The Bengal Riddle: Despite Attacks And Discrimination, Why Do Many Hindus Continue To Elect Trinamool?

Jafrabad, a small Muslim-majority town in Jangipur sub-division of Bengal’s Murshidabad district, became the ground zero of violence against Hindus by frenzied Islamist mobs protesting the newly-passed Waqf Act.

While marauding mobs attacked Hindus in some other parts of Murshidabad district as well as pockets in the rest of the state in the name of anti-Waqf Act protests, it was Jafrabad that bore the brunt of Islamist ire. 

Almost all Hindu homes in Jafrabad were attacked, looted and destroyed; two Hindu idol-makers--Haragobinda Das (74) and his son Chandan--were also killed in the small town that lies about 284 kilometres north of Kolkata. 

Jafrabad falls within Samsherganj community development block of Jangipur sub-division. The 5,100-odd Hindus of the town are vastly outnumbered by the 25,000-odd Muslims there. 

Hindus of Jafrabad face intermittent attacks and various forms of discrimination at the hands of Islamists there. Hindu residents of the town say they’re forced to live like second-class citizens there. 

Sukumar Das, who runs a small kiosk selling tea, cigarettes, and sundry provisions on Nimtala Main Road in Jafrabad, told Swarajya over phone from Dhuliyan: “We have gotten used to dadagiri by Muslims. I am often paid less for whatever I sell to them, and we face a lot of bullying from them. We have to keep quiet and suffer in silence”. 

“In recent years, many Muslims here have turned belligerent towards us and pick up fights at the slightest opportunity. We feel scared to venture out at night and many of us have sent our children, especially our daughters, away to our relatives at safer places,” Das, who has taken refuge at a relative’s place at Dhuliyan, added. 

The sorry plight of Hindus in Jafrabad mirrors that of Hindus in Samsherganj Assembly constituency where Muslim voters constitute almost 80 per cent of the 2.16 lakh-strong electorate. 

It is no wonder, then, that Muslim candidates have always bagged this seat. The sitting MLA is Amirul Islam of the Trinamool Congress; he won the seat in 2016 as well and his vote share in the 2021 elections was 51.13 per cent. 

The CPI(M) and the Congress also have a strong support base in Samsherganj and have been bagging, between themselves, a 30-40 per cent vote share. 

The BJP, which has been fielding candidates in Samsherganj since 2011 (when the constituency was formed after a delimitation exercise) has been getting a minuscule five to seven per cent votes. 

And herein lies the riddle. Hindus constitute about 20 per cent of the electorate in Samsherganj, and face discrimination and persecution frequently.

The local administration, including the police, appear apathetic to the plight of the Hindus. Mamata Banerjee’s Muslim appeasement policy is cited as the major reason for this.

Even so, just about a quarter of the Hindus of Samsherganj vote for the BJP. Most of the Hindus, despite their plight, vote for the Trinamool, or the Congress or CPI(M). 

It is worth noting that the CPI(M) and the Congress are as guilty of pursuing the Muslim appeasement as the Trinamool Congress. 

Now contrast the voting preference of Hindus of Samsherganj Assembly seat with that of the Muslim electorate of Baharampur Lok Sabha seat. 

Baharampur is the headquarters of Murshidabad district and the city lies 82 kilometres south of Samsherganj. 

The city of Baharampur, which was known as Karnasubarna (founded around 600 CE) and then Brahmapur (city of Brahmins), is dominated by Hindus who form a little over 90 per cent of its population. 

However, the other parts of the parliamentary constituency are densely populated by Muslims, mostly of East Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin. As a result, Muslims form about 52 per cent of the electorate of Baharampur Lok Sabha seat. 

The Baharampur Lok Sabha seat has, since 1952 (when India’s first parliamentary elections were held) had always been represented by Hindus. 

For 72 years since 1952, the seat was represented by the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP)--a constituency of the Left Front--and then the Congress. 

Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who was the leader of the Congress in the last Lok Sabha, won the seat for five consecutive terms since 1999. 

In fact, as if by an unwritten consensus, the two main parties--the Congress and the RSP--had always fielded Hindu candidates despite the demographic profile of the constituency. 

Even the Trinamool Congress, which threw its hat in the Baharampur ring in 2014, fielded Hindu candidates the first two times (2014 and 2019). In both those elections, the Trinamool Congress was the runners-up with 19.69 per cent and 39.26 per cent vote share respectively. 

But Mamata Banerjee changed the game last year (2024) by fielding former cricketer Yusuf Pathan. 

A rank outsider hailing from Gujarat who had never set foot in Baharampur till his candidature for the seat was announced by Mamata Banerjee, Pathan wrested the seat from veteran Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. 

Pathan’s vote share was 37.88 per cent, while Chowdhury’s was 31.74 per cent. Yusuf won only because of overwhelming support from the Muslim electorate. 

“The Muslim voters of Baharampur did not know who Yusuf Pathan was. They knew Adhir Chowdhury, a local, well. They had voted for Chowdhury since 1999. Before that, they had voted for Pramothes Mukherjee (RSP, in 1994, 1996 and 1998), Nani Bhattacharya (RSP, in 1989 and 1991), Atish Chandra Sinha (Congress, in 1984) and Tridib Chaudhuri (RSP, in 1952, 1957, 1962, 1967, 1971, 1977 and 1980). But as soon as they had a Muslim candidate fielded by a strong party (the Trinamool), they switched allegiance to him,” said BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari. 

What this means, contended political scientist Nihar Sengupta, is that Muslim electors will always prefer to vote for a fellow Muslim, even if he or she is unknown to them.

“The Muslim electorate is very clear in its mind: it will vote for a strong Muslim candidate or a Muslim candidate fielded by a strong party. Sentiments and past associations do not matter,” Sen, a retired professor of Calcutta University who hails from Baharampur, told Swarajya.

Interestingly, the BJP fielded a Muslim candidate--Mohasin Ali Mondal--from the Baharampur Lok Sabha seat in a byelection (caused by the death of the sitting RSP MP Nani Bhattacharya) in 1994. Mondal polled over 1.28 lakh votes and his vote share was 19.85 per cent. 

But in the next general election in 1996, the BJP fielded a Hindu candidate (Subhendu Biswas) who got just 6.05 per cent votes. 

This clearly suggests that Muslim voters will even vote for the BJP if the saffron party fields a Muslim candidate. And when they get a Muslim candidate nominated by a strong party, they will have no qualms about shifting allegiance even from the so-called secular parties like the Congress and the Left they had supported for many decades.

Hindu voters in Bengal, in contrast, exhibit a different approach to voting. 

Statewide scenario is quite the same   

Hindus form 68 per cent of the 7.6 crore electorate of Bengal. Bengali Hindus form 54 per cent of the electorate while non-Bengali Hindus (Gujaratis, Marwaris and people of UP and Bihar origin, Gorkhas and tribals) form about 14 per cent of the electorate. 

Thus, of the 7.6 crore voters in Bengal, Bengali Hindu voters number 4.1 crore and non-Bengal Hindu voters number 1.06 crore. Muslim voters number 2.43 crore.

The voter turnout in Bengal averages about 80 per cent. But here, the turnout of Muslim voters is above 90 per cent and in some cases, as high as 94 per cent. The turnout of Hindu voters is a much lower 65 per cent on an average.

Of the 5.16 crore Hindu voters (Bengalis+Non-Bengalis) in Bengal, a little over 3.51 crore go to cast their votes. 

But of the 2.43 crore Muslims, about 2.18 crore exercise their franchise. Thus, even though Hindu voters vastly number Muslim voters in Bengal by more than 2:1, the number of Hindu voters who make the effort to cast their votes is just about 1.33 crore more than the number of Muslim voters who vote. 

If the difference in the number of Hindu and Muslim voters (who cast their votes) is spread evenly across all 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state, the figure then comes to a little over 3.16 lakh. 

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Trinamool Congress got 2.75 crore votes (45.76 per cent vote share) while the BJP bagged 2.33 crore votes (38.73 per cent vote share). The Trinamool Congress thus received 42.37 lakh more votes than the BJP. 

It can assumed with some certainty that almost all the votes that the BJP polled in 2024 were Hindu votes. So of the 3.51 crore Hindus who cast their votes last year, 2.33 crore voted for the BJP. That means the BJP received 66 per cent of the votes cast by Hindus. 

Thus, about 34 per cent of Hindus (about 1.18 crore) vote for other parties, primarily the Trinamool. And also the Congress and the Left parties, but in smaller numbers. 

A majority of the 66.45 lakh votes that the Congress and the Left parties polled in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were Hindu votes.

One-third of Hindus vote for Trinamool and non-BJP parties

So why do the 34 per cent Hindus vote for the non-BJP parties, especially the Trinamool Congress?

Hindus have been at the receiving end of attacks by fundamentalist Muslim mobs who have attacked Hindu religious processions, curbed Hindu rituals and have shown their intolerance towards Hindus very often. 

The state machinery, thanks to Mamata Banerjee’s appeasement policy, has often sided with the Islamists and acquiesced to their unreasonable demands for curbs on Hindu processions and rituals. 

Islamist perpetrators of violence against Hindus have seldom been prosecuted, thus making them develop a sense of impunity. This has emboldened them to harass and persecute Hindus in areas where they are present in substantial numbers. 

However, even in areas where they (the Islamists) are not numerically strong, they have been bold enough to attack Hindus. 

Take the case of Champadani, a town in Chandannagore subdivision of Hooghly district. Hindus, including non-Bengali Hindus, form more than 76 per cent of the population. 

But their lack of numbers did not prevent the radical Muslims of Champadani from attacking Hindu properties while protesting the Waqf Act after namaz last Friday (April 11). 

Hundreds of Muslim men carrying sticks and rods launched sudden and unprovoked attacks on Hindu properties. Videos of these attacks have been widely shared on social media. 

Hindus, though much larger in numbers, sought help from police. But the Muslim mob chased away the police. Though no Hindu was physically attacked, many Hindu properties suffered substantial damages. 

When young Hindu men, especially from the non-Bengali communities, gathered to form resistance groups in case of more attacks from Muslims, the police who had failed to control the marauding Islamist mobs intervened and dispersed the Hindu youths. The police even counselled them against taking the law into their own hands.

Thus, even in places where Muslims are a small minority, there is no stopping Islamists from attacking Hindus.  

Hindus, especially in the rural and semi-urban areas, and also in small towns like Champadani spread across Bengal, know and suffer this. 

But at least one-third of them demonstrably vote for the Trinamool Congress, the Congress and the Left parties. It is estimated that at least 28 per cent to 30 per cent Hindus who exercise their franchise vote for the Trinamool Congress.  

Why do many Hindus support Muslim appeasers?

The reasons are many. One of the primary ones is the doles that Mamata Banerjee hands out to voters, especially the women.

Despite Mamata Banerjee’s claims, the fact remains that unemployment is acute in the state. Agricultural yields are declining sharply, mainly due to the highly fragmented nature of land holdings. 

Hence, a large section of people, especially in the rural and semi-urban areas, have little to go by. The doles handed out by the Trinamool Congress government, thus, makes a substantial difference to the family budgets of a huge number of poor.

The many schemes for students, including girl students, enable lakhs of boys and girls to go to schools and colleges and pursue higher education.  

This indebtedness to Mamata Banerjee for the doles her government hands out makes many poor people, including Hindus, vote for the Trinamool Congress in every election. 

Also, many of them are Trinamool workers or supporters, and get direct and indirect benefits from the party. 

On the ