Babri Masjid and Supreme Court of India

The five-member constitution bench of the Supreme Court began their 1045 page verdict by aptly calling the Ayodhya dispute almost as old as the idea of India. Then the bench reminded us of our ancient civilisational values of assimilation, inclusion and harmony as well as modern constitutional principles of secular democracy that our founding fathers had followed despite the counter-currents in the stormy days of Partition. At the fag end too, the court stressed on the constitutional principle that ‘all forms of belief, worship and prayer are equal’ and those who ‘interpret the Constitution, enforce it and engage with it can ignore this only to the peril of our society and nation’.

Explaining further in the ‘conclusion of title’ of the 1500 square yards of the disputed land in Ayodhya, the bench insisted that ‘the court does not decide title on the basis of faith or belief but on the basis of evidence’. Nevertheless, the bench noted several times that the Muslim side did not question the Hindu faith about Lord Rama’s birth in Ayodhya. They had only contested the claim that he was born precisely under the central dome of the demolished Babri mosque and denied that the mosque came up over the ruins of an earlier temple dedicated to the deity.

The bench rigorously examined the findings of Archeological Survey of India and its earlier scrutiny by the Allahabad bench of Lucknow High Court. Though the ASI excavations (sans the area where the idol of Ramlala is ‘virajman’ since 1949) in 2003 found elaborate ruins of earlier non-Islamic structures of different periods of our history, the SC bench did not find categorical confirmation or conclusive proof of an ancient Rama temple underneath. So the purported original sin of the founder of the Mughal dynasty or his henchmen; construction of a mosque on the man-made ruins of an ancient temple dedicated to the popular icon of Hindu faith and glory, was not established.

ASI report was inconclusive

The bench rigorously examined the findings of Archeological Survey of India and its earlier scrutiny by the Allahabad bench of Lucknow High Court. Though the ASI excavations (sans the area where the idol of Ramlala is ‘virajman’ since 1949) in 2003 found elaborate ruins of earlier non-Islamic structures of different periods of our history, the SC bench did not find categorical confirmation or conclusive proof of an ancient Rama temple underneath. So the purported original sin of the founder of the Mughal dynasty or his henchmen; construction of a mosque on the man-made ruins of an ancient temple dedicated to the popular icon of Hindu faith and glory, was not established.

The contest over possession

However, the bench noted the long-drawn communal contest over the piece of land during the colonial period. “On the balance of probabilities, there is clear evidence to indicate that the worship by the Hindus in the outer courtyard continued unimpeded in spite of the setting up of a grill-brick wall in 1857. As regards the inner courtyard, there is evidence on a preponderance of probabilities to establish worship by the Hindus prior to the annexation of Oudh by the British in 1857.”

So, despite the lack of evidence of total and continued possession by the Muslims, the existence of a functioning mosque was accepted.

In contrast, “The Muslims have offered no evidence to indicate that they were in exclusive possession of the inner structure prior to 1857 since the date of the construction in the sixteenth century. However, there is evidence to show that namaz was offered in the structure of the mosque and the last Friday namaz was on 16 December 1949”.

So, despite the lack of evidence of total and continued possession by the Muslims, the existence of a functioning mosque was accepted.

Violation of rule of law in between 1949-1992

Moreover, the bench noted the reasons for intermittent discontinuity. “The exclusion of the Muslims from worship and possession took place on the intervening night between 22/23 December 1949 when the mosque was desecrated by the installation of Hindu idols. The ouster of Muslims on that occasion was not through any lawful authority but through an act which was calculated to deprive them of their place of worship. ”

Commenting on more recent development, the bench noted: “During the pendency of the suits, the entire structure of the mosque was brought down in a calculated act of destroying a place of public worship. The Muslims have been wrongly deprived of a mosque which had been constructed well over 450 years ago.” Observing that,’ there was no abandonment of the mosque by the Muslims’, the lordships pointed to the court’s constitutional duty. “The Court in the exercise of its powers under Article 142 of the Constitution must ensure that a wrong committed must be remedied. Justice would not prevail if the Court were to overlook the entitlement of the Muslims who have been deprived of the structure of the mosque through means which should not have been employed in a secular nation committed to the rule of law.”

The twist in logic

 However, the logical underlining of verdict took unexpected twists and turns at the remedial order. First, bench set aside the ‘three-way bifurcation’ of disputed land ordered by the High Court in 2010 as both’ legally unsustainable’ and ‘not feasible’ in terms of ‘maintaining public peace and tranquility’. As the ‘disputed site ad-measures all of 1500 square yards’, it’s division ‘ will not sub-serve the interest of either of the parties or secure a lasting sense of peace and tranquility’, the bench argued.

So, the lack of evidences for continued and total possession, particularly before and after 1857 (year of first Hindu-Muslim joint struggle for Independence) when both Sunni Mughal power and Shia Nawabs in Oudh were powerless and the mutiny-struck colonial Raj had unfolded it’s divide and rule policy, became crucial for the denial of the land title or part of it to Muslims. Perhaps this the first time, the law on adverse possession or lack of it as well as religious texts and colonial historiography have been used to this extent to buttress majority faith-based claims.

True, hawks at both sides have succeeded in stalling an out of court consensus, thus binding the hands of the court. But the invocation of article 142 of the constitution empowered the court to find a more imaginative and equitable way of sharing based on the syncretic tradition of Ayodhya, still practiced despite marginalization by the excluvists in both communities as well as letters and spirit of the constitution.

But the claims of the majority faith were accepted because ‘on a balance of probabilities, the evidence in respect of the possessory claim of the Hindus to the composite whole of the disputed property stands on a better footing than the evidence adduced by the Muslims’. So the bench decided to hand over ‘the disputed site comprising of the inner and outer courtyards’ to Ram Lala Virajman, a party to legal contest as a ‘juristic person’ or a rightful holder of the property in law.

Further, the deity is granted human agency of his ‘next friend’, or VHP-controlled Ram Janan bhoomi Nyas to represent Him and maintain his rights. The claim of Nirmohi Akhara, a much older Monk order of Ram-Sita bhakta but not controlled by the Sangh parivar for traditional sevait rights stands rejected, though it has been given a berth in a government-run trust.

