Dear Reader,

The death in Bihar of Bharat Bhushan Tiwari, a 28-year-old from Bilauti village, Shahpur police station, in Bhojpur district, in a police encounter on the morning of June 17 has triggered a political storm and widespread outrage, both on the ground and on social media.

On June 24, a massive Mahapanchayat was held in his village, attended, among others, by Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor, who vowed to take the protests not only to the State capital, Patna, but to Delhi unless those responsible for the killing are sent behind bars.

The Bihar government has already ordered a judicial inquiry headed by retired High Court judge Vinod Kumar Sinha, but the row over the circumstances of the encounter refuses to die down.

Tiwari’s family and neighbours say he suffered from a mental health condition. He fancied himself as following in the footsteps of Bhagat Singh. He would brandish a pistol and pose. Photographs on social media depict him as the revolutionary. He had no criminal cases pending against him. The local administration has cited this too.

Now, clips on social media show Tiwari, surrounded by police from all sides. He then throws his pistol to the ground and surrenders. But he is shot dead, raising serious questions about why the police took the fatal action.

Protesting villagers say Bharat was a gregarious figure who raised issues such as the lack of drinking water and irregularities in development works in the area, concerns that, they allege, made him a problem for the local administration. Police say they had to fire in self-defence after he opened fire at officers.

According to the villagers, if the police believed there was reason to arrest him, they could have taken him in, or placed him in a mental health care facility, rather than kill him in an encounter.

Tiwari’s father, Kashinath Tiwari, is heard on camera telling reporters that he had informed the police his son was “mentally unstable”. He also said Bharat had been uploading videos about the lack of development in the area, about scams, shoddy roads, a poorly built drain, which had all gone viral.

Tiwari was also active in raising the plight of flood victims in a nearby village and pressing for the area’s electrification. In death, he has grown larger than life. Locals say he bought the pistol by selling his gold locket. Although his act of brandishing a pistol was dangerous, his death has enraged people, particularly young people.

The BJP’s Samrat Choudhary, after taking oath as Bihar Chief Minister in mid-April, has been promising to make the State crime-free by following the model of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath, one that gives the police far wider latitude to deal with what it calls “goondaism”.

Tiwari’s encounter has divided the BJP and united the opposition. It has generated far more heat than anyone anticipated. A local resident, possibly a BJP supporter, blurted out about the Chief Minister: “Samrat Choudhary wants to become Adityanath. He can never do that.”

After the outrage, the Chief Minister ordered a judicial probe, saying its objective was to ensure a thorough investigation into all aspects of the incident “with complete impartiality and transparency”.

The politics over the incident has reached a point where Prashant Kishor has attacked the Chief Minister using the analogy of rakshaks (protectors) turning bhakshaks (predators). Kishor said Tiwari was not fighting for himself but for villagers facing displacement, and that he was not mad but had been harassed until he became mad.

Union Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, rather than take up the caste angle, said “the biggest question is, where did Bharat Tiwari get the illegal pistol from? Under whose patronage is politics being done over this criminal incident?”

But the RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav said that “fake encounters” have taken place under Choudhary since he became Chief Minister, and that “caste has been a factor” in such killings. Whether Tiwari was an innocent social activist, a slightly muddle Robin Hood, or a budding criminal will become clear over time, but some television channels have already taken to calling him krantiveer, or revolutionary hero.

One thing, however, is already clear. His death has shaken a State that continues to struggle with basic deprivations: poor development, massive youth unemployment, migration, and the persistence of goondaism and mafia rule in several regions. Recently, a student died while travelling in an overcrowded train to appear for a job examination. Teenage crime is also on the rise.

Is Bihar, which has seen pitched caste conflict and the rise of Robin Hood-style musclemen and politicians backed by caste loyalties, from Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav and Anand Mohan Singh to Anant Singh, slipping into the same mould again? Or does the Bharat Tiwari encounter and its fallout point to a different kind of Gen Z anger, one driven by stalled development, rampant corruption, and the high-handedness of the bureaucracy and police?

There are no easy answers. But there is certainly no bahar (prosperity) in Bihar.

Illegal arms have thrived in the State for decades. The gun-manufacturing town of Munger is a case in point, and Tiwari’s katta (country-made pistol) is very much part of the story. But given his lack of any prior criminal record, could the police not have acted more humanely, especially in a State where country-made pistols are easily available and young men often mistake machismo for courage?

Such incidents will recur as long as the police assume the roles of judge, jury, and executioner. How does one curb such impunity when there is a growing appetite for instant-coffee justice?

I remember the glee on social media when the Hyderabad police shot dead four men accused of raping and killing a young veterinary doctor in 2019. A Supreme Court-appointed commission later concluded that it was a staged encounter and the accused were “deliberately fired upon with intent to cause their death”.

In Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Adityanath, who has never objected to his nickname “Bulldozer Baba”, allowed the police to launch Operation Langda, a crackdown in which alleged criminals are shot in the leg. The operation evolved into a statewide shoot-to-disable campaign against history-sheeters, repeat offenders, and gang operatives. This came alongside the Goonda Act and Gangster Act being used to bulldoze the homes of accused persons before any conviction. Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, too, was rebranded “Bulldozer Mama” in the run-up to the 2023 Assembly election.

Tiwari’s encounter raises, once again, questions about the legality of the growing fad for Encounter Raj and vigilante justice in the police force, even as it feeds a public appetite for extra-constitutional measures that seem to promise peace and safety.

Where are we headed? Each encounter leaves behind one more body, one more argument, and one more uneasy question about the kind of republic we are becoming. Write and tell us what you think.

Until the next newsletter,

Anand Mishra

Political Editor,Frontline