Views | Is Mamata Banerjee’s End Nearing With Sandeshkhali?
The simple arrest on February 29 of Sheikh Shahjahan, the notorious henchman of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) from Sandeshkhali, raises more concerns than it does answers. In light of the events of January 5 in which his thugs attacked and hurt Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials as he fled, as well as the incident in 2019 in which West Bengal Police held CBI officers captive in Kolkata while Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee staged a dharna, it is apparent that the party in power in the state would not permit its antisocial elements to be under the control of any federal agency for fear that its “trade secrets” would be compromised.
Naturally, the arrest by the West Bengal Police is a facade, carried out in response to the Bengal BJP’s persistent campaigning and the agitation of the village’s female victims. Supratim Sarkar, the ADG of South Bengal, had earlier falsely claimed that Shahjahan’s arrest had been delayed by the Calcutta High Court, while in reality the court had simply halted the planned transfer of the case to the CBI.
The IPC Sections 147, 148, 149, 323, 353, 427, 506, and 34 are the ones under which Shahjahan is being investigated by the police. For an offense that is not subject to bail, everything but Section 353 of the IPC apply. He may escape when the accused’s attorneys contest his arrest in court. Even the parts that pertain to bail include penalties that are far less severe than the seriousness of his accused crime of arranging for the kidnapping and mass rape of Sandeshkhali women. That is, if one ignores Shahjahan’s crime of driving out Hindus from this region of the Sundarbans, the muddy, mangrove-filled estuary that separates Bangladesh from India.
Even though the national media has been more aware of West Bengali issues since the intense agitations in Singur and Nandigram in 2007–2008, they continue to deny the facts that Shahjahan is an intruder and that Uttam Sardar’s true name is Noor Alam.
Sandeshkhali is simply one example among many. Following the 2021 assembly election, Muslim hooligans headed by Shahjahan, the leader of the governing party, had to “settle scores” with BJP supporters and turncoats in their own party. As a result, women in the state’s rural areas have been subjected to inhumane torture and have been targeted by the TMC for their actions. Men were killed and their wives sexually assaulted, and all of these atrocities were covered up as instances of personal animosity without reference to politics or the community. Rival party candidates in the last panchayat election were sometimes assassinated in front of the sub-divisional magistrate offices before they could submit their paperwork. In both cases, the Calcutta High Court intervened in West Bengal in the cause of defending India’s democracy, but the Supreme Court, which is often inclined to take suo motu cognisance of crimes reported by the media that reveal a pattern, chose to ignore the case.
However, such human rights abuses in what is perhaps the nation’s most dangerous state were not the first. Political violence during the TMC’s previous tenure was as appalling; every two months, the bodies of activists who proved to be a nuisance to the governing party were discovered hanging from trees in Bengal’s villages. The fact that the majority of these victims belonged to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes—the same “underprivileged” groups for whom the apex court had shed many tears when it proposed safeguards in 2018 to prevent abuse of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act—did not worry the politically correct narrative-makers.
As shown by the 2021 event in which a Dalit was killed in broad daylight by pious Nihang “farmers,” killing an opponent of the BJP is acceptable. During this time, West Bengal had yearly communal rioting. If a map of the state’s riot-ridden small towns were created, it would seem as if, on orders from a higher authority, their managers were surrounding Kolkata, the state capital, and tightening the noose with each passing year.
The riots that had previously taken place in Bengaluru suburbs such as Bashirhat, Canning, Baduria, Krishnanagar, Howrah, Dhulagarh, Hooghly, and Barrackpore spread to Diamond Harbour, Metiabruz, Garden Reach, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road, and Park Circus. This was because the portents failed to inform the Indian state. Up to 65 incidents of intercommunal conflict were documented in 2022–2023, including acts of violence against Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti processions, similar to those seen in Delhi and Rajasthan.
West Bengal has undoubtedly been the state with the highest level of political violence since the Naxals’ rise in the late 1960s. However, Jyoti Basu led the government for a lengthier period of time under the 34-year communist regime. He was an expert at putting thugs on a leash and would only sometimes let them go when the CPM rule was in jeopardy. His successor, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, was removed from power because he was unable to control his colleagues, who had been raised for decades on the belief that industry was capitalism and capitalism was sin. Bhattacharjee, however, skillfully cultivated an image of a faultless bhadralok, as do communists.
In the 34 years that passed, the anti-communist faction of the voter base questioned whether Banerjee would be given a chance when the West Bengal Congress came dangerously close to regaining power from the Left Front, trailing the ruling coalition by just 2–5% of the vote in a few elections. The Bengali snob was hesitant to rely on her because of her crude language and penchant for exaggerated theatrics. However, those days of well-mannered Bengalis with sophisticated tastes are gone.
Singur’s ascent to prominence propelled the only representative of the CPM’s opposition from the upper classes of Calcutta to a position of greater influence. The woman who had broken free from the New Delhi-based high command in 1998 was given the chance to run Bengal 13 years later, with the BJP seemingly nowhere in sight and the locals certain that Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, PV Narasimha Rao, and Sonia Gandhi had only been indifferent to their concerns even when Congress workers were killed in the streets.
Then the suspicion turned out to be accurate. Now free, Basu’s goons had switched sides when they saw Bhattacharjee was about to fall. From Park Street to Sandeshkhali, it is simpler to see an end to the raj of the woman who brazenly labels situations as “sajano ghatona” (choreographed or stage-managed) and preside over the torment of other women. Unlike her communist predecessors who would so convincingly praise mayhem as “people’s revolution” that the gullible public would gobble it up, she lacks spokespersons with the gift of gab.
Instead, in the case of Trinamool, authorities sometimes detain their ministers and MLAs for economic offenses, or an insider comes forth to claim that his party mates amassed wealth while he was “deprived.” Ever hear of a Bengali communist neta who was discovered hiding millions of rupees in his closet? Banerjee’s party is sure to collapse since it can’t match their level of refinement. The only thing that matters is time.
And the BJP is exactly depending on it. It seems to expect that the Trinamool Congress’s growing notoriety over the last several years would be sufficient to bring about the overthrow of the governing party. Furthermore, those who have been followers of the “saffron party” since the Bharatiya Jana Sangh era are aware that it will never, as a matter of principle, impose Article 356 on any state, in contrast to what Indira Gandhi would do at the drop of a hat in her heyday. The BJP does not use violence in response to violence; this is shown in Kerala as well, where RSS swayamsevaks are assassinated without cause. Andhra Pradesh is often lamenting the Christian appropriation or takeover of Hindu temples. It is unrealistic to expect the same party that punishes T Raja Singh in Telangana (before forgiving him) to impose President’s Rule in West Bengal.
It reaches a condition of, “Grin and bear it until your turn arrives when people have run out of options.” Not because her opponent drove her away, but rather because Banerjee will vanish the day her own people rebel against her.
