The Importance Of Sheikh Shahjahans In Bengal’s Politics

Trinamool’s notorious satrap Sheikh Shahjahan was arrested, after 55 long days, from a hideout not far from his Sandeshkhali residence on Thursday (29 February). 

But that should not be any cause for cheer. There are scores of Sheikh Shahjahans who litter Bengal’s political landscape under the shield of the state administration, presently headed by the Trinamool Congress. 

The Sheikh Shahjahans of Bengal play a critical role in perpetuating the ruling party's hold on power, especially in the rural and semi-urban areas of the state. And that is what makes these local satraps so powerful. 

Rural and semi-urban Bengal is, and has been, a picture of neglect, poverty and backwardness. Successive regimes — starting from the Congress to the Left and now the Trinamool — have had little interest in improving the plight of the people in those vast swathes of Bengal. 

Such neglect will obviously breed resentment and rebellion. And it is precisely this, and the need to contain and curb such resentment and rebellion, that makes the likes of Sheikh Shahjahan indispensable to the ruling dispensation of the day. 

Also, the subjugation of the rural and semi-urban masses is necessary to enable the leakages from welfare schemes and projects, many of them funded by the Union government, meant for development of those areas.

What is also a similarity among all the Sheikh Shahjahans of Bengal is the story of their origins and rise to power. Coming from underprivileged families, they all started off as small-time operators but came to the notice of the ruling party because of their organising skills and daring. 

Sheikh Shahjahan was an autorickshaw driver and bus conductor before he came under the tutelage of his uncle, Moslem Sheikh — a CPI(M) functionary — sometime in 2001-2002. Shahjahan started helping the ruling party CPI(M) muster crowds for meetings and rallies, and did odd jobs for the party. 

He caught the attention of district-level leaders of his party for his good organising skills and ruthlessness. Sheikh Shahjahan slowly created a band of loyalists and started extorting money from local traders and farmers. 

Since he became useful to the ruling communists, they provided protection to him. The police in Bengal, often seen as aligned with the ruling party, not only looked the other way but were allegedly complicit in Shahjahan’s crimes. 

Soon, Shahjahan was inducted into the local leadership of the CPI(M) and that gave him the stature and clout required to become more powerful. That was when his harassment of the people of Sandeshkhali started: he and his associates allegedly started occupying their lands forcibly and imposed ‘taxes’ on all traders and farmers of the area. 

Sheikh Shahjahan, like the other dons like him across Bengal, became a law unto himself.

Since Shahjahan-like political-criminal dons across Bengal have a stranglehold on the lives of people in their turf, the ruling party depends on them to stay on in power. 

The ruling party — be it the Congress and CPI(M) earlier or the Trinamool Congress now — knows that if people in the neglected and backward areas of Bengal are allowed to exercise their franchise freely, the results could be unfavourable for the ruling party. 

Hence, the rural and semi-urban populace have to be kept in check.

The role of the Sheikh Shahjahans is, however, not limited to only delivering poll victories for the ruling party. They play a crucial role in diverting funds meant for welfare and development projects and schemes in the rural and semi-urban areas to other hands allied with the ruling party.

In contemporary times, Bengal has few industries and this deprives the Trinamool Congress of corporate funding. But it needs massive funds — much more than ruling parties in other states — to fund its activities and maintain the cadre that keeps it in power. 

It is the Sheikh Shahjahans who facilitate the procurement of the required funds and also prevent people from protesting against it. 

The obvious question that arises is that if this has been going on for so many decades, why did Sandeshkhali suddenly erupt last month?

Atrocities on and exploitation of women is not unheard of in the rural and semi urban areas of Bengal. It goes unreported because nobody — the victims or their families — dare to complain against the perpetrators (who are all activists and functionaries of the party in power). 

But Shahjahan and his men went too far with their misdeeds in Sandeshkhali. Allegations of summoning women to party offices late at night and punishing those who don’t obey the summons — perhaps triggered the revolt there. Or it could be another incident that was the immediate trigger for the current uprising — Sheikh Shahjahan’s men assaulting a group of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activists one evening in early February.

This perhaps proved to be the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back and broke the massive reservoir of resentment that had been building up over so many years. 

All this explains why the Trinamool Congress leadership was so reluctant to arrest Sheikh Shahjahan and came out with various excuses, including deliberate misinterpretation of a Calcutta High Court order, to shy away from taking him into custody. 

However, as BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari said, Shahjahan’s arrest is a mere eyewash. It is likely that he will continue to call the shots in Sandeshkhali from behind bars. 

This was apparent, as BJP Rajya Sabha member and national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi pointed out, from Shahjahan’s body language, attitude and gait after his arrest. He walked into a courtroom after his arrest confidently with policemen following him.  

Shahjahan was arrested immediately after the Calcutta High Court clarified that there was no bar on the Enforcement Directorate (ED) or the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arresting him. This has led to speculation, and rightly so, that he was taken into ‘protective custody’ by the Bengal police to prevent his arrest by the central agencies. 

Sheikh Shahjahan could be out on bail before long, and the police chargesheet against him could be feeble enough for the courts to set him free.

Far from weakening the Sheikh Shahjahans of Bengal or discouraging them, Thursday’s arrest will only encourage and embolden his ilk. 

And rural and semi-urban Bengal will continue to struggle with poverty and backwardness, feeling intimidated into submission by the Shahjahans.