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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It was recently reported by The Telegraph that two senior citizen friends died from a heart attack in East Burdwan, West Bengal. Their deaths were allegedly caused due to being in panic over collecting documents to prove their citizenship amidst certain statements coming from the Centre about nation-wide NRC. While this stance of the government was quite clear until a few days ago, the Centre is now back tracking from its own statements, creating an atmosphere on confusion which is certainly not helping the climate of fear which has already set in amongst the masses.

The two deceased, Abul Kashem Sekh aged 68, and Abdus Sattar Sekh aged 65, lived just 800m away from each other at Karui in Katwa. They passed away just a few hours apart, in the wee hours. Both of them were marginal farmers who were compelled to stop their work in the fields to try and gather their land related documents from government offices, living under the fear of being excluded in the nation-wide NRC and meet the same fate as their fellow citizens in Assam. They were, reportedly, knocking doors of government offices, including those of gram panchayat and block, in the days preceding their deaths, in the hope of finding their land documents that would help them make changes in their Aadhaar cards.

Sources informed The Telegraph that their deaths have prompted anti-CAA tension in the village where several residents had been gripped by panic.

This incident just adds to the deaths caused due to panic over CAA-NRC. Sabrang India has earlier reported about over 11 deaths in Bengal caused due to the prevalent terror surrounding the uncertainty of CAA-NRC. There have been cases of suicides and even of people dying while in a queue for collecting their documents from government offices. What is pertinent note is that most of these deaths are among the common working class people.
 

Previous deaths

It was reported on September 26 that according to the police a 25-year-old man hung himself in Dhupguri, while a 50-year-old man jumped, into a well in Jalpaiguri. 32-year-old brick kiln worker Kamal Hossain Mondal who was worried about his family’s fate if the NRC is implemented in Bengal, was found hanging from a tree near his house on September 22.

On December 15, India Today reported that 36-year-old woman was found dead in West Bengal’s Purba Bardhaman with her family claiming that she was scared about CAB (now CAA) and NRC as she had visited the block office many times to get documents for her son who did not have a birth certificate.

The Telegraph reported on September 21 about a 38-year-old farmer hanging himself to death in Jalpaiguri and a 52-year-old Mantu Sarkar dying after falling ill while standing in queue with thousands of other villagers at the block office in Balurghat to get his digital ration card.

The panic over CAA-NRC has taken lives of about 16 or possibly more people, mainly from the working class, such as farmers, daily wage workers or MGNREGA workers, in West Bengal
 

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Folk singer, found hanging in Jalpaiguri. Family suspects he committed suicide as he was extremely worried about documents related to his identity and citizenship.

69-year-old Shahabuddin Mohammed, a Bhawaiya Rajbanshi folk singer, was found hanging from a tree near his home. His family says that Mohammed had been under severe stress due to the NRC.

His nephew Alimul Alam told The Telegraph, “He was depressed as he could not find proper documents related to his land. He would be glued to TV to know about NRC and would often say that if he could not get those documents, his citizenship would be called into question. Some recent remarks of leaders had left him more scared.”

Mohammed also ran a small grocery shop outside his home to make ends meet. He is survived by a son and two daughters.

This suspected suicide is the tenth such case in Bengal and fifth incident in Jalpaiguri alone! But instead of finding a way to offer people assurance, the political leaders are engaged in a blame game. TMC leader Dulal Debnath who is the deputy chief of the Jalpaiguri Zila Parishad blamed the BJP for making statements about the NRC that cause panic among people pushing them to suicide. However, Jalpaiguri BJP chief Debashis Chakraborty dismissed Mohammed’s death as the result of a property dispute.

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Bengal Suicide: Panic over NRC is taking lives

The post NRC related panic claims another life in Bengal appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Bengal may in fact show India the way! After recent bye-polls in the state that saw the issue of NRC –with the fears and anxieties that the process has come to mean to all Indian citizens – figuring prominently, both the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have now expressed reservations over the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise. In fact, the saffron party’s setback in the three Assembly bye-elections is seen as a result of over-emphasis on this exercise. Now, two anti-NRC platforms now want the Bengal government to halt work on the National Population Register (NPR) in the state.

