Waqf law a new frontier for polarising politics in West Bengal

Why would a routine protest over the new provisions in the old Waqf Act trigger violence? Why in Murshidabad?

Tragic as the death of three people in violence as a fallout of protests over the Waqf Amendment Act in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district are, such deaths are needless on the one hand and inflammatory on the other.

As harsh as this may read, the reality is that the fight over the Waqf Amendment Act will very soon become another frontier in the lengthening list of issues that are polarising politics on the basis of identity, specifically religious identity, across India and particularly in West Bengal.

The uninhibited use of the trope of Hindus in danger and facing a threat of being reduced to a minority in West Bengal has acquired a dangerous pitch in the context of the violence and deaths over protests associated with the Waqf Amendment Act. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership has accused Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of conspiring to do the impossible, ‘convert West Bengal into Bangladesh’ and of being ‘India’s only anti-national chief minister’. It has also evoked particularly sensitive memories by warning that the violence and two dead Hindus is a portend of worse things to come, like Direct Action Day in 1946, when 4,000 people died and about 100,000 families were displaced or lost their homes as carnage erupted.

By using obviously inflammatory associations, the BJP is fortifying its credentials as the only refuge of vulnerable Hindus in Muslim-majority areas, at the district level and at the sub-divisional level, where it has been consistent in prodding hand-me-down memories of Partition, displacement, and violence to create a vote-bank of its own. It is another matter that the BJP has not succeeded in unseating Banerjee and its performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections was worse than in the 2019 general elections.

In the binary of Hindu vote-bank versus Muslim vote-bank politics, Banerjee’s declaration that the amended law will not be implemented on her watch is one more reason for the BJP to accuse her of minority ‘appeasement’ by selling out the majority.

Then, there is an external factor.

In the over-heated polarised politics of West Bengal where the reigning Trinamool Congress (TMC) is up against the BJP as the principal party in opposition, ‘Bangladesh’, and its association with illegal immigrants, export of extremist Islamist doctrine, terrorists, allegations of Hindu genocide, and temple desecration, is a red flag. More so, after Sheikh Hasina fled and a new regime was installed with the approval of fundamentalist Islamist groups like the Jamaat-e-Islami and Hefazat-e-Islam.

It was predictable that the changes in the Waqf Act would set off street protests across India and in places like Murshidabad, a district with an over 66% Muslim population, and a history on the one hand and its geographical location, as sharing a border with Muslim-majority Bangladesh. It is equally predictable that there will be a long and possibly inconclusive political fight over its implementation.

Three questions, therefore, arise; first, why would a routine protest over the new provisions in the old Waqf Act trigger violence? Second, why was the violence on a scale that caused the death of three people? And, why in Murshidabad?

While nine districts in West Bengal share a border with Bangladesh, only three districts as per the last available census of 2011, are Muslim majority, though there are sizeable populations of Muslims in other districts. Trouble could have broken out in Malda or in Uttar Dinajpur, both Muslim-majority districts and along the border.

The history and its location are important ingredients of why protests in Murshidabad turned violent, and resulted in two Hindus and one Muslim dead. Murshidabad is politically contested territory with the TMC, the BJP, the Congress, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) — all jostling for a winning percentage of votes. The name is evocative because since about the 14th century it was the seat of first sultanate and then Mughal power; a place coveted as a site of enormous wealth and power. The East India Company fought to gain control over the wealth and the famous Battle of Plassey kicked off India’s colonisation.

Reality is that where there is property, there are vested interests and disputes. Such disputes can turn violent or remain peaceful, though stressful, as litigation takes its own time. If Waqf and properties endowed under Waqf was the issue, then Kolkata could easily have turned into a battlefield given the large and very valuable properties in prime locations under Waqf endowments, including the Tollygunge Club and the Royal Calcutta Golf Club, as well as properties in the central business district. Three rich and powerful Muslim ruling families were exiled in Kolkata, by the British: the Nawabs of Bengal, Tipu Sultan and his family, and Wajed Ali Shah and his family, all of whom created Waqfs for mosques, graveyards, and private property.

Preceding the murderous violence over changes to the Waqf law, there were many occasions when trouble between the Hindu majority and the Muslim minority could have broken out and perhaps even engulfed the state, which would have spelt real trouble for Banerjee. There was Eid, which roughly coincided with the celebration of Ram Navami; then there was Hanuman Jayanti. An organisation named Viswa Hindu Sevadal petitioned the Calcutta High Court for permission to hold a Hanuman Jayanti function on Red Road on the grounds that Eid namaz was permitted there as was the Durga Puja carnival.

The credibility of the Banerjee government has plummeted after the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital rape and murder of a junior doctor that prompted a spontaneous eruption of protests. The cash-for-jobs teachers recruitment racket and other large-scale corruption exposes have tarnished her image, though not her popularity during elections. More violence over the Waqf law amendments could be a tipping point for the consolidation of Hindu votes; it could drive voters who disapprove of communalization of politics away from the BJP, and that could open the two-horse race into an entirely new contest.

(Shikha Mukerjee Is a Kolkata-based senior journalist)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.