West Bengal Politics: Appeasement

Minority vote bank is exclusively attractive in West Bengal. The Muslim population is 26%, almost double the national average. Though Karl Marx said, ‘Religion is the opium to the mankind’, the CPIM led Left Front took a different path altogether by appeasing the minorities, especially Muslims throughout their tenure of 34 years. The LF used the porous border of West Bengal-Bangladesh to their advantage, allowed illegal immigrants and effectively converted them as their vote bank. The LF never took any steps for the development or betterment of the down trodden Muslims.

2008 onwards, the Left Front (LF) government started to lose its ground in West Bengal. The 3-tier Panchayat election in 2008 gave a clear indication of that. Going beyond the wildest imaginations of both the ruling Party and the opposition, rural West Bengal gave its verdict against the Left Front. Trinamool Congress (TMC) started to spread its fangs in West Bengal.

Mamata Banerjee continued that Bengalified Left legacy with a greater magnitude as she came to power in 2011. She took appeasement to a newer height by announcing various freebees for Muslims – Rs 2,500-a-month honorarium to imams and Rs 1,000 a month for muezzins (who call for prayers), a proposal to build a hospital exclusively for Muslims at Bhangar in South 24 Parganas, Rs 500-crore plan for upkeep of mosques and clerics’ dole, pre-matric scholarships ranging between Rs 1000 and Rs 10000, a mobile library containing 5000 books and laptops for Madrasa toppers, bicycles to Muslim girls and allowed a massive rally in Kolkata in support of the mastermind of 1971 Bangladesh genocide. Many can argue that these were announced by her for development of down trodden Muslim minority but what was allowing a massive rally in Kolkata in support of the mastermind of 1971 Bangladesh genocide?

The year 2013 started with Syed Noor-ul-Rehman Barkati, the Shahi Imam of the Tipu Sultan mosque, bragging that he stopped writer Salman Rushdie’s entry into the cultured, literary Kolkata of our memory by a mere phone call to the CM – Mamata Banerjee. The year ended with the Kolkata police reportedly stalling indefinitely a TV serial, Dusahobas, scripted by Taslima Nasreen after Muslims groups complained that it would hurt religious sentiments.

Latest Census data shows a 5-7% increase in Muslim population in just 10 years in districts of Assam and West Bengal bordering Bangladesh. Migration from Bangladesh has traditionally been for livelihood. But lately the concern has been about radical elements chased away by the Sheikh Hasina government finding protection in Trinamool Congress-ruled West Bengal for votes and muscle power.

Appeasement reached its new height, on 19 January 2014, Ahmed Hassan Imran was nominated to the Upper House of the Parliament by TMC. Ahmed Hassan Imran is allegedly involved in 2007 Kolkata riots and 2013 Canning riots. Right after Imran was elected as Rajya Sabha MP, Pankaj Saran the Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh was reported to have sent an important dossier to the Government of India. The said dossier contained information regarding Imran’s contact with several anti-India groups which are said to be based in Bangladesh. According to the dossier, Imran actually came to India in 1971 from Srihatta region of present day Bangladesh. Initially residing in the Dhubri district of Assam, he later shifted to the Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal. Between 1975 and 1976, he founded and led the West Bengal Muslim Student Association. The organization expanded rapidly under his leadership. The WBMSA was among the several Muslim student organizations which attended an important conference in Aligarh in 24 April 1977. It was after this conference that the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was created with Ahmed Hasan Imran being made as the head of its West Bengal chapter, a post he retained for the next three years. SIMI was recognized as a terrorist organization and banned by the Indian Government in 2001. Imran claimed that he never had contact with any radical anti-Indian, Islamic groups. However he also admitted, ‘I was indeed a member of SIMI from 1977 till 1984.’ The organization was not banned in India during that period.

Now let us see those 2 riots in which Ahmed Hassan Imran was allegedly involved:

2007 Kolkata Riot

On 17 August, Muslim clerics in Kolkata issued death warrant against Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen. The 2007 Kolkata riots took place in Kolkata on 21 November 2007, when anti-Taslima Nasreen protesters under the banner of All India Minority Forum blockaded major portion of central Kolkata and resorted to arson and violence. The West Bengal government deployed the army in the afternoon.

Several media persons from television channels were hurt due to stone pelting. The riots set fire to two party offices of the ruling party Communist Party of India (Marxist). The violence led to severe traffic snarls during the morning rush hour in Sealdah, Mullickbazar, C.I.T. Road, Alimuddin Street, Puddapukur, Moulali and Entally. As the streets of Kolkata turned into a combat zone, the State Government asked for six columns of army. At 3 PM, two columns of army, each comprising 100 to 120 soldiers staged flag march in the city. Four more columns were preparing to move soon.

Two months after the incident, Dharmamukta Manabbadi Mancha, an organization of secular Muslims, held a press conference at the Press Club in Kolkata in protest of the expulsion of Taslima Nasreen from Kolkata.

2013 Canning Riot

On 19 February 2013, shortly after midnight, a Muslim Imam from Ghutiari Sharif in Canning subdivision was returning from a religious congregation at Jamtala in Jaynagar, in a motorcycle along with a colleague. When they reached Naliakhali around 2 a.m., they were intercepted by a gang of waylayers, who robbed the cleric and shot him. According to police sources the cleric was reportedly carrying ₹1,150,000 in cash that was looted by the unidentified gunmen. The altercation resulted in the death of the Imam, although his companion managed to flee after sustaining injuries. At dawn, the driver of the first bus from Golabari to Canning discovered the body and intimated the Canning police station.

Shortly after news of the Imam's death was known to the local population, scores of Muslim mourners who gathered at dawn around the body of the Imam, at the location of the shooting, blocked the road. When a junior police officer and two constables were sent to recover the body, they were surrounded by the crowd and assaulted.

A crowd gathered at the site of the attack and rumors started to spread that the killers were from the village of Naliakhali. Naliakhali is a Hindu majority village in the Gopalpur panchayat under the executive jurisdiction of the Canning police station. Thousands of people from neighbouring areas, such as Canning, Jibantala, Sarengabad, Jhorormore, Narayanpur and Dhoaghata gathered on the site and refused to part with the body of cleric. When the police tried to take away the body of the cleric for processing, the mob attacked the police with brickbats. Anup Kumar Ghosh, the sub-inspector of the police station at Canning, was injured and admitted to the Canning Sub-divisional Hospital. Seven policemen were injured in the attack. The mob also attacked and damaged police vehicles.

A local school principal reportedly incited the mob into violence. At around 10 a.m., a heavily armed mob of at least 10,000 began an attack upon Naliakhali. They ransacked and looted the houses of Bengali Hindus as the residents fled for their lives. The rioters hurled bombs, doused the houses with petrol and set them on fire. Violence and arson spread to nearby locations such as Dhopar More and Bangalpara. Hindu homes and places of business were ransacked in Gopalpur, Goladogra and Herobhanga. The crowd blocked the road at Bhangankhali, Priyor More, Hospital More and Natunhat. Protesters also staged a rail blocked at Ghutiari Sharif station in the Sealdah-Canning section of the Eastern Railway.

At around 11 a.m., the South 24 Parganas District Superintendent of Police Praveen Kumar Tripathi, reached the spot along with a massive Riot Squad and Rapid Action Force battalions. They resorted to lathicharge in order to pacify and disperse the mob. The body of the Imam was then sent for an autopsy. In the late afternoon reinforcements from the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate and the Howrah Police Commissionerate reached with water cannons to douse the flames of the burning village. The police evoked Section-144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and established a curfew in the area.

In the violence, more than 200 houses were burnt in several villages that came under the jurisdictions of the Canning, Joynagar, Kultali and Basanti police stations, displacing more than 2,000 people. Some of the displaced people took shelter in makeshift relief camps while others had to live on the road. The state government announced a compensation of ₹300,000 to the family of the murdered cleric and ₹10,000 to each of the 93 families displaced by the violence.

Political observers have linked the violence to the then nearing panchayat elections of 2013 in the region, where the TMC and the CPIM were trying to woo Muslim voters in the district.

to be continued .........