Hooghly, India – In November 2019, India’s Supreme Court docket accredited the development of a Hindu temple on disputed land within the northern city of Ayodhya, the place there was as soon as a medieval-era mosque.
Across the similar time, authorities within the state of West Bengal – about 900km (559 miles) away – fenced a two-acre (0.8-hectare) land parcel in a sleepy neighbourhood of Hooghly district and barred all entry.
Hindu pilgrims argue the positioning, with remnants of a mosque and a strong minaret, in Pandua city about 100km (62 miles) north of Kolkata, the capital of the West Bengal state, is a Hindu shrine of goddess Shrinkhala Devi.
That is exactly how the motion to construct a temple for Hindu deity Ram in Ayodhya began. In 1949, Hindu activists surreptitiously positioned idols of Ram contained in the Babri Mosque. It was ultimately demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992.
India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP) rose to political prominence on the again of the temple motion, which was launched by its ideological guardian – the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The RSS – a Hindu revivalist organisation – and its affiliate organisations reminiscent of Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council) wish to convert dozens of mosques throughout the nation into temples. They are saying these Muslim locations of worship have been constructed after demolishing Hindu temples, although generally official data say in any other case.
The disputed shrine in Pandua, domestically generally known as Badi Masjid (large mosque) is amongst them.
The shrine of Zafar Khan Gazi, a number of kilometres south of the disputed Pandua mosque shrine, is now guarded by gun-wielding non-public safety guards amid Hindu-Muslim tensions.
Syncretic tradition
Pandua – like many of the nondescript cities of Bengal – is thought for its syncretic tradition – the place Muslims and Hindus have lived collectively for hundreds of years, usually collectively organising their festivals.
“We now have by no means witnessed any communal animosity ever,” stated Sheikh Moktar, 59, an administrative member of the native Islamic faculty in Pandua, house to 200,000 folks, 1 / 4 of them Muslims.
However in recent times, the communal amity on this as soon as communist bastion appears to have frayed, notably after Hindu right-wing teams began to push a hardline agenda. Analysts say right-wing Hindu teams linked to the BJP have used non secular mobilisation for celebrations reminiscent of Ram Navami, which marks the birthday of the Hindu Lord Ram, for political positive factors.
The annual Ram Navami celebrations have witnessed 1000’s marching with swords, falchions and machetes, and shouting slogans in reward of Ram and taking part in songs denigrating Islam.
At an April 2017 Ram Navami rally in Chandannagar, a metropolis in Hooghly district near Pandua, Al Jazeera witnessed folks, together with kids, marched with swords, chanting anti-Muslim slogans whereas big audio system blared devotional music.
These rallies, organised throughout the state, have usually turned violent in recent times.
Asansol district, an industrial metropolis identified for its coal mines, witnessed lethal Hindu-Muslim violence in 2018 and 2019.
Bhatpara within the North 24 Parganas district, an industrial township north of Kolkata, witnessed lethal Hindu-Muslim violence in Might 2019 through which at the least seven folks died.
The world, house to greater than 300,000 folks, has emerged because the epicentre of communal stress for the nice a part of the final 10 years.
In response to the most recent knowledge launched in 2018 by India’s inside ministry, 27 incidents of violence have been reported in 2015, however by 2017, the incidences of communal violence doubled in West Bengal state.
“There have been at the least a dozen riots within the space with deaths and large-scale injury to property over final two years,” stated Subha Protim Roychowdhury, a member of a left-leaning civil society group.
“Nearly every day, Bhatpara witnesses violence. It’s unattainable to maintain a rely of the incidents,” stated Roychowdhury.
‘Defends the non secular mobilisation’
Tushar Kanti Tikadar, who heads Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM), an affiliate of the World Hindu Council (VHP) in south Bengal, defended the non secular mobilisation.
“It was celebrated exterior Bengal earlier however now we don’t have to sensitise Bengalis about Ram Navami, they comprehend it,” Tikadar, who is predicated in Barasat in North 24 Parganas district, advised Al Jazeera.
“We are able to now unite folks within the title of Ram, it’s a large success.”
He denied that Ram Navami celebrations have been aggressive or divisive. “If Muslims can show weapons throughout Muharram, why can not the Hindus,” he argued.
The BJP has continued with a really aggressive anti-Muslim marketing campaign. Final yr, the social gathering’s Bengal chief, Dilip Ghosh, stated if they arrive to energy, the social gathering would “establish 5 million Muslim infiltrators and deport” them to Bangladesh.
His rhetoric was according to the social gathering’s stand in opposition to undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and Rohingya refugees. Senior social gathering chief and residential minister Amit Shah has previously known as Bengali immigrants “termites”.
In neighbouring Assam state, practically two million Bengali folks, together with Muslims, have been excluded from a citizenship register, successfully rendering them stateless.
West Bengal – house to about 100 million folks – is one in every of two massive Indian states, the place the BJP is but to seize energy, regardless of operating the nationwide authorities since 2014.
The social gathering has additionally been making an attempt to make cow slaughter an election problem within the state, the place beef is consumed extensively by each Muslims and Hindus. Dozens of Muslims have been lynched throughout India by Hindu mobs after being accused of smuggling cows for slaughter since 2014 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi got here to energy.
