MURMURS IN MURSHIDABAD

Amid a battle of narratives, clues from the burnt earth of Bengal speak of orchestration, not organic’ violence

- By Arkamoy Datta Majumdar

IT WAS GETTING TO MID-APRIL AND A HELLISH SON ET LUMIÈRE had lit up Murshidabad. Arson, terror and grief swept over places like Dhuliyan, an old river port on the Ganges. But the map also had quiet corners of defiance: mixed Hindu-Muslim villages that refused to be communal laboratories. In Maheshpur, Dighri, Paharghanti and Lalpur Singhpara, they kept joint vigil to protect temples and mosques. As a fire ravaged a Hindu shop, Muslim shopkeepers intervened to save it.

Scattered yet powerful acts of solidarity marked the tenacity of local harmony in the absence of provocation-that forms a major strand in the report of a 17-member fact-finding team on the violence in West Bengal. The other strand is its obverse: sinister signs of orchestration.