Frequent communal flare-ups are aiding a sharp polarisation here, which is helping Hindu right-wing parties

Asked for help to make a tour of the area where a month earlier communal tension had mounted in North 24 Paraganas district adjacent to Kolkata, the Hindu Jagran Manch sent two guides. They are friends, in their late twenties to early thirties, and keen to talk about the "awakening of the Bengali Hindus". They live in Baduria block of North 24 Paraganas, the second most populous district in the country after Thane, with a population of over one crore.

Earlier in the month, it was in Baduria that a Facebook meme maligning Islam had triggered communal tension in parts of the district for over a week, affecting both Hindus and Muslims. The meme was allegedly uploaded by a student, now in police custody.

One of the guides, Anindya Acharjee, was a lower-rung leader of the youth wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). While studying law in Kolkata he was attracted to the Democratic Youth Federation of India for "nearly a decade". In fact he is still with the local unit of the DYFI, but preparing to join the Bharatiya Janata Party.

"The youth are leaving the CPI(M) in large numbers. The Hindus are joining the BJP and the Muslims are approaching the TMC. Ten or twelve young Muslim men of the DYFI came to me recently. They are going to join the Trinamool Congress," he said. A local leader of the TMC’s student wing, Salim Mollah, based in Swarupnagar block, further south of Baduria, gave a nuanced-sounding explanation to the emerging communal division within the CPI(M).

"A month ago when the situation flared up, indeed there was a split along religious lines [within the CPI-M]," he said, adding a caveat: "But our interactions [with Hindus] are far more cordial now. Much like what it was a month back when the troubles broke out." He says both Hindu and Muslim youth are "returning" to the TMC. "The politics of dividing people on religious lines – rather than political lines – has failed."

Along religious lines

The politics of division along religious lines, however, has its history rooted in Bengal’s Partition. The people of Baduria, Swarupnagar and Basirhat blocks – where there were rivalries – are partly a product of past communal violence across the border in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) six decades ago.

"So perhaps the July violence reminded us of what we witnessed decades back," observes 78-year-old Sudhanshu Mandal, a retired carpenter and a CPI sympathiser. He came to Baduria as a refugee when he was 10, following an attack on Hindus in Muladi in East Pakistan. To Mr. Mandal and his community, intermittent communal flare-ups in West Bengal bring back memories of riots in East Pakistan. He was standing outside a bamboo and tin thatched room which had a couple of ‘sickle and stalk of grain’-bearing flags at the entrance, indicating that it is a CPI office, in Baduria’s Chandipur Colony. He said the "times are a-changing" in Bengal. "They [the CPI] gave us a lot. This land, established as a refugee camp, turned later into a residential colony. Thanks to the CPI and the CPI(M) we could build our homes and we can now be considered a part of the growing middle class… but times are a-changing."

The number of Hindu refugees from Bangladesh who came over to Bengal over the decades could be anybody’s guess. During the 2016 elections a former local MP, Manjul Krishna Thakur, told The Hindu that Matuas, a religious sect of Bangladeshi Dalits who predominantly belong to the Namasudra caste, is "a factor in 78 of 294 Assembly segments". Namasudras and several other castes among the refugees are serously influenced by the growing communal hostility in Bengal, feels Mr. Mandal.

"There is a growing uncertainty – this fear that we may get attacked as we were in Muladi – as we live among the Muslims. This is changing our politics. If it continues we may end up joining the BJP," said the communist sympathiser of five decades, as the crowd around him, mostly young men from the neighbourhood, cheered.

"We are all Hindus here," they shouted in unison. A couple of them yelled: "Jai Shri Ram." One of them, Tapash Biswas, a local retailer, with a saffron scarf around his neck, said, "We are not CPI(M), TMC or Congress – we are all Hindus." Titas Biswas, the secretary of the Hindu Jagran Manch in Basirhat subdivision, did not deny that communal flare-ups were aiding a sharp polarisation, which was helping the Hindu right-wing parties.

"The Hindus lack unity but the July incident has united us and we’ve gained," says Mr. Biswas. He, however, insists that the Hindu nationalist outfits have not provoked the unrest "to unite Hindus". The two-time MLA of the area, Mohammad Selim Gayen of the CPI(M), acknowledges that divisions on communal line are "a reality".

"Hindus and Muslims have indeed felt disappointed with the role of the TMC administration, and in certain areas [the two communities were] kind of face-to-face. Following the Facebook post, Muslims blocked the road. The administration failed to act to remove the post and eventually the two communities had a face-off. But it’s the job of political activists like us to bridge the gap and we are campaigning door to door to defuse tension and people are responding positively," Mr. Gayen said. He did not deny that he observed "such a trend" when Hindus were joining the BJP and the Muslims were aligning with the TMC, following the commotion.

While such trends can be witnessed all across the State, the TMC leadership denies any "major change" in their support base. "They [BJP] are trying to split Bengal on Hindu-Muslim lines and outsourcing [the work] to a few organisations whose job it is to routinely provoke people. The recent incident [of posting the meme] is not the work of a 17-year-old boy… they have a bigger game plan," said Jyoti Priya Mallick, the president of TMC unit in North 24 Paraganas and a Minister. But BJP president Dilip Ghosh called the allegation "baseless".

Scheduled Castes vs Muslims

On a Tuesday afternoon two weeks after the riot, a local BJP leader, Swapan Das, visited Godownpara, which formerly housed a railway yard, in Bashirhat subdivision to meet the residents. The residents – as it was in Chandipur – are Bangladeshi and Indian Dalits who came to North 24 Paraganas over the decades. They are the ones who claim to have "resisted" the Muslims around the first week of July. "Let us not forget that it is these poor men and women who saved Bashirhat from Muslims in the first week of July. I have come to meet them," said Mr. Das. His co-party worker tells the locals, in the presence of this correspondent, that they have "some survey plans for the area".

Nearly all residents of Godownpara are daily wage-earners; they are usually hired by a contractor to paint walls and houses in suburban areas and are paid about Rs. 300 a day. All of them belong to about half a dozen Scheduled Caste categories and the leaders of a section of Hindu outfits do not deny they are consistently "working" among Dalits to "resist Islam".

Tapan Ghosh, the founder-president of Hindu Samhati, has been working among these castes in many districts of Bengal for long. He does not deny that "only these lower castes" are "capable of resisting Islamic aggression".

"These lower castes, whom I would describe as a warrior class, were never in a position to take decisions, while the upper castes have not resisted Islamic aggression," he said. He listed "the lower castes" as Namasudras who came from Bangladesh, and other Bengali Scheduled Castes as Poundra Kshatriya (cultivators), Jan Kshatriya (fishermen), Karma Kshatriya (palanquin-bearers) in North 24 Paraganas. "We work among them," he admitted.

"In the rest of Bengal these other lower castes who have been neglected for centuries are Bagdis, Bauris, Dom and Hanris. In North Bengal they are Rajbanshis and Santhals (tribals) in some parts. They are also among the warrior community of Bengal. My objective is to strengthen all of them so they may resist the aggression of Islam," he added.

Interestingly, all these communities put together constitute 25 to 30% of West Bengal’s population. If Mr. Ghosh or the Hindu outfits manage to penetrate these communities, which they claim they have done, it could severely affect the standing and future prospects of the TMC.