Posts Tagged ‘Babulal Gaur’
A forgotten Chambal saga
Posted on: December 29, 2023
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On March 28, a gang of armed bandits stopped a video coach near Sheopur (once a part of Morena but now a separate district), asked the passengers to get down, set the coach on fire and took wealthy-looking eight of
the passengers with them away to the Chambal ravines. The gang was later identified as that of Rambabu Gadaria.
Two days later Madhya Pradesh Minister of State for Home Nagendra Singh (Cabinet Minister of Home is Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan himself) visited the area and returned after issuing a warning to the police
officers to arrest the Gadaria gang members or be prepared to face the music. Now, Gadaria is a deeply religious person — almost as religious as the present Chief Minister, or his predecessor, or even his predecessor. According to the accounts given to the local media by the video coach passengers who
were let off, the gang leader had touched the feet of the girls and women and given them Rs 500 each.
He has an abiding faith in the Goddess Durga. He offers, so say the locals conversant with his habits, a metal bell at one of his favourite temples of the Goddess in the Chambal on the ashtami (the eighth day) of the Navaratras.
He, along with his band, reached the “Berar-Wali-Mata-Ka-Mandir” in the forests of Pahargarh in Morena district in the morning of April 6, hoisted a huge bell, weighing around 38 kg, onto the roof of the temple, and performed pooja for nearly an hour, the reports say. He did not forget to offer dakshina to
the pujari of the temple before returning to the ravines. Naturally, you don’t expect the police to interfere with the performance of religious activities of a person, even if he happens to be a bandit. But the
police did not forget its duty. Once the gang members were safely away in the ravines, the police party reached the temple and pulled down the bell which, it is said, is kept at the Pahargarh police station.
The Gadaria gang is responsible for numerous killings, kidnappings and extortions and the leader carries on his head an award of Rs 15 lakh. But isn’t killing part of a dacoit’s dharma? The State’s politicians and police officers know this. The noise that they create about killing or eliminating the Gadaria gang (or other dacoit gangs, for that matter) appears only to soothe the frayed tempers of the people whenever a dacoit gang has performed its dharma.
There was such a hue and cry across the State and beyond when the Gadaria gang had shot dead 13 persons at Bhanwarpura village of Gwalior district in October 2004. Then Chief Minister Babulal Gaur reached the village the very next day and issued all the appropriate statements which would keep the senses of the people numbed for some time in anticipation of something happening to the dacoits.
The police headquarters followed the Chief Minister’s directives with commendable alacrity. The police chief constituted 13 special teams to comb the forests in search of the Gadaria gang members. A very senior officer was posted in the area to coordinate the search operations. He had later come out with a brilliant idea of constituting suicide squads of police personnel and sending them to the forests to track down and kill the Gadaria gang members.
Quietly, everything was forgotten, as was the December 2001 operation when 200 officers and jawans of the police were thrown into the Shivpuri forests to nab the Gadaria gang members. Killings and kidnappings and extortions notwithstanding, Rambabu Gadaria is a phenomenon which the politicians and police force of Madhya Pradesh would not like to disturb. He was “killed” by a party of Shivpuri district police in an encounter in January 1999. The members of the police party who had “eliminated” the scourge of the Chambal were felicitated at a public function at Shivpuri by no less a person than then Chief Minister Digvijay
Singh and were given out-of-turn promotions. Now it is a different matter that Gadaria surfaced and surrendered to the Gwalior police a few months later — but only to escape from the police custody with a substantial quantity of arms and ammunition.
Some people say that the police personnel posted in the dacoit-infested Chambal region have become rich and made properties beyond their means. This is sheer cynicism. Does it really matter if the dacoits take a little care of their brethren in the khaki and the latter show a little brotherly concern about their welfare?
(9.4.2006)
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Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is a glib talker. He conveniently refuses reference to his past lest the people should make demands. Recently his Government has released full page advertisements in several Madhya Pradesh newspapers saying what his Government has done in the state in the past three years. Three years!! Yes, what he claims. The period before three years he wants the people to forget — and not remember 700 and odd promises he had made to the people of the State.
