For Indian 'liberals', Boris Johnson collapsed because he 'backed' Hindu bulldozer forces: 'Victim of Karma'

HOURS after Boris Johnson quit as the leader of the British Conservative Party and the post of the country’s premier, a battalion of social media users in India started relating his fall with his riding a JCB machine during his brief visit to India in April.

During his visit to the western Indian state of Gujarat, the Conservative leader climbed onto a JCB bulldozer, an earth-digging machine which has emerged as a political tool in India of late, thanks to its use to demolish properties of people from the minority Muslim community, especially in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled state of Uttar Pradesh on charges of violating law and order.

The chief minister of the state, Yogi Adityanath, who is often seen as the poster boy of Hindutva politics and the next big thing in the BJP after prime minister Narendra Modi, has faced criticism over the use of bulldozers for demolition but his administration seemed to have been affected a little.

But Johnson faced curses of many in India after quitting the premier’s post as these critics saw the former’s riding a machine from the British company as an act which is aligned with those of the Hindutva forces and called the prime minister’s fall as “natural justice”.

One right-wing publication in India mocked those critics slamming Johnson over his JCB ride saying it had nothing to do with the prime minister’s resignation. It called the critics as Islamists, (Indian National) Congress sympathisers and political opponents to Modi and Adityanath and claimed that they saw Johnson’s riding the bulldozer as a symbol of solidarity with the BJP administration’s action initiated against illegal structures and criminals.

Here are some tweets that came out slamming Johnson over his “bulldozer solidarity” and himself getting “bulldozed”.