Malda (West Bengal): “We don’t like the Muslims. We don’t sell them land here,” said Chandan Singha, owner of a grocery shop-cum-tea stall right opposite the entrance to the Adina Jame Masjid, a 14th-century mosque that used of be the largest of its kind in the country when it was built over a period of 10 years. It is no longer used for prayers and is preserved by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI).
Adina is a large village within the Pandua gram panchayat area in the Gazole assembly constituency of Malda, one of West Bengal’s three Muslim-majority districts. Demography in the area around the mosque was dominated by Hindus but Muslims made up one-fourth of Gazole’s population, according to the census of 2011.
“This masjid you have come to see used to be a Hindu temple of Lord Adinath,” said Rajib Singha, one of Chandan’s neighbours and relatives. A few yards away, near the entrance of the mosque, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) campaign van was loudly playing electoral songs. Tapping his feet to the tune, Rajib said, “If the BJP wins Bengal, just like Ram Mandir, we will recover this temple, too!”
A BJP campaign vehicle outside Adina mosque.
Inside the mosque campus, a board put up by the ASI said, “The architectural members of some earlier structures have been utilised partly in the construction of the mosque.” This, perceivably, is the basis of the claim that the mosque was built after destroying an existing temple. The structure visibly has some Hindu, Buddhist and Jain influence and motifs but the reasons have remained debatable.
Whether any existing temple was destroyed for building the mosque or materials from ruined temples in the nearby areas had been used remains a matter of further research, but various Hindutva organisations have been building public opinion on this in the locality since 2018. Apart from raising the issue at street corner meetings and distributing leaflets, a series of articles have been published on pro-Hindutva blogs and web portals, such as this, this, and this.
The locality seemed communally polarised. Flags and election graffiti of the BJP and the CPI(M) were seen coexisting but there was hardly any sign of the Trinamool Congress’s (TMC’s) campaign. Local residents said they never liked the TMC and voted for the CPI(M) even in 2016. After the CPI(M)’s MLA, Dipali Biswas, switched over to the TMC a few months after the elections, the local residents started turning towards the BJP.
Election graffiti at a village in Gazole, Malda.
Asked how they could hate Muslims if they had been voting for the Left, who too speak of protecting the minorities, Chandan said, “The TMC and the Muslims keep each other in good humour.” They believed in the BJP’s campaign that the Muslims, taking advantage of Mamata Banerjee’s rule, were “taking over” Bengal. Since Malda is already a Muslim-majority district, it had a greater threat perception than many other districts, they explained.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Gazole made a significant contribution to the BJP’s success in winning the Malda Uttar Lok Sabha seat. The party obtained 1,08,351 of the 2,10,902 votes polled in Gazole, or 51.37% of the polled votes, while its nearest rival, the TMC, got 67,180 votes, or 31.85%.
A few kilometres away from Adina, at Rashidpur village, within the Gazole II gram panchayat area, a group of young and old men recalled how the defection of the local CPI(M) MLA pushed them towards the BJP. Biswas, the MLA, later joined the BJP in December last year but Rashidpur resident Narayan Biswas, a local organiser of the BJP’s Yuva Morcha, said that they made it clear before the party leadership that Biswas would not be accepted as the BJP candidate. The party leadership heeded them.
At Rashidpur and its neighbouring village of Ramkrishna Pally, within Bairgachhi II gram panchayat, TMC flags could hardly be found. In the 2018 panchayat elections, of the 13 seats in the Bairgachhi II panchayat, the TMC emerged as the single-largest party with five seats, followed by four of the BJP, three of the CPI(M) and one of the Congress. But the BJP’s Subodh Sarkar ended up being the pradhan, or chief, with support from the CPI(M) and the Congress. In the Lok Sabha elections, Gajole II and Bairgachhi II voted overwhelmingly in the BJP’s favour.
“After the CPI(M) leadership failed to retain the MLA, we lost all hopes on them. Now, Jai Shree Ram has shaken the TMC,” said Biswas, while chatting his some local people at a motorcycle repair shop.
The polarisation
If Gazole represented one end of political polarisation on communal lines, Ratua, another of Malda’s assembly constituencies, reflected the other. Muslims made more than two-thirds of Ratua’s population in 2011.
“I have been voting for the Congress since getting my voting rights. My family has been a traditional Congress voter. This is the first time I will vote for the TMC,” said Anwarul Haque, an e-rickshaw driver at Samsi area within Ratua constituency. He was in his late 30s. “My family will vote for the TMC, even my grandfather. Defeating the BJP is the highest priority at present,” he said.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Hindus consolidating behind the BJP and a division in Muslim votes between the TMC and the Congress helped the BJP emerge as the largest party in Malda.
Political graffiti of different parties in Englishbazar.
In a district where Muslims made 51.27% of the population, the BJP led over the others in six of the 12 assembly segments, while the Congress led in four and the TMC in only two.
Of the total 2,284,902 votes polled in the district, the BJP secured 37.96%, while the TMC came second with 29.18% vote share and the Congress got 26.27% of the polled votes. The BJP won Malda Uttar Lok Sabha seats, while Malda Dakshin went to the Congress by a thin margin. The TMC stood second in one and third in the other.
A buoyed BJP is again dreaming big – to win at least six seats from this district. However, a perceivable change in the thinking of a majority of the Muslims may change the political equations in the district that has always upset Mamata Banerjee’s party.
Malatipur has been a strong bastion of the Congress and Left parties, especially the CPI(M) and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP). In 2016, even though the Left the Congress had an alliance, the RSP fielded its own candidate there after the CPI(M)-led Left Front decided to leave the seat to the Congress. In a four-corner contest, the Congress came first, the RSP second, and the TMC’s district unit president, Moazzem Hossain third. The BJP, with only 8% votes, came fourth.
Alberuni Zulkarnain, the Congress, incumbent MLA, is contesting again. Sitting at a nondescript eatery run by Sandip Chowdhury at Magura area, within Sripur gram panchayat, a group of local residents sounded unsure of his fate this time.
“In 2019, a section of the Hindus among Congress supporters had voted for the BJP. This time, some of these votes should return to the Congress. Just look at where the Modi rule has taken inflation to. Aren’t Hindus being hit?” said Chowdhury, optimistic of a Congress victory.
But one of his customers, Deen Mohammad, a resident of neighbouring Gobindapur village, disapproved of his hopes. “This time, it’s the question of bringing Mamata Banerjee back to power. It has become evident how Muslims remained divided and the Hindus united in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and how the BJP benefitted from it. This time, Muslims won’t make that mistake.”
A TMC election office in Mothabari, where the sitting Congress MLA, Sabina Yasmin, is contesting on a TMC ticket.
Anwarul Haque, a resident of another neighbouring village, Raninagar, seconded Mohammad.
For years, politics in Malda has been dominated by the family of late Congress stalwart and former Union minister Abu Barkat Ataur Ghani Khan Chowdhury, popularly known in Bengal as Ghani. Since his death, his two brothers, a nephew and a niece have become MLAs and MPs. In 2009 and 2014, one of the two Lok Sabha seats was won by his brother and another by his niece. The latter, Mausam Benazir Noor, switched over to the TMC ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, perhaps sensing the shifting of political grounds from the Congress to the TMC.
But she lost to the three-term CPI(M) MLA-turned-BJP candidate Khagen Murmu, as her cousin, contesting on a Congress ticket, drew a significant number of votes from Muslim-dominated areas. Mamata Banerjee later sent Noor to Rajya Sabha. She is also the TMC’s district unit president.
Ghani’s brother, Abu Hashem Khan Chowdhury, retained his Malda Dakshin seat by a narrow margin, and that too because of heavy polling in his favour from two assembly segments that are part of Murshidabad district.
One of Abu Hashem’s recent statements stirred a major controversy in the state. He told the local media that should the TMC falls short of the required numbers, the Congress will provide her whatever support they would have.
The BJP cited this statement to prove their contention that voting for the Congress was the same as voting for the TMC. Responding to the situation, Congress’ alliance partner CPI(M)’s state unit secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra used a statement clarifying that the Left would never support the TMC even in the case of a hung assembly.
Travelling in Malda, one could easily understand why Khan Chowdhury made such a statement when the Left-Congress alliance has thrown up a challenge to both the TMC and the BJP. Khan Chowdhury’s statement has relieved a section of Muslim Congress voters from a major dilemma.
“I was really concerned that voting for my favourite party (Congress) could mean gains for the party I hate (BJP). So, I was thinking of voting for the TMC, which I neither favoured nor hated, because only it appeared strong enough to take on the BJP. But after Khan Chowdhury’s assurance, I have decided to vote for the Congress,” said Iftikhar Sheikh, a farmer, and resident of Noy Mouja area in Sujapur where a tall tower of the local mosque dominate the skyscape.
BJP festoon in Malatipur.
Abu Hashem’s son, Isha Khan Chowdhury, is contesting from Sujapur on a Congress ticket for this third consecutive term in the state Assembly. He won the 2011 assembly elections from the neighbouring Baishnabnagar constituency and the 2016 election from Sujapur. Hindu-dominated Baishnabnagar had gone to the BJP in 2016 as one of the party’s only three seats in the state.
Isha Khan Chowdhury’s battle for his third term is perhaps going to be his toughest. Several residents of Gayeshpur area, within Sujapur constituency, said they were going to vote for the TMC this time because Mamata Banerjee was the ‘automatic choice’ when preventing BJP from coming to power was the priority.
“In 2016, the Congress emerged as the strongest party. In the 2018 panchayat elections, the TMC swept the district. So, in 2019, the people were utterly confused about who was the strongest candidate against the BJP. This time, there is less confusion,” said Islamil Haque, a small trader based in Makdumpur area of Englishbazar assembly constituency.
Irrespective of whether Haque’s observations appear true or not, the BJP seems to be the favourite in Englishbazar constituency, dominated by Hindus. In 2019, the BJP had secured 132860 of 215949 votes, or 61.52%, polled in Englishbazar. Hindus made two-thirds of the constituency’s population, according to the 2011 census.
Now the BJP has fielded their Malda Dakshin Lok Sabha candidate, Sreerupa Mitra Chaudhury, a Delhi-based woman’s rights activist who has worked in the district previously.
The town has, for years, been synonymous with Krishnendu Nayaran Chowdhury, the MLA since 2006 and also served as municipal chairman for two terms. He was the first Congress MLA to be poached by the TMC in the state after coming to power. Chowdhury joined the TMC in 2012, won a bye-election in 2013 but lost the 2016 election to an independent candidate who too later joined the TMC.
Chowdhury, still contesting on a TMC ticket to re-enter the Assembly, has a herculean task. In 2019, the combined votes of the Congress and the TMC in Englishbazar stood at 76,058, or 56,802 fewer than the BJP’s. That margin can easily be considered insurmountable, considering that the TMC and the Congress will be competing for Muslim votes.
Votes were likely to swing the TMC’s way from the Congress is most of the Muslim-dominated areas in the district but to what extent will be the determining factor in the results of four-time seats. In seats with more than two-thirds Hindu population, such as Habibpur and Chanchal, no other party seemed to stand a chance.
All images by the author.
Snigdhendu Bhattacharya is an independent journalist and author based in Kolkata.