Narcos was an extremely popular web series in Netflix based on the life of Pablo Escobar. There, we saw Pablo Escobar was aspiring to become the president of Colombia and then transforming Colombia into the Narcos State.
Pablo Escobar couldn’t become the president of Colombia, but what would have happened if he would have become president of Columbia can be understood by observing today’s situation in West Bengal. Especially in the region adjoining Bangladesh border. What is happening in Sandeshkhali is not a political conflict, it’s a plan to change the demographics of the entire Sundarbans region and keep it outside the ambit of the Indian constitution. Yes, it’s a plan, it’s the third stage of the design to change the demography.
There are five steps to separate a place from a country. The first step is to increase numbers, second step is land grab and destruction of economy, third step is social terror and the fourth step is separatism. The Sundarbans region is the best proof of how the transition from one stage to another and how separatism is gradually gaining its head. Sandeshkhali is a region of Sundarbans that we know about today. But we don’t know how many more sandeshkhali are there in Sundarbans.
In the first step, how the balance of population has changed in the two districts that span the Sundarbans region i.e. South and North twenty-four parganas, can be understood by looking at a few facts.
Between 1981 and 2011, the population growth rate in South Twenty-four Parganas has always been around two percent. Even in 1991 this growth rate is about 2.68 percent. Which was 2.99 percent even in 1971 when a large number of Hindus were forced to leave East Pakistan as refugees. Even after partition in 1951 it was 1.99 percent. Now there are some interesting facts.
In 1991, the population growth rate of South Twenty-four Parganas was 2.68 percent. But during that decade the crude death rate of South Twenty-four Parganas was always around two percent, and the TFR averaged around two percent. Basically the increase in populaton defy all mathematical formula. The same picture is also in North Twenty-four Parganas. The population growth rate has always been well above two percent. But TFR is below 1.5 percent, Which is one of the lowest districts in the country. And death rate is 5.8 percent.
Between 2011 and 2021, voters in Deganga increased by nearly one lakh. Baduria about 50 thousand. Between 2009 and 2019, the voters in the Basirhat Lok Sabha increased by nearly five lakh. In the same way, the number of voters in Bhangar Assembly of South Twenty Four Parganas has increased by about 60,000. The rate of increase in the number of voters is almost the same in Jayanagar, Magrahat assembly and over the decades in most of these places Hindus have become minority.
These data indicate that intrusion is taking place. Hindus are now minority in ten blocks of North Twenty-four Parganas. The Hindu population in the South Twenty-four Parganas is 63 percent today compared to 70 percent in 1941. In Sundarban region Hindu population has increase dangerously. Where as muslim population is now around 36 percent of the population, compared to 28 percent in 1941. Hindus are now a minority in roughly sixteen blocks of South Twenty-four Parganas and in all the blocks of Sundarban.
These statistics are only official statistics, and the number of illegal intruders is not counted in any official account.
In the first phase, the number has been gradually increased since 1980. Then the land grabbing started from mid 90s. After the Left Front came to power in 1977, Operation Barga resulted in landless cultivators getting land, but at the same time the rural middle class started to leave the village in search of other livelihoods as their income from agriculture decreased significantly. By the late 90s, the middle class community had become almost extinct in the villages of West Bengal. It was at this time that land grabbing began. First, wherever possible, land was bought from these middle-class communities who had left the village. Again like Sandeshkhali where Hindus are a minority and Hindu community is basically the poor people of the Janjati community, their land is taken away forcibly using political identity as a tool. Note the complain in Sandeshkhali not only the oppression of women but allegation of land grabbing is also there.
Note that the rise of this Sheikh Shahjahan is not in the Trinamool era, but his rise had happened in the left era. Politics is like clothes for them. Politics is actually their mask, just a tool. Separatism is their main aim.
Once the likes of Sheikh Shahjahan passed the first two stages, then came Sandeshkhali, the third stage.
Most of the areas of the Sundarbans region are inhabited by Janjati. Traditionally, their livelihood was agriculture, fishing or collecting honey in the forest. Honey collection is a very risky livelihood in areas like Sundarbans. There are several such villages in the Sundarbans where widows are the majority, because the men in those villages have been victims of attacks of tigers or crocodiles while collecting honey or fishing in forest rivers. As a result gradually they have moved away from that livelihood and they have opted for agriculture or fisheries as an alternative livelihood.