The bench first condemned ‘egregious violation of rule of law’ and ‘calculated’ crimes against the Constitution by the Hindu zealots in between 1949-92. But in queer turn in their infinite acumen and wisdom, finally awarded the criminals what they had asked for; exclusive right to the disputed land, simply because the latter claimed to be the rightful representatives of the presiding deity and in turn, the majority faith. The logic only legitimises the postmodern vandals and de facto acceptance of their misdeeds.

So, the lack of evidences for continued and total possession, particularly before and after 1857 (year of first Hindu-Muslim joint struggle for Independence) when both Sunni Mughal power and Shia Nawabs in Oudh were powerless and the mutiny-struck colonial Raj had unfolded it’s divide and rule policy, became crucial for the denial of the land title or part of it to Muslims. Perhaps this the first time, the law on adverse possession or lack of it as well as religious texts and colonial historiography have been used to this extent to buttress majority faith-based claims.

What does it mean?

The bench first condemned ‘egregious violation of rule of law’ and ‘calculated’ crimes against the Constitution by the Hindu zealots in between 1949-92. But in queer turn in their infinite acumen and wisdom, finally awarded the criminals what they had asked for; exclusive right to the disputed land, simply because the latter claimed to be the rightful representatives of the presiding deity and in turn, the majority faith. The logic only legitimises the postmodern vandals and de facto acceptance of their misdeeds.

Nonetheless, the bench found it ‘ necessary to provide restitution to the Muslim community for the unlawful destruction of their place of worship’. “Having weighed the nature of the relief which should be granted to the Muslims, we direct that land admeasuring 5 acres be allotted to the Sunni Central Waqf Board either by the Central Government out of the acquired land or by the Government of Uttar Pradesh within the city of Ayodhya.” But again, it is almost in the line of what the Sangh Parivar spin-masters had been selling for long: there is only one Ram Janamsthan, so vacate it and make a mosque elsewhere.

This Devil’s bargain, now legitimised in law, may be less sinister than the Partition but still gargantuan. With the zombie’s appetite is now being whetted, it’s not likely to stop at Ayodhya but march forward to Kashi and Mathura.

Courtesy: enewsroom.in

The post Reading SC order on Ayodhya: Condemn the Sin but Concede to Sinners appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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At least six persons have lost their lives and around 120 people have been injured in the latest incident of communal violence between the RSS-led Sangh Parivar and the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal. More than a 100 homes and shops have been reduced to rubble and ash in this political game of death and destruction. On March 26, a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)-backed Ram Navami rally, with the crowd bearing arms, moved through a Muslim-dominated locality in Raniganj, leading to clashes between the two communities. In the following days, related incidents were reported from other parts of the state. The worst hit was the Asansol-Ranigunj industrial belt in West Bardhaman district. The area is close to Jharkhand where at least four persons died during the clashes between Hindus and Muslims; one person was also killed in neighbouring Purulia; and another in Kankinara in North 24 Parganas district, close to Kolkata. For now, the fire has been doused, but the embers are still glowing in the riot-ravaged areas.

These repeated communal flare-ups in the last couple of years — mainly in industrial areas with a mixed population and in rural Bengal bordering Bangladesh — have been on the rise ever since the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) actively started trying to wrest West Bengal from its friend-turned foe TMC. One of its key strategies is polarising Hindus against Muslims, primarily by inciting the Hindi-speaking poor with a daily dose of militant Hinduism in areas that had, up until now, been strongholds of left labour unions. In areas close to the border, the BJP has been milking the bitterness of the Hindu refugees from Bangladesh in order to consolidate their own vote-bank. Bengali and Hindi-speaking dalit and OBC Hindus are being mobilised by the Sangh’s anti-Muslims campaigns to counter Mamata Banerjee’s support base among Muslims and Matuas, the most organised group of Namashudras and south Bengal’s largest dalit community.

The latest spate of violence during the Ram Navami celebrations is symptomatic of a new phase of politics where the BJP and TMC have been unapologetically communal in their bid to consolidate their vote-banks. It has become more vicious since 2017, after Banerjee pressed her party to organise their own Ram Navami rallies, or take leadership of the old Ram Navami rallies, with more gusto and grandeur. Her decision to challenge the Sangh Parivar’s monopoly over the political use of Ram was prompted by her need to flaunt her liberal Hindu credentials. This checkmates BJP’s rise as the principal opposition party in the state.

The saffron party has gained ground among the majority community, mainly by accusing the TMC government of passing policies that appease the Muslim population. The TMC has been empowering conservative religious Muslim leaders, claiming to be the sole “protector” of Muslims, an influential minority community which constitutes more than 27% of the state’s population. It is another matter that her government has hardly done anything substantial to uplift this influential minority community socio-economically, i.e., in terms of employment and human development indices. Nevertheless, Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee knows well that public perception goes a long way in politics. This is why TMC has actively taken part in this year’s Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti celebrations.

The BJP and rest of the Sangh Parivar have been openly celebrating their successful communalisation of politics in Bengal. They have succeeded in setting the agenda for Bengal politics which had, up until now, banished religious polarisation from the mainstream political discourse. The horrors of the Partition were subsumed under post-independence mass movements for land and food during the Congress rule. This was followed by a period of Left hegemony. The TMC government initially prohibited armed Ram Navami rallies from being carried out. However, it was soon accused of being biased for allowing Muslims to hold similar armed rallies during Muharram procession. In the wake of this accusation, coupled with the Sangh Parivar’s threats of defying the orders, the Banerjee government gave in and allowed the group to carry out armed rallies in West Bengal.  Not only did this further embolden leaders from Hindu right-wing organisations like the Rashtra Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the VHP, and the BJP, the TMC government’s move also opened the doors for closet Hindutva forces within the TMC camp, especially those from Hindi-speaking areas with mixed populations. These TMC supporters even participated in the armed processions during Ram Navami.

Nonetheless, the TMC supremo’s attempts at co-opting their icon, Lord Ram, has alarmed the saffron camp. She is trying to weaken the latter’s support base through what has been called “soft Hindutva” tactics. BJP is not the only one trying to use religion to their advantage. In Asansol, an area with a sizeable Hindi-speaking population, TMC has supported the Hindi-speaking mayor, Jitendra Tiwari. In North 24 Parganas’ industrial area, they have fielded Arjun Singh. These leaders wear their Hindu identity on their sleeves, quite obviously using it for political purposes. Meanwhile, the TMC government has also taken steps to keep its Muslim support base intact. They are mainly from the Urdu-speaking communities in these industrial towns. This is clear from the way TMC has publicly denounced the armed Ram Navami processions.

