“Gai hamari mata hai, police hamari baap hai,” the two frightened men shout, wincing in pain in the viral video. The cow is our mother, police is our father. They stumble, fall and limp along as officers flog the two Muslims and parade them through the streets of Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh on March 3.
There is no other way of saying this: the act was medieval, illegal, and unconstitutional, playing out after Hindu fundamentalists accused the two men of cow slaughter. In case you thought it was an aberration, six days later, the police took a similar approach in the city of Damoh in the same state, beating five suspects and forcing them to chant a similar slogan.
Cow slaughter is illegal not just in Madhya Pradesh but in at least 20 of India’s 28 states. Had the suspects in Ujjain and Damoh slaughtered a cow? Even if they had, the police had no authority to parade and flog them. As it happened, Hindu vigilantes in Ujjain merely found them to be driving a pick-up truck with a cow – and that in new India, especially if you are Muslim, is justification for random violence.
In Damoh, the men were accused of slaughtering cows, and their properties – in clear violation of Supreme Court orders against punitive demolitions – were demolished. As for parading them through the streets, the superintendent of police was quoted as saying inThe Hindu that the men were being marched to the court because the vehicle supposed to transport them had broken down.
Summary justice
Protected by police and empowered by the political rise of the Hindu right, goons have frequently meted out what they view as swift, summary justice in recent years. In 2018, we even saw a union minister honour eight Hindu extremists convicted of lynching a Muslim.
But as the Ujjain and Damoh incidents reveal, an emerging characteristic of India as Hindu rashtra appears to be that the police will openly exchange roles with the vigilante, publicly repudiate the law and the Constitution, and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the goons they are meant to control. After the parading and flogging of the two Muslim men in Ujjain, the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad felicitated the officers. Then, all of them posed for the cameras.
It is no longer news that the police and the government use the law to discriminate against Muslims, particularly in the northern states and Gujarat. The latest example came on March 6, when a deputy superintendent of police in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal town – where, as our reporting has shown, the police have previously been accused of exhibiting bias and the government of suppressing Muslim voters – openly sided with Hindus.
“Holi comes once a year, jumma [Muslim weekly prayers] comes 52 times a year,” said Deputy Superintendent of PoliceAnuj Chaudhary. “Those who have a problem with colours and feel their faith will be corrupted should stay at home.” Supreme Court senior advocate Sanjay Hegde called the officer’s comments “simply bigotry masquerading as a facilitation of public disorder”.
Officers who exhibit such bias would be better off surrendering their uniforms and joining the ranks of the vigilantes. Everyone has biases, but civil servants are supposed to hide theirs and serve impartially. Every rule that governs their service requires them to be unbiased.
‘Fairness and impartiality’
For instance, The Civil Services (Conduct) Rules require an Indian government servant to “promote the principles of merit, fairness and impartiality in the discharge of duties” and “act with fairness and impartiality and not discriminate against anyone”. Article 14 of the Indian Constitution says, “The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.”
In Madhya Pradesh, the Ujjain and Damoh atrocities were the latest violation of the oath police officers take when they enter service, swearing to serve with “impartiality” and “uphold fundamental human rights” and accord “equal respect to all people”.
It was easy for the officers to do what they did because a precedent had been set in 2023 when police in the same city, acting on a complaint with no evidence, arrested three Muslim teenagers accused of spitting on a Hindu procession. Accompanied by drummers and music, municipal officials then demolished their home, claiming the building was “dangerous”.
In January 2024, the case collapsed after complainant and witness told a local court that police asked them to sign a complaint, that they neither knew what was in the first information report nor had agreed to it, Article 14 reported. One of the teenagers stayed in jail for 151 days before he got bail.
In violating the Constitution and their service oaths by discarding the imperative of impartiality, officers are not just betraying the faith of those they are meant to serve but undermining the Indian republic’s foundations. To be sure, they are encouraged—even required— these days by politicians to be subservient to majoritarian concerns, but their true character is revealed in their ability to resist.
It is not my case that this is easy to do in an age when union and state governments act with vindictiveness towards civil servants and police officers who are faithful to the truth and refuse to be biased. Prime Minister Narendra Modi set the trend, making that amply clear in Gujarat, where he sent officers to purgatory (here, here and here) when they tried to challenge his requirement of bias .
The officers in Ujjain, Damoh or Sambhal were not required to challenge anyone in the highest echelons of power. They were not even required to stand firm against its lowest echelons. They were only required to quietly abide by the law and not make a spectacle of its subversion and themselves. That they could not and escaped without censure or punishment is an indication of a new normal.
It is difficult to believe that the Ujjain or Damoh police will face the kind of punishment their compatriots in Gujarat faced in October 2022 when the Supreme Court confirmed a 14-day jail term pronounced by the Gujarat High Court after four policemen publicly flogged three Muslims.
“Do you have an authority under law to tie people to poles and beat them in public view? And take a video? What kind of atrocity is this, and you even take video of it?” said the Supreme Court in January 2023.
What a difference two years can make.
A version of this column was first published as an editorial note in Article 14.