This is an old trick of Chouhan. Like “1984” (a novel) of George Orwell, where a person became “unperson” when his memory was erased from the records and mention of his name became a crime. A similar feat, in real life, was performed by the BJP top brass by making the BJP rule as “unBJP” rule. The occasion was the celebration of Gaurav Divas on the completion of five years of Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s BJP government in Madhya Pradesh on November 29,2005.The people remember the BJP having come to power in Madhya Pradesh on December 8, 2003 with Uma Bharti as the Chief Minister. After she resigned in the wake of a criminal case against her in a Hubli court, Babulal Gaur became Chief Minister on August 23, 2004. A year or so later Gaur was suddenly asked to resign and Chouhan was sworn in as Chief Minister on November 29, 2005. All the top leaders, Nitin Gadkari, Lal Krishna Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar, Venkaiah Naidu and Rajnath Singh, were present on different occasions and addressed the bash without mentioning the earlier Chief Ministers. Does it mean that the party high command recognised only five years of the BJP rule and considered the December 2003-November 2005 period as the ‘unBJP’ rule, George Orwell style? In bashes held periodically during December 2003-November 2005 the BJP rule was “unmentioned”.
Chouhan planned an “investors’ meet” soon after becoming the Chief Minister with a view to (as he publicly claimed) inviting the industrialists from India and abroad to invest in Madhya Pradesh. He is not the man to worry about the futility of such meets (in the absence of infrastructure and proper atmosphere in the State). He is happy so long as such exercises keep him, and his favourite bureaucrats, “occupied” at home and occasionally abroad at public expense, away from the drudgeries of the day-to-day problems.
Then Leader of Opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly the late Jamuna Devi had computed that the BJP Government had signed, since 2005, as many as 21 MoUs but only two of the signatories had taken some interest in exploring the feasibility of setting up their industries in the State. The investors’ meets, sometimes called the NRIs meet, or the global investors meet or the buyer-seller meet, have been held at different places in the State, including Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Jabalpur and Khajuraho (the last has been the venue of several such meets). The official delegations led by the Chief Minister had during this period been to several countries.
Chouhan extracted promises of investments worth lakhs of crores of rupees. His delegation spent a whole day signing MoUs with prospective investors, from India and abroad, at Khajuraho; the areas covered were power, textile, food processing, information technology, education, and bio-fuel. Later he announced that the number of the investors present at the three-day meet easily gave the idea that Madhya Pradesh was becoming a priority State for investment for the large number of Indians settled abroad. He had boasted that Madhya Pradesh would soon leave the “allegedly” investor-friendly States like Karnataka, Rajasthan, Bihar and even Gujarat far behind in the matter of investment. (The State had received proposals at the Khajuraho meet worth Rs 39, 334 crore).
Some time later MoUs worth Rs 88,018 crore were signed at Gwalior, mainly in the fields of industry, energy, food processing, information technology and higher education. Chouhan had given to Indore meet the name of global investors meet and the MoUs worth Rs 61,900 crore were signed there. Almost the same has been the story of every investors’ (or NRIs’ or buyer-sellers’) meet on which the State Government had been spending huge amounts. (Who says Sheikh Chilli is a fictional character?)
Some more of Chouhan’s unfulfilled promises include: A bai would no more be called bai, but only ‘behen’ if she was younger in age or ‘didi’ if she was older. The bais will be issued photo identity cards and the Government will spend up to Rs 20,000 on treatment of a bai if she falls ill; this facility will be extended to her husband, son, daughter, mother-in-law, father-in-law and widowed or deserted daughter also.Free textbooks to their children up to the 12th class, in addition to monthly cash payment to the children. A bai will be entitled to 45 days’ maternity leave and the Government will pay her wages during this period. Besides, her husband will be entitled to 15 days’ paternity leave and the Government will pay his wages also. The bai will be paid Rs 1000 in cash for nutritious diet during maternity.