It was in response to such tactics that the Sangh Parivar, which seems to be adept at engineering riots for political ends, decided to break the remaining social bonds between lower caste Hindus and Muslims who live side by side in dingy slums in Asansol’s sprawling Rail Par neighborhood (labelled “Mini Pakistan” by the Hindutva forces), Rajbhandh in Raniganj, and Hill Basti near Raniganj. The subaltern non bhadralok Hindus, who are mostly Hindi-speaking, constitute more than 30% of the constituency. The Hindus in these areas are a significant community if BJP wants to consolidate its Hindu vote bank.  

Contest over Asansol’s Parliamentary Seat
These  towns are the worst-hit because of the ongoing tussle for power in the Asansol parliamentary constituency. It is an important constituency as it includes former coal hub Raniganj and the surrounding industrial towns like Kulti and Jamuria, all of which come under same Nagar Nigam. The newly formed police commiserate in the constituency includes the steel town Durgapur under its jurisdiction. BJP’s Babul Supriyo, who briefly tried his luck at playback singing in Bollywood before turning to divisive politics, won the parliamentary seat from Asansol in 2014. His win was a result of the division of anti-BJP votes at the height of Modi-wave, as well as infighting within the TMC. Although it was once a Left stronghold, Asansol’s current civic administrative body and most of its assembly seats are now held by the TMC. Mamata Banerjee is eager to recover this important constituency from the BJP. West Bengal’s ruling party has already succeeded in poaching Opposition leaders, luring away about a dozen BJP, as well as Left and Congress, councilors in the civic body by dangling carrots and sticks. But the Sangh Parivar is equally determined to hold onto Asansol because its mixed population makes BJP’s campaign for Hindu-Hindi-Hindustan easy to realise. Supriyp, who had once shared jhal muri, spiced puffed rice, with the TMC supremo, is now a BJP MP from Asansol.

The first-time MP has been given a position in the Narendra Modi government as a cabinet minister. This shows how serious BJP is about making inroads in West Bengal. The rookie politician, who currently serves as the Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, actively participated in the Ram Navami processions this year before riots broke out across the constituency. He contributed to the violence by fanning the already rising hostilities between the two communities through his biased reporting of the issue, slandering the Muslim population on social media. In fact, he was saber-rattling on the ground when parts of the towns were still aflame. The rookie politician has already honed his skills in realpolitik and is now keen on holding his fort at all costs.

On 26^th march, after riots broke out in Raniganj, he tweeted, “The Goons from Minority community came, slaughtered and was given a safe haven to escape. The entire nation needs to know how dirty a politics of Appeasement Mamata Govt is playing in Bengal.” The message was dutifully retweeted by @BJP4India @narendramodi @AmitShah @BJP4Bengal @KailashOnline @DilipGhoshBJP, the last one being the Bengal BJP chief. For the next four days, he continued to post videos of atrocities committed against Hindus and TV channel clippings of Hindus leaving their areas in desperate search of safety. But he deliberately chose to maintain silence about the atrocities that the Muslims faced. Not once did he appeal to the general public, to people from both the communities, to stop the madness. As an elected representative of the people of Asansol, he should have spoken on behalf of all faiths. However, neither did he bother to call for communal amity, nor did he applaud a local Imam’s appeal for peace, an especially commendable gesture seeing as how the Imam lost his teenage son in the riots. 

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Supriyo’s Facebook post from April 1 reveals that the minister, who once sang Tagore’s soulful songs and romantic cine melodies, is now perfectly tuned to Hindutva politics of hatred and dehumanisation of the Other. “Victims do not have any religion or party — that’s what the rhetoric goes but in the practical world Truth is not based on Academics or Rhetoric. Truth is Truth AND THIS  IS the truth…” he wrote, pointing to his one-sided reports of communal violence.  Nevertheless, the twitter-savvy minister later claimed to have faced “inner question” and offered to tender his resignation from the ministry to the Prime Minister, apparently in a move to do some damage control, both for his party and himself.

However, he was careful enough to make his inner voice pragmatic and politically correct. He accused Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of being communal, “uncouth and desperate to win elections with unfair means,” while being dutifully deferential to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “‘Don’t quit- fight.’ he told me,” Babul said, referring to the Prime Minister’s advice. He also claimed that it was the Prime Minister who inspired him to “triumph against all this dirty noise by continuing to fight with a goal in sight that of Development for ALL, something he did in Gujarat.”

Be that as it may, the question still remains, why did Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his minister Babul Supriyo, and their party, BJP, fail to call for communal peace and an end to the violence from all sides, even rhetorically?

Inflammatory Slogans
Both the flashpoints in Asansol and Raniganj — Chandmari and Hill Basti, respectively — were considered “sensitive areas” by BJP, VHP, and the Hindu Jagaran Manch, as well as the Trinamool Congress government, since these areas had experienced communal skirmishes even before the Ram Navami processions. Despite this, the Sangh Parivar insisted on taking the procession through the Muslim-dominated or mixed population pockets, and the civic administration allowed it. Soft-spoken but cautious, Shashi Bhusan Yadav, the VHP district secretary who came to a rendezvous with three journalists, including this correspondent, after being on the run following a police lookout for his role in instigating the violence, blamed the police and TMC for the violence. “We had coordinated with police for security bondobasts in the troubled zones the nights before in view of the earlier troubles and got the assurance of safe passage from the top cops this time,” he informed us.

Muslims from both the affected neighbourhoods complained that the Ram Navami processions raised deliberately provocative and derogatory slogans and songs, amplified by booming DJ sound boxes, while passing by the mosques during the time of prayers. Locals from both communities told us some of the slogans raised by the saffron marchers:

“Hindustan Me Rahna Hoga, Jai Sri Ram Bolna Parega”
“Ramlala hum ayenge, Mandir oohi Banayenge”
“Ailan Korte hai dank eke chot par, mandir banayenge har more par”
“Deshdrohi Musalman, ya to Jao Pakistan ya kabarsthan”
“Dhudh mangoge to khir denge, Kashmir mangoge to chirr denge”

Seventy-year old Gopal Sharma, a hardcore BJP supporter, whom we met at a tea stall on NS Road in Raniganj market area, said he had participated in the rally in the other part of the city and the marchers there had raised the same slogans. “What’s wrong in that? Either Muslims should accept Sri Ram as the deity of all Indians and stop opposing construction of his temple at Ayodhya, or they should go to Pakistan.”

