All eyes will be on what Union Home Minister Shah says on the Citizenship Amendment Act.
New Delhi: The political fate of the BJP in about 40 seats in which the Matua community of Bengal has a sway would depend on what Union Home Minister Amit Shah says when he visits the Matua headquarters in Bongaon on 30 January.
Several senior functionaries of the Matua community that this correspondent spoke to have said that they are eagerly waiting to hear Amit Shah and the Union government’s stand on the Citizenship Amendment Act when he visits the seat of power of the Matuas in Thakurnagar in Bongaon and only after that will they decide as to what their future course of action would be before the upcoming Vidhan Sabha elections in the state.
“We have put forward our demand and our only demand is that unconditional citizenship should be granted to us through the Citizenship Amendment Act. When the Parliament has already passed the law, what is holding back the government from implementing it? The ball is now in Amit Shah’s court and we hope when he comes to Bongaon, he will assure the people of this community that citizenship would be granted to them,” a senior Matua leader from Bengal told this newspaper.
Another Matua functionary told this correspondent that they are hoping that the Union government, through Amit Shah, would grant them the much-awaited formal citizenship of India. “Our fathers fled from Bangladesh due to religious persecution, and it is obvious that we could not carry documents and papers with us. I am sure the government understands that. How are we expected to show documents that we were religiously persecuted?” the Matua functionary said. Sources within the BJP said that Amit Shah has planned this visit to the Bongaon constituency to placate the Matua community who are being “misled” by some sections of the community leaders and the Opposition parties in Bengal and that Shah is likely to make some announcement in Bongaon which will be in favour of the Matua community and their demand for citizenship.
Shah will be visiting the Thakurnagar headquarters of the Matua community on 30 January, where he will be having lunch at the house of Shantanu Thakur, BJP MP and head of the Matua Mahasangha, the biggest religious organisation of the Matua community. After this, Shah is expected to address a large gathering of the Matua community in the area and it is from here that the Union Home Minister is likely to make some announcements with respect to the Citizenship Amendment Act and the Matua community.
Shantanu Thakur told The Sunday Guardian, “Amit Shahji is visiting Thakurnagar on 30 January and at around 2:30 to 3 pm, he will address a massive jansabha of the Matua community and we are sure he will make some positive announcements regarding the Citizenship Amendment Act, since it has been our long-standing demand and we are sure that the government is committed to formally grant us Indian citizenship.”
Asked about his unhappiness with the BJP for “taking too long” to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act, Thakur said, “It is nothing like that; the Home Minister has clarified that it has been taking longer due to the Covid-19 pandemic and let us wait to hear what Amit Shahji says when he visits Bengal this time.”
On the other hand, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been categorically saying that she and her party would not let the CAA be implemented in the state.
Banerjee had earlier said, “There is no need for CAA in the state, we will not let it to be implemented here. The Matuas are already citizens of Bengal since they are having voter ID card and ration cards; there is no need for a separate citizenship for them.”
To this Shantanu Thakur told this newspaper, “Is Mamata Banerjee above the law of the land? When the Parliament has passed this law, how is she being in a constitutional post opposing the law of the land? Does she consider Bengal outside India? By doing so, she is denying citizenship to lakhs of Matua community members in the state and the people would not forget this.”
There are about 1.7 crore Matua population in West Bengal and the community holds sway in about 40 Assembly seats in the state and out of these 40 Assembly constituencies, in the last 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP was leading in at least 26 of these constituencies. The Matua community—one of the largest Hindu refugee communities in Bengal—are basically a Hindu medicant sect who are classified as Scheduled Caste and the people from the community are locally known as Namashudras or lower caste Hindu refugees who have migrated to India from neighbouring Bangladesh due to religious persecution and ever since then, they have been staying in India.
The migration of the Matua community had happened in two waves, one during the 1947 partition which divided India into two countries and parts of Bengal had fallen under the erstwhile East Pakistan and following religious persecution in the erstwhile East Pakistan, lakhs of people from this community fled to Bengal to seek refuge, while the other wave of migration happened during the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war.
The Matua community, which earlier were never directly supportive of any political party, had otherwise been supporting the Congress till 1977, after which the community’s loyalty had shifted Left and they had supported the Left parties in Bengal for a very long time. But the Left had never openly sought blessings from the community to portray that the Left did not believe in caste and identity politics.
However, the political caste identity of the Matuas developed after Mamata Banerjee and her TMC came into power in the state in 2011. Since 2010, Mamata Banerjee had developed a good relationship with the then Matua matriarch Boro Ma and due to this, the community overwhelmingly supported the TMC in successive elections. The Matua matriarch, Boro Ma, had also made Banerjee the chief patron of the Matua Mahasabha.