Bengal's Radical Double Whammy

An outspoken pair of polarisers—one Hindu monk, one Muslim renegade—heat up poll skillet

- By Arkamoy Datta Majumdar

MURSHIDABAD, THE OLD CAPITAL of Bengal's nawabs, has never been shorn of its centrality in modern politics—given the creatively functional role it reserves for the communal question. Even its pre-2014 social temperature charts, albeit relatively stable, were marred by a few violent spikes. In the past decade, it attained an even lower boiling point. Last April, in fact, saw a widespread conflagration sweep the frontier district, becoming Bengal's headline political event for weeks.

With that baseline set, it's logical that today it plays host to a pair of polarising figures who have reared into prominence with eerie simultaneity. One Hindu, one Muslim, quite the opposite sides of the same coin—together, they promise to keep the skillet scalding hot for this summer's election.

Call heads, and you get Kartik Maharaj, formally Swami Pradiptananda of the Bharat Sevashram Sangha in Beldanga, who fits the old trope of a saint with a bristlingly militant tongue. Inter alia, he has called for armed defence of dharma and weapon worship in Hindu households, rued the veneration of Mahatma Gandhi and raked up 'love jihad'. On the obverse side is Humayun Kabir, MLA from Bharatpur, who yanked the spotlights onto himself recently by promising to build a 'Babri Masjid' in his neck of the woods—the offer was deemed beyond the acceptance threshold by even the Trinamool Congress (TMC), which duly suspended him.

SAFFRON AND GREEN