In Bengal, BJP faces growing anger of Hindu migrants over SIR

Mrinalkanti Mridha, a singer and tabla teacher from the Matua community, arrived in West Bengal's Nadia district from Khulna district in Bangladesh in 1993.

He chose to leave the country of his birth as he feared religious persecution, he said.

By 1995, he was able to manage to buy some land in Nadia.

In 2003, he moved to Charghat village in North 24 Parganas district, which is closer to Thakurnargar, the religious seat of the Matuas close to the Indo-Bangladesh border.

Matuas are the followers of an anti-caste religion and are mostly members of the Namasudra community, the second-largest Scheduled Caste group in Bengal.

As he settled down in Nadia, Mridha made several unsuccessful attempts to get his name on the electoral roll. In 2005, he succeeded.

“I paid Rs 5,000 to enroll my name in the voter list,” the 55-year-old told Scroll last week.

But as the special intensive revision of electoral rolls takes off in Bengal, Mritha is afraid.

The 2002 electoral roll forms the basis of the SIR being carried out in West Bengal. All those whose names appear on the roll, or whose relatives are listed on it do not need to furnish additional documentation to be included in the final electoral roll, to be prepared by February 7, 2026.

“All our votes will be deleted,” Mridha said. “My family, my uncles and their families. Many Matuas will lose their votes.”

As Scroll has reported, in several parts of Bengal, residents are in a state of panic as the exclusion from the voter roll is being perceived as a step towards losing citizenship.

“Will they send us to a detention camp or Bangladesh? Or will they make us non-citizens?” Mridha asked. “What will be our children's future? Without voting rights, we will become identity-less. We will not be able to avail government benefits, especially the subsidised ration. Our bank accounts will be frozen.”

Mridha rued that he would have no other option but to return to Bangladesh.

What makes it worse is that the special intensive revision is being backed by the party Mridha belongs to – the Bharatiya Janata Party. “I know 40 people in my village who are in the same ordeal without any documents. All of us are BJP members.”

Once a “proud” advocate of the party, and especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Mridha is dismayed by the party's support for the SIR. “Modi-Shah is intent on finishing us. It has put BJP members like us in danger.”

BJP leaders in the region admitted that large numbers of Matuas may be excluded from the electoral roll during the revision of the rolls, as they arrived in India after 2002. As a solution, they have been urging members of the community to apply for citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act, claiming that it offers a way out to them.

Like many other Matuas, Mridha was a Trinamool Congress voter till the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Mamata Banerjee was one of the first Bengal leaders to court the influential group, and their support was key to her coming to power in the 2011 Assembly elections.

The Matuas' – and Mridha's – loyalties shifted to the BJP in 2015 when senior Matua leader Manjul Krishna Thakur, who was in the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, quit Trinamool Congress to join BJP.

That was the time many Matuas were drawn to the BJP because of its aggressive campaign to bring in amendments to India's citizenship law that would allow undocumented migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who had entered India before December 31, 2014, to become Indian citizens – as long as they were not Muslim.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill was tabled in 2016 and passed in 2019 by the Narendra Modi government early on in its second term. While the law triggered protests across the country, it cemented the party's support among the Matuas, who believed they would benefit from it.

But as Scroll has reported in the past, the law has had few takers among the communities it promises to help – Hindu migrants from Bangladesh in Assam and Bengal – because of the fear that it marks them out as undocumented migrants.

With the special intensive revision of rolls spreading panic, the BJP has been trying to control the damage – by pushing for the CAA.

Senior leaders like Bongaon BJP MP Shantanu Thakur, who heads the All India Matua Mahasangh, has declared that if anyone from the community was excluded after the SIR process, the party would help them secure a voter card again through the amended citizenship law.

“If you get citizenship, you will be given a voter card again,” Thakur, who is a member of the Union cabinet, said at Thakurbari, the community's spiritual seat. “And if you do not have a voter card, come to me, I will make you a voter card.”

For weeks now, BJP has been organising camps in areas of south and north Bengal with sizeable populations of Matuas and Namasudras to help them file CAA applications.

Separately, the All India Matua Mahasangh led by Shantanu Thakur has been giving out “Hindu cards” to hundreds of Matuas at Thakurbari.

Among the set of documents required for securing Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act is a “religious identity card.”

