On Saturday (April 22), West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee courted controversy after she asked the Muslim community to ‘unite’ and vote against the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
She made the contentious remarks at an event organised, by the ‘Calcutta Khilafat Committee’ at Red Road in Kolkata, on the occasion of Eid-al-Fitr. She congratulated the Committee members and called for the unification of the Muslim vote bank.
“Today the Constitution is being changed, history is being manipulated…I am ready to give my life but will not let this country divide,” Mamata Banerjee announced amidst loud cheers from Muslims present in the crowd.
She vowed to not allow implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise in the State to further appease the illegal immigrants living in West Bengal.
Banerjee called upon the Muslim community to pray to Allah and stop BJP’s so-called ‘Dadagiri’. Ironically, the West Bengal Chief Minister was mouthing platitudes about pluralism, and societal cohesion from a platform that played a pivotal role in the disintegration and Partition of the country in 1947.
The snipper of Mamata Banerjee’s speech does indicate a few vital points that we must decode.
First and foremost, Mamata Banerjee called for the unification of Muslims to oust ruling BJP in 2024 General Elections. This deeply communal trope that is being peddled by Mamata Banerjee comes as no surprise since she has made far more communal statements even in the recent past, which shows clearly that she is fanning the anti-Hindu sentiment and pandering to the most extremist elements within the Muslim community.
After Islamists had run rampage against Hindus in West Bengal during Ram Navami processions and committed terrible violence against the Hindu community, right after the instigation of Mamata Banerjee when she said that Hindus should stay away from “Muslim areas”, Banerjee also made other problematic statements. She not only exonerated the Muslim community saying that they cannot commit any violence during the month of Ramzan, but also went ahead of asked the Muslim community to pray to Allah to “teach rioters a lesson”, hinting at the Hindus. In the current speech as well, Mamata tells Muslims to pray to Allah to stop BJP and their “dadagiri”.
Further, Mamata also says that she will not let NRC be implemented. It becomes important to point out that there is no draft for national NRC, however, when Mamata rakes up the issue over and over again, it becomes important to realise that perhaps, she is signalling to illegal immigrants who reside in Bengal, mostly from Bangladesh and Myanmar (Rohingyas), that she will ensure they are not ousted from the state.
The two narratives coupled together clearly marks how dangerous her political rhetoric is. Demonisation of Hindus coupled with pandering to not only illegal migrants, but also the most radical elements from the Muslim community.
What perhaps makes her speech even more dangerous is the fact that this dangerous speech by Mamata Banerjee was delivered while she was attending an event organised by ‘Calcutta Khilafat Committee’.
The Khilafat movement from 1919 onwards, was essentially a movement by Indian Muslims in support of the Caliphate in Turkey. Khilafat movement was a movement demanding from the British restore the powers of the Caliph of the Ottoman Empire. It had nothing to do with India, the Indian freedom movement or our demand to self-govern. While it is often peddled as a struggle for India’s freedom, fuelled by the name itself which appears as if the Muslims were “against” the British rule, in reality, the Khilafat movement drew its name from the “Kaliph” since they were fighting to maintain the authority of the Turkish Caliph of Islam. Officially, Khilafat means ‘caliphate’ but also a broader one as ‘succession’ – Specifically Khilafat refers to the leadership of the Islamic community after the death of the Prophet.
The Calcutta Khilafat Committee is not a fringe organisation which simply adopted the name “Khilafat”. It is, in fact, the original regional committee established 1919 to implement the aims of the Central Khilafat Committee.
Khilafat, pan-Islamism and Parition of India
The first stirrings in favour of the Khilafat Movement in Bengal were seen on 30 December 1918, at the 11th Session of the All India Muslim League held in Delhi.
When the Paris Peace Conference (1919) confirmed these apprehensions, Bengali Khilafat leaders such as Maulana Akram Khan, Abul Kasem, and Mujibur Rahman Khan held a public meeting in Kolkata on 9 February 1919 to enlist public support in favour of preserving the integrity of the Ottoman Empire and saving the institution of Khilafat.
On 17 October 1919, the first Khilafat Day was observed and most Indian-owned shops in Kolkata remained closed. Prayers were offered at different mosques, and public meetings were held all over Bengal. On 23-24 November 1919, the first All-India Khilafat Conference was held in Delhi, presided over by AK Fazlul Huq from Bengal. It was decided that until the Khilafat issue was resolved, there would be a boycott of British goods and a policy of non-cooperation would be adopted against the British.
