Demolition Reels: When the Police Become ‘Content Creators’ of Bulldozer Raj

Another police officer, DTP RS Batth, in one of his violent reels can be seen destroying 250 jhuggis (shanties) with the hateful background music “Bulldozer Baba,” composed by Prabhakar Maurya, and used by 25.8k reels on Instagram.

RS Batth is also responsible for several demolitions and encroachment drives in Gurugram, including the massive demolition drive in  Prem Nagar on 8 October, which saw the razing down of 170 huts.

In the 2024 judgement by the Bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan on “bulldozer justice,” the Supreme Court asked for the videography of these demolition proceedings for evidential purposes and to ensure accountability.

However, in an ironic twist, these videos are increasingly being flaunted by these officers on their personal social media handles. Reels, most commonly thought of in the same nexus as influencers and advertisers, have now become a new arena for police officers in uniform to openly demonstrate the violence wreaked by a bulldozer, violating various guidelines in the process.

The BPR&D guidelines also mention that, “Achievements of the department should be projected as such, and not as the individual efforts or achievements of any one officer” and “no media briefing or communication (official or unofficial) should be done for the personal glorification of any officer.”

Similar reels were posted by Uday Kumar Shirookar, an Ex Assistant Commissioner of MCGM. 

The influence of such reels can also be charted through the positive engagement of the public with such reels. There are many comments on these reels that invite these officers to conduct similar bulldozer-led encroachment drives in their areas too, in what can only be construed as a dogwhistle for the normalisation of what is endearingly termed as ‘bulldozer justice’.

Such officers are often seen as local heroes and saviors of the elite middle class, ridding public spaces of all ‘unsavoury’ elements, like ‘encroachers,’ and poor people.

In another reel uploaded by Dinesh Kumar, he is found asking in the caption, for people to comment if he has done right by demolishing an “encroachment”; a staggering instance of a police officer currying public favour for the violent and unconstitutional exercise of bulldozer demolitions.

She also highlights the hypocrisy inherent in letting convicted rapists like Asaram Bapu and Gurmeet Ram Rahim go unpunished, their houses falling safely in the blindspots of ‘bulldozer justice.’

Besides, she says that this needs to be seen as a class, caste and religion issue.