There is something sinister and pathetic about the way Uttar Pradesh has been run in recent years, and the double gangrape-cum-murder of the two minor sisters in Badaun earlier this week epitomises this perfectly. It is hard to imagine that the young Chief Minister of the state, Akhilesh Yadav, had aroused such hope and admiration when his Samajwadi Party bested the Bahujan Samaj Party only a couple of years ago. Instead of being moved by the horrible incident in which two young girls of the poorer classes were criminally assaulted, throttled to death, and then left hanging from a tree, the Chief Minister appears to have treated the crime in a routine manner, an approach that is becoming his hallmark.
It seems the policemen involved in the crime were merely suspended, to begin with. It is only when all hell broke loose in the national capital, and media accounts began to convey the real magnitude of the Badaun tragedy, that Mr Yadav shifted gears, removed the criminal policemen from service and set up a fast-track trial. But if the past is any guide, those who committed this heinous crime are likely to get away as evidence-gathering might prove too much of an ask for the UP police under the present administration.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi now taking a personal interest in the investigation, it has apparently dawned on the inept young CM that this incident might just be the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The UP crime scene has gone from bad to worse. The way the state administration is being run there does not offer much prospects for improvement. Last September, the attitude of the Akhilesh government to the Muzaffarnagar communal riots appeared callous and uncaring, shocking its supporters and friends who had all too easily assumed that the SP was a “secular” party which would go to any lengths to prevent communal trouble. Instead, about a hundred big and small communal riots have occurred in the state on the watch of the SP government.
Indeed, there are not a few who believe that before the Lok Sabha election, the SP came to a modus vivendi with Hindutva elements to treat communal trouble lightly so that both sides may benefit — the Hindutva brigades earning brownie points from the majority community and the SP from the Muslim minority by arriving on the scene as their saviour. Alas for SP, the plan went awry as the Muzaffarnagar rioting was too intense and widespread for the weak administration to handle. And now has come the shameful Badaun incident which has every appearance of being animated by the caste hubris of those associated with power. This Uttar Pradesh government has failed the poor.
