Imbalance of Power

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NILESH KUMAR, a vlogger in Bihar’s Bhagalpur district, documented a festive atmosphere at Pahari Tola, a neighbourhood in the village of Harinkol, on 29 January. At the local primary school, where he had studied from the first to the fifth standard, people had gathered for a grand bhandara—feast—of chicken curry and rice. Next door, a stage had been set up for an “orchestra” performance, a popular form of mass entertainment in Bihar where dancing girls gyrate suggestively to Bhojpuri and Bollywood songs blaring over loudspeakers.

The mukhiya—village chief—of Harinkol, Deepak Singh, was not present. He told me that he had been summoned by three different government agencies that day: the local police station at Pirpainti, the subdivisional magistrate at Kahalgaon and the district administration in Bhagalpur. He recalled being told by the district’s panchayati raj office, “Come and give your statement, or you will be removed from your post.” When he reached the police station, he was placed under preventive detention for the rest of the day, under Section 126 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, which authorises a magistrate to require a bail bond from anyone whom they believe “is likely to commit a breach of the peace.”

In the official summons, issued two days earlier, the Kahalgaon SDM wrote that a public consultation had been scheduled for 12 pm on 29 January at the Pirpainti block office, around three kilometres away from Harinkol. The consultation was part of the ongoing Environmental Impact Assessment for a proposed 2,400-megawatt thermal power plant to be built and operated by Adani Power. “Law and order must be maintained,” the SDM added, asking Deepak and six others to show cause why they should not be asked to furnish a Rs 1 lakh bond “to guarantee the maintenance of peace for a period of one year.” I asked the SDM and the Pirpainti police what evidence they had that the seven people would disrupt the peace, rather than airing their grievances in a democratic manner, but did not receive a response.