Communal undertow of Bengal violence

Radhika Ramaseshan

Senior Journalist

DILIP GHOSH, the BJP’s West Bengal president, gave a warning to his political opponents a day after four persons were killed in firing by Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel in Cooch Behar district during the fourth phase of polling on April 10. Ghosh, never known to nuance his statements, called the victims ‘dushtu chelera’ (naughty boys) and let it be known that there was no place for such elements in West Bengal. This is the beginning, he declared, as Sitalkuchi Assembly constituency in Cooch Behar registered 86 per cent turnout, undeterred by the bloodshed. The Sitalkuchi episode marked the first major violence in the 2021 Assembly polls but it encompassed the elements defining electioneering in the state.

The communal undertow was unmistakeable. The CISF could not have chosen its targets by design but implicit in Ghosh’s ‘naughty boys’ statement was a reference to the fact that the casualties were Muslims, who worked in Kerala and had returned to vote. The state BJP chief used their fate as an example of what could befall the ‘others’ if they similarly took on the forces. The upcoming poll phases cover several Muslim-dominated constituencies where conventional wisdom would give the Trinamool Congress (TMC) an upper hand. The BJP, its principal adversary, could acquire an edge only by forcing a reverse consolidation of the Hindu votes, a tactic that works for it in the North and the West.

Chief Minister and TMC president Mamata Banerjee fashioned her response in line with the ‘outsider-native’ theme dominating her campaign. The Central forces were ‘outsiders’ (have they never been deployed in West Bengal?) and, therefore, must be challenged. The Sitalkuchi occurrence was reportedly sparked by the CISF when they allegedly beat up a boy who could not comprehend their questions in Hindi. The TMC’s inference was that the jawans were ‘aliens’ who spoke an incomprehensible language. Mamata expediently forgot that Bengalis were among the early migrants within and outside India.

The violence underscored the significance of party affiliations and not personal rivalries in an election. In West Bengal, party loyalty is the sine qua non of political survival. It must be worn like a badge, or better still, tattooed on one’s person, because it is the passport for access to entitlement, authority, jobs, ration cards, statutory funds — the works. A ‘renegade’ is not only denied his/her rightful claims from the state but also faces penalty that can be extreme.

The dead men in Sitalkuchi were supposed to be TMC workers or supporters. The ensuing reprisal from the TMC gave a foretaste of the attacks that might come in the next rounds. Mamata is up not just against a bellicose BJP but also the Left-Congress alliance that tied up with the nascent Indian Secular Front (ISF), founded by Abbas Siddiqui, an influential cleric. Mamata doesn’t need to lose as much sleep over the Congress and Left as the ISF. Siddiqui is determinedly making a play for the Muslim votes, using the very Sachar panel report on the condition of the minorities that the TMC had propagated in the earlier Assembly polls to ‘expose’ the Left Front’s failure to deliver anything substantive to Muslims. Mamata’s campaign paid off, but the ISF has questioned her own record to act upon the Sachar committee’s proposals. Siddiqui’s discourse might have rung credible with sections of Muslims because Mamata beseeched the minorities not to split their votes. If their votes are fractured, the BJP could level the field for itself.

Violence — random or organised —took on a communal colour since 2016 and indicated that the BJP was hard at work to polarise the polity. A few serious incidents need recounting to show that the communal fault lines did not surface in West Bengal overnight. In October 2016, at Hazinagar town in the Naihati industrial belt (North 24 Parganas), a procession to immerse Durga’s idols turned violent when the crowd hurled stones at a Sufi saint’s mazaar (shrine). A bomb was thrown at the house of Mohammad Jiaul Haque, a TMC leader and a former municipality chairman. A Moharram procession, that was to wind down the streets that night, was toned down and shortened after an appeal from Arjun Singh, a former TMC MLA, from an adjoining constituency. Singh joined the BJP subsequently. In 2019, a Muslim shanty town outside the Kankinara Jute Mills (also North 24 Parganas) was ransacked. The attack was the outcome of a communal riot that erupted in 2018 after a Ramnavami cavalcade provoked Muslims with offensive slogans. It was said that Arjun Singh instigated the attack, despite then being in the TMC.

Of course, for long the TMC had an upper hand over the violence. According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s 2019 report, of the 61 political killings nationally, West Bengal topped the list with 12, followed by Bihar and Jharkhand with six each. The 2018 panchayat elections, another inflection point, claimed more than a dozen lives and had the dubious record of electing an unusual number of TMC candidates unopposed. The Opposition’s nominees reportedly withdrew from the fray, fearing for their lives.

The TMC did not pioneer and patent the use of violence to establish political hegemony. Before 1977, the Congress ushered in an era known as the ‘hoodlum years’. Through its 34-year regime, the Left institutionalised an ‘anarchic’ template of governance that used the party cadre to exact compliance from people or face the consequences. When the TMC looked like a sure-shot winner, the Left cadre shifted fealty and provided Mamata the muscle and a loose and undisciplined organisation to help her run her writ over the state.

Now that the BJP has packed its rank and file with TMC imports, especially the local overlords, the political collisions will intensify in the coming days.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.