Hardline Hindu agenda
The hardline Hindu agenda, it appears, has paid dividends for the BJP, which bagged 18 out of 42 parliamentary seats within the 2019 parliamentary elections in West Bengal. The social gathering had gained simply two seats within the 2014 elections.
The BJP has deployed its whole prime management, together with Modi and his right-hand man Shah, because it goals to win the state meeting elections slated to be held in the summertime of 2021.
The social gathering has additionally intensified efforts to acceptable Bengali icons, together with secular freedom heroes reminiscent of Subhas Chandra Bose and Rabindranath Tagore, who wrote India’s nationwide anthem.
The Communist Social gathering of India-Marxist (CPI-M) which dominated state politics for 34 years, has now been relegated to the margins, with the BJP rising as the primary challenger to the governing All India Trinamool Congress Social gathering (AITC) led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The state was largely free of non secular strife in the course of the communist social gathering rule that resulted in 2011, though elections have been marked by political violence throughout that interval.
The CPI-M, analysts say, have been in a position to secularise Bengali society, which was divided alongside non secular traces within the wake of the partition of India in 1947. The partition noticed large-scale inhabitants transfers between Indian West Bengal and East Pakistan (previously East Bengal), which later grew to become Bangladesh.
“It was a deeply divided society on communal traces owing to violent partition of India and Bengal in 1947 and following inflow of [Hindu] refugees from East Pakistan, now Bangladesh,” stated Ranabir Samaddar, a political scientist based mostly in Kolkata.
“… The communists managed to secularise a divided post-partition society by selling tolerance amongst Hinduised refugees specifically and the Bengalis generally,” Samaddar, the founder and distinguished chair of Mahanirban Calcutta Analysis Group, a widely known social science institute, advised Al Jazeera.
‘Weaponised the method of Hinduisation’
Within the final decade, Hindu right-wing organisations have pursued politics of non secular polarisation, whereas pushing a story that successive governments favoured Muslims, who type one-third of the state’s inhabitants.
“The BJP weaponised the method of Hinduisation utilizing cash and muscle energy and managed to affect the poor – Dalits and the Indigenous inhabitants – to develop a mass base,” Samaddar stated.
Muslims stay one of the crucial marginalised communities with barely 6 p.c illustration in authorities jobs whereas housing discrimination is rife in cities. The literacy charge amongst Muslims can also be seven p.c (2011 census) decrease than the nationwide common.
Muslim illustration in democratic our bodies within the state has improved in recent times. In 2011, Muslims shaped 20 p.c of the state Meeting, the best proportion since independence, however it’s nonetheless decrease than their inhabitants.
The concern of the rise of the BJP is palpable amongst Bengal’s Muslim neighborhood, which has confronted elevated assaults and political marginalisation throughout India for the reason that Hindu nationalist social gathering got here to energy on the centre six years in the past.
The BJP governs 17 of India’s 28 states but it surely has only a single Muslim legislator. India’s 543-seat Parliament has 27 Muslim members of Parliament. Of the 302 BJP seats, there’s not one Muslim member of Parliament.
Muslims throughout India have confronted assaults at instances for his or her look and their companies have confronted an unofficial social boycott by Hindus.
Through the pandemic, the media ran vicious campaigns in opposition to Muslims, blaming them for the unfold of the coronavirus, which has killed greater than 150,000 folks in India.
‘Worrying developments’
Manzar Jameel, an schooling activist based mostly in Kolkata, stated the “developments are worrying”.
“Fairly often, a Muslim is subjected to feedback in public house which was unthinkable few years again, it’s scary,” the 60-year-old activist stated referring to Islamophobic and hateful feedback in opposition to the neighborhood.
“We weren’t subjected to such aggressive feedback in Kolkata, ever. Regardless of latent anti-Muslim sentiments and all its drawbacks, it was a largely peaceable place in the course of the left’s rule. Individuals used to return to eat with us spontaneously throughout festivals, which has decreased,” he stated.
One-fifth of Kolkata’s inhabitants includes Muslims and the town has not seen main non secular violence in a long time. At present, the town’s mayor is a Muslim from the governing AITC social gathering.
However Muslims within the multicultural metropolis have began to cover their id in public, a number of members of the neighborhood stated. Nousheen Baba Khan, a college scholar, acknowledged that this tendency “to stay faceless” is rising.
One other younger Muslim lady stated – on situation of anonymity – her dad and mom “instructed” her to not “cowl [her] head or put on something which will point out” that she is a Muslim.
Lumaah Yasin, an data expertise skilled and businesswoman, desires her son to settle overseas. “We might not say it however sure, we’re scared,” she stated.
“And it’s not simply concern of the Muslims, it’s a bigger concern after we consider this nation … for those who divide the nation and the state on foundation of communities, ethnicities and languages … what would occur to all of us,” stated Yasin.
Yasin, in her mid-30s, feels West Bengal’s “tolerant and cosmopolitan” tradition which allowed folks to peacefully cohabit with variations shall be attacked if the BJP involves energy.
“And, it’s a far greater worth to pay than my son’s journey overseas.”