 Joint Forum Against NRC, one such platform, has called for a protest on Rani Rashmoni Road in central Kolkata on December 9. The second, the No-NRC Movement, has called for a gathering at Ramlila Maidan in central Kolkata on December 19. Both rallies are to voice their opposition to NRC, NPR and Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB).

“TMC has evidently reaped benefits from its opposition to NRC. However, by felicitating the work of NPR while opposing NRC, the state government is clearly fooling the people of the state and this needs to be exposed,” said Monotosh Mukherjee, one of the organizers of No-NRC Movement.

So far, Joint Forum Against NRC has conducted a series of public meetings across Bengal, largely targeting BJP. The No-NRC Movement, which originated as a Facebook group that presently has more than one lakh members, set up committees in 16 of the state’s 23 districts and are reportedly conducting public meetings regularly.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, while assuring people that she would not allow NRC in West Bengal and would also oppose CAB when introduced in the Parliament, has sought people’s “cooperation” for NPR. A week-long training of government officers for NPR is scheduled in Kolkata in the first week of December. The NPR is to be conducted in 2020 during the for the census of 2021.

“NPR is the stepping stone for National Register for Indian Citizens (NRIC) and NRIC is nothing but another name for NRC. In Assam, it was NRC. For the rest of India, it will be NRIC,” said Ranjit Sur of Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) Bengal’s largest human rights organization.

The central government has described NPR as a ‘Register of usual residents of the country’. Participation in NPR is mandatory but people do not need to support documents the data they provide. NRIC “will be a Register of citizens of the country” that would be prepared “after verifying the details in the NPR and establishing the citizenship of each individual,” says a government document available on the public domain.

A senior TMC minister said that the party was “closely monitoring” the activities of the two forums and that the chief minister would respond on the issue “at the proper time”.

“Misinformation is being spread from many quarters but we are confident we will be able to convince the people about the need for NPR, NRC, and CAB,” said Mohit Ray, convenor of Bengal BJP’s refugee cell.

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The Trinamool Congress delivered body blows to the BJP in all three constituencies where bye elections were held in November, winning even the state BJP state chief’s constituency! So how exactly did the all-powerful and extremely well-funded BJP snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

Look no further than its misadventures on the subject conducting a National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise across India. While the BJP investigates the reasons behind its failure, there are whispers by party members themselves that it was the manner in which the subject of NRC was approached that tanked their chances of success.

Bengal had already witnessed what was happening next door in Assam where over 19 lakh people were left out of the final NRC published on August 31, 2019. In fact, panic cause by the NRC has already led to a spate of suicides in Bengal. It was these concerns that the BJP failed to address as it brandished about its shiny NRC-CAB double edged sword.

BJP Chief Amit Shah has never minced words about the party’s desire to replicate Assam’s NRC across India. He reiterated his government’s commitment to conducting a nationwide NRC in the Lok Sabha recently. Bengal has been a much-coveted state for the BJP that is desperate to make further electoral gains in the state following the 2019 general elections where it made significant inroads. 

Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee has been extremely vocal about her determination to ensure a similar exercise is not conducted in her state. It is noteworthy though, that Banerjee has come a long way since her 2005 campaign against illegal migrants from Bangladesh, a move many political pundits attribute to minority appeasement for cultivating a dependable vote bank.

In fact, the BJP’s Kaliaganj candidate Kamal Chandra Sarkar told The Telegraph, “Trinamul went on campaigning on NRC and highlighted the consequences. On the other hand, our leaders went on asserting that our party is determined to introduce it in Bengal, which is why it backfired. As a result, a section of voters did not support us this time like they had in the parliamentary polls.”