The Chief Minister announced six week’s maternity leave to women and two weeks’ paternity leave to men working as agricultural labourers (their wages to be paid by the Government). Several other promises, similar to those for dais, were also made for agricultural labourers. Chouhan’s other promises include review and revision of labour laws, among other things, to help the industrialists; take initiatives for the education and economic and social rehabilitation of the disabled; 11 schemes for the poor belonging to the general category; His Government intended to use the modern techniques for increasing fish production; If a fisherman fell ill, the Government would spend on his treatment Rs 30,000 —- even more if necessary: special budget for women on the pattern of dalits and dais; As many as 35 promises he made for welfare of the kisans. Many many more promises for making the State “ideal” in the country.All that he now wants the people to forget this.
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Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan suffers from chronic verborrhea. He shoots off jumlas with greater rapidity than in even Narendra Modi. If the rape of a child is highlighted in the media, he takes no time in announcing that child rapists will be given death sentence and his government will bring in the next session of the Assembly the bill to amend the relevant section of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). If a rape is highlighted in the media, he promises death sentence for the rapist by amending the law. If a gang-rape is highlighted in the media, he shouts with full force the death sentence for all the rapists by amending the law in the next session of the Assembly. At present the IPC stipulates from seven years’ rigorous imprisonment to life term for rape, depending on the circumstances.
One thing, he has never moved to introduce a bill to amend the IPC. Secondly, his jumlas come out only when the crime is highlighted in the media. Scores of incidents of molestation and rape take place regularly in Madhya Pradesh outside the big cities and away from the media glare but Chouhan was never heard saying that he could not sleep because of that incident or that he will ensure that the rapist will be awarded the death sentence. Madhya Pradesh, incidentally records the highest molestation/rape incidents in the country. The State Assembly was told earlier this year that on an average, 11 women were raped every day and six women were gang-raped every week in the State during 2016, over half of the victims being minor. Between February 2016 and mid-February 2017, as many as 4279 women were raped and 248 were gang-raped in the State. Of the 4279 rape victims, 2260 were minors. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the State had 5076 such cases in 2014 and 4391 cases in 2015.
The short-lived BJP government of Uma Bharti had addressed itself to the problem of humiliation of women in public and moved a bill in the Assembly to provide harsher punishment to the offenders. She, though, could not see it through. Babulal Gaur had replaced her as the chief minister by the time the bill was passed. It became part of the statute book in December 2004.
The bill added Subsection-A to Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code (use of criminal force to outrage the modesty of woman) and provided that the offender ‘shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which shall not be less than one year but which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to fine.’ The main Section provides for a maximum punishment of up to two years. Besides, the Madhya Pradesh amendment also provides for the same punishment to whoever abets or conspires in the act, which is not there in the main Section.
Difficult to say how the amended Section would have been enforced had Uma Bharti remained at the helm of affairs. Her successors (Babulal Gaur and then Shivraj Singh Chouhan), however, did not show any interest in this. The amended law was consigned to the archives once the gazette notification was made. Today most of those concerned – the politicians, the police officers and, of course, those for whose benefit the Act was amended — are not even aware that such a law exists.
Crime, particularly the crimes against women, has been steadily going up in Madhya Pradesh for quite some time. It was during the BJP government of Sunderlal Patwa that Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest number of heinous crimes including murder, rape and dacoity. The trend continued almost unabated during the ten-year Congress regime of Digvijaya Singh. Bad law and order, with emphasis on crimes against women, formed part of Uma Bharti’s vigorous campaign for the November 2003 Assembly elections, along with what was then described as BSP (bijli, sadak, pani). Being a woman, she had shown particular sensitivity towards the plight of women. Under her leadership, the BJP captured power with an overwhelming majority.
It would be interesting to note that Chouhan, when he replaced Babulal Gaur as Chief Minister in November 2005, believed there was no rule of law in the State. This he put as his top priority. The Governor’s customary address to the Assembly at the beginning of Chouhan’s first budget session had specifically stated: ‘Meri Sarkar ki prathamikata kanoon ka raaj sthapit karana hai’ (the priority of my government is to establish the rule of law). The Governor’s address is always approved by the cabinet. Unfortunately, the law and order in the State has since been steadily deteriorating.
