Even The Bhadralok Seems To Be Turning: But Will Hindu Outrage Over Anti-Waqf Protests In Bengal Sustain Till Elections Next Year?

A vast majority of Hindus in Bengal are disturbed, if not outraged, by the anti-Waqf bill protests that have singed Hindus in many parts of the state. 

The muscle-flexing by Islamists last week even on Kolkata’s roads, the unprovoked attacks on Hindu homes, temples and business establishments in Murshidabad and some other areas and the murder of two Hindu ‘kumhars’ (who craft murtis of Gods and Goddesses) by Islamist mobs, have angered Hindus. 

Videos of the violence and assertion of their religious identity by Islamists have left Hindus angry and upset and have garnered millions of views, besides furious comments. 

Last week, Islamists mobs who took over major thoroughfares of Kolkata indulged in shocking acts of bigotry. 

A video of one such incident--some Muslim men forcing the driver of a public bus to take down a saffron Ram Navmi flag to the accompaniment of shrill ululation (called zaghrouta, which is part of Islamic celebration of victory)--has triggered acute indignation among Hindus. 

Videos of vehicles sporting Hindu symbols being attacked and damaged by frenzied Islamist mobs protesting against the new Waqf Act are doing the rounds. 

Another video of Hindu men and women who were returning from a religious festival in a pickup truck being assaulted by some Muslim men has also evoked a lot of fury. 

All these acts of muscle-flexing on the streets of Kolkata and the highways of the state were complemented by violence in many Muslim-dominated areas in Hooghly, Murshidabad, Malda, Nadia and North 24 Parganas districts of Bengal.   

Islamist mobs descended on Hindu localities and attacked, looted and ransacked Hindu houses and business establishments.

According to some accounts, Hindu women were molested. The mobs also reportedly desecrated and destroyed temples and even stopped Hindu rituals. 

Two Hindu men--74-year-old Haragobinda Das and his son Chandan--who were ‘kumhars’ (idol-makers) were hacked to death inside their house at Jafrabad in Murshidabad’s Shamsherganj where Islamist mobs went on a rampage from Friday evening till Saturday morning. 

Dhuliyan (in Murshidabad) was also wracked by violence. Hundreds of Hindu houses and shops were attacked and destroyed, and hundreds of Hindu families crossed the Ganges in small country boats to seek refuge in the neighbouring Malda district. 

Reports are also coming in of attacks on Hindus in some other parts of the state. In well-planned and coordinated moves, Islamist mobs have attacked Hindus living in Muslim-majority areas of some other districts also. 

The police were also not spared--half-hearted attempts by them to lift blockades of roads and highways triggered angry attacks by Muslim protesters who assaulted the cops, damaged their vehicles and chased them away. 

Swift comparisons were made with the brutal police action on school teachers protesting government inaction that led to the Supreme Court order dismissing them from their jobs early last week.   

A photo of a police officer kicking a school teacher alongside another of an Islamist landing a flying kick on a Bengal police officer grossed millions of views and disparaging comments about the men in uniform on social media.   

What added to Hindu outrage was Bengal minister Siddiqullah Chowdhury’s speech saying that Muslims would lay indefinite siege on Kolkata by jamming its major streets after “fixing the districts”. 

The violence against Hindus in the districts started soon after this speech by Chowdhury, who is also the state president of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind.

Other Muslim religious leaders also made provocative speeches, leading to instigated Muslim mobs launching vicious attacks on Hindus. 

All these led to comparisons with Bangladesh where Islamist mobs have often gone on mindless rampage attacking and looting shops, destroying properties and attacking Hindus. 

‘Are we living in Bangladesh?’ has been a question asked by tens of thousands on social media. An analysis of reactions on social media posts to the anti-Waqf protests and attacks on Hindus reveals that almost everyone is blaming Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Muslim appeasement for the muscle-flexing by Islamists. 

“This muscle-flexing is an assertion of their religious identity and proclamation of Muslim majoritarianism. Muslim appeasement by Mamata Banerjee has led to Muslims developing a sense of immunity (from the law) and endangerment of Hindus,” BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari told Swarajya. 

“The scenes of violence by Muslim mobs, the attacks on Hindus and police by them, and the bigoted slogans raised by Muslims have made Bengal indistinguishable from Bangladesh. Repeated refusals by the law and order machinery to take action against Muslim law-breakers have emboldened them and led to this situation where Hindus are not safe in Bengal. This is all part of a concerted plan to drive away Hindus from the districts along the Indo-Bangladesh border,” former BJP state president Dilip Ghosh told Swarajya. 

Ghosh added: “Last weekend’s attacks on Hindus by Muslims should serve as a wake-up call for all Hindus. If Hindus of Bengal do not unite, the day is not far when Bengal will become part of Bangladesh. Hindus will then have no place in Bengal”. 

“This is not the first time that such incidents have happened. Muslims have been attacking and killing Hindus with impunity. They have been attacking police, setting police stations and vehicles on fire, destroying government properties and taking the law into their hands. No action has ever been taken against them because Mamata Banerjee does not want to alienate them. This has emboldened the criminal and fundamentalist elements in the Muslim community,” said BJP leader Rahul Sinha. 

Mocking the meek appeal to the Muslim community by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to maintain order, Dilip Ghosh said that unless tough and punitive action is taken against Muslims who attacked Hindus and the police, destroyed properties and went on a rampage in many parts of the state, such incidents would recur and make Bengal a deathtrap for Hindus. 

