-The Hindu The Matuas became a significant political entity after the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003, came into being On a sultry April day, Thakurnagar, the holy site of Matuas in the Bongaon sub-division of West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district bordering Bangladesh, sizzles with banners of rival political parties asking for votes. As if indifferent to the ongoing political tension and the pandemic threat, a boisterous religious rally makes its way through...
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‘Corruption first, citizenship later’: Why CAA is having little impact on the Bengal elections -Shoaib Daniyal
-Scroll.in Everyday politics dominates the discourse amongst the state’s large population of Hindu Bangladeshi migrants. “Has anyone ever thought of us here?” said 64-year old Mohadev Majumdar. “We got tortured there. And are now having to beg here. What will CAA do? We don’t have hope from any party.” In 1971, a teenaged Majumdar fled what was then East Pakistan after his father was shot dead by the army. While technically India closed...
More »Explained: Why West Bengal is in crosshairs of CAB, NRC -Abantika Ghosh
-The Indian Express In West Bengal, the bone of contention among political rivals for years has been the influx of nearly 1 crore people in 1971 from then East Pakistan — few returned. ASSAM AND the rest of northeast India is on the boil over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, but it is in West Bengal that the proposed legislation will play a critical part if the BJP-led central government goes ahead...
More »Caste Politics, Secular Idiom -Ayan Guha
-The Indian Express BJP is attempting to use citizenship issue to woo Namasudra community in Bengal. It is generally believed that unlike other states of India, caste and religion don’t play a significant role in West Bengal’s electoral politics. Academic literature often articulates this as West Bengal’s “exceptionalism”. As a result of the electoral decline of the Left Front and some limited attempts by the Trinamool Congress at community-based mobilisation, the...
More »With death of a matriarch Binapani Debi, 1.5 crore Matua votes up for grabs -Abantika Ghosh
-The Indian Express There are at least six parliamentary constituencies — Krishnanagar, Ranaghat, Barrackpore, Barasat, Bongaon and Coochbehar — where the Vaishnavite sect has the numbers to swing results. When 100-year-old Binapani Debi was declared dead at 8.52 pm on Tuesday evening at SSKM Hospital in Kolkata, Mamata Banerjee was among the first to reach the hospital. With Trinamool MP and Debi’s daughter-in-law Mamatabala Thakur by her side, the Chief Minister...
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