- Thursday, March 13, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
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.
#WATCH UK PM Boris Johnson along with Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel visits JCB factory at Halol GIDC, Panchmahal in Gujarat
(Source: UK Pool) pic.twitter.com/Wki9PKAsDA
— ANI (@ANI) April 21, 2022
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”.
No one can escape the natural justice. #BorisJohnsonhttps://t.co/6Qm9jrkgNZ
— IdlyVadaa (@IdlyVadaa) July 7, 2022
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”.
Thank you Britain for showing what happens when you come to India to show your #Bulldozer solidarity with the India's bulldozer babas. You get bulldozed. #BorisJohnsonOut #BorisJohnson #bulldozerpolitics #BorisOut
— Sanjukta Basu ✍️ (@sanjukta) July 7, 2022
Boris Johnson saheb ne hindustan aakar JCB ka endorsement kiya tha.
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) July 6, 2022
Stupid decision to promote Yogi’s JCB cost him his job. pic.twitter.com/FFGjVl94hZ
— rkhuria2 (@rkhuria2) July 7, 2022
We can’t say fuck our Guy, but Fuckin hell we can say Fuck Boris! Fuck you and your JCB celebration! Fuck you! #BorisJohnson
— Abhik?? (@sen_abhik) July 7, 2022
The arrogance of every autocrat and tyrant is bulldozed, one day or the other. Go to hell #BorisJohnson others like you or even worse than will surely follow you, their arrogance to will come under the wheels of #JCB. Just remember whom did you meet a few days ago. pic.twitter.com/LiTB5y8h8r
— Syed Hassan Kazim سید حسن کاظم (@kazimtweets) July 7, 2022
When Boris Johnson came to India, he had inaugurated the factory of JCB but he had forgotten that one day he himself could become a victim of “Karma” and now the same thing happened. https://t.co/1fw1hLISF9
— Ranjan Pratap Singh (@flywithranjan) July 7, 2022
