Bengal Violence Mamata Government's Fault

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma made a very valid point when he posted on X that in spite of having a higher percentage of Muslim population than Bengal's, his state saw barely any protests over the passage of the Waqf Amendment Bill in Parliament.

- JOYEETA BASU

This was in context of the violence unleashed by the radicalised members of the minority community over the majority population in Bengal's Murshidabad district, where the so-called majority, the Hindus are actually in a minority. Things are so bad in the violence-torn areas that the local Hindu population has started fleeing to neighbouring districts, with open threats being issued against them by the marauding mobs. Some of the slogans are eerily similar to those issued by the jihadis to the Kashmiri Pandit community before they fled the Valley in 1990.

The question is if Assam can control the situation, why cannot Bengal? The answer, sadly, is simple: it is because the Chief Minister and her administration are either inefficient, or unwilling to control the situation, or both. The serious charge that the BJP is hurling at Mamata Banerjee is that the anti-Waqf violence has her blessings. Even if that is not the case, she is anyway being belligerent and claiming that an Act passed by Indian Parliament will not be implemented in Bengal—it is as if she is the potentate of her own kingdom. In fact, one of her ministers, who is at the forefront of the Waqf protests, Siddiqullah Chowdhury, went to the extent of claiming that the Chief Minister was happy that members of the Muslim community had gathered in such large numbers to protest against the amended Waqf Act.