Riots In India -2

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[url="http://www.dailypioneer.com/282399/Anatomy-of-a-riot-foretold.html"]Anatomy of a riot foretold[/url]

After decades of communal harmony, as the violence in Deganga shows, West Bengal could be imploding due to competitive vote-bank politics

We had not intended to visit Kartickpur, a small qasba beyond Deganga town. But the crowd insisted we see the vandalism unleashed there by goons at the instigation of local Trinamool MP, Haji Nurul Islam. The idol at a roadside Kali temple lay mutilated on the floor. People’s anger exploded as we expressed our outrage at this unpardonable crime: In secular India, nobody has a right to desecrate a place of worship, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian or any other for that matter. We were virtually dragged into the interior by a frenzied crowd that wanted us to see the wanton burning of houses and hutments by mobs who came from outside to “teach a lesson” to members of a community.



Why did they do this? Apparently because an attempt to grab land traditionally used for a community Durga Puja was resisted. In a region where demographic and denominational change has been severe in the last two decades, Hindus are now in a hopeless minority accounting for just about 30 per cent of the population. Bangladeshi infiltrators, armed with ration cards, voter IDs and other evidence of citizenship, rule the roast while local Muslims have also become radicalised in recent years. The religious demography has affected politics too. A long time Left stronghold, the CPI candidate Ajay Chakrabarti was rounded defeated by an avowed fundamentalist, Haji Nurul Islam of the Trinamool Congress, in the 2009 Lok Sabha poll. And Deganga has been a victim of communal polarisation ever since.



The journalist in me looked for the “root cause”. It was extremely frivolous. A community Durga Puja has been held on a patch of land close to the thana for the last 39 years. This plot happens to be next to a graveyard. The Durga Puja pandal is erected annually in front of a pucca Shiv Mandir. Apparently the land originally belonged to the legendary Rani Rashmoni, patron of Ramakrishna Paramahans, mentor of Swami Vivekanand. Haji Nurul Islam had promised his core constituents that (a) he would expand the graveyard and (<img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='B)' /> a mike would be installed atop a mosque in Deganga Bazar in defiance of an express Calcutta High Court order. When he faced resistance at the puja site, he unleashed wanton destruction and taking advantage of a demoralised police, a cowering CPI(M), and terrified Hindus, executed his mike installation agenda.



As we left Deganga on our way back to the Kolkata Airport, I wondered if my beloved Bengal was on the verge of being torn asunder by communal frenzy in the years to come. The State, which has been remarkably free of caste and communal passion, despite the bitter legacy of partition, seems headed for an implosion. West Bengal is at the crossroads: And every choice seems fraught with dangerous and bloody consequences. The future indeed augurs ill.