Members of the community say Banerjee, whom they had trusted as Bengal’s ‘messiah’, has betrayed them.
New Delhi: The Matua community—one of the largest Hindu refugee communities in Bengal who are celebrating the passage in Parliament of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) by the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre—has raised questions against Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress (TMC) for vehemently opposing an Act that provides citizenship to these refugees.
Malay Das, a Matua and a resident of Thakurnagar in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, told this correspondent that Mamata Banerjee, whom they trusted as the “messiah” of Bengal, has betrayed them.
“It is very sad to see Mamata didi going all out to protest against an Act that talks about giving citizenship to our Hindu community which had fled from Bangladesh due to religious persecution. It is the same didi who just months ago came to Boro Maa (Matua sect matriarch) to seek her blessings just before the elections,” Das said.
Ajay Mondal, another Matua, accused Mamata Banerjee of playing vote bank politics and ignoring the plight of the Matua community in order to keep her minority vote bank in place.
Mondal said, “Mamata Banerjee is doing everything to protect her vote bank which is why she has not arrested a single person who had set Bengal on fire for days, but she is opposing those who are getting citizenship. She should remember that even we were her voters and even we are residents of Bengal.”
Mamata Banerjee has been opposing the CAA ever since it was passed in Parliament. She, along with her party colleagues, has been holding protest marches and rallies across Kolkata to oppose the Act as she terms the CAA “targeting of the minority community”.
Banerjee has even said that she would not let the CAA to be implemented in Bengal.
Political commentators from Bengal say that her public stand against the CAA is primarily to protect her minority vote bank which comprises over 28% in Bengal. The minority community has a stronghold in over 90 Assembly constituencies in the 294-member West Bengal Assembly where they have the ability to decide who would be the potential winner.
On the other hand, the Matuas who are Hindus, are primarily a community of Scheduled Caste who had come to India from the erstwhile East Pakistan— now Bangladesh—during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. The Matuas had earlier been a loyal vote bank of the CPM in Bengal and during the 2011 Assembly elections, they shifted their loyalty to the TMC. But ever since the BJP announced that the Citizenship Amendment Bill would be passed in Parliament and the CAA would provide permanent citizenship of India to the community—which had been their long-standing demand—they shifted their loyalty to the BJP. This was evident from the 2019 Lok Sabha poll results from Bengal where the two Matua majority Lok Sabha seats—Bongaon and Ranaghat—were won by the BJP. By making the Citizenship Amendment Act a reality, the BJP hopes that this vote bank, which comprises about 17.74% population of Bengal with an influence in 60-65 Assembly seats, would turn to the BJP forever.
The Matuas, too, have expressed their confidence in the BJP and have termed the passage of the Bill in Parliament as their moment of “second independence”.
Alpana Das, who fled to Bengal from Bangladesh some 20 years ago along with her husband and children after a mob attacked their village in Bangladesh, thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for doing something which had otherwise only remained a promise from every other political party.
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, Alpana Das said, “The CAA is like a re-birth for the Matua community; we can finally call ourselves Indians. Every political party over the years had only said they will give us citizenship, but none did it; it is only this government (BJP) that lived up to its promise. We are very grateful to Modiji and Amit Shahji.”
Chanchal Hazra said that they had for years lived in constant fear of being thrown out anytime and now that fear has been wiped out by this legislation.
Hazra said, “When my father came to India, he could not get any documents. Although I was born here, it would have been difficult to prove family legacy data and this bill exactly addresses our problem. We are thankful to the Central government for making us true Indians today. Moreover, I fail to understand why our Chief Minister (Mamata Banerjee) is opposing this Act. Does she not want us to be Indian citizens? Where would the Hindus go? Go to Bangladesh and see how Hindus are treated there.”