As per reports, the office of the Calcutta Khilafat Committee was established, opposite the Nakhoda mosque in Kolkata, in 1920. The first Bengal Provincial Khilafat Conference was held at the Kolkata Town Hall on 28-29 February of the same year, with several members of the Central Khilafat Committee in attendance. Prominent Bengali Khilafat leaders participated in the conference and reiterated that non-cooperation and boycotts would continue unless their demands on the Khilafat problem were met. The conference decided to observe 19 March 1920 as the Second Khilafat Day.
The pan-Islamist movement which was based on extra-territorial allegiance soon showed its true colours. What followed was mindless fanaticism by the Moplah Musalmans that resulted in the brutal murder of over 10,000 Hindus, the rape of thousands of Hindu women and the desecration of temples that Hindus held sacred.
During the Malabar massacre in 1921, the Moplah Muslims went on a murder frenzy killing Hindus in the most brutal manner. On one particular incident on the 25th of September 1921, the Moplah Muslims massacred 38 Hindus by beheading them and throwing them in the well.
It has been documented by the district collector of Malabar at the time how even after 2-3 days, several Hindus who were beheaded and thrown in the well were crying out for help.
Dr Ambedkar had said about the Malabar genocide: “The (Khilafat) movement was started by the Mohammedans. It was taken up by Mr Gandhi with tenacity and faith, which might have surprised many Mohammedans themselves. There were many people who doubted the ethical basis of the Khilafat movement and tried to dissuade Mr Gandhi from taking any part in the Movement the ethical basis of which was so questionable.” (Pakistan or Partition of India, pages 146,147).
Dr Ambedkar had further said:
“As a rebellion against the British Government, it was quite understandable. But what baffled most was the treatment accorded by the Moplas to the Hindus of Malabar,” he wrote. The Hindus were visited by a dire fate at the hands of the Moplas. Massacres, forcible conversions, desecration of temples, foul outrages upon women, such as ripping open pregnant women, pillage, arson and destruction— in short, all the accompaniments of brutal and unrestrained barbarism, were perpetrated freely by the Moplas upon the Hindus until such time as troops could be hurried to the task of restoring order through a difficult and extensive tract of the country. This was not a Hindu-Moslem riot. This was just a Bartholomew. The number of Hindus who were killed, wounded or converted, is not known. But the number must have been enormous.”
The dangerous parallels and tropes that Mamata Banerjee invokes often
Mamata Banerjee has often invoked dangerous parallels and tropes that led to the massacre of Hindus and the partition of India – resulting in the creation of Pakistan on religious lines. If one recalls, during the Assembly Elections, Mamata Banerjee had launched a “Khela Hobe” campaign. Upon winning the West Bengal elections, the violence unleashed has been documented substantially. However, unphased, Mamata Banerjee had then announced that TMC would be celebrating “Khela Hobe Diwas” on the 16th of August to remove BJP from power from various states.
16th of August was the same day when Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah of the Muslim League had launched the horrific “Direct Action Day” against Hindus in 1946.
On the 16th of August, 1946, Mohammad Ali Jinnah gave a call to fellow Muslims across India for a “Direct Action Day” on the streets of Kolkata (then Calcutta) and grandly proclaimed that they shall have “either a divided India or a destroyed India”. The terror that followed was nothing India had seen before. Thousands of sword-wielding Muslims went on a killing spree, and nearly 10,000 people were killed and up to 15,000 wounded in a span of three days. The Direct Action Day, which resulted in the Great Calcutta Killings, is considered one of the most brutal violence unleashed by Islamists on Hindus in the last century.
Further, as discussed earlier, only recently she invoked how Hindus must stay away from so-called “Muslim areas” for their Ram Navami processions. This was also used to justify the violence that had ensued against Hindus. Interestingly, in the run-up to the partition, several such attacks had taken place against Hindus and one of the most prominent reasons was that the procession was crossing an area with a Mosque or that music was being played in the front of the mosque by Hindus.
With Mamata Banerjee passing dangerously communal statements in an Eid event organised by the very Calcutta Khilafat Committee, which was a part of the extraterritorial Khilafat movement, leading up to the genocide of Hindus in Malabar, it would seem clear that political expedience has trumped good sense as far as maintaining the integrity and sovereignty of the country is concerned and Hindus are merely sacrificial lambs when it comes to consolidating the vote bank that could keep Mamata Banerjee in power.
