By Arun Srivastava
As Union Home Minister, Amit Shah has brazenly criminalised Indian politics under the saffron Raj. Now, the tone and tenor of his chargesheet against West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo, Mamata Banerjee, which he unveiled on March 27 in Calcutta, provides ample clue towards his endeavour to weaponise the bureaucracy. While talking to media on the occasion of release of the saffron chargesheet, Shah incredulously accused the bureaucrats of the state of being the sentinels of crime and criminals, saying: “Because officers were changed, there was less violence during Ram Navami in the state this year.” This is indeed an accusation of serious nature coming from the Union Home Minister.
Nonetheless, Amit Shah is not known for positive and thoughtful speaking. His accusation was virtually a double-edged sword: first, directed against the state’s bureaucrats and bureaucratic institutions; and second, defending CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s action to transfer a large number of IAS and IPS officers ahead of the Assembly polls, who were suspect in their eyes. His attempt to malign the bureaucrats could be gauged from his dreary and unethical indictment: “Across the country, EC transfers officers ahead of polls. This is nothing new. But in West Bengal, most officers work for the government. That is why there have been more changes here.”
This indictment against West Bengal’s bureaucrats has wider implications. It’s meant to terrorise, demoralise and make them behave servilely. A serving bureaucrat is always scared of the department of personnel, which comes under the Union home ministry. In a way this also be construed as a message to the officers who will be participating in the electoral procedure. Certainly, this is not the quality of a good politician. Shah’s behaviour smacks of the demeanour of a local strongman, and is unbecoming of a sitting Home Minister. If he has been in possession of complaints or proofs against the bureaucrats as patrons of crime and criminals, why so far has he not taken any action against the specific individuals? Shah, as usual, went on threatening the state officers warning them that they must not object to BJP’s saffron goons using the electoral process according to their whims and fancies.
What indeed has been most shocking is his lowering the prestige of the officials and insulting them publicly by attributing complications arising from the SIR to them. Shah erroneously implied that it was alleged lapses by the state government officials were responsible for complications, which have caused massive harassment to voters and excluded millions, especially women and minorities, from the electoral roll. If Shah had genuine grievances, he should have raised the issue in public, and placed his views before the Supreme Court, which was hearing the government petition. But instead, he chose to wield the emotive issue as an electioneering agenda.
Shah putting the blame squarely on Mamata makes it obvious that if anyone here was playing the victim card, it was the Union home minister and not the West Bengal CM. If, as Shah says, “Mamata has been portraying herself as helpless before the (Election) Commission and falsely criticising it” held any water, the Supreme Court would not have pulled up CEC Gyanesh Kumar. Since Banerjee exposed the machination of the CEC and his political bosses, the apex court entrusted the task of verification of voters’ list to a band of retired judges of high court, in a massive embarrassment to the office of the Election Commission. While Shah lamented, “Using abusive language against a constitutional body like the Election Commission does not suit the culture of Bengal”, there have been several instances of BJP luminaries, including Shah and PM Modi, desecrating the image of the Parliament with their words and actions.
It is obvious that under the Modi-Shah Raj, the bureaucrats are scared of speaking their minds and acting without fear or favour. Bengal bureaucrats have seen how their colleagues were victimised by Shah’s officers for no fault of theirs in the very financial scams that involved BJP turncoats.
The “chargesheet” against Mamata Banerjee has a chapter on “infiltration”. While releasing it, Shah flagged five crucial aspects of alleged misgovernance as “pancha biparjay” (five disasters): corruption, “infiltration”, “appeasement” politics, economic decline and lawlessness. The document highlights so-called climate of fear under Trinamool rule, pitting against it the BJP’s promise of “bharosa” (trust) in its manifesto. Shah once again fell back on the infiltration bogey that he had earlier used in Bihar alleging that thousands of ghuspetiya (Muslim infiltrators from Bangladesh) had entered the state. Despite efforts, only three so-called illegal infiltrators could be traced. Out of the three, one had married an Indian in Simanchal long back.
Shah said: “SIR is happening across the entire country, yet nowhere else judicial officers have to be deployed — only in Bengal. What is the reason for this?… Mamata Banerjee should answer this to the people of Bengal. She is levelling allegations against SIR; however, today I wish to ask the people of Bengal: should those infiltrators who have been kept here be allowed to decide the future of Bengal? I want to make it clear on behalf of the BJP that we are resolved to identify and expel every single infiltrator from the country, not merely from the voter lists but from across the entire nation, and this is my party’s agenda”. But he is reluctant to give a plausible reply, as to why he, as the home minister, had not undertaken the task fencing of the border on war footing. Modi’s refusal to hold 2021 census and Shah’s unwillingness to go for border fencing smack of double standards.
If for argument’s sake, if a large number of ghuspetiyas had indeed entered Bengal, then in that case the Bengali population would have increased massively. And to ascertain that, the census exercise should have been undertaken in 2021. But Modi government had scrapped it. The question arises: why? Based on 2011 Census data, non-Bengalis make up approximately 13.78% of West Bengal’s population, roughly 12.5 million people out of a total population of 91.35 million. The majority (about 86.22% or 78.7 million) are Bengali speakers, while the non-Bengali population includes communities like Biharis, Marwaris, Odias, Gurkhas, and various tribal groups. According to the 2011 Census, the total population of West Bengal was 91,347,736, with roughly 78.7 million (86.22%) identifying as Bengali speakers.
Narendra Modi government’s policy was to identify infiltrators and remove them from the country. Shah said: “Not just from the voters’ list, we will ensure that infiltrators are identified one by one and pushed out of the country. It’s our agenda.” Will he tell the country and its people what concrete measures Modi has undertaken to weed out the infiltrators during his 12-year rule and how many have been identified so far. At the press meet, surprisingly Shah put the onus on Gyanesh Kumar, saying it was his duty.
Shah also invoked the legacy of freedom fighter Khudiram Bose, and blamed Mamata government for mentioning him as terrorist in a school book. While Shah tried to egregiously incite Bengali emotions by saying that Khudiram Bose was described as a terrorist, his attempt nevertheless was misplaced. He ought to read and understand Bengali culture and literature. “Biplabi” is a Bengali word that translates directly to “revolutionary”. While it was not a direct dictionary synonym for “terrorist,” it was frequently used to describe Bengali revolutionaries who utilized militant tactics against the British Raj, and was often treated as a synonym for “revolutionary terrorist” in the discourse of the colonial government.
The term refers to those engaged in biplab (revolution), often referring to activists in movements that the British government labelled as violent or “revolutionary terrorism”. Shah integrated his legacy into chargesheets and political narratives accusing the TMC government of neglecting Bengal’s revolutionary history. Strange in his desperation to win the election, he was seen appropriating the Bengali revolutionaries, as they have done in the case of other Bengal icons. (IPA Service)
