West Bengal: Of the Matua vote and Gopal the ‘goat’

In West Bengal, caste loyalties do not usually supersede political allegiance nor is caste a determinant of how political allegiance is established. But then, these are unusual times. A head-spinning shift is underway, centred around caste identity, ‘ghuspethiyas’ (infiltrators) and the so-called ‘Bangladeshi language speakers’. The ignorance embedded in the framing of that category (what’s ‘Bangladeshi language’?!) seems to matter little as the BJP goes about its business of trying to polarise the electorate and consolidate the Hindu vote.

Even as it tries to sow doubts and hatred against alleged infiltrators, its attention is currently fixated on the Matuas, who trace their origins to Bangladesh (earlier East Pakistan). A handful of Matuas — a Scheduled Caste community also identified by the caste moniker ‘Namasudra’ — trickled into West Bengal and Tripura during the Partition. Most of those who had stayed back at the time fled to India during the 1971 war.

Matuas constitute a little over 17 per cent of West Bengal’s scheduled caste population, making them the second largest SC group in the state after the Rajbongshis. As per Matua Mahasangh office-bearers Tanmoy Biswas and Sukhendu Gayen, the community’s population is between 2.5 crore and 2.75 crore, of which 1.7 crore are voters.

The Matua vote has considerable value in at least 12 (of 42) Lok Sabha constituencies and over a hundred (of 294) Assembly segments in the state. These are spread over the border districts of North and South 24 Parganas, Nadia, Howrah, North and South Dinajpur, and parts of Cooch Behar. The community forms the majority in at least 21 Assembly segments; the Assembly has 68 seats reserved for SCs.

Even though their party loyalties are fragmented, the Matuas know their numbers are hard to ignore. They also have a reputation for playing the political field — it keeps them in demand and their political bidders on their toes. So it is this time too, albeit with a twist in the tale.

On 30 August, during the Voter Adhikar Yatra, Rahul Gandhi met a 24-member delegation of the West Bengal Matua Mahasangha. They were carrying a banner that read: ‘Rahul dada, come to Bengal. SIR-e bipad, Congress-e nirapad (SIR spells danger, Congress spells safety)'.

The meeting unsettled the TMC and shocked the BJP — arranged as it was by one of their own, Tapan Halder, a disgruntled local organiser. It also threw into sharp relief the anxiety of Matuas, who are ill at ease every time the citizenship question rears its head.

The SIR exercise in Bihar, the largescale deletion of names from the state’s draft voter rolls, and the imminent re-enactment of this diabolic play in Bengal, which goes to polls early next year, has made the Matuas fidgety again. The papers that establish their claims as Indian citizens sit at the heart of this anxiety.

After their mass migration to India in 1971, the Congress government oversaw the rehabilitation and resettlement of Matua refugees in districts like North 24 Parganas and Nadia, but they were largely classified as ‘refugees’ at the time. With help from political parties, these refugees secured ration cards, which at the time was also proof of address and identity — and, by extension, citizenship.

The Matuas were originally registered as voters based on these ration cards. While they have since been allotted Aadhaar IDs, and many have passports as well, the nervousness possibly stems from what view the Election Commission of India (ECI) might take of the original ration cards.

Union minister Santanu Thakur’s gimmick of applying for citizenship has alarmed them even more. If even a minister’s status is suspect, how shaky is theirs? Existential questions like these are leading many Matuas to reassess their support for the BJP or TMC — and look at the Congress as possibly a steadier, a more reliable ally.

On top of all this, there is now a breakaway Matua faction that claims to speak for the community. For context, the Matuas have traditionally been led by descendants of Harichand Thakur, who founded the sect around 1860, to push back against Brahmin oppression.

The political loyalties of the influential Thakur family are anyway split: Santanu Thakur is a Union minister with the BJP, his brother Subrata is a BJP MLA and Mamata Bala Thakur is a Trinamool MP. Santanu claims Subrata is planning to defect to the TMC. Roiling the pot even more are leaders from outside the Thakur family, the likes of Jagannath Sarkar, a BJP MP from Ranaghat and a heavyweight in his own right, who is pitching himself as a rival power centre in the Matua fold.

Funny time for courtship.

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The Bengal Files riles the family and bores the public

Folklore abounds in Bengal. On 16 December 1946, Direct Action Day, when the Great Calcutta Killings began, and the provincial government under H.S. Suhrawardy wouldn’t call in the Army, every moholla (neighbourhood) that was affected claimed its own heroes and villains. Every moholla has a memory that is preserved and passed down within the community.

Gopal Chandra Mukherjee, popularly known as Gopal Pantha, was one such legend. Pantha literally translates as ‘goat’, but in the idiom of the land, pantha is more affectionate than disrespectful. In Vivek Agnihotri’s The Bengal Files, he is introduced with the line ‘Ek tha kasai Gopal Pantha’ (there once was a butcher called Gopal the Goat).

Objecting to his portrayal as ‘ghastly and dishonourable’, Mukherjee’s grandson Shantanu filed two petitions, the second seeking a stay on the film’s theatrical release. The Calcutta High Court dismissed the petition and the film was screened in Kolkata on 5 September. Box-office reports on 8 September indicated a poor turnout of around 18 per cent.

Interestingly, the controversy over the screening of the trailer on 16 August drew more attention than the film itself. When the police busted the preview, curiosity spiked. The story that quickly went viral was that Mamata Banerjee’s government was putting a gag on free expression and a lid on the ‘hidden truths’ of the Great Calcutta Killings.

The irony is that Gopal Chandra Mukherjee was a Congressman, a sort of beta version of the ‘bahubali’ figure of Indian politics. He was also a torchbearer for West Bengal’s first chief minister, the legendary Bidhan Chandra Roy. According to folklore, he helped his patron snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in the 1957 state Assembly.

The ‘transformation’ of Gopal Pantha into a Hindutva icon has not gone down well with his family, nor, it would appear, with the public.