Are refugees outsiders?

Communist leader Jyoti Basu ruled West Bengal for two and a half decades. He fought relentlessly against the communal forces. It is surprising how the RSS has penetrated and practically taken over the state. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress is in power in the state at present but even her adherents admit that they are fighting a losing battle.

The RSS has moved into the interior of the state and its morning shakhas are being held in every park. How and why it has happened is a case study. Communism and ideology is what the Left pursued. In sharp contrast is the RSS preaching, completely archival and conservative. The rich Bengali culture is today sandwiched between the RSS and communists.

Mamata is accused of trying to appease the Muslims when she vainly banned the immersion of Durga idols beyond certain hours. The state government, according to news reports, apprehended that both immersion and the Muharram processions will be taken out deliberately to cross each other’s path, putting the contaminated administration to a stern test. However, the Calcutta High Court intervened to restore the status quo.

Perhaps, what prompted Mamata to order the ban was the steady string of communal riots that have been breaking out in the districts. Controversies over the routes of Muharram processions, too, had ignited the spark.

All these added to the communal cauldron that was already boiling, thanks to a steady exodus of Hindus from Bangladesh in recent times. The upper-caste Hindus, who were a part of Bangladesh, had migrated to India and even today they maintain two houses, one in West Bengal and the other in Bangladesh. Their children study in Indian schools and have even acquired identity and become citizens of India in some cases.

However, the rising Muslim radicalism and the steady attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh have led to the fresh exodus over a decade. Unable to find a living, the economically poor are mostly confined to the border districts, eking out a living through odd jobs. Understandably, the Bengalis harbour deep resentment of ‘the other’, Muslims. And these are the ones that the RSS has targeted cleverly to pull on to its side.

Against this backdrop, the Bangladeshis are going through a peculiar problem of exodus of Rohingyas. Dhaka has provided shelter to these refugees on humanitarian ground but it cannot help much beyond a point. The number of Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar to Bangladesh since late August has reached 480,000, challenging efforts to care for them, according to UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

The exodus of Rohingyas has also posed a problem to New Delhi since some of them have infiltrated into India through the northeastern states, which share a long border with Myanmar. Even as the government is trying to prove to the court their association with Pakistani terrorist groups, BJP MP Varun Gandhi has advocated asylum for Rohingya Muslims who have escaped the violence in Myanmar. This is a view that is in contrast to what the government has advocated. In a recent editorial in The Navbharat Times, Varun has expressed that Rohingya refugees should not be deported but treated humanely.

New Delhi has to face the refugee problem stoically. There are Kashmiri pundits in Jammu and Bangladeshi Muslims in Kolkata and Guwahati. So is the case with Sri Lankan Tamils who have taken asylum in Tamil Nadu. Small skirmishes are already taking place and pose a serious problem. But the Rohingyas’ exodus has forced the government to revisit the issue of refugees, giving a political colour to a human issue.

What is disconcerting is that the problem is slowly getting a communal colour — Hindu versus Muslim. West Bengal has to retrieve the situation which may get out of control. In fact, the secular and democratic forces would have to join hands to fight against the onslaught of Hindutva elements.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2017.

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