However, both Yadav and Madan Trivedi, general secretary of the Raniganj unit of BJP, denied brandishing swords and other sharp weapons, or using bombs. In fact, they gave an altogether different story when asked about the provocative sloganeering. “We did raise slogans demanding a ‘stop [to] cow-slaughter’ and urging the Hindus to pledge to build a temple at the Ram Janambhoomi. But I have no knowledge of any abusive slogans being raised at Hill Basti.”  However, he justified his opinion by demanding an end to “Hindu victimhood” in Bengal, making a point to note the difference between “good Muslims and bad Muslims,” according to him.

 “Modiji wants Muslims to hold Quran in one hand and a computer in the other. But if they support Pakistan and harbour jihadis, we are not going to tolerate it. This time, they had started the violence, so our boys may have retaliated. Hindus in Bengal have been reduced to the same status as the Pandits in Kashmir. How long we will suffer,” the RSS member turned BJP leader added.

The middle-aged VHP leader also denied having any personal knowledge of inflammatory slogans having been raised. “We don’t play songs apart from those that are on the VHP’s official site. If some people raised slogans or played songs that hurt the other people’s faiths, we do not sanction it.” Maintaining that the police could have seized the DJ boxes in the rallies if they wanted to, he pointed out that the police, in fact, did not show them any official notification banning the use of weapons, DJ, boom boxes, etc, during its meetings with the organisers before the processions.

The saffron camp admitted that their show of strength on Ram Navami was part of a political campaign to counter the TMC but blamed the ruling state government and Muslim supporters for the violence. “Ram Navami celebration used to be held in temples and mahallahs even before. We did not bring out big processions, nor did we display traditional weapons before 2011, when the Mamata Banerjee government came to power. We decided to oppose her decisions to appease Muslims, like the declaration of a public holiday on Milad-Un Nabi. Our processions gathered strength after the Modi government came to power at the Centre. As the joint processions of akharas have been coordinated mainly by the VHP, the spread of Hindutva messages has definitely helped the BJP,” Trivedi, a bookshop owner, said.

“TMC is worried about our growing support base after seeing the high footfall in our rallies. They orchestrated the violence this year in order to ban the Ram Navami rallies in light of the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in 2019,” he said, pointing out the presence of some TMC leaders at the Sita Ram temple before the rally begun and their “sudden departure” after the violence began.

The Sangh’s concerns became clear when Yadav called Mamata Banerjee’s move an attempt to “hoodwink Hindus after betraying them.” “She is trying to divide Hindu organisations. Apart from VHP, there is the Hindu Jagaran Manch, who also have contacts with the Sangh. Then there is the Hindu Sanghati, which is opposes the attacks on Hindus but supports the TMC,” he said, referring to a fanatic fringe group run by a former RSS Pracharak, Tapan Ghosh, an exponent of the Bengali brand of north Indian Hindutva.

The Sangh’s Dalit Card
The epicenter of the latest incidents of communal eruptions in Asansol-Raniganj underline the Sangth’s strategy to instigate dalit and OBC Hindus, both Bengali and Hindi-speaking, into becoming foot soldiers of its anti-Muslim campaigns, which is now coterminous with anti-Mamata mobilisations. This has become evident from the recent riots in bordering areas like Basirhat and Nakasipara, and industrial areas like Dhulagarh and Hajinagar. Lower class and caste Hindus live side by side with Muslims of the same strata in Asansol’s Rail Par and Raniganj’s Rajbandh locality. Described as ”mini Pakistan” by middle class Hindus in general and Hindu organisations in particular, most Muslims primarily supported the TMC in the last polls, while also helping the Left parties retain some of the civic wards in these former strongholds of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The dalits have gradually switched sides since the rise of the Sangh Parivar in Bengal.   

The dalit boys at Dompara in Hill Basti area in Raniganj, who reside in close proximity to poor Muslims, said that they were taught to raise anti-Muslim slogans by some Bajrang Dal and Hindu Jagaran Manch activists. “We have been participating in the Ram Navami rallies for the last three–four years. They say Hindu dharma and samaj are in danger, and we must join the fight to save it as we, too, are Hindus,” Krishna Badyakar said. Some of the Dompara boys have been at loggerheads with local TMC leaders like Intikhab Khan alias Billi since the 2014 polls because they had sided with the BJP, explained Jitu Badyokar, one of the Dompara boys.  

The Sangh Parivar’s focus on dalits and OBC Hindus has become more obvious as both Yadav and Aloke Singh, the district BJP vice-president, has mentioned that ”most of the Hindu victims in the latest riots belonged to scheduled castes.” “The SCs constitute around 35% of the constituency’s population and our support has been growing among them. We are working hard for Hindu unity,” added Yadav. “Our MP has been holding regular Sangsad Mela in those areas. He has been facilitating issuing of Aadhar cards, gas connections, Mudra Bank support for women, and distributing solar panels. Next time, we will win Asansol by a bigger margin. Hindus, low and high, know by now who are their real protectors in Bengal,” Singh added. It’s another matter that dalits elsewhere have become the biggest barrier in the BJP’s bid to win the next General elections.

Biswajit Roy is a Calcutta-based retired journalist who had worked with The Telegraph, Times of India, The Statesman as well as Anandabazar Patrika. He served stints in the north-east and north India as well as in his home state, West Bengal.
 

The post How Bengal Burned in the Name of Ram appeared first on SabrangIndia.

“Tapan Ghosh was a trenchant critic of the old BJP guard, and hailed Modi’s hardcore Hindutva stance.”

