No, the arrest of Nawab Malik was neither surprising nor shocking at all. Last week the Enforcement Directorate (ED) took Maharashtra cabinet minister and senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Malik for questioning, and then arrested him.
To any politically conscious person in India, this arrest is not about the crime but politics.
After the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP government came to power such massive attacks on the opposition political parties, leaders, institutions and individuals have become a regular practice. The arrest of Malik was just another cruel message by the BJP to the opposition political parties telling them to fall in line or fall by the wayside.
The Modi-led BJP government is not the first political regime that is indulging in such obnoxious political vendetta. But there is no doubt that this regime has indeed crossed all the records of thrashing dissent. Now, who is Nawab Malik to me or other people interested in politics but not from Maharashtra? I got to know about him after the arrest of Aryan Khan, the son of film star Shah Rukh Khan.
The arrest took place in connection with an alleged drug case. Then Malik appeared as one of the strongest critics of the Narcotic Control Bureau (NCB) and its then chief Sameer Wankhede. Several political attacks were unleashed against Malik after he took on the central agency. His family was harassed too. Significantly, he tried to expose the association between the crackdown by the NCB in the name of curbing the drug menace of Mumbai and the BJP ruled Central Government.
However, the recent attack by the arrest is not only against Malik himself but also against the present Maharashtra government.The unfortunate part is that under the Modi regime, whenever we have heard about raids by the Income Tax department or arrests by the ED or by the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI), we have witnessed political linkages.
Let us take the examples of other opposition-ruled states. Before every state election under PM Modi, India has witnessed such attacks on the opposition parties.
In Bengal Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee defeated the BJP with a massive majority last year. Just days after forming the government the CBI arrested three top TMC leaders including two cabinet ministers, one of whom was also the mayor of Kolkata and one MLA. Similarly, the ED has been investigating an alleged coal scam against Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek.
In this case, the central agency has been naming several top TMC leaders and questioning them. Before the 2020 Delhi assembly elections, the CBI arrested an officer who used to work under senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Delhi’s deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia. The arrest was done just days before the elections.
Similarly, the Delhi Police has been questioning a senior aid of the Rajasthan CM and Congress leader Ashok Gehlot now for several months. In Maharashtra, before Nawab Malik, there was a crackdown against sitting Home Minister and NCP leader Anil Deshmukh by the CBI and ED.
Later, he had to resign. This list is never-ending because the BJP wants to send a message to the opposition political parties that till the time they are in power, attacks will be unleashed from every aspect.
There have been many research and journalistic works to show how over the years these agencies have become a tool of vendetta. In his book, 'The Silent Coup' senior investigative journalist Josy Joseph writes, “However, these individuals (people of CBI, ED, IT, IB etc) are part of a larger hole. There is equally a dangerously unprofessional part of the security establishment that is willing to do the bidding of the political executives – and it is the role of the sections that we need to understand better if we ought to save and protect this democracy.”
He further writes, “There are about 4 million members in the non-military security establishment distributed across the country – from state police to tax collectors. In the seven decades since independence, millions have suffered at the hands of the police; several families have been destroyed by the intelligence agencies or are falling victim to motivated tax raids; thousands of undertrials every day awaiting justice, many of them youngsters who are thrown behind bars for dreaming of a better tomorrow; and rival politicians are caught in the cross cheers of a ruling regime’s ambitions.
It is an endless vicious cycle.” In the arrest of NCP leader and Maharashtra Cabinet Minister Nawab Malik too there is political vendetta. The ED arrested him in connection to an alleged money laundering case and for allegedly having a connection with underworld don and terrorist Dawood Ibrahim.
But significantly, the arrest was made and to be precise the case was made based on a complaint by former Maharashtra chief minister and senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis. People who are aware of the legal system understand that the complainant of any case is very important.In this case, the political vendetta is crystal clear because the complainant is none other than a BJP leader.
It is not a case that was investigated by the ED where Malik was found to be involved, but a case orchestrated based on the BJP's interest. While the BJP believes that the opposition will be scared, there is a high chance that such extreme vendetta will help the opposition to reunite against the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party.
In the history of the world, whenever the atrocities have crossed all the barriers it has only helped others unite.
This extreme authoritarian way of functioning of the BJP has become so normalised that neither the opposition nor the people get surprised by such attacks on the opposition; and that is why the arrest of Nawab Malik was neither shocking nor surprising. The author is an independent journalist based in Kolkata and former policy research fellow, Delhi Assembly Research Centre.
(He tweets as @sayantan_gh. Views expressed are personal)