A major reason for this state of affairs is the total personalisation, not politicisation but personalisation, of the police force (once described by Madhya Pradesh High Court judge as ‘criminals in uniform’). Secondly, there are too many IPS officers and an acute shortage of the lower staff who do the field work. To top it all, there is the pathetic insensitivity of the police almost at every level. by the
A hollow Narmada ritual!
Posted on: January 10, 2017
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Mention a ban on sand mining in Madhya Pradesh and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan gets into panic. When Union Minister of Water Resources Uma Bharti expressed her hope that Chouhan would put a ban on sand mining in the Narmada river in the course of his Narmada Yatra as it has been destroying the river, Chouhan promptly retorted that no effort would be spared to stop ‘unauthorised’ sand mining on the banks of the Narmada river but the ‘legal mining will continue’. It is in the garb of legal mining that illegal mining is flourishing in the State.
After Chouhan had launched Narmada Seva Yatra at Amarkantak, the source of the river in southern part of the State, on December 11, Uma Bharti had congratulated him and expressed the hope that he would put a ban on sand mining in the Narmada and then only the conservation of the river would be complete. Chouhan has named this campaign ‘Namaami Devi Narmade’. It was launched after performing Pooja (worship) of Narmada River. Those present included Acharyas, Mahamandaleshwars, Sadhu-Mahatmas, and members of his cabinet.
Described by Chouhan’s Public Relations Department as the world’s biggest public campaign to conserve the river and environment, the Yatra will cover 3334 kilometres on both sides of the river in 144 days. Hundred-odd persons, mostly the ruling party activists, and a sprinkling of saffron clad sadhus are marching along the river. Chouhan joins them at fixed points every few days for a while to deliver his speech on the importance of Narmada for the development of the State. His speeches mostly focus on the spiritual connection of Narmada with the people of the State and the necessity of rejuvenation and conservation of the river. The Yatra will culminate at Amarkantak itself on May 11, 2017.
In one of his speeches he said: Maa Narmada is in difficulty today. The flow of the river has reduced because of deforestation. Maa Narmada has given us water, electricity, crops, fruits and vegetables, etc, but we have polluted it and have given invitation to various diseases putting the life (of people) to danger. There is need to restrain ourselves and repent for our sins. Our sins can now be washed away by plantation, bio-farming, sanitation and environment conservation. The plan envisages plantation of fruit bearing trees on the banks of the river.
Gaur’s Report
More than 200 sewerage drains flow into the river at various plants. Chouhan promised to stop that source of pollution of the river. His government has not, however, spelled out a concrete plan for that. Enough to say that all those present at the launch of the Yatra were either politicians or eminent godmen. No environmental experts were invited barring one – Ramon Magsaysay Award winner Rajendra Singh who is occasionally invited to the State to deliver a speech and his role ends there as far as the State is concerned.
Conservation of Narmada River was first conceived by Babulal Gaur. As Chief Minister in 2004-5, Gaur had toured the entire Narmada area. Later in 2009 as Minister of Urban Development in the Chouhan government, he had prepared a report on ‘Narmada Sanrakshan Karya Yojana’ (Narmada conservation project). It aimed at covering all villages, Nagar Panchayats, Municipalities and Municipal Corporations situated on the banks of the river and also containing effluents flowing into the river.
The project envisaged setting up a conservation room in every municipal council to monitor and control pollution. It was decided to shift all crematoria to at least one km away from the river bank, check immersion of human and animal corpses, and build treatment plants at liquor factories situated on the bank. Besides, it was planned to make plantations on large scale on the river banks and construct lodging boarding places for the pilgrims.
