This Malignant Maulana Is Not Mad, He Is Machiavellian

Contrary to widely-held opinion, Maulana Nurur Rehman Barkati, the Shahi Imam of Kolkata’s 185-year-old Tipu Sultan Masjid who has been in the news for his provocative acts and utterances, is not a mad person. Fact is, he’s quite a Machiavellian and there is a sinister method to his madness.

His recent fatwa against Muslims who join or work for the BJP, his labelling RSS members as ‘eunuchs’ and his open call for ‘jihad’ in the country earlier this week is the latest in a series of objectionable, even illegal, utterances that have riled many. But it won’t surely be his last, the reason being he has not only the active support, but also the encouragement for the ruling establishment of Bengal.

The rotund maulana with hennaed beard, kohl-lined eyes and faux fur cap (often alternated with Arabic headgear) who reeks of ittar, has been close to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for two decades now. He first tried to get close to the then ruling CPI (M)-led Left Front and sent many overtures to (former) chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, only to be rebuffed. Bhattacharjee’s predecessor Jyoti Basu held him in utter disdain.

“The communists did not require the support of the likes of Barkati to win elections. Their party machinery was enough to ensure the Muslim votes came to them. Of course, the communists also played the game of minority appeasement, but they used to do so more subtly than the Trinamool does now, and they used to reach out to the Muslim community through more sober clerics,” explained political scientist Amal Kumar Deb who taught the subject at Calcutta University.

Barkati, an egotistical person, constantly craving for attention and importance, gravitated towards Banerjee from the later half of the Nineties after she broke away from the Congress and formed the Trinamool Congress. Barkati and Banerjee struck a mutually beneficial relationship. She realised that she required the support of the Muslim community to win elections in Bengal and it would be only with the support of the Muslims that she could defeat the Left Front. And in return for his support, Barkati has, since then, been handsomely rewarded.

Banerjee was spot on in her calculation that she would need the support of Muslims to defeat the Left, as subsequent developments showed. The forcible acquisition of fertile farmland in Nandigram where most of the farmers were Muslims, the damning Sachar Committee report of 2006 that highlighted the abysmal plight of Muslims in Left-ruled Bengal and many other factors led to the alienation of Muslims from the Left. This sense of alienation was fed and encouraged by firebrand clerics like Barkati, who issued decrees asking Muslims to support the Trinamool. Banerjee reaped the political dividends and her party swept the Assembly polls in 2011. The improved performance of her party in the 2016 Assembly polls was the direct result of polarisation of Muslim votes in favour of the Trinamool.

As Banerjee, and her party, grew powerful, so did Barkati. Barkati also benefitted in other ways. Right from Banerjee’s first tenure as the Railways Minister in 1999, the loaves of her office started coming Barkati’s way. Forget the red beacon atop Barkati’s SUV that he says will not remove, or the police protection he gets (he is the only imam to be accorded this privilege). Those are insignificant, but what is significant is that Barkati’s close relatives got lucrative railway contracts when Banerjee held that portfolio from 13 October 1999 to 15 March 2001 and again from 26 May 2009 to 15 May 2011.

And since Banerjee became the chief minister in May 2011, Barkati and his family, his hangers-on and sycophants, and his friends, have benefitted immensely and enriched themselves. Barkati’s assets are rumoured to run into crores of rupees and are said to be grossly disproportionate to his known sources of income.

Barkati has always courted controversy. Be it leading Salat al-Gha'ib (funeral prayers in absentia) for Osama bin Laden, Afzal Guru, Yakub Memon and Ajmal Kasab, issuing fatwas against Taslima Nasreen, Salman Rushdie, Tarek Fatah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, or heaping foul verbal abuse on his detractors in public, this maulana does so deliberately. That’s because he knows that only if he adopts a strident stance against the Sangh Parivaar and perceived critics of Islam will he continue to enjoy Banerjee’s patronage. He knows that the more hardline he appears, the more support he will get from Bengal’s largely poor and backward Muslims who have already been radicalised by the army of Salafi preachers who have taken over the mosques and madrasas of the state.

But it is not just that. There are two other important reasons that drive the maulana’s atrocious utterances. One, he has competition from other Muslim clerics who also vie for Banerjee’s attention and patronage. Siddiqullah Chowdhury, the state secretary of Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind who was appointed a junior minister by Banerjee, is perceived to be a threat by Barkati. Thus, with Chowdhury showing off his hardline credentials by supporting Islamists in Bangladesh or opposing the BJP, Barkati feels he ought to do better and thus his atrocious acts and utterances.

Another perceived competitor is Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP Ahmed Hassam Imran, a founder member of the proscribed Students Islamic Movement of India who used to edit an Urdu newspaper Kalom that regularly carried incendiary and anti-Indian articles. Barkati feels that he has to speak and appear more radical than Imran as well if he is to stay relevant in Mamata’s scheme of things.

Two, Barkati genuinely believes that it is only a matter of time before India becomes an Islamic nation and Muslims establish their dominance over this country. In many interviews given to the media, including one to this correspondent in 2007, Barkati served reminders that Muslims have ruled over this sub-continent for hundreds of years despite not being in a majority. In a recent interview to a Bengali newspaper, Barkati pointed out that Muslims in Bengal constitute less than 30 per cent of the population of the state, but they dictate the political discourse.

“I have ensured the Muslims of Bengal vote strategically for Mamata and she has won only because we Muslims have supported her. So we control the government in Bengal. Mamata does what we want her to do. She cannot do anything without our consent,” Barkati boasted.

Only, it was no idle boast. He went on to explain that once Muslims in India expand their population and vote strategically like their brethren in Bengal, a pro-Muslim party will come to power in New Delhi and a Muslim who will become the Prime Minister of the country will make this an Islamic nation. “It is foretold that Islam will rule this world and Inshallah, that day is not far away. Muslims are taking over Europe and the west, and we will take over India too and make this an Islamic nation with the rule of the sharia,” he had told this correspondent in 2007. Barkati’s twitter account is illustrative of his persona and the views he holds.

Barkati is on record saying that Banerjee calls him up and depends on him for delivering Muslim votes to her party. He has made this claim on many occasions and in public. Barkati is secure in the knowledge that Banerjee won’t act against him despite his repeated violations of the law of the land. “We (Muslims) put her there (in the CM’s chair) and she continues in office as long as she has our support,” Barkati has said many a time. He is also not averse to holding our threats: “If we see Mamata is acting against Muslims or not rewarding Muslims adequately for our support, we could decide to have a Muslim chief minister the next time,” he says ominously.

Retaining the support of Muslims is crucial to Banerjee’s survival. She cannot afford to offend the likes of Barkati and thus alienate Muslims. And that is why her government won’t dare to ask Barkati to take down the red beacon light from his car, but happily lodge FIRs against BJP leaders who ride motorcycles without helmets.

In Bengal under Banerjee, it will always be advantage Barkati.