“But this time, too, Mamata Banerjee will not take tough action because she knows that her government will fall if she does so. She knows, and has even publicly acknowledged, that she remains in power because of Muslim support. She is beholden to Muslims,” said Ghosh. 

What has, however, changed this time is that Hindus of Bengal are outraged. Social media is also full of angry Hindus heaping scorn on the communists and 'iberals' who have remained mum on the recent events. 

While the Congress has remained silent on the attacks on Hindus, CPI(M) state secretary Mohammad Salim received flak for alleging that the Trinamool Congress and the BJP were both responsible for the riots.

Salim's demand for the arrest of BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, who he called the "mastermind of the riots", led to a deluge of angry comments.

The refusal of the communists to call out the perpetrators of the attacks on Hindus assumed tragic-comic proportions when Salim said that the two Hindus who were hacked to death by Muslim mobs at Shamsherganj were killed not because of their religion, but because they tried to resist the rioters!

Some of the family members of the deceased are CPI(M) supporters. Salim claimed the father-son duo were CPI(M) workers who "gave up their lives trying to prevent the riots".

"They were not killed for religion, they were killed for opposing riots," said Salim.

Many were quick to draw parallels to Bangladesh's Mohammad Yunus who has claimed that Hindus were attacked in that country not because of their religion but because they were Awami League supporters.

The Congress also faced angry criticism for its silence on the attacks on Hindus.

The only Congress leader who spoke out openly against the attacks on Hindus--former Baharampur Lok Sabha MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury--blamed the Mamata Banerjee government for inciting the attacks in order to divert attention from the crisis created by the Supreme Court order terminating the services of nearly 26,000 government school staff.

But here, too, social media users mocked Chowdhury for not calling out the Muslims who attacked Hindus.

"Chowdhury won the Baharampur (in Murshidabad district) Lok Sabha seat, which is a Muslim-majority constituency, five times since 1999. But when the Trinamool Congress fielded a Muslim candidate (former cricketer Yusuf Pathan) against Chowdhury, most of the Muslims there voted for Pathan and defeated him. That is how much the Muslims of Baharampur love Chowdhury," said Baharampur resident and prominent businessman Supratim Banerjee.

"What the Congress and CPI(M) say or do is irrelevant. They have been completely sidelined in Bengal. But their support for Islamists continues because they have to assert their fake secular credentials. And in the process, they only come across as opportunists," said Suvendu Adhikari.

What is also new this time is that large sections of the Bengali bhadralok are distressed, angry and indignant. And they’re blaming the Trinamool’s Muslim appeasement policy for the Islamist assertion that has led to attacks on Hindus. 

The reason, perhaps, is because Kolkata has suffered repeated disruptions due to Islamist mobs taking over the city’s roads last week. And also the videos of unprovoked attacks on Hindus that have flooded social media. 

“This time, the capture of Kolkata’s roads and the choking of the city’s arteries by fundamentalist Muslim mobs has driven home the danger posed by radical Islam. The realisation has also dawned on the urban elite that unabashed Muslim appeasement by Mamata Banerjee is responsible for this,” said Suvendu Adhikari. 

But while there is no doubt that the violence and muscle-flexing by Muslims in Kolkata and other parts of the state have triggered outrage among Hindus, the million dollar question is if this outrage will lead to political consolidation by the Hindus. 

Will the Hindus of Bengal realise the existential threat that they face and close ranks to unseat the Trinamool Congress from power in the state? 

“This anger and outrage (of the Hindus) will fizzle out if a sustained campaign is not launched by Hindus organisations and the BJP. The anger has to be kept alive. Public memory is always short and Hindus can easily forget what happened in April 2025 when they go to vote in the Assembly elections next year. Especially when Mamata Banerjee showers doles,” said sociologist and political commentator Indranil Guha Roy. 

BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari told Swarajya that his party is drawing a blueprint for launching a sustained campaign against Muslim appeasement that has led to this unprovoked and widespread attacks on Hindus in many parts of the state. 

“We will redouble our efforts to unite Hindus and consolidate Hindus politically. We have to make Hindus in Bengal realise that the community is facing a grave existential crisis and if Hindus don’t unite, Bengal will turn into another Bangladesh and Bengali Hindus will be left without any homeland. Hindus have to unite and prevent a division of votes,” said Adhikari. 

Dipankar Dutta Gupta, a sociologist who had taught the subject at a prominent college in Kolkata that is affiliated to Calcutta University, told Swarajya: “If the goal of uniting Hindus politically is to be achieved, prominent Hindus organisations--social, religious, charitable etc--have to dedicate themselves to the task to complement and supplement the BJP’s efforts. A multi-pronged and well-coordinated effort needs to be launched”.

“The memories of all that has happened in Bengal over last week has to be kept fresh in the minds of all Hindus till the next elections. The videos of the murders and mayhem by radical Islamist mobs in many parts of the state have to be circulated regularly so that Hindus do not forget the threat that they face,” said BJP’s Dilip Ghosh. 

But will the BJP succeed in consolidating Hindus politically? A definitive answer to that is difficult, given the dissensions within the ranks and various other shortcomings that afflict the BJP in Bengal. But the answer to this question will determine the fate of Hindus in Bengal.