New Delhi, Sept. 22 -- The first measure of any government is not the number of schemes it announces. Rather, it is the quiet confidence a citizen feels while leaving home, opening a shop, or sending a daughter out into the world.
In Uttar Pradesh, that confidence has become the central claim of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's government. Its supporters regard the restoration of law and order as the administration's crowning achievement-and not without reason. When he took charge, the state was widely seen as a place where restoring public order would be the hardest task of all.
The problem was not merely crime in the statistics; it was the pervasive sense of insecurity that accompanied it, a deeper belief that the powerful offender stood above the system. Dispelling that belief was the first task of governance.
For years, UP bore an ugly reputation, summed up in a stark shorthand: one district, one mafia. Across regions, strongmen, land mafias, contracting cartels and networks of fear had made the ordinary citizen feel like a spectator, not a stakeholder. Hence, imposing the rule of law in so large a state was never going to be simple. Yet the Yogi Adityanath government has staked its reputation on this front more than on any other.
Traders, women and investors, it argues, are safer than they were. These three groups are not incidental; they are vital to a state's economic and social stability. A trader who feels safe keeps the market alive. An investor who feels safe is willing to commit capital. And a woman who feels safe can help her family-and, through it, society-move forward.
The fading of the mafia tag is not merely a story of police encounters and property attachments. It is a story of public self-belief - of people beginning to believe that the state can protect them, and that they can reclaim the freedom to live, work and invest without fear.
Empowerment is not only reservation, welfare or a speech from the podium. Its first step is freedom from fear. A person who is afraid, cannot use even those rights that are written into the statute book. In that sense, security is empowerment.
The test is sternest in the case of women. For a long time, crimes against women defined much of the conversation about Uttar Pradesh. From harassment to grave assault, the victim often suffered twice - first from the crime, then from a slack system and social pressure. The government's argument is that this culture is being checked because the old practice of letting offenders slip away has been broken.
The conventional debate on women's empowerment runs to education, health, jobs and representation. All of these matter; however, all of them rest on personal security.
Influence and access were once tools of escape. Action is now presented as the default. Encounters, attachment of assets, pressure on local gangs and the return of absconders can be debated as methods. The direction, however, is clear. Yogi Adityanath wants the state to say that an offender will be known by the offence, not by caste, money or connections.
The Yogi Adityanath years, seen through this lens, are an attempt to put the law back at the centre of government. The retreat of the mafia label, a rise in public confidence, and a harder line on crimes against women belong to one argument. If security is empowerment, women's safety is its final examination.
(The author is an Assistant Professor at Allahabad Degree College, University of Allahabad. Views expressed are personal)
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.