However, the project report was shelved as Gaur’s portfolio was changed. It is not clear why Chouhan developed sudden love for Narmada River at this stage. Two developments could have contributed to his decision. One is the repeated allegations made inside the Assembly and outside about the involvement of his close relations in the illegal sand mining which is destroying the Narmada River. Former Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh, for instance, said that the sand mafia was fearless as Chief Minister Chouhan was himself involved with the Sangh leaders keeping mum. He alleged that the illegal sand mining was going openly in Hoshangabad, Budhni (Chouhan’s Assembly constituency) and the entire Narmada River ‘under the Government patronage’. Relatives of Chouhan were openly doing illegal mining, making the Narmada River hollow, he added. Police/mining officers trying to check illegal mining had been thrashed and even killed.
Another allegation is that Chouhan has quietly surrendered the State’s rights over Narmada water to Gujarat. The 1979 Narmada Water Dispute Tribunal Award had estimated 28 million acre foot (maf) water in the river. Out of that, Madhya Pradesh was allotted 18.25 maf, Gujarat 9 maf, Rajasthan 0.5 maf and Maharashtra 0.25 maf. Not satisfied with the water allotted to it, Gujarat had been eyeing a larger share and making preparations in haste while Madhya Pradesh lags much behind and is not in a position to make full use of the water allotted to it by 2024. Soon after becoming Prime Minister, Narendra Modi gave clearance for raising the height of Sardar Sarovar Dam and then Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel even performed the ‘bhoomi-poojan’ for raising the height of the Dam – so quietly and quickly that Madhya Pradesh was left with no time even to lodge its protest.
According to Congress leader and former minister Raja Pateria, the Chouhan government had recently made a drastic change in the Narmada project without taking the people’s representatives and the people into confidence. The original project on Narmada River had envisaged construction of several dams including Raghavpur, Basania, Rosra, Sitareva, Upper Budner, Ataria, Sher Shakkar, Machhareva, Doodhi, Morand and Ganjal but the State government has now decided not to go ahead with their construction. According to Pateria, the Government’s quietly taken decision will mean that some 6.5 lakh acres of agricultural land will be deprived of irrigation water.
The Master of Gimmicks
Posted on: June 3, 2016
Narendra Modi is no match to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in inventing public relations gimmicks. The smart city project for Bhopal is his latest hit.
One day some time back it fell out of the blue that Shivaji Nagar and Tulsi Nagar would be developed as the smart city. These two localities are situated in the middle of what is known as new Bhopal. Many well off people, including businessmen, politicians, journalists and senior government officials live there. There is a lot of greenery in the area. It was estimated that some 50,000 persons would have to be dislocated and between 30,000 and 40,000 trees would have to be felled.
This, as was expected, led to an uproar. A former chief secretary took the initiative to chalk out a protest programme. Environmental experts became active. Young boys and girls assembled and threatened to launch a ‘Chipko Andolan’ (which was started by Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Gaura Devi, Sudesh Devi and others in the Tehri forests in the 1970s) to save the 50, 60-year old trees. The people’s representatives (almost all belonging to the ruling party as there are hardly any belonging to the Congress) also expressed their muffled protest at the proposal for displacement of such a large population and destruction of so many trees. The government officers also expressed their anxiety at the proposal.
Just then, Shivraj singh Chouhan announced that with a view to respecting the people’s sentiments and saving the trees, it had been decided not to build the smart city in Shivaji Nagar and Tulsi Nagar localities but shift it to North T T Nagar locality. Next day while newspapers were full of people’s gratitude for Chouhan’s humane and environment-friendly gesture, he visited the North T T Nagar locality with a large number of cars carrying government officials and some of the people’s representatives. For the next two days the Bhopal newspapers carried apparently sponsored stories (with identical contents) telling the readers about the Chief Minister’s love for people as well as his concern for environment.
In the midst of all this an interview given to a local newspaper by Home Minister and former Chief Minister Babulal Gaur got lost. Gaur was quoted as having told the newspaper that when the proposal for smart city was discussed with the people’s representatives, mention of Shivaji Nagar and Tulsi Nagar was never made.
