This is the third part of our three part series on Burdwan blast incident.
You can read the first of this series ‘Shock, disbelief and anger: Khagragarh caught unawares’ here and second part ‘Burdwan Blast and After: New madrasa, disturbed neighbourhood and a wary community ‘here.
By M Reyaz and Zaidul Haque, TwoCircles.net,
Burdwan (West Bengal): The ‘accidental’ bomb explosion in Khakhragarh on city outskirts on October 2 has put the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the dock. Opposition parties have been quick to lap up Trinamool links with some of the terror accused as the two-storied building where the blast occurred had a party office at the ground floor.
TMC shunned the link and even denied it had a party office in the same building. When TwoCircles.net team visited Khakhragarh, local party leaders claimed “it was not a regular party office” but during election campaign, they had put up a local election office and stacked up banners and flags there.
Notwithstanding the fact that there was indeed a blast in that building, two persons were killed and incriminating material evidence was gathered from the spot, several TMC workers took pains to explain how Muslims had switched to TMC ahead of the last assembly elections and how this support had only increased over the year.
A party worker, who did not want to be named, said, “As many as 90% of Muslims in the locality today support TMC and you can find TMC flags and/or banners outside almost every house. And hence it will be wrong to link everything with the party.”
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has maintained silence over the issue. Many feel she is in a ‘Catch22’ situation since she would not want to alienate the Muslim voters by making any political statement. Many relate it directly to the hushed manner in which the investigation took place in the initial days and the way Banerjee resisted the NIA probe into the incident.
Post the May 16 results for the general elections, BJP’s influence in the state has seen an upward movement, especially because the Left parties have gradually weakened creating a vacuum.
The BJP left no chance to cash in on the opportunity and on Thursday, October 9, and called a rally here demanding a probe by NIA (NIA took over investigation only later, on October 11). As per The Telegraph report, the large turnout had purportedly surprised even the local party unit. “In an otherwise calm state, the BJP is fanning ‘communal polarisation’ on the plank of illegal migration from Bangladesh and Banerjee’s alleged ‘soft heart’ towards Muslims,” locals said.
The Left parties too have called out a rally in the district and the CPM state secretary Biman Bose expressed surprise at the chief minister’s silence. The Left parties too had demanded a probe by the central investigating agency.
Thus, while politics over the blast continue, experiences of shoddy investigations in several terror related cases have hit the morale of the community, who are suspicious of investigating agencies, and worried that in an attempt to show quick result – or worse, to please their political bosses – they might see a spate of arbitrary arrests of Muslim youths and their consequent incarceration.
And the media, instead of working as the watchdog, is only adding fuel by continuously invoking stereotypical images through words such as veil, beard, jihad, etc.
Communal polarization: Simulia a bellwether
West Bengal has been largely a calm state vis-à-vis communal riots in last few decades except sporadic tensions here and there. Burdwan was an exception even in 1992-93 (post-Babri demolition time) as people recall there were hardly any reports of communal tension then.
Muslims comprise almost 25 % of the West Bengal population. Yet, you don’t need rocket science to figure out the reasons.
First, most of the Muslims spread across the state are those who had converted to Islam few centuries ago but bear a strong sub-national Bengali identity. Which means, in many ways, the Muslims have assimilated with the cultural practices, language, dressing, food habits – maach-bhaat (fish and rice) etc. The dressing too did not vary much except for a checked lungi and the more identifiable beard and the skull cap, though not very common. Most women can easily pass off as any other Bengali Hindu women. However, Muslim women wearing veils when they step out of their homes was never as prominent as it is seen today.
But the cosmetic reasons apart, the real reason can be traced to the mostly communist rule over last several decades before ‘poribortan’ brought in Didi. The Left dispensation in the state in the last four decades left little room for faith based politics. This is not to say that the state did not see any form of violence. There indeed was large scale political violence with cadres of Left/TMC/Congress clashing – often the foot soldiers were Muslims who died, from all parties. But there was no direct communal angle to it as none of the three – Left, Congress, TMC – parties/groups wanted to be seen as allying with a particular community.
Things are no longer viewed in black and white. Fear mongering is leading to communal polarisation in this otherwise peaceful region. Muslims at Khagragarh as well as Simulia complained that after the blast, the atmosphere has been communally vitiated and now every bearded/capped person or veiled woman is being seen with suspicion.
With both the BJP and alleged terror outfits gaining ground in the state, thing are changing and how! Reports from across the state suggest there is increasing communal polarization. The situation may not be alarming as on today. But in the run up to the 2016 assembly elections, it should not come as a surprise if communal agendas – both saffron and green – become the dominating discourse.
And there are little tell tale signs pointing towards the picture might be changing faster than imagined. As Muslims in the state are getting more vocal and becoming assertive, with large scale shift of Muslims – both Bengali speaking and Urdu speaking – to TMC, politics of purported appeasement of a particular ‘vote bank’ is proving counter-productive. The huge response to the BJP’s October 9 rally was just another indicator.
TCN Special Series: Burdwan Blast and After