Officials at Mahasangh said there has been an increase in people seeking the “Hindu card” after the SIR was announced, though the cards were being distributed in previous months too.

“We are asking our people to apply under CAA,” general secretary of Matua Mahasangh Sukhendranath Gaye told Scroll. “Those who will be left out from SIR will apply under the CAA.”

Mridha, too, got himself a card at a cost of Rs 180. But he was sceptical about its benefit and bitter about the options being foisted on them. “Poor Hindu people have been running around, paying for ‘Hindu' certificates. But there is no certainty whether CAA can help them,” he said.

He added: “Maybe, the BJP just does not bother about recent Hindu migrants because we are from the lower castes.”

Other members of the Matua Mahasangha admitted that CAA might not offer any solution to the challenge to undocumented migrants posed by SIR.

Mahitosh Baidya, the general secretary of the Matua Mahasangha, said, “Not even one per cent of CAA applicants have received a citizenship certificate.”

He also agreed that the “Hindu certificate” issued by the Thakurbari will not ensure citizenship of the applicant. “It is only one of the documents needed for the application.”

Baidya underlined that the enumeration form handed by the Election Commission is “silent” about the people who came after 2002 or who do not have names in the 2002 voter list. Neither is there a separate column about the CAA or citizenship certificate.

“If that option was there, even if one doesn't have his name in the 2002 voter list but has the citizenship certificate acquired by CAA, people would not be under such stress,” he said. “There is no clarity for those who arrived before 2014 or after. That is why people are terrified. I have been getting frantic calls every day.”

Political scientist Ayan Guha, whose research focuses on the Matuas points out the limited utility of the “Matua Mahasangha card” as a legal document. “It is not a government document and its legal validity is limited to being a community certificate under the CAA rules,” he said. “But many common people are under the impression that solely through this card they will get citizenship.”

In private, BJP leaders acknowledge that a large number of Matuas may be excluded from the electoral roll after the SIR.

“This is a reality as many have come to India after 2002,” a senior BJP leader of the state refugee cell told Scroll.

In 2001, Begum Khaleda Zia became the Bangladesh prime minister. “In her five-year rule, there was extreme repression and many people came here,” the leader said.

He also admitted that Shantanu Thakur's assurance that those excluded by SIR would be protected by CAA “has no basis”.

“There is no connection between the CAA and SIR,” he said. “It is political rhetoric just like how the Trinamool Congress claims that if one applies under the CAA, one will become Bangladeshis.”

Meanwhile, members of the All India Matua Mahasangh who lean towards the Trinamool Congress have been on a “fast-unto-death” in Thakurnagar, demanding the unconditional rollback of the special intensive revision of Bengal's elector rolls.

The protesters also demand “unconditional” citizenship for all those who migrated from Bangladesh up until 2024. “People's votes will be deleted in order to create pressure on the people to apply under CAA,” alleged Amit Biswas, a CPM member belonging to the Matua community at Thakurnagar, who attended the protest organised by the Trinamool Congress.

Biswas said there is “extreme fear” among people he encountered at booth level meetings. “In my booth in Thakurnagar, 50% of voters will be removed if 2002 is the base year, as their names or parents or grandparents are not there. This leads to the panic.”

Biswas accused the BJP and Matua leaders Subrata Thakur and Shantanu Thakur of playing on the fear of people to sell “Hindu cards”. “In this time of distress, they are using people's suffering to gain money,” he said.

The senior BJP leader admitted that the SIR has roiled up emotions, and might end up adversely affecting the party in this belt.

Angry party members like Mridha warn of much the same.

“If my name is deleted, at least 100 of my family members and relatives won't vote for the BJP,” he said. “People have started to call out the BJP and abuse [Union minister] Santanu Thakur. What have they started?”

He said BJP members are being mocked by those loyal to the Trinamool Congress and the CPI(M). “Khal kete kumir anso, they say,” he said. You have invited the crocodile into your midst.

Political scientist Guha pointed out that while SIR has created anxiety among the Matuas “many are in favour of such a process so long as steps are taken to ensure that Hindu names are not deleted from the voter list.”

Mridha, for example, called on his party and the Prime Minister to “identify Muslims and expel them.” “Why are they harassing us who have already fled to save their lives?”

Source: Scroll
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