 

Tapan Ghosh addressing a rally/ Photograph by Partha Paul/ Image courtesy The Indian Express

Although Tapan Ghosh and the Bharatiya Janta Party keep the reasons behind their apparent estrangement a closely guarded secret, a cursory reading of Ghosh’s blogs and other writings reveal that his umbilical cord to the Sangh is still uncut. Lauding the holy trinity of Hindutva or political Hinduism, Savarkar-Hedgewar-Golwalkar, he not only looks up to the organisation but also believes in rekindling “Hindu shaurya” or the “valor” of Hindus, taking, as inspiration, the Hindu advwarriors in India during the ancient and middle ages, who fought successive invaders, from the Greeks to the Muslims.
 

He has called for the “militarisation” of Hindus, a la Sangh, but with a focus on Bengalis. Mohan Bhagwat’s recent boasting of RSS’ capability to deploy an army of Deshbhakts in three days, in contrast to the Indian army’s monumentally slow movement in meeting the enemy, finds resonance in Samhati campaigns.

Hailing Promode Mutalik, another former RSS pracharak turned self-styled Hindutva warrior and founder of Ram Sene in Karnataka, Ghosh betrayed no emotions (if any) against the Sangh leadership. Instead, he appeared more hardcore than some of the Sangh loyalists. Glorifying Modi after his 2014 victory as a “Hindu lion,” Ghosh said that he despised the “inclusive politics” of the BJP under the leadership of senior BJP politicians like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani, who, he felt, had weakened some Sangh leaders as they too tried to emulate the duo’s secular stance following the 2004 electoral defeat. Ghosh said that he could not stomach Advani’s secular makeover, after the Babri Masjid demolition, which was prompted by Advani’s hurry to lead the country in an official capacity. According to Ghosh, this is what prompted his fateful paean, dedicated to Jinnah, which eventually led to his downfall. For Ghosh, a diehard Hindutva, it was not Jinnah but Islam that created Pakistan, as the faith itself is exclusive and divisive.
 

He saluted Modi for his return to the Hindutva core and for “standing like a rock” on the foundational principles of RSS as he won the battle, thanks to Amit Shah’s brilliance in “applied Moditva.”

Samhati’s Subaltern Hinduism
Ghosh, a kayasth, (unlike the Chitpaban brahmins who hold the sway in the RSS hierarchy) has a seemingly different take on Sangh’s condoning of the brahminical caste system. He feels that it is this that drove out Ambedkar from the Hindu fold, and what lets the upper caste BJP members get away with calling
Mayavati a “chamarine” contemptuously. The one thing that Vivekanand can be faulted for, according to Ghosh, is that the kayasth monk described himself as a ‘kshatriya,’ thus denying his “shudra origin.”
 

This rooting for subaltern Hinduism makes Ghosh’s brand of indoctrination suitable for Bengal, where the scheduled castes alone comprise 23% of the state population.

In fact, although Samhati’s current president is a brahmin, it has made its presence felt mainly among the oppressed castes, including dalit Hindus in bordering areas. It has made inroads among namashudras, formerly known as chandals during the British Raj-era censuses, who comprise 17% of the state’s scheduled caste population; they’ve also reached the poundro khatriyos, who represent another large dalit caste. Historically, both the castes have been politically assertive with an increasingly educated middle class. It gave birth to community leaders who foregrounded dalit self-respect and social justice issues during the freedom movement, while many of them maintained their distance from the Congress brand of composite nationalism, going so far as to call it a chimera.

Jogendranath Mondol, its best known face (most controversial, too), was close to Ambedkar and made room for Babasaheb to get elected to the constituent assembly from Bengal. Mondol advocated dalit–Muslim unity against the casteist Hindu fold, going on to become a minister in the pre-independence Muslim League ministry in undivided Bengal; later, he became the law minister of Pakistan. However, he left Pakistan in the 1950s after Jinnah’s successors refused to give special protection to the riot-hit Bengali dalits in East Pakistan. He died, heartbroken, in India.
 

Ghosh and his tribe is now trying to pit the present generation lower caste Hindu refugees from Bangladesh, who had suffered religious persecution in Bangladesh at the hands of the Muslims, against the Muslims here, in India. The Sangh Parivar runs the same social engineering project for Hindu consolidation across caste barriers in Bengal. Specifically, it aims at breaking Banerjee’s hold on Matuas, a religio-social sect of namashudras led by the scions of nineteenth century reformers, father-son duo Harichand and Guruchand Thakur.

Matuas, as the presiding family of the sect claims, determine electoral outcome in as many as 78 assembly constituencies, mainly in districts close to Kolkata. The Matuas and the Muslims are the two legs on which Banerjee’s poll success stands. But it lacks social cohesion, despite the common plights of Hindu and Muslim dalits across the border, due to the post-Partition trauma and differences it led to between the two communities. Harping on about the social disjoint, both BJP and Samhati are trying hard to make Banerjee’s winning equation dysfunctional. It appeared that Ghosh had made headway after he was invited to a Matua congregation recently. At the very least, it appears he has some leverage vis-à-vis Banerjee, which, in turn, explains her softening stance towards Samhati in order to checkmate BJP.

A Bengali Tinge to Hindutva
Another unique selling point that Samhati has is Ghosh’s invocation of Bengal’s religious and political icons. Its recent rally banner included the image of a kharga (a falchion of sorts) wielding Goddess Kali, complete with her blood-socked protruded tongue, adorned with a waistband as well a necklace of chopped heads of slain demons. This image has been a part of Bengali Hindu’s nationalist imagination since the Swadeshi movement. The divine demon-slayer shared the space with other leaders that Samhati often invokes, such as Vivekananda, Tagore, Bankimchandra, and Sharatchandra, with their purported or real anti-Muslim quotes. Ghosh mentioned another Bengali icon with national popularity, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, and the lesser known but influential Hindu Mahasabha leader, Shyamaprasad Mukherjee, in the same breath, although their politics were poles apart.
 

He challenged Modi to install a statue of Subhash Chandra Bose at a round-about in Lutyen’s Delhi, the seat of power of the Central Government; the honour had been, in the past, denied by the Nehru clan. He also pulled up Modi and his party for not honouring Mukherjee enough, while placing another Jana Sangh leader, Deendayal Upadhyaya, on an increasingly higher pedestal.

