minister; it was a foregone conclusion that Dhamma would rule the State. And that is what happened in the last five years. The five basic tenets of Dhamma — abstain from sexual misconduct, practice non-violence and non-killing, don’t indulge in stealing, practice truthfulness and avoid malicious speech, and abstain from alcohol — became the touchstone of Yogi Government’s policy. Thus a monk with a mission set out to do what destiny chose him to do. An idea whose time had come!
To instil righteousness, and to pave the path for moksha, the Yogi Government started turning the wheel of Dhamma. To discourage sexual misconduct, it decided to catch ‘Romeos’. Romeo had whispered before his banishment “O I am fortune’s fool”. Many ‘Romeos’ were turned into ‘fortune’s fools’ by the anti-Romeo squads. To tame them, the squads patrolled universities, cinema halls, parks and gave on-the-spot punishment for their ‘sins’. It was a beginning; a first step towards infusing righteousness in people.
The next big step was to ensure vegetarianism and killings by all beings. The UP Government banned cow and buffalo meat. I am not making it up: After Yogi came to power, even the lions in UP’s zoos were not fed red meat; they were fed chickens! A petrified Sher Khan (of Lion King) must have muttered: “But, sir, we have been eating beef much before your scriptures were written.” But no one listened; less cared. Some adjusted, some didn’t. A stubborn pregnant tigress almost starved to death in Kanpur zoo but did not switch to white meat. They did not understand the grand design. Shameless animals!
Then the drive progressed to ensure non-violence and non-stealing in the State. Now how do you teach non-violence to mobsters? Simple: Maim them. As per news reports, after Yogi Adityanath came to power, UP Police injured at least 3,302 alleged criminals in 8,742 ‘encounters’. Several of them had bullets lodged in their legs; thus was born the term ‘Operation Langda’ (lame). In the same period, 151 people were reported killed in police action. You may question the methods but aren’t the motives more important, sacrosanct? What do you do if you don’t kill a guy, Vikas Dubey, who was already lame? Mind you, it is not a lame joke. One man’s mission is another man’s lesson. The Yogi Government went on to book Azam Khan for buffalo theft, goat theft and book theft. Indeed an extreme step for many but a mission is a mission. The virtue of non-stealing must be imbibed and the message should go far and wide.
Property, private or public, should not be stolen or damaged and who does that is on the wrong side of righteousness. The UP Government slapped cases of recovery on the CAA and NRC protesters. How does it matter that some of these people were well over 90 years of age and included women, students and activists? But then the Supreme Court played spoilsport. An unrighteous Supreme Court (which still has the Dhamma wheel over the lions in its emblem) overturned the UP Government drive for the recovery of money. Moving on to the next tenet, Yogi imposed a complete ban on the sale of liquor and meat in Mathura. He urged liquor sellers to sell milk to revive the glory of Mathura; a complete turnaround. You can’t afford to be lactose intolerant, social intolerance though is acceptable.
Now Yogiji is working on his speech. Falsehood and malicious speech would soon be things of the past in UP. Now that we have left Corona behind, there would be no need to lie about the fatality figures or about medical oxygen supplies. Soon, the very rationale of lying would die. And we can assume that hate speech would also become redundant once the ‘despicable’ leave the State. In an act of compassion, he absolved himself of pending cases of hate speech. That is how the wheel turns. Make a beginning, let go of the past!
Yogi, like a true crusader of Dhamma, has done all he could. He lit 12 lakh diyas to dispel darkness on the Saryu’s banks, a fitting reply to VS Naipaul’s An Area of Darkness. UP is all lit. And if you criticise him for his Hindu bias, please don’t. The time frame of Treta Yug he comes from did not have today’s minorities or their graveyards.
(The writer is a columnist and documentary filmmaker. The views expressed are personal.)