Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 16 April 2018 | Page 35
Photograph: SANDIPAN CHATTERJEE
Top left, Riot-hit Raniganj; top, China breaks down in her ruined home
the epicentre of the violence, differ on
‘who started it’—a much bandied about
phrase there. Disturbingly, ‘what really
happened’ depended on the religious
community of the person one spoke to.
For the locals caught in the crossfire, it
is impossible to grasp the larger context of
the events. “Why”, asks a baffled Muslim
grocery store owner, “did a celebration of
a Hindu festival, which, like our own Id
and Muharram, has been taking place
peacefully here since time immemorial,
suddenly turn into a Hindu-Muslim riot?”
Being singed in the blaze, it is difficult for
them to comprehend the bigger political
game that triggered the incidents. That
game is a tug of war for the ‘religious sen-
timents’ of the people of Bengal, with a
sharp eye kept on political gains. And the
gain to be reaped in this case is the fiercely
fought Panchayat polls in Bengal, due to
be held in early May, 2018.
Long known for its ‘secular fabric’ in
which all faiths co-exist harmoniously,
the recent spate of violence has ripped
apart what some say has been a facade—a
construct of secularism generations of
politicians have used cannily.
“Subsequent administrations in Bengal
have always banked on the minority—read
Muslim—vote to stay in power,” points out
political scientist and psephologist Biswa
nath Chakraborty. “Since Independence,
whether it was the Congress or the CPI(M)
and now the Trinamool, each government
has cultivated the ‘minority’ votebank,
because traditionally they vote as commu-
nities, rather than as individuals. Muslims,
comprising 27-33 per cent of the popula-
tion and still growing, is the largest chunk
of the non-Hindu votes, and gaining access
to this gives a party a massive advantage
during elections.” Chief minister Mamata
Banerjee’s allocation of monthly stipends
to Imams, her donning of the hijab during
Muslim festivals and other such gestures
have been seen as ‘appeasement’. In con-
trast, the Hindu vote in Bengal has been
non-religious and divided—based on iss
ues and ideology.
The BJP, on an aggressive, winning run
of assembly elections since its landslide
victory in the general elections of 2014,
has been trying to consolidate those div
ided Hindu votes in Bengal. And it doesn’t
take political analysts to connect the cur-
rent spate of communal clashes (there
were 58 incidents of communal violence
in 2017; there were 27 in 2015) with the
BJP’s attempt to arouse religious senti-
ment in the Hindu Bengali. “Political
parties in the electoral fray in Bengal since
independence never really offered the
option of ‘Hindutva’ as an election issue,”
points out Tarun Ganguly, an expert on
Bengal politics. “So, even hardline Hindus
never exercised their franchise on religion
as an election issue. But, crucially, it is not
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