One of the earliest signs of an Islamic onslaught in Bengal was during the late 1940s when calls for a separate Muslim nation were high. It was on 16th August 1946 that Direct Action Day was started and it is no coincidence that 16th of August was the 18th Day of Ramzan, a day when the prophet had launched the Jihad against the pagans of Mecca and massacred them in the bloody Battle of Badr proclaiming the victory over Heathens and Infidels. What is shocking is that these Noakhali riots were orchestrated by some of the most powerful Muslim Leaders who went on to hold the reigns of Pakistan.
These include Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy who was the then Chief Minister of Bengal and went on to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Suhrawardy has rightly been called the Butcher of Bengal by SwarajyaMag, played a key role in ensuring that the Calcutta Police became more Muslim by recruiting Punjabi Musalmans and Pashtuns who would turn a blind eye to the upcoming genocide in Bengal. Another key orchestrator was Khwaja Nizamuddin who later became Governor General of Pakistan gave fiery speeches on 16th of August urging violence against Hindus, with the entire Muslim League insinuating a holy Jihad against the Hindus.
The events led to the Noakhali Riots led to the deaths of over 5000-20000 Hindus and Muslims with over 75000 were displaced. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, former Finance Minister of Bengal described the events as a planned and concerted attack by the minority community over the majority community.
The Islamisation of Bengal has been a slow and steady process, repetitive governments have chosen to ignore their rising population, rather using the community as a vote bank. First the Congress just after partition, then the communists for 30 long gruelling years and now the TMC government have just used the community for their personal gains overlooking the drastic change in population figures.
So, what exactly are these population figures? Well, for the starters the Muslim population in Bengal right after partition was close to 19.85 percent, however, in just 68 years the population of Muslims in Bengal has risen steadily to a healthy 27 percent with the next census imminent in 2 years. However, this does not include the millions of illegal immigrants majority of them Muslim who live without documents and have crossed the porous border from Bangladesh into the states of Bengal and Assam in the last few decades, the population of such Bangladeshi varies widely with different estimates putting their population anywhere from 15 million to 20 million individuals, with large number of them being based out in the State of West Bengal.
These people who speak in Bangla with a Bangladeshi Dialect are called ‘Bangal’ in West Bengal and are widely associated with being cheap labour and engaging in petty thievery and all in all acting as anti-social elements by the local populace.
The situation is so dire that out of the 23 districts that West Bengal has, almost 12 have Muslims in excess of 20 percent, 3 districts of West Bengal Malda, Murshidabad and Uttar Dijnapur are such that the Muslims outnumber the Hindus. Islam is a religion which looks down upon the use of contraceptives and practices such as polygamy lead to much higher fertility rates amongst Muslim women than that of any other religion, this has led to Islam having a much higher population growth than any other religion in the world.
Between the last decade of 2001-2011, the Hindu Population in Bengal has declined by 1.94 percent and meanwhile the Muslims have grown by 1.77 percent beating all the national trends. The Muslim population of Bengal has been growing at a much higher pace than the national average. Nationwide statistics also support the claims that Islam is on the rise, while the Hindus have declined by 0.7 percent, Muslims have increased by 0.8 percent between the period of 2001-2011.
This steady increase of Muslim population clearly reflects that the community has now become a powerful vote bank in Bengal that has been on the rise since independence, the situation has further enhanced in the last few decades as continuing CPM and TMC governments continue to cultivate the community as a vote bank and encourage the adoption of illegal immigrants into the mainstream society as well. This increase in the Muslim population has also been followed by an ever-increasing number of riots in Bengal, ranging from the riots in Malda to the ones in Baduria and the ones in Howrah.
There is also an increasing number of fatwas being issued and increasing instances of parts of Bengal being declared a part of Caliphate. However, what is even more shocking is the increasing use of radical Islam for imposing the so-called Sharia Islamic law in parts of Bengal with the State police openly condoning such activities. It was in the year 2007 that Internationally acclaimed author Taslima Nasrin was forced to flee Bengal when Muslim Leaders in Kolkata issued a Fatwa against her and announced a bounty for her head, the riots which followed to hound her out of the city were such that the army was called in to take hold of the situation. These were clear attempts by the rioters and radical Islamists to incorporate Islamic Blasphemy Laws and restrict the Freedom of Speech and Expression as Taslima Nasrin was hounded out of the ‘City of Joy’.
It was in 2014 that Ahmad Hassan Imran, a man red flagged by Indian Intelligence Agencies was chosen by the TMC to represent them in the Rajya Sabha, the man has been accused of instigating violence against Hindus, participating in major riots and providing shelter to terrorists. Imran is a founder and self-admitted member of the radical student group, the Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), a recognized terrorist organization banned by the Indian government.
The man has been a co-founder and president of the state unit of Student Islamic Movement of India, an organization banned by the government of India for its terror activities. Furthermore, he has also been involved in the establishment of Kalam, a radical magazine which has called for establishment of a Muslim state governed by Sharia, the magazine which later turned into a newspaper Dainik Kalam was sold to Saradha Group, a dubious financial entity with links to both the West Bengal Government and Mamta Banerjee. Such appointments by the Mamta Banerjee led TMC government have made the Hindu populace lose confidence in the party as it clearly has a skewered view of how secularism has to be maintained in the State of West Bengal.