This Bengali tinge to the Sangh orthodoxy, which largely represents North and West Indian Hindutva icons — with which the rest of the Hindu India does not relate much — has, apparently, given rise to mutual warmth between Mamata Banerjee and Ghosh, as both are keen on playing up the anti-Centre sentiments, historically popular since undivided Bengal. But, their politics will be at cross-purposes shortly if the Chief Minister continues to stick to her secular position and Ghosh refuses to soften his Hindutva stance. As of now, the fringe fanatics are faithful to Sangh’s “Rastravadi” core, albeit with a strong regional flavor. It becomes obvious again as they blend the two in their war cries hailing Bharat Mata, itself a superimposition of the territorial “Mother India” on the image of Goddess Durga and Ma Kali. For Ghosh and his followers, the modern-day monsters, needless to say, are the Muslims, as is clear from the chants that rent the air if Samhati supporters assemble anywhere. On the other hand, Mamata Banerjee, herself a neighbour to the original “Kali Kolkattawali” in Kalighat and a devout worshipper of the divine at her home, has taken Muslims and Christians under her wings against the Hindutva onslaught. So, the question remains, who will use whom and how?

Dharm Yuddha Against Jihad
In 2013, Samhati celebrated the birth centenary of Gopal Mukherjee, a hero of “Hindu resistance and backlash” who played an important role in the infamous Great Calcutta Killings in 1946. Better known as Gopal Patha (goat), because his family that ran a mutton shop, was born into a Brahmin family.
He joined nationalist radicals during the Quit India Movement in 1942, “secured” a few American small arms and grenades from some American soldiers after the second world war which, in his own words, were used to kill Muslims in the riots that followed Jinnah’s call for “Direct Action” on 16 August, 1946, through which the Muslim League had hoped to further their demand for a separate nation.
 

“I ordered my boys to kill 10 Muslim attackers for every Hindu who was killed. We used firearms, sharp weapons, and bombs to fight Muslim attackers; and I refused to surrender my arms and ammunition to Gandhiji, who was on fast to end the violence, despite pressure from local Congress leaders,” an octogenarian Mukherjee recalled in a Samhati video; the video did not show his face but claimed that it was his voice. It carried an old footage of the communal orgy, but the focus of the narrative was on the continued Hindu victimhood, from 1946 to the present.

The outfit had plastered multiple parts of the city centre with posters that paid homage to the “manly Bengali,” now dead, and called on his “effeminate” compatriots to rise up and become “defenders of the beleaguered Hindus” and “protect the honour of [their] women.” It is Ghosh’s conviction, as is clear from his rants across all mediums, that Bengali Hindus must be prepared and trained for a war — a civil war, to be precise — against the Muslims, with him leading the warriors as the reincarnation of Shyamaprasad. Ghosh is hailed by sundry American and European professors, politicians, human rights activists, and wealthy Zionists as the true “protector” of Hindus against the Muslim-Jihadist barbarity in both parts of divided Bengal. Ghosh’s astute sense of using Western patronage for his own propaganda, in post-colonial politics, could also be indicative of where the funds for his well-heeled hate campaigns come from.

The man may still sound Quixotic to unaffected ears. But, his impressive online and offline presence, which contributes to his larger-than-life image as the sole saviour of Bengali Hindus, and his constant entreaties of “balidan” or sacrifice from his followers, make his politics distinctly disturbing. Clearly, he is a self-assured demagogue whose claims of being “non-political” are only meant to hoodwink the rivals, as he works to gain enough political leverage to bargain with, both, the BJP and Mamata Banerjee, to fulfill his political aspirations in the near future.

Whichever side wins the deal, Bengal stands to lose if fanatics, of any hue, are allowed to grow unchecked.

This is the second of a two part series on the Hindu Samhati in Bengal. Read the first part here.
 
Biswajit Roy is a Calcutta-based retired journalist who had worked with The Telegraph, Times of India, The Statesman as well as Anandabazar Patrika. He served stints in the north-east and north India as well as in his home state, West Bengal.

This article was first Published on Indian Cultural Forum

The post Tapan Ghosh’s Hindu Samhati and its Brand of Bengali Hindutva appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Md. Ashin, father of deceased Md Nasiruddin

Khan and his family, though at the cost of his life, earned attention of the governments run by rival parties, BJP and Trinamul Congress as well as media at both states. But the families of other victims whose horrible murders closer home had foreshadowed Khan’s killing in the desert state were not so fortunate, despite chilling parallels in the two hate crimes.

There was huge political and media outrage over the premeditated killing of Khan on the day of 25^th anniversary of Babri mosque demolition in Rajsamund district of BJP-ruled Rajasthan. The rants of the killer Shambhulal against ‘Love Jihad’ and other purported crimes of Muslims in the murder video, filmed with the help of his nephew and posted to social media revealed the impact of Sangh Parivar’s hate campaigns against Muslims on the monster’s mind. This prompted Vasundhara Raje government to arrest the assassin and announce payment of Rs five lakhs to the victim’s family. Her party and state police portrayed the killer as a lone wolf even after his family divulged his addiction to saffron propaganda videos.

Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of Bengal, the self-declared savior of secularism and Muslims in particular, also sprang up to action. The BJP’s buddy turned bête noire denounced the hate crime as another example of Hindutva terror, sent a high level team comprising ministers and MPs to Khan’s home. She announced payment of Rs three lakhs to his bereaved family, promised educational support to his youngest daughter and job to one of latter’s two elder siblings.

Mamata’s double standard
But Bengal’s prima donna kept mum over the gruesome lynching of Mohammed Nasiruddin, Nasirul Haque and Mohammed Samiruddin on 22 June 2017 at her own backyard. Before Shambhulal and Jharkhand’s cow-protector gangs exhibited the method in their madness, the killers in Mamataland, apparently Hindutva-induced, had filmed their gory act and posted the video clips online. The clipping we accessed showed the Blood-drenched victims praying for their lives only to be pounded with bamboo logs again and again till they breathed their last.

Khan’s killing was a death foretold scene by scene as he too would pray for his life before being bludgeoned to death and charred. The Dinajpur video revealed it was no mob fury but systematic murders at daylight. Local onlookers around watched the public pummeling of the three and their bloody ends but none cared to stop the madness.

Khan’s killing was initially attributed to his ‘affair with a local Hindu woman’ but that did not hold ground following denial by his family and subsequent media and civil society investigations. But the Dinajpur victims were branded as ‘cattle thieves’ by their killers and police alike and it stuck to them despite vehement protests from their families and neighbors.

