KOLKATA: “Intolerance is the biggest programme of the Centre and the BJP. I am also a Hindu but that does not give me the right to hate Muslims and Christians. While Dalits are subjected to atrocities, BJP leaders eat food brought from five-star hotels at Dalit houses.
If protecting 30 per cent Muslims, 26 per cent Dalits and five per cent tribals of my state amount to appeasement, so be it. I urge my Dalit, Muslim and tribal brothers to unite and defeat BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections,” said West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at a public meeting by youth wing of the Trinamool Congress to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Babri Masjid demolition on December 6.
Mamata Banerjee’s declaration on December 6 urging unity among Dalits, Muslims and Adivasis to defeat BJP may rejuvenate Bahujan politics in Bengal.
Such identity politics had taken a back seat in the state since Independence. Partition in 1947 had driven a wedge in the Dalit-Muslim understanding and the decades-old communist movement gave primacy to class struggle over caste assertion.
Mamata Banerjee is now seeking to socially re-engineer Bengal. She is seeking to craft a coalition of the discriminated, which she hopes will support the TMC against the BJP’s caste Hindu base in the 2018 panchayat and 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The BJP’s appeal, Mamata perceives, is focused more on the insecurities of upper caste Hindus and the aggressive Hindutva of Hindi-speaking migrants in urban Bengal.
Coined by Bahujan Samaj Party founder Kanshi Ram, ‘Bahujan’ defines the electoral majority of Dalits, Muslims, OBCs and tribals and calls for upturning the rule of minority upper castes.
While TMC rose to power through agrarian struggles at Singur and Nandigram by uniting Dalits and Muslims, the BJP’s attempt to unite all Hindus irrespective of caste against a common ‘enemy’ is threatening TMC’s agrarian politics.
“There is an attempt by BJP to pit Dalits and tribals against Muslims in Bengal. Our initiative is to tell Dalits and tribals that we are not the enemy. Our common agenda is development. Our aim is to thwart BJP in 2019. We have started campaigning in villages, calling upon Dalit and tribal brothers to join hands with us,” said Muhammad Kamaruzzaman, general secretary of the All Bengal Minorities Youth Federation.
Political analyst Anindya Shankar Ray said the TMC cannot bank solely on vote banks of the Dalits and the Muslims. “The communist government gave more emphasis to Dalit, Muslim and tribal leadership at the panchayat level, but the Brahmins and Kayasthas controlled the upper echelons. Despite tall claims of the TMC, the Dalit and Muslims are still the foot-soldiers of the party. Considering them as solid electoral blocs may be a wrong assessment,” he said.
The rise and fall of bahujan politics
1937: Krishak Praja Party led by A K Fazlul Huq formed first Bengal provincial government based on peasant struggles involving Dalit and Muslim tenants
1942: Muslim League’s Dalit leader Jogendranath Mandal formed Bengal branch of Scheduled Caste Federation with Dr B R Ambedkar
1946: Dr B R Ambedkar elected to Constituent Assembly from Bengal with help of Muslim League
1947: Bengal is partitioned along religious lines. Upper caste Hindus from East Bengal cross over to India, but Dalits stay put in East Pakistan
1950: Massive rioting breaks out in East Pakistan against Dalit Hindus; large scale migration of Dalit Hindus to India ensues; Mandal resigns and resettles in Bongaon in West Bengal
1978: Left Front government led by Jyoti Basu embarks on massive land reforms benefitting Dalit and Muslim farmers; Left Front base among Dalit and Muslims solidifies
2011: Based on agrarian struggles in Dalit and Muslim dominated Nandigram and Singur, Trinamool Congress forms first non-communist government in 34 years; snatches Dalit and Muslim votes from CPM
The loyalty shift
Dalits
The states’s largest Dalit caste Namasudras in south Bengal, were traditionally CPM supporters, but now is with the Trinamool Congress
The second largest Dalit group, Rajbongshis of north Bengal, were originally inclined towards Left Front ally Forward Bloc, but now supports the TMC
Tribals
Santhals, who constitute over 50 per cent of tribals in Bengal, were traditionally CPM supporters too, but shifted loyalties after Mamata Banerjee put down Maoist insurgency in the tribal heartland Jangalmahal in the state
Muslims
Muslims have been the most loyal supporters of TMC since they abandoned CPM in 2011. Mamata Banerjee has been accused of ‘Muslim appeasement,’ but she says politics without Muslims is impossible in West Bengal