Matuas from Bangladesh

Votebank bait blurs enemy lines

KOLKATA: The Matuas - a subaltern religious sect, comprising mainly lower caste, poor Hindu refugees from East Pakistan/Bangladesh - achieved the near impossible by getting top CPM and Trinamool Congress leaders on the same stage at Esplanade on Tuesday, along with those of the Congress, the BJP and the Forward Bloc.

It's proof that the Matuas are a force no party in Bengal can ignore. The community, a 5-lakh-strong vote base, first made its presence felt in the Bongaon assembly bypolls in 2006 when it rose against the CPM and handed the ruling party a crushing defeat.

This is why CPM leaders Gautam Deb and Kanti Biswas could not refuse the Matua Mahasangh invite for a mega rally in the city to place their chief demand - citizenship rights to Bangladeshi refugees who moved to India after 1971. There were no slogans or political banners. The Matuas announced their might with conch shells and drums and "horibol" on their lips.

While the mega rally choked the heart of the city, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee entertained a Matua delegation at Writers' and assured he would take up their demands with the Centre.

On the dais, Pradesh Congress chief Manas Bhuniya promised to speak to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, PM Manmohan Singh and home minister P Chidambaram by the second week of January.

Former BJP state chief Tathagata Roy repeatedly pointed out his party had all along been sympathetic to Hindu refugees fleeing Bangladesh even after May 25, 1971. Trinamool MP Mukul Roy, the Union MoS for shipping, also showed along with party MP Gobinda Naskar and MLA Jyotipriya Mullick (both representatives of Matua-dominated areas).

Roy and Deb shared the dais for a few minutes before the Trinamool leader got a call on his mobile and climbed down. He spent the rest of the afternoon at a nearby tea stall.

Deb congratulated the Matua organizers for being able to rally all mainstream parties. "It makes me happy to see Congress, CPM, Trinamool and BJP leaders on stage. You have a valid point. Let all MPs from Bengal set aside their political differences and take up with Delhi the plight of the refugees.

When it comes to the interest of state, we should not stick to narrow politics. My department did not hesitate to hand over 72 acres of land in Haldia to Kolkata Port Trust although Trinamool's Mukul Roy is the minister of state for shipping," the Bengal housing minister said.

This is further to my post of yesterday.
See, since 1971, around 5 lakhs Hindus have had to leave Bangladesh because of hostile environment.
While I do not recommend citizenship to Muslims since the two nation division was made on the basis of religion, I have no hesitation in recommending the Matus people Indian citizenship.
They tried, as long as possible to live among wolves but then had to leave.