'JCB Khudayi' Trend to Crackdown Policies, Weddings: Indians & Their Fixation with Bulldozers EXPLAINED

It all began in 2019. No one seems to know exactly why, but somewhere we all got obsessed with bulldozers. Social media was flooded with memes, GIFs and hashtags of JCB excavators. A Twitter user had then said, “JCB khudayi jokes are so subtle yet so funny.”

Four years later, the craze is yet not over. From governments to ‘aam aadmi’, Indians across have been experiencing the ‘bulldozer vibes’ in their daily lives.

In 2019 when people tried to find out the reason behind the ‘trending JCBs’, some pointed to the huge number of views garnered by JCB digging videos on YouTube, others traced the origin to a video of a groom in Chhattisgarh who took a JCB, instead of a horse, to reach the wedding function.

Bulldozers and Weddings

In 2023, situation remains the same. A marriage procession in Gujarat’s Navsari became the talk of the town when a groom arrived at his marriage venue on a bulldozer.

According to a report in India Today, the bulldozer was beautifully decorated with flowers. The marriage procession reached the bride’s house dancing to the beats of drums and a DJ.

While it came as a surprise for Navsari residents, the dream of Chikhli’s Keyur Patel came true. He was reportedly inspired by a video of a wedding in Punjab on social media some time back, in which the groom had arrived on a JCB for his marriage.

In December last year, an Army serviceman from Uttar Pradesh’s Hamirpur, Yogendra Prajapati alias ‘Yogi’, was given a bulldozer by his father-in-law as a wedding gift.

In the same year, in June, a video of another UP groom went viral when he arrived on a bulldozer in Bahraich’s Laxmanpur-Shankarpur village amid cries of ‘Bulldozer Baba ki jai’.

A groom in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul also decided to ditch the traditional ‘ghodi’ and arrived at his wedding venue on a bulldozer. The groom, Ankush Jaiswal, is a civil engineer and had been working with construction-related machines, including bulldozers, every day as part of his job.

He wanted to make his wedding entry special by using a bulldozer. The wedding took place in Jhallar village under Bhainsdehi tehsil of Betul district.

Bulldozer & Govt Crackdown

Talking on Madhya Pradesh, on Friday itself, residents of Ujjain’s Jhitarkhedi village reportedly pelted stones at a bulldozer during an anti-encroachment drive. According to reports, nine people were injured in the incident, including the JCB driver and police officers.

A large police contingent had to be deployed at the incident site. “The anti-encroachment drive was carried out to demolish a wall erected illegally,” the police said.

Reports stated that some people had encroached on government land and installed a statue. They also erected a boundary wall, following which the Panchayat had complained.

Also on Friday, February 4, a massive demolition drive was launched in Jammu’s Bathindi area, where JCB machines were brought to demolish the illegal structures raised on the state’s land.

Here too, some locals resorted to pelting stones at the bulldozers and officials who came to carry on the anti-encroachment drive. Reportedly, heavy stone pelting halted the demolition drive for some time and everyone was asked to leave the spot.

Some reports even stated that attacking with stones left some of the police officials injured as the “stone pelters came close to the police” and the team carrying out the drive.

In October 2022, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led government had used bulldozers to demolish 16 houses and 29 shops of alleged stone pelters after Ram Navami processions witnessed large-scale violence and rioting in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Jharkhand. MP’s Khargone saw maximum rioting with more than fifty houses and properties being gutted.

Since the Khargone incident, Chouhan’s image has transformed into that of ‘Bulldozer Mama’, rivalling UP CM Yogi Adityanath’s ‘Bulldozer Baba’ image.

Recently, bulldozers were also used in Uttarakhand’s Haldwani after the high court issued eviction notices to nearly 4,000 families from a land owned by the Railways. The court had reportedly allowed the government to use “such force as was deemed necessary” to make the eviction happen.

A news portal quoted UP ADG Prashant Kumar as saying that within two weeks of the BJP and CM Yogi Adityanath’s return to power for a second term, more than fifty ‘criminals’ surrendered out of fear of the bulldozers.

The report stated that in the first instance, the police in Pratapgarh district stationed a bulldozer in front of the accused person’s house after receiving a rape complaint against him. The accused surrendered the following day.

In the Tanda police station area of Rampur district, the police demolished a house of a murder accused. The Adityanath government had also launched a recovery campaign against people who allegedly damaged public property during the protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act.

A report in The Print quoted several BJP leaders pointing out the the Bharatiya Janata Party and the RSS now prefer leaders who give a tit-for-tat response, leading to an immense competition in the saffron party. From Himanta Biswa Sarma in Assam to Basavaraj Bommai in Karnataka, have joined the ‘bulldozer club.

Who Initiated the Bulldozer Policy — Yogi Adityanath or Ashok Gehlot?

Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, who till last year termed bulldozing of houses ‘unconstitutional’ and said that even PM doesn’t have the right to demolish houses of any accused, has resorted to same method now.

The Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) in January took a bulldozer to two properties, one of them a coaching centre. Another report in The Print stated the properties that came under the bulldozer’s ruthless blade belonged to Suresh Dhaka and Bhupendra Saran, the main suspects in the December 2022 teacher recruitment exam paper leak case.

The demolition received wide coverage, with comparisons being made to UP CM Yogi Adityanath, whose policy of razing down structures has earned him the sobriquet ‘Bulldozer Baba’.

The Print report, however, claims that Gehlot government has been using bulldozers to demolish “illegal encroachments” and commercial buildings that have come up on government land, including properties belonging to those with criminal charges, since 2019 — a year before Adityanath government’s first demolition.

The report quoted senior officials from the JDA as saying that since the Gehlot government came to power in December 2018, it has been using bulldozers to clear government land of encroachments.

In 2019, the JDA had been given strict instructions to “rein in” encroachers, said officials. Since then, the agency has used bulldozers to demolish “illegal” flats and commercial buildings, including those belonging to people accused in criminal cases.

According to data provided by JDA, the authority demolished 18 big buildings in 2019, 20 in 2020, 16 in 2021, and 22 in 2022.

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