“Let me say at once the Bengal problem is not a provincial one. It raises issues of an all-India character and on its proper solution will depend the peace and prosperity, both economic and political, of the entire nation”— Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Parliamentary Debates, April 19, 1950
When the entire nation has been discussing the arguments on Waqf petitions in the Supreme Court and unfounded equivalence between the Waqf Board and Hindu temples in the courtroom, West Bengal is burning, yet again. Since 1937, both sides of Bengal have been burning not with communal violence but sheer mobocracy of Islamists to evict Hindus from various parts of united Bengal forcefully, then in East Bengal and now in West Bengal. The reasons changed, but the modus operandi remained the same. This time the excuse was the anti-Waqf Act protest.
After the wider consultation with stakeholders by the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), the Parliament amended the discriminatory and arbitrary provisions and introduced a new “Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency, and Development (UMEED)” Act. The primary objective is this new Act is to remove the arbitrariness and bring transparency and accountability in the Waqf administration. Even before the bill was introduced, the objections raised by the ‘secular’ gang aiming for Islamist mobilisation started the usual instigation. The primary issues raised by the opponents of the amendments are the abolition of “Waqf by user,” and the inclusion of non-Muslims in Waqf Boards. Waqf by user is the most draconian provision affecting non-Muslims that needs immediate attention. Unfortunately, courts have also considered it a matter of contention. The issue of representing various Muslim sects, as expressed by minorities within the second largest majority, has been played as the minority rights issue, even though courts have earlier considered Waqf Boards as non-religious entities. Neither temples nor Churches are out of judicial purview, Waqf lands are. There are no separate semi-judicial authorities like Waqf Boards and tribunals for managing properties of any other religion. Waqf properties are misused and misappropriated by the boards, and many Muslims have complained about the same.
Even if genuine grievances exist beyond this, we have mechanisms to protest and courts to appeal constitutionally. In the last few years, we have seen the ‘grammar of anarchy’, as Dr BR Ambedkar called it. Whether anti-CAA protests, anti-Farm Bill protests, and now anti-Waqf Act protests, it has a pattern – street power of Islamists, Secularists led by the Congress in the courts and backed by the urban naxals on the television channels . In West Bengal, the pattern is all the more worrisome. At least three people were killed, and hundreds were rendered homeless in a one-sided anti-Hindu violence in parts of Murshidabad, mainly Suti, Samserganj, Dhulian and Jangipur. Even though the Act was passed on April 4, the protest erupted on April 11, when post the provocative sermons, fully charged Friday frenzy mobs, started vandalising Hindu houses, business establishments and temples. Women are the favourite and soft targets of the Islamist mobs. The statements like whether Parliament belongs to someone’s father, we will not follow the Act, and we will use violence to undo the Act – all these are nothing but manifestations of a mindset which puts Sharia above the Constitution and violence above democracy. Encouraging such an uncivil way of protest for petty political gains is like playing with the fire
It is not that protests and provocations did not take place in other States like Assam and Tripura, where borders are sensitive, and Islamists from Bangladesh have infiltrated for years. The mob could not resort to violence wherever the governments were alert and committed to maintaining law and order. Courts must address the pattern in West Bengal, where every few months, State-sponsored violence against Hindus and whitewashing of heinous crimes is a pattern. During the cases related to the post-poll violence, where in the name of supporting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), women were raped, people were killed, and thousands were forced to leave their homes, two Supreme Court judges recused themselves from hearing cases related to West Bengal, and later many cases were settled out of court. Beyond Murshidabad, the Bengal pattern casts aspersions on our democracy and criminal justice system. Even before giving urgent hearings to Waqf-related cases, there is a need to deal with the violence happening in the name of Waqf to save the Constitutional democracy from the Sharia apologists who hide behind the burqa of secularism.
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