What is it like to be a Hindu in West Bengal?

The years preceding independence were the worst for the Hindu population of Bengal. Muslims at 53% outnumbered Hindus at 41%, but the two communities lived cheek by jowl in most areas. Western parts of Bengal were more Hindu, while the East was more Muslim. Under a Muslim league government, Bengal was already simmering when the League called for a Direct Action Day to step up its demand for partition of the country. Widespread riots orchestrated by Muslim mobs engulfed the Hindu majority city of Calcutta, claiming between 5000-10000 lives. Rumours spread that most of the dead in Calcutta were Muslims, provoking another round of riots in distant Noakhali. At least 5000 Hindus are said to have perished in Noakhali, with thousands forcibly converted. Women were abducted and raped. Mahatma Gandhi led a peace mission to Noakhali, realized its futility and is reported to have remarked that the situation in Noakhali required that the Hindus should either leave or perish. It was in the background of such massacres that Bengal was ultimately partitioned and a Hindu-dominated West Bengal came into existence. Even at the time of partition, there were Hindus who chose to throw in their lot with the Muslims of Pakistan. Their fate makes for a telling story. One among them, an stellar leader of the ‘depressed classes’, Jogendranath Mandal, was even appointed as the first law and labour minister of Pakistan. Mandal resigned his post and fled to India in 1950, deploring the second-grade treatment meted out to Pakistan’s Hindu minorities.

Post partition, West Bengal had nearly 20% Muslim population, with the rest predominantly Hindu, while East Pakistan counted 22% of its population as Hindu, and the rest as Muslim. 2011 census shows that nearly 27% of West Bengal’s population is now Muslim, while in Bangladesh, the number of Hindus has fallen to 9% of the population. All in all, the whole of Bengal region is getting progressively Islamized. While in 1941, Muslims made up nearly 53% of Bengal as against 41% for Hindus. In 2011, Muslims make up nearly 67% of Bengal’s population, while the number of Hindus has progressively declined to less than a third.

In West Bengal, illegal Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants now make up a formidable community, jostling with the native Hindu community for space and resources.

This SWARAJYAMAG article, describes how in less than 25 years, a Hindu dominated village by the name of Mayurgram was flooded with illegal Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants, resulting in Hindus being harrassed, threatened and eventually being forced to flee. Mayurgram, subsequently became Morgram and now has an overwhelming Muslim population. Successive governments in West Bengal, including the Congress, the Communists and the Trinamool Congress have played vote bank politics, encouraging the emboldening of Muslim votebank that has assured them of victory. In fact, Mamata Banerjee’s victory in 2011 is popularly ascribed to the Muslims deserting the Communists en masse. Bangladeshi terror money is also claimed as another strong factor.

Bangladesh broke free from the clutches of Pakistan over the issue of Bengali language. And yet, today, in West Bengal, Urdu has been hoisted as the second language of the state. To top that, the state government is making active efforts to break the link between Sanskrit and Bengali language by forcing Persian, Arab and Urdu words down pupils’ throat. The Bengali word for Sky blue was changed from Aakaashi to Aasmani, switching from an Indic to a Persian root. Generations of Hindu Bengalis have called their mothers, fathers, uncles and aunts by sweet sounding words such as Maa, Baba, Kaku and Pishi and yet today, young Bengalis are being taught to refer to them by Urdu words such as Abba, Amma, Fufu, Chacha and what not.

Rainbow, known as Ramdhonu in West Bengal was changed to Rongdhonu recently, bringing it closer to its Bangladeshi equivalent. The reason given was ‘Secularizing education’. One can only wonder if Secularization is a synonym for Islamization.

While Noakhali riots took place on the day of Kojagiri Pooja, the riots in Dhulagarh took place on the auspicious day of Margashirsha Pooja. In Deganga, riots took place in 2010, over attempts by Muslims to prevent the annual Durga Pooja procession. In 2017, Tehatta High School in Uluberia stormed into public limelight when its Hindu students protested for being denied the permission to celebrate Saraswati Pooja. In 2016, the West Bengal government issued orders to curb traditional festivities associated with the immersion of Durga idols, because Muslims would celebrate Muharram the next day. Multiple reports of communal disturbances emerged from the state during Durga Pooja celebrations, but the government dismissed these reports, just as it refused to accept cases of riots in Dhulagarh, Nadia and Kaliachak. Mosques have proliferated, while Hindus are facing increasing restrictions on performing their rituals.

Mamata’s hobnobbing with Imam Nurul Barkati of Tipu Sultan mosque, famous for his fatwa against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his threat to slit the throat of Tarek Fatah, shows that she is willing to bend over backwards to ingratiate herself to the Muslims. It is on her watch that lakhs of Muslims marched in Kolkata, the site of the infamous killings in 1946, supporting Bangaldeshi war criminals who had ethnically cleansed millions of Hindus in Bangladesh. It is on her watch that Imams were offered stipends by the state government. And it is on her watch that the state government attempted to shield the accused of Burdwan blasts by blaming R&AW.

Instead of becoming Maa Durga, an avatar in which her supporters had hoped to see her, Mamata Banerjee has become the very incarnation of Mahishasura. Now, more than ever, Bengal needs someone who can rescue the Hindu community of Bengal from an almost certain obliteration.

Conspiracy theorists claim that Pakistan and Bangladesh are hobnobbing to recreate a Muslim Bengal as existed during Siraj-Ud-daula, one of the worst tormentors of the Hindu community. By design or accident, Mamata Banerjee seems to be fulfilling this agenda