The Bengal chief minister, who was quick in calling Khan’s murder a hate crime and blaming BJP-RSS for it, did not order any inquiry into that aspect despite increasing communalization of crimes including cattle-lifting in bordering districts like north Dinajpur.  The Sangh Parivar’s moves to pit Hindus, mostly Dalits and other scheduled caste refugees from Bangladesh against Muslims.

The Dinajpur killers are still roaming free as Bengal police and ruling party has virtually condoned the triple murders since a case (case no. 505/17 dated 23/6/2017) has been registered under section 304 of the Indian Penal code instead section 302 making the murders unintentional. Consequently, three Hindu youth who had been arrested obtained bail from the court.

Officially, the case is still ‘under investigation’ but police is in no mood to wind up it fast and file the charge-sheet.  Instead, the cops have allegedly abused and threatened the victims’ families to arrest them if they persist in their inquiries about fate of the case and seek justice for their dear ones. The law enforcers reportedly have been putting pressure on the families and fellow villagers to delete clippings of the murder video, ostensibly to defang a digital trigger to communal clash. But locals construed it as a move to suppress the crucial proof of the crimes. The families are yet to get the copy of the FIR.

In a letter to the district magistrate, SP and SDO, three bereaved families called it ‘cold blooded and pre-planned murders’, mentioned police abuses and demanded ‘CID or CBI probe.’ But the administration and political leadership has stonewalled their demands. Bengal’s big sis also became selective in her show of compassion. She neither bothered to send a district-level team to visit the bereaved nor offered any monetary help to the visibly impoverished families.

Harsh Mander speaking to families of victims of Chopra Lynching

Caravan of Love           
This shocking contrast in Mamata government’s dealing with the victims of two hate crimes has come to fore during a recent visit to Khan and other three victims’ villages by a civil society team led by Harsh Mander and John Dayal who have launched a Karwan-e-Mohabwat (Caravan of Love) campaign. They have been meeting families of victims of group and individual hate crimes across the country to express solidarity with them and spread public awareness about hate crimes.

The team members also met family of Kartik Ghosh, the elderly victim of Basirhat communal riot in July last year, at their Basirhat home.  This correspondent was part of the team that visited Khan’s family at Syedpur in Maldah’s Kaliachak and another migrant youth Sakir Khan of Swarupganj in Chanchol block who died mysteriously in Rajasthan’s capital, Jaipur .  The caravan reached the homes of three lynched men under Islampur and Chopra police station at the last leg of its Bengal tour on 25-26 January this year.

Wife and mother of lynched Nasirul Haque

The slain boys    
Like many jobless and low-paid villagers of Bengal, these youths belonged to families of migrant labors and themselves worked as construction workers in other states including Delhi. Being residents of three villages closer by, these school drop-outs were close friends and did sundry menial jobs together around the area to eke out a living. All three were married and young fathers.  They stayed back home after being egged on by their families, mainly to look after their toddlers and newborns.

Samiruddin of Kandarpar village, eldest among the three deceased was little better placed among the friends. He occasionally employed others as he started manufacturing concrete rings for sanitary pits in the villages. His cousin Abdul Gafur, a junior Imam at Chopra mosque, said deceased Samiruddin was planning to buy a ToTo, a battery-driven auto rickshaw and had taken loan of Rs 40000 for it.

The trap
According to the victims’ families, all three were at their home enjoying special Iftar in the evening of auspicious 27^th day of Ramzan that heralded the forthcoming Id festival. The wives of all three recalled that their husbands received repeated calls on their cell-phones asking them to come to a nearby place to discuss an urgent job contract. All left home on their motorcycles assuring to come back early but never returned. Next morning their families learnt either from locals or police that all three had gone to Durgapur, a Hindu-dominated village, few kilometers away under Chopra police station.

“We were told that our boys had been caught while trying to steal cattle from a local household and beaten to death by an enraged mob which had been looking for culprits for rampant cattle lifting. Police brought back the bodies and sent for post mortem. We don’t know whether the rules for autopsy were properly maintained as we were under for pressure for immediate burial.

We told police that the murders were planned as our boys had been called out and trapped. Have you ever heard that cattle thieves visit their target’s home riding motor cycles,” Md. Ashin, the elderly father of slain Md. Nasiruddin at village Dhologachh, asked.

“But police misbehaved with us and refused to listen to our part. They came to conclusion about our children’s crime before investigation. They called us father or wives of Goru Chors heaping ignominy on our families,” the tearful old man added. Deceased Nasirul’s mother Masida Begum at Kutipara village concurred: “Police threatened to lock up us when we visited police station asking for the justice for our children.’’

Both complained that police received bribes from the accused to water down the case.  While local Trinamul MLA Hamidul Islam asked locals not to raise a hue and cry to avoid communal clash, the ruling party’s panchayat apparatchiks did not bother to visit them or offer any succor to the landless wage-labor families.

Chopra witnessed communal clash in 2016 like many others areas across Bengal. But none of the affected families or their neighbors vented any ire against Hindus per se while mentioning that the killers from Durgapur were ‘refugees’ from Bangladesh. “They are fearsome and aggressive even to other Hindus and we hardly ventured into their area. What they have done to our boys was unforgivable.  But we do not blame all the Hindus here,” Md. Ashin said.

Local boys and men like Jafar Ali, Jishan Rajjak, Saheb Khan and Kashim Ali—mostly seasonal migrant laborers, said that the murder video had gone viral on the day of the lynching itself and they received clippings from various Facebook and Whatsapp groups.  “Police claimed it was not related to our case and wanted us to delete it immediately. But we have identified the victims as our own in the murder video. Why they are trying to hush up,” Ali asked.

Hindu women’s honor violated?
Villagers here do not remember circulation of such lynching video earlier. If the filming of the lynching bore the signature of Hindutva campaign, a ‘rumor’ of  a Hindu women’s  honor being violated by the slain youths pointed to the now familiar pattern of using social media to demonize Muslims and incite hate crimes against them. Md Ashin pointed that his son’s genital was smashed. However, no media reports had mentioned those tales-tell signs of hate crime.

