Jagadish Prasad Barui being besieged at Basanta on Monday Image: Telegraph
A new kind of phobia has gripped Birbhum district of West Bengal; the phobia of questions or surveys. The residents of Basanta village in Nalhati which is in Birbhum district of West Bengal gheraoed the Block Development Officer on December 13. The reason for this being, volunteers of Delhi-based NGO were collecting some data to asses rural women’s awareness of internet and smartphones.
The villagers, gripped with the fear of NRC surveys thought that the harmless survey was being carried out stealthily by the government for purposes of NRC and hence rose in protest. They even detained one of the volunteers, a girl, on the suspicion that her questions were related to NRC.
The BDO of Nalhati I, Jagadish Prasad Narui said, “We are not ready to take any risk as people are panicking over any kind of survey or data collection. They suspect that any collection of information is connected with an NRC-like exercise. We have decided to stop visits of surveyors from the health department for the time being.” He was gheraoed by the villagers for over two hours when he reached the village to take account of the protest.
Sources said health workers, mainly accredited social health activists, had been visiting houses to carry out a survey for the Bangla Matrittwa Prakalpa in which every pregnant woman gets Rs 5,000 for following immunisation guidelines. These have also been stopped now as the residents are being sceptical of any survey being undertaken and refuse to answer questions from surveys, reflecting complete distrust towards the government, despite of being a non-BJP ruled state.
Reportedly, even in Murshidabad district, the administration has stopped surveys due to the environment of fear created by the confusing and at the same time imposing narrative around CAA and NRC.
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