Politician with a difference
Posted on: November 21, 2015
Madhya Pradesh minister of home and jails Babulal Gaur belongs to the rare breed of politicians. He contested his first Assembly election in 1974 as an independent supported by the parties which later formed Janata Party to dislodge Indira Gandhi and the Congress from power at the Centre and in several States. Gaur revealed at a public function a few years ago that he had won that election mainly because of the help from Congress leader Arjun Singh. As a Minister in the BJP government of Sunderlal Patwa in the early 90s, Gaur had displaced thousands of Muslim families from old Bhopal and dumped them at inhospitable terrains near Gandhinagar outside the city. He was in the forefront of the welcoming party when the Kar Sevaks returned from Ayodhya after demolishing Babri Masjid that resulted in communal riots in several part of the country, Bhopal being one of the worst-hit with 192 recorded killings. Still Gaur continues to be more popular among Muslims than any other BJP leader and more popular than most of the State Congress leaders also.
Patwa hated his guts but had to induct him into his cabinet at the insistence of (then BJP president) Lal Krishna Advani. When Uma Bharti was declared BJP’s chief ministerial candidate and had her absolute say in selection of candidates, she had convinced almost the entire party leadership that Gaur would better serve the party in Lok Sabha than in the Assembly. She had even selected Lok Sabha constituency for him – Bhopal. It was Atal Behari Vajpayee at the Central Election Committee who vetoed it down and said that Gaur, being a senior leader, should be allowed to contest for the Assembly if he so desired. Then, Uma Bharti trusted only Gaur to hold the chief minister’s post when she was made to resign in the wake of the non-bailable warrant against her from the Hubli court. Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s manoeuvrings have failed to keep Gaur out of his cabinet.
Gaur is not a stickler to the RSS/BJP code in the matter of his food habits. Still, the hard-core puritan like Kushabhau Thakre had tremendous affection for him. A retired executive of a private sector industrial unit tells me that in the 1980s he was assigned by his boss the task of giving ‘donations’ to important leaders towards their election expenses. When he reached Gaur with Rs 60,000 (earmarked for him), the BJP leader consulted a register where he had apparently noted down the amounts he was hoping to collect from companies and individuals and told the executive that he had counted on Rs 3,000 from his company. He refused to accept more, the retired executive said.
Gaur has had, by and large, a clean public life. The only black spot was the blatant manipulation to which he resorted, with the help of then State Election Commissioner A V Singh, to get his widowed and apolitical daughter-in-law Krishna Gaur elected as Mayor of Bhopal in 2009. A V Singh, who belonged to the IAS, never disturbed his conscience when it came to going against the rules and propriety to keep himself on the right side of the powers that be. Defeated Congress candidate Abha Singh’s supporters had alleged that then PCC president Suresh Pachauri had also betrayed the party.
Gaur occasionally displays a sense of humour which is not common among BJP leaders. One day he invited some journalists for dinner. He called me up to remind me. I said that I had no option but to obey his command because, being the home minister, he would otherwise send a police party to pick me up. Gaur was silent for a few seconds, then said quietly: ‘Yes. You know I am minister of jails also’.
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Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been adroitly using the judicial inquiry to evade action where action is required. It serves in two ways. It assuages the hurt of the victims of a mishap, particularly if it is the result of the dereliction of duty on the part of the bureaucrats. Secondly, Chouhan earns the gratitude of the errant bureaucrats by not taking action against them even if they are indicted by the judicial commission. Hence Chouhan’s prompt announcement of a judicial inquiry into the Petlawad (Jhabua) blast which killed over 90 persons and injured over 100 others.
A stampede at Ratangarh temple in Datia district in October 2006 had resulted in the death of 50 devotees. The judicial commission appointed by Chouhan squarely held the Collector and the Superintendent of Police responsible for the tragedy. Chouhan took no action against them nor did he act on the commission’s recommendations for avoiding such occurrences in future. A similar tragedy at the same temple took place in October 2013 and this time the death toll reached 115. Chouhan instituted another judicial inquiry. This time, though, he ordered suspension of the Collector and the Police Superintendent as it was the election year. Needless to say the recommendations of the judicial commission in the Second Ratangarh tragedy were also ignored like the recommendations of the commission in the First Ratangarh tragedy. Suspension in such cases is quietly revoked after some time.