The present TMC government has been so brazenly appeasing the Muslims that it has already been warned multiple times by the Calcutta High Court, read for instance the statement of Hon’ble Judge Dipankar Datta wherein he clearly calls out the TMC for appeasing the minorities: “There has been a clear endeavour on the part of the state government to pamper and appease the minority section of the public at the cost of the majority section without there being any plausible justification.”
Mamata Banerjee has taken minority appeasement to a whole another level during her reign over Bengal, right from granting of tickets to Imams and other highly regarded religious leaders of one particular community, issuing monthly salaries to Imams and Muezzins, attending annual Eid Prayers and Iftar Parties while at the same time conveniently restricting Durga Puja, a festival sacred to Hindus, designating vast majority of Muslim Communities (almost 87 percent) as Other Backward Classes despite many of them not yet designated as such by the Union Government. Universities for the minorities have been established, as have been hostels and special scholarships, along with special quotas for education and jobs. Free bicycles have been given to Muslim families, free rail passes to Muslim females and free laptops to Muslim males.
She has ensured the approval and validation of the academic degrees of 10000 previously unrecognized and Saudi funded madrasas, minarets, honorariums for imams and an exclusively Islamic township. The government under Mamta Banerjee has taken steps in the direction for the foundation of Muslim medical, technical and nursing schools with exclusive scholarships and subsidies for Muslim students, as well as Muslim-only hospitals.
Mamta Banerjee has openly spoken against the National Register of Citizens and has endorsed the illegal immigrants as well. Mamta has repeatedly taken steps that reek of authoritarianism by her pseudo secular politics of minority appeasement, the judiciary had quickly intervened and had given a sharp rap on the wrist of the TMC government when the Durga Puja Visarjan, a day sacred to all Hindus was delayed by the Government due to Muharram coinciding on the same day, however undeterred the TMC government had ignored the High Court and had gone ahead by delaying the visarjan. There were entire villages in the district of Birbhum that weren’t allowed to celebrate Durga Puja because the administration felt that it would be ‘offensive’ to the minorities.
There needs to be a clear understanding that the term ‘Secular’ does NOT mean curtailing the rights of the majority for the endearment of the minority. From changing the words Ram Dhenu to Rong Dhenu and Akashi to Asmani, TMC needs to reconsider their pseudo-secular tactics lest the sleeping Hindu in Bengal awakes.
With a 27% Muslim populace in Bengal, there is enough political incentive for the authorities to dubiously work toward the progression of an Islamist agenda. In certain areas, for example, the fringe area of Murshidabad, which is over 63% Muslim, accepted shariah is forced on all inhabitants. By far most of the political candidates, elected officials and administration are Muslim and the monetary and economic prospects for Hindus diminish as Muslims refuse to back the businesses owned by Non-Muslims. Posing with the Quran, wearing a Burqa and such minority appeasement tactics by the present TMC government has ensured that the entire Muslim vote bank continues to remain in their kitty. With just another 10 percent or so of the Hindu votes, Mamta Banerjee can easily retain power in a three-way contest in state assembly polls.
In the last decade or so there has been a stagnation in the leftist parties in Bengal, leading to a void in opposition, the BJP has stepped up at the right moment to fill that void, with her ever-rising antics and unmistakable tilt towards one community, Mamta Banerjee has ensured a highly polarised Lok Sabha Election in 2019 and this polarisation figured greatly in the results which clearly show that the people of Bengal have now chosen a viable alternative to the TMC. After coming to power the Mamta led government had manufactured a large number of cases against the CPM cadre and systematically dismantled their machinery leaving the people of the state with no alternative, the BJP has stood up as the alternative and have almost doubled their vote share in the recent elections.
The recently concluded Lok Sabha Elections of 2019 gave a clear majority to the NDA, with the alliance making major gains in the state of West Bengal compensating for the losses sustained elsewhere. The tally increased from a lowly 2 seats in 2014 to a staggering 18 seats in 2019. The vote share has also drastically increased from a respectable 16 percent in 2014 to more than 40 percent in 2019. There is a section of the so-called Bengali Intelligentsia who consider themselves superior to the rest and look down upon the politics of BJP in poor taste and undignified to the Bengali way, calling it a conspiracy of the crass, uneducated people belonging to the cow belt of the north. However, the mandate of the people has shown that they have decidedly chosen an alternative to the pseudo-secularism of Mamta Banerjee and TMC.
Bengal has historically been a land of intellectuals, gifting India well renowned social reformers, educationists and artists ranging from Vidyasagar to Rabindra Nath Tagore and Subhash Chandra Bose. However, in the land of these greats, a man should be able to stand tall, chest broad and shout Jai Shree Ram without the fear of being incarcerated or the threats of being flailed given by the Chief Minister herself. The day is not far when the streets of Kolkata will reverberate with the slogans of Joy Shree Ram and the popular mandate would have rejected the politics of pseudo-secularism and minority appeasement.