Please note, that in Sandeshkhali there are allegations of oppression of women, as well as allegations of land grabbing and pond grabbing. The people of the Janjati community made pond for fishing on the fallow, barren land, which today is occupied by Sheikh Shahjahan. The villagers complained that canal water is also blocked, so they cannot cultivate.
In such a situation it is quite natural that men are forced to leave their land and go elsewhere as migrant laborers to earn a living. Only women, children and old people will remain in the village. That is exactly what is happening in Sandeshkhali, that is what likes of Shaikh Shajahans want. That’s why women are face of the movement, because most of the men in the village have gone to work in other states as migrant workers. This is the situation that Majid Master, Icha Lashkar, Sheikh Shahjahan wanted to create. The women of Sandeshkhali are also complaining that Shibu Hazra, Uttam Sardar’s team is creating various obstacles to allow their twelve-year-old sons to go to school. They have been forced to work in their farm houses, agricultural land, fishing farms. That is, not to allow the spread of education to break the backbone of the society. Along with this, the ultimate terror is the attack on women.
Imagine the horror of a woman whose husband is working as a migrant laborer in another state, who knows that even if she is tortured, no one will listen to her, then where would she go?
Remember that at the very beginning of the movement, the women clearly stated that Sheikh Shahjahan and his team’s target of attack is only Hindu women and police doesn’t listen to them. Because violence against women is the biggest tool to terrorise the society. The same thing happened in East Pakistan during partition, Purnima Rani Sheelas were gang raped at her minor age in Bangladesh and the same allegations are raised in Sandeshkhali today. Hindu population is 8% now in Bangladesh, comparing 29 per cent in 1947.
If we look at history, it will be seen that when the country was partitioned in 1947, most of the refugees from East Bengal belonged to the middle class or upper class community. The main stream of refugees started in 1950 when the persecution of lower caste Hindu girls in what was then East Pakistan, today’s Bangladesh, began. Even in West Bengal, in the past decade in the border areas adjacent to Bangladesh, hardly a day has gone by where something or the other has happened to a girl from a lower caste Hindu house. This has become a daily occurrence in Malda, Murshidabad, Dinajpur, two twenty-four parganas. However, the police and administration do not take any measures. Why?
Because this anarchic situation, the law and order situation is actually a tool of separatism. When people see the women in their house affected, the police administration is not helping them, then what do they have to do? The only way is to leave the area and find another area where he is not a minority. That’s exactly what’s happening. Hindu minority in Murshidabad, Malda today. Sundarban region of Dinajpur, Twenty-four Parganas is also moving in the same direction. You might say, why not stand up and fight?
Lower caste Hindus also fought in East Pakistan, but when separatism got the support of the state, when the separatists got the shelter of the state, after a stage it become impossible for the common people to fight. The same is happening in today’s Sandeshkhali. Where there are so many complaints against Sheikh Shahjahan and the Chief Minister of the state is standing in the assembly and saying, “Sheikh Shahjahan is being targeted”, then where will the common people get the confidence to fight? How will they get the courage to fight? we can give a lot of advice and pep talk to them sitting in a room, but reality is very harsh.
This oppression of women, this inaction of the police, these are actually a method, a method of spreading separatism and undermining the sovereignty of the country. Sandeshkhali has reached the third phase of that process, with the first and second phases underway in Kolkata and adjoining areas. Open your eyes, you will see the ever-changing demographics of Kolkata and adjoining areas. And all these are directly supported by the state. That’s why I mentioned Pablo Escobar at the beginning of the writing, but Pablo Escobar is still a child compared to this. He was only selling cocaine, and there’s no illegal activity going on here. Women trafficking is one of the biggest problems in West Bengal today. In fact, we are ahead of the entire India in women trafficking. Sundarbans region is one of the centers of this women trafficking. Along with this, there is a variety of other contraband, gold, weapons, drugs, humans and possibly even human body parts. And all these are being controlled by the highest administration of West Bengal through the likes of Sheikh Shah Jahan, Jahangir. All their activities are state sponsored.
Colombia was fortunate enough that Pablo Escobar could not become the president, but the luck of West Bengal is probably not so good, the people of West Bengal will have to decide whether there will be any change in their fate in the coming days or they will become refugee once again.
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