The tragedy on September 12 in the small town of Petlawad could have been easily avoided if the officials from the district level to the State level had cared for the concerns of the people. The law does not permit storage of explosives in a residential area but here the explosives were kept in a house at the centre of Petlawad town. Moreover, as The Indian Express revealed, owner of the explosives store Rajendra Kasawa did not even have a licence to store or sell the explosives. Kasawa has only a ‘Shot Firer’s Certificate’ that allows the holder to undertake blasting work in connection with well sinking, road construction and agricultural work, among other things. The holder of this certificate is not authorised to store even one gram of explosives.
The residents of Petlawad have been complaining to the district administration about the storage of the explosives in the residential areas but the district administration always ignored the complaints. State’s Home Minister Babulal Gaur, who was the first government functionary to reach the site of the tragedy, observed that a series of violations had been found in storing and selling explosives in Jhabua district where mining business had been flourishing for long. said a series of violations have been found in storing and selling explosives in Jhabua district where mining business was flourishing since long time. a series of violations have been found in storing and selling explosives in Jhabua district where mining business was flourishing since long time. “There should be a regular three-month check of stock register and magazine depot where gelatin and other explosives were stored and obtained by the licensee which in this case was found absent”, said a series of violations have been found in storing and selling explosives in Jhabua district where mining business was flourishing since long time. The tragedy is that the State’s Home Minister can only whimper and has no power to take action against any one.
If Chouhan were honest in his intentions, he should have gone for a prompt police or CBI inquiry as it is a clear case of criminal activity. But an honest Chouhan would not have presided over the Vyapam scam which ruined the careers of thousands of young girls and boys in the State.
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Long before the UPA government was forced to amend the criminal law by violent protests over gang-rape and murder of a Delhi paramedic student in December 2012, the short-lived BJP government of Uma Bharti in Madhya Pradesh had addressed itself to the problem of humiliation of women in public and moved a bill in the Assembly to provide harsher punishment to the offenders. She, though, could not see it through. Babulal Gaur had replaced her as the chief minister by the time the bill was passed. It became part of the statute book in December 2004.
The bill added Subsection-A to Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code (use of criminal force to outrage the modesty of woman) and provided that the offender “shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which shall not be less than one year but which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to fine.” The main Section provides for a maximum punishment of up to two years. Besides, the Madhya Pradesh amendment also provides for the same punishment to whoever abets or conspires in the act, which is not there in the main Section.
Difficult to say how the amended Section would have been enforced had Uma Bharti remained at the helm of affairs. Her successors (Babulal Gaur and then Shivraj Singh Chouhan), however, did not show any interest in this. The amended law was consigned to the archives once the gazette notification was made. Today most of those concerned – the politicians, the police officers and, of course, those for whose benefit the Act was amended — are not even aware that such a law exists.
Crime, particularly the crimes against women, has been steadily going up in Madhya Pradesh for quite some time. It was during the BJP government of Sunderlal Patwa that Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest number of heinous crimes including murder, rape and dacoity. The trend continued almost unabated during the ten-year Congress regime of Digvijaya Singh. Bad law and order, with emphasis on crimes against women, formed part of Uma Bharti’s vigorous campaign for the November 2003 Assembly elections, along with what was then described as BSP (bijli, sadak, pani). Being a woman, she had shown particular sensitivity towards the plight of women. Under her leadership, the BJP captured power with an overwhelming majority.
It would be interesting to note that Chouhan, when he replaced Babulal Gaur as chief minister in November 2005, believed there was no rule of law in the State. This he put as his top priority. The Governor’s customary address to the Assembly at the beginning of Chouhan’s first budget session had specifically stated: “Meri Sarkar ki prathamikata kanoon ka raaj sthapit karana hai”(the priority of my government is to establish the rule of law). The Governor’s address is always approved by the cabinet.
