Asansol violence not isolated incident in Bengal; Governor urges for peace

West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi on Saturday held an hour-long meeting with the police and district administration in violence-hit areas of Raniganj and Asansol and urged the masses to maintain peace.

The appeal came in the wake of violent clashes on Monday between two groups over a Ram Navami procession in Raniganj in Paschim Bardhaman district. 

The violence claimed at least one life and injured two policemen. The imam who lost his 16-year-old son has warned he will leave the mosque if any attempts are made to avenge his son’s death. Reports suggest that external elements may have spurred the violence. As a fallout of the clashes in Bardhaman, Hanuman Jayanti celebrations across the state have been scaled down by both the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC). 

Rallies will be fewer than last year and the VHP has decided to restrict its celebration to temples. But Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti are hitherto new events in the celebration map of Bengal. Sword-wielding processions, Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti rallies are festivities that Bengal is just waking up to. And till last year, while they were being celebrated by just the VHP and its affiliates, this year, the TMC has also got on the bandwagon.

Political analyst Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury said weaponisation of religious festivals was a dangerous proposition. “A distinction needs to be made between religion as faith and religion as ideology,” he added.

CPI(M) leader Mohammed Salim said, “There were communal riots in Kolkata, but we tried to keep it at an arm's length. It is the slackness of the government and the administration that they have not been able to contain it.”

The Asansol and Raniganj events are not isolated incidents of communal violence. Such occurences have been on the rise since mid-2017. It started with the famous Basirhat incident in North 24 Parganas district.

An alleged controversial Facebook post featuring Prophet Mohammed shared by a 17-year-old boy, sparked communal tension. Within hours, Baduria and Swarupnagar witnessed a communal flare-up with shops, police stations and houses being vandalised. As the tension ebbed, mobs hurled bombs at a rath yatra procession at Basirhat, 60 km from Baduria. To keep the tension simmering, stills from a Bhojpuri film were circulated and passed off as the Basirhat incident.

Sources in the state government said such incidents were on the rise. Some incidents took place around Holi as well when objectionable items were found in temples. “These incidents are only expected to increase as the general election in 2019 approaches,” they said.

In North 24 Parganas, what added to the problem was a porous border. West Bengal’s 2,200-km border with Bangladesh, stretching over 10 districts, has been a problem on many counts. 

Infiltration leading to law and order problems, and smuggling, especially of cattle, are some of the issues. Successive state governments have tended to lose the initiative to stem infiltration just before elections. The state’s 29 per cent Muslim population can swing elections in any direction.  However, the current government does not have much of a choice but to help the Border Security Force (BSF) in the permanent fencing along the border. Sources in the government said it was now making direct purchases of land, which would be handed over to the BSF. However, Asansol and Raniganj are not border-related issues. Basu Ray Chaudhury blames the saffron party for the rise of communal clashes. But he also added that the soft Hindutva now being adopted by the TMC would not work. “Soft Hindutva is not an option,” he said.