Gafur, Samiruddin’s cousin said he heard it from one Hasrat, a resident of nearby Jhabartala and ‘an accomplice of the three in stealing cycles’. “Hasrat told me that the three had lured away a Hindu girl from Durgapur to Islampur( sub-divisional town) and raped her. Her family and other villagers came to know about it and wanted to avenge it. They asked the girl to set a trap by inviting the boys to her home while pretending to be alone.  My brother and his friends landed in the snare only to be killed mercilessly. Some Durgapur people also linked the killings to a Hindu girl’s dishonor. ” He also said Samir was arrested recently in connection to cycle-stealing case.

Samir’s wife Husnara protested to what Gafur said. “I refused to believe it. My husband was not that type. This Hasrat is a shady character and it was he who had called my husband on that fateful evening. My husband had Rs 40000 with him which was looted.  ” she said. Local TMC panchayat member Md. Sarifuddin too denied any knowledge of Hindu women’s dishonor as the motive for the lynching. “It was a planned murder and police sitting tight on the case even after eight months,” he said.  Gafur later buckled saying he too ‘did not believe Hasrat’.

It is the police’s job to ascertain the true motive behind the murders and unearth the truth if others are only speaking half truths as veteran scribe Dayal felt. Nonetheless, the law of land does not condone lynching or planned murder even if it is motivated by revenge for alleged cattle-lifting or sex crime or the both, he pointed out.

But the team’s visit to Chopra police station along with the three bereaved families revealed that police had virtually outsourced it responsibility to village vigilantes and excused their wild justice as a welcome deterrent. A young lady officer on duty spoke informally: “This area is not good. Villagers here don’t leave cattle thieves if public manage to catch them. One of the three boys had been arrested earlier in connection of cycle-lifting earlier. A case has been started under Section 304 as the murders were apparently unintentional.”

However, the officer In-charge, Gautam Roy was taciturn and refused reply to queries that Mander made – why a murder case under section 302 was not instituted even after three persons were killed in a single incident and why police is not responding to the victims’ families. “I can’t answer. You need to meet our SP,” was his standard reply after he apparently spoke to the district top cop. When the team wanted security to visit Durgapur, he declined leaving it to the team whether they would face any trouble there.

Mander told him that he was familiar with official stonewalling tactics and hostility as former district collector (before he resigned from IAS after Gujarat 2002) which he had encountered more since then.

“Nevertheless, I find it unacceptable that Bengal police under a secular government is no different from states under BJP in their treatment of families of victims of hate crimes, disguised or open. The betrayal of governments of political parties that claim to be secular in failing to defend their minorities rankles painfully and erodes the secular promises of India’s constitution,” he commented later.

The politics behind the silence
The Chopra lynching was not an isolated incident. In the early hours of 27 August, 2017, another two youth, Hafizul Sheikh of Dhubri district in Assam and Anwar Hussain of Patlakhawa village of Cooch Behar district were beaten to death by locals near Barohalia village in Jalpaiguri’s Dhupguri area . They were transporting cattle from local cattle market to Tufanganj in Cooch Behar when they were apprehended by a mob and lynched as cattle thieves. Dhupguri is another area which has recently witnessed BJP’s growth electorally. But Mamata government dealt the incident in Chopra way.

As of 31 August, 2017, West Bengal accounted for 55 percent — or five of nine — deaths recorded in bovine-related attacks reported across India, data-analyzing portal IndiaSpend’s database shows. With six deaths recorded since 2010, West Bengal is now on a par with Uttar Pradesh, which recorded as many deaths in 12 incidents of such violence over eight years. In this same period, West Bengal has reported three incidents – all of which reported fatalities.

In their famous treatise on manufacturing public consent by American big media and the military-industrial behemoths, Noam Chomosky and Edward Hermann had coined the categories of ‘worthy and unworthy’ victims of Cold War era. Those fell for cause of the US-led ‘free world’ were considered worthy of public appreciation while those on the other were unworthy of it. It seems Mamata Banerjee and secular politicians of her hue have adopted that binary in dealing with the victims of communal crimes in BJP-ruled states and their own fiefdoms.

The police response only reflected the state government’s politics.  Mamata has repeated denied the gravity of increasing communal clashes and violence by cow-protectors in Bengal, which so far has taken toll of approx. 40 deaths since she has assumed office in 2011. Further, religious identity of those murdered in Dinajpur and Jalpaiguri has apparently impelled her government to keep the killings under the wrap. They are handy when happens outside her realm but an embarrassment when occurs inside.

For, lynching of Muslim youths in Bengal under her nose compromises her image as the protector of Muslims who comprise 27 per cent of Bengal population. It provides her a crucial vote-bank against mounting BJP campaign to bag Bengal in 2019 through communal polarization.

It may be pointed out that cattle-lifting and smuggling is common in bordering districts of Bengal and an elaborate  chain of organized crime involving Hindu and Muslim police-politicians-criminals operates across the Indo-Bangla border. But recent communalization of the crime and profiling of the murdered youth in that mode is part of the Sangh Parivar campaign that aims at dovetailing north India’s Gau-Rakshak vigilantism with Bengal farmers’ rage against local cattle thieves.

Further, recent riots in Basirhat, Nakasipara and elsewhere in south Bengal has underlined the Sangh Parivar strategy to pit dalit Namashudras and other low-rung Hindus, mostly ‘refugees’ from Bangladesh with bitter memories of religious persecution at the other side of the border against Muslims in a bid to break Mamata’s Matua(a populous Namashudra sect) and Muslim combine.

Hindus and Muslims are almost evenly matched in numbers in North Dinajpur which suffered communal convulsions in Chopra and Raria recently. The lack of justice to victims of the lynching would only make room for hotheads and fundamentalists on the other side of the religious divide. But Mamata seems to be happy to sit tight on the tinder box.

Biswajit Roy is a Calcutta-based retired journalist who had worked with The Telegraph, Times of India, The Statesman as well as Anandabazar Patrika. He served stints in the north-east and north India as well as in his home state, West Bengal. Keen on independent reporting from below, he focuses on human rights issues and grassroots movements of marginal communities as well as struggles against communalism and fundamentalisms of all hues. Roy recently edited a compilation of reports on increasing communal violence in Bengal and politics behind it, published at Kolkata Book fair 2018.

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org

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