However, there was no change on the ground. . In 2011, when Chouhan was well into his second term, there were 3406 rape cases in the State, the figure being the highest in the country, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). In the previous year, the State had registered 3135 rape cases and 6646 cases of molestation of women/girls, again the highest in the country. Minor girls are particularly vulnerable in the State. According to the figures given in the Assembly, 29,828 minor girls were reported missing and 7,306 minor girls were raped in the State between January 2008 and February 2009, two years after Chouhan had announced his priority as establishment of the rule of law in the State.
A major reason for this state of affairs is the complete politicisation of the police. Secondly, there are too many IPS officers and an acute shortage of the lower staff. To top it all, there is the pathetic insensitivity of the police almost at every level.
A recent incident will illustrate the point. On May 14, Sunita Sharma was on her morning walk when a miscreant snatched her chain (a very common occurrence in Bhopal) and tried to run away. Sunita had, however, caught hold of his hand and forced him to escape without the chain; she, though, received injuries on her neck and hands in the struggle. Her husband Vijay Sharma, who is personal secretary to Woman and Child Development Minister Maya Singh, said that he continued ringing up No. 100 (police emergency) for some 25 minutes but no one picked up the phone on the other end. Then he went to the T.T. Nagar police station, which was nearer, but was asked to go to Habibganj police station because the offence had taken place in the jurisdiction of Habibganj police station.
On the eve of the election of Madhya Pradesh BJP president towards the close of 2012, Prabhat Jha was reassured by chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan of a second term and asked to leave everything to him. The next day, Jha could only fret and fume as the entire party under the guidance of Chouhan supported Narendra Singh Tomar for the post.
Later at the delegates’ meeting held to felicitate the new incumbent and bid farewell to the outgoing party chief, Jha could no longer contain his pique and all but called Chouhan names, describing him artful to the core. Jha said that Chouhan held with him the “remote” of both the government and the organisation. As Atal Behari Vajpayee kept his cards close to his chest at the time of the Pokharan explosion, so did Chouhan about getting Tomar elected in his (Jha’s) place as the party president, he added. Chouhan sat on the dais grinning, as the central observers, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Ananth Kumar, looked a bit uncomfortable.
It is a pity that Jha cognised only too late the qualities of Chouhan’s head and heart. At the helm of affairs since November 2005, Chouhan has displayed little ability or even inclination for providing a reasonably good administration to the State; he has, nevertheless, emerged as the ace player in the game of politics inasmuch as he is now being considered, at least in the media, as Narendra Modi’s competitor for the top position. His manipulations in politics and bureaucracy would seem legendary.
With a permanent grin on his face and his hands always half-folded, this mild-mannered, soft-spoken, self-effacing foot soldier of the BJP patiently waited for his time. His opportunity came when Uma Bharti wanted back the post of chief minister which she had relinquished in the wake of the non-bailable warrant issued against her by a Hubli court. Babulal Gaur, who had stepped into Uma’s shoes, was not inclined to resign. The BJP leadership faced a veritable crisis as Uma threatened to march to the Raj Bhavan with her supporters in the BJP legislature party to demand what she considered her due.
Chouhan, then president of the State BJP, volunteered to mediate with the high command by keeping the hopes of both, Uma Bharti and Babulal Gaur, alive. He did persuade the high command for a change, but only in his own favour. Both Gaur and Bharti were dumbstruck when they came to know of this but by then it was too late. Then BJP vice-president Rajnath Singh and general secretaries Arun Jaitley and Pramod Mahajan were deputed to oversee the change. When Chouhan’s name was proposed as the new leader at the legislature party meeting, Gaur took it stoically but Uma could not. She, along with her supporters, walked out of the meeting, making all sorts of allegations against BJP leaders. She eventually formed her Bharatiya Jana Shakti party. Describing the formation of the BJP government in 2003 as her own baby, she always referred to Chouhan as “Bacha-Chor” (child-lifter). That is, till she returned to the BJP.
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