Bulldozer (In)Justice in India: Encountering Demolition and Dispossession by DebaprasadBandyopadhyay Via Flickr: onceinabluemoon2021.in/2026/05/30/bulldozer-injustice-in-... The article contends that âBulldozer Justiceââthe BJP governmentâs targeted demolitions of Muslim homes, businesses, and religious sitesârepresents not mere administrative excess or electoral tactics but the latest manifestation of a coherent seventy-five-year ethnocratic project rooted in the 1949 Babri Masjid occupation. It identifies a persistent structural impunity loop (extra-legal action, state complicity, retroactive judicial or legislative legitimation, and perpetrator reward) driving Hindu majoritarian statecraft, linking the 1949 conspiracy through the Supreme Courtâs 2019 verdict to the 2025 Waqf Amendment Act. Drawing on Amnesty Internationalâs documentation of 128 targeted demolitions, Housing and Land Rights Network data showing 738,438 displacements in 2022â23, V-Demâs classification of India as an âelectoral autocracy,â and other reports, the piece maps the phenomenon across its ideological, affective, legal, spatial, gendered, corporate, and legislative dimensions. It highlights the central bovine paradox of India as one of the worldâs largest exporters of buffalo meat ($4 billion in 2025) alongside lethal cow-protection vigilantism, exemplified by major corporate donations to the BJP. Framing Bulldozer Justice within manufactured Islamophobia, Hindu victimhood narratives, creeping theocracy, and the mechanics of contemporary majoritarianism, the article characterizes the process as democratic demolition â one structure, one statute, and one impunity loop at a time.