Kaliaganj has a large population of Rajbanshis, as well as refugees and alleged illegal migrants from Bangladesh. It is alleged that right wing supremacist organisations wanted to club together Rajbanshis and Bengali Hindu migrants and refugees, leaving those from the Muslim community to bear the brunt of the proposed Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB). Karimpur shares a 25-kilometer-long border with Bangladesh and it is alleged that close to a quarter of the electorate comprises Bangladeshis who crossed the border in wake of the 1971 war. The talk of NRC is therefore a huge cause for concern, putting any party, that advocates it, on shaky ground.

Thus, results in these constituency were a clear indication of public rejection of a divisive agenda and the politics of fear.

Related:

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The post Did NRC turn BJP’s electoral dreams to dust in Bengal? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image courtesy: PTI

Meanwhile, in an unprecedented show of solidarity last month, all the major political parties in the State, except the BJP, joined hands to pass a resolution in the Assembly on September 6 opposing the NRC exercise in Assam and resolved not to allow it to take place in West Bengal. No other state in the country has taken such sharp and immediate steps as Bengal

Even as India’s political opposition from the Congress at an all India level to the CPI(M) make sporadic noises on the exclusivist thrust of the entire updation of the National Register of Citizens(NRC) process, it is the Trinamool Congress led by the feisty Mamata Bnaerjee that is taking the issue head on! Not only has the Bengal Assembly passed a resolution rejecting the NRC in the state but yesterday, a fiery speech Mamata said that “ we will not allow any division among the people of the state.”

Google NRC and say, Indian National Congress(INC), Dravidian Munnetra Kazaghan (DMK), National Congress Party (NCP), Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) and you will not get too many results. As the date for the publishing of the final NRC list (August 31, 2019) somewhat muted statements by the grand old party –stating that all ‘genuine Indian citizens would be protected’ –appeared. Typically, the Congress has played a vacillating role.

Maharashtra and Karnataka, both states presently ruled by the BJP have detention camps coming up. The Opposition in these states has been quiet on the issue.

The CPI(M) Polit Bureau issued a statement urging inclusion but on the ground, in Assam, its foot soldiers are wary to dabble in this issue. Until 2016, the Congress ruled the state of Assam and the Tarun Gogoi-led government had spearheaded formulating the Standard Operating Proecdures(SOPs) and Modalities in 2005 and then again in 2003 with the main player in Assam that had led the Assam movement, the All Assam Students Union (AASU). Sarbanda Sonowal, earlier with the AASU –who spearheaded the challenge to the IMDT Act of 1983 –is now the Bharatiya Janata Party’s first chief minister in the north eastern state.

However, again, on October 21, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday compared herself to a paharadar (security guard) and said that nobody can displace the people of West Bengal under her watch. “I am your paharadar (security guard). So, do not worry, no one here, in Bengal, can bring National Register of Citizens (NRC) here,” she said, while attending a Bijoya Sammilani at Siliguri in North Bengal on Monday. This is Chief Minister Banerjee’s first visit to North Bengal after Lok Sabha elections, in which her party Trinamool Congress lost all the seats here earlier this year. The BJP that is making an aggressive bid for the state that goes to the polls in 2021, has been using its planl of ‘illegal migrants”  and “threats to national security” to not just garner votes but also create s sharp communal divide and polarise the state. The NRC driven panic has already officially claimed 11 lives in Bengal though unofficial figures put the deaths through trauma and suicide at 20.

“There may be NRC, Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, but nothing can displace anybody from Bengal. We are here to protect you. Every person living in this state is a citizen of India. Those who have turned 18 should immediately enroll themselves in voters’ list,” she added.

Banerjee reiterated there will be no NRC implementation in West Bengal. “We will not allow any division among the people of the state.”

She also said that the people of this state have earned their right to be called an Indian citizen through their participation in freedom struggle and contribution to Bengal renaissance.

“This right was given to us by Raja Rammohan Roy, (Iswar Chandra) Vidyasagar, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and several patriots who sacrificed their lives fighting for the independence of the nation,” she said.

Ever since the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) was published in Assam there have been rumours of a similar exercise in West Bengal. Though the Mamata Banerjee administration has repeatedly and vehemently denied this, a toxic cocktail of fear and anxiety has claimed 11 lives in the state. What’s worse, right wing supremacist groups are using the opportunity to add fuel to fire.

For the past two months, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) crisis brewing for the past three years (or thirty!!) in Assam has now cast its shadow over West Bengal. As a sense of fear and foreboding grips the State, the ruling TMC is clearly taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the issue.

Resolution in Assembly on September 6
Speaking on the September 6 resolution, which was tabled under Rule 185 of the Rules of Procedures of Conduct of Business of the House, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said: “We do not accept the NRC. What has happened in Assam can never happen in Bengal.” She pointed out that the reason behind the NRC exercise in Assam was the Assam Accord of 1985 signed by the Centre and the leaders of the Assam Movement. But in West Bengal no such agreement exists, and hence there is no basis for carrying out an NRC. “The NRC implementation is nothing but an attempt to divert the attention of the common people from the economic crisis in the country,” she said. She also thanked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for opposing an “NRC-like exercise” in Bihar.
While the Left parties and the Congress also spoke out against the NRC during the debate, their political response on the streets and the rest of India has been extremely muted. “This is not a Hindu-Muslim issue. Many Hindus have been left out in Assam. This is about victimising poor people who cannot produce the necessary documents,” said Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sujan Chakraborty. All India Forward Bloc MLA Ali Imran Ramz called the resolution “historic” and said that the State had sent a message to the country that “West Bengal is, was and will remain secular”.

The BJP opposed the resolution, with the leader of the BJP Legislature Party, Manoj Tigga, bringing up Mamata Banerjee’s earlier stand on the issue of infiltrators. He reminded the House that on July 21, 1993, Mamata Banerjee, the then leader of the State Youth Congress, led a rally demanding “no voter card, no vote”; 13 Youth Congress activists were killed in police firing at the rally. He also recalled how on August 4, 2005, she stormed out of the Lok Sabha when she was not allowed to raise the issue of “illegal infiltration from Bangladesh” for debate in the House.

On September 12, Mamata Banerjee led a procession in protest against the NRC. Referring to State BJP president Dilip Ghosh’s claim that there were two crore infiltrators in the State, she said: “Try touching even two citizens of Bengal…. It has been 72 years since Independence, and still we have to provide proof of our identity. Why?” Mamata Banerjee was back to her combative, street-fighting ways for the first time after receiving a jolt in the Lok Sabha election earlier this year. The camaraderie of a few days before with the Left and the Congress was also abandoned as she lashed out at both her old adversaries in order to consolidate support against her new one. “The CPI(M) and the Congress have no support in Bengal. Trinamool is the only party that can take on the BJP,” she said.

This is not the first time the Trinamool and the BJP have crossed swords over the NRC issue. Ever since the exercise started in Assam in 2018, the two parties have been going back and forth over it, and it was an important issue in the 2019 Lok Sabha election in West Bengal where the BJP emerged as the principal opposition to the Trinamool. Mamata Banerjee tried to project the NRC in Assam as an anti-Bengali issue, alleging that Bengali-speaking people of Assam were the primary targets. She called it a “Bangali khedao movement” in the guise of an NRC, referring to the violent “Bongal kheda” movement to drive out Bengalis from Assam in the 1960s.

The BJP accused Mamata Banerjee of playing communal politics by supporting infiltrators, who it claimed accounted for a substantial portion of her support base. During an election rally in Alipurduar in March this year, BJP president Amit Shah focussed on the implementation of the NRC in West Bengal. “Mamataji is under the impression that the infiltrators will see her through in this election…. The Narendra Modi government will return to power, and we will bring the NRC. Each and every infiltrator will be ousted from the State,” he said. At the same time, he said non-Muslim “refugees” will be allowed to stay.

Related:
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