Four years after widespread protests across the country put the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) on the back burner, it is back on the political agenda before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Two Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and Union ministers, both from West Bengal – Shantanu Thakur and Nisith Pramanik – have publicly announced that the Narendra Modi government plans to implement the CAA in the upcoming days. While Matua community leader Santanu Thakur gave “a week’s” deadline, Pramanik who is a prominent presence in North Bengal refused to specify a timeline.
In December 2023, the Union home minister Amit Shah, addressing a BJP rally in Kolkata asserted that the CAA is the law of the land and no force could prevent its implementation.
The announcement is again expected to become a major issue in the upcoming Lok Sabha election – especially in West Bengal, where BJP for the last few years has been trying to consolidate lower caste Hindu votes by posturing itself as a protector of their interests. The party has been steadily making inroads into two of the largest Scheduled Caste segments, the Rajbanshi and Namashudra communities which constitute 18.35% and 17.41% of West Bengal’s total Scheduled Caste population.
Also read: Does BJP’s Revival of the CAA Issue Reflect the Party’s Desperation in Bengal?
Rajbanshis
The Rajbanshis, the largest SC group in the state, account for an estimated 30% of the North Bengal population. All five of West Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats which have more than 15% of Rajbanshi population went to the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The party also won 30 of the 50 assembly seats in the region in the 2021 assembly election, but lost ground to TMC significantly in the last panchayat elections. The induction of Rajbanshi leader Ananta Maharaj into the BJP and his nomination to the Rajya Sabha by the party last year point to the importance of the community in BJP’s electoral arithmetic.
But Rajbashis are not enthusiastic about the CAA, says Ayan Guha, a political analyst and the author of The Curious Trajectory of Caste in West Bengal Politics. “Rather, there is some degree of suspicion among the Rajbanshis with regard to the CAA. CAA will regularise the settlement of Bengali Hindu refugees whom the indigenous population of North Bengal – comprising communities like the Rajbanshis have traditionally regarded as outsiders,” Guha says.
Predictably, the announcement was met with severe criticism from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has accused the BJP of exploiting the citizenship law for electoral gains.
“Our Rajbangshi friends have always been citizens. This sudden focus on CAA is nothing but election drama. We’ve already recognised them, granted them a permanent settlement, and included them in our welfare schemes. If they weren’t citizens, how could they have exercised their basic rights?” said Banerjee while addressing a public event in Cooch Behar in North Bengal.
Border politics
CM Banerjee had also raised concerns about the BSF’s discriminatory identity card policy for border residents and urged people to reject these documents as “their names would be deleted from the NRC” should they do so. Around 27% voters of Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat belong to the Muslim community, for whom the NRC remains a burning issue. During the 2021 assembly election, in the Sitalkuchi block of the district, CISF firing led to the deaths of four villagers. The incident had a polarising impact across the state.
“Both BJP and Trinamool Congress are trying to create an atmosphere of fear for electoral gain. They want religious polarization, and that’s why talking about NRC and CAA to create fear among citizens. No one can displace citizens,” stated CPI(M) state secretary Mohammed Salim.
The CAA, passed in 2019, offers a fast-track path to citizenship for non-Muslim religious minorities (Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains, Buddhists, and Christians) from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, who entered India before December 31, 2014. It sparked widespread protests due to concerns about its discriminatory nature and potential connection to the NRC, which aims to identify and deport illegal immigrants.
Also read: BJP’s Exclusion of Muslims Is ‘Unacceptably Barbaric’, Says Amartya Sen
The CAA certainly lends itself to calculations concerning the impending general elections and it is here that the Matua community also comes in, feels the author Guha.
What about the Matuas?
“There are two aspects of such calculations – one relates to the Namashudra Matua community and the other pertains to the pro-Hindu messaging to the population across the country. The pro-Hindu narrative encoded in the CAA is aimed at consolidating the traditional Hindu vote bank of the BJP,” says Guha.
The Matuas belong to the Namashudra caste, which stands outside the traditional four-tier Hindu caste system. Historically labeled as “Chandals” and subjected to no end of derogatory terms in Bengal, the Matuas organised a movement in the mid-19th century in Faridpur district of what is now Bangladesh. Icon Harichand Thakur led this caste uprising, establishing the Matua Mahasangha – a Vaishnavite Hindu sect that rejected the caste system. After Harichand’s death in 1878, his son Guruchand Thakur furthered the movement’s influence, attracting various Dalit groups. During the Partition of Bengal, many members of these social groups migrated from to West Bengal, significantly impacting the demographic landscape of the region.
Currently forming the second largest Scheduled Caste group in West Bengal, comprising 3.8% of the total population, the Matuas have long been demanding proper rehabilitation and resettlement of Hindu Bengali refugees from Bangladesh.
In 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi strategically initiated the BJP’s poll campaign in the state from Thakurnagar, the Matua Mahasangha headquarters, expressing strong support for the CAA. BJP comprehensively won Ranaghat and Bangagon, two Matua-dominated seats in Nadia and North 24 Parganas, and narrowly lost Krishnanagar to TMC.
Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Orakandi, a sacred place for the Matuas, during the West Bengal Assembly elections in 2021, further solidified the BJP’s consolidation of the community. According to the CSDS Lokniti Poll Poll survey, 58% of the Namashudra community voted for BJP helping them to secure 14 of the 15 seats in the Matua belt of Nadia and North 24-Parganas. However, in the 2023 panchayat polls, the Matua vote again shifted to Trinamool Congress, which won 49 out of the 53 panchayats in these areas. The BJP won only one.
“There is no simple and necessary correlation between finalisation of the CAA rules and greater Matua support in favour of the BJP. The framing of the CAA rules after an inordinate delay will definitely please the Matuas and naturally, the BJP will try to take credit for the finalisation of these rules. But in the longer run, the Matua support for the BJP will depend upon how liberal and effective these rules are for the grant of citizenship,” says Guha.
Thus, the BJP needs to straddle the ambitions of two of the main communities in its Bengal support base with the CAA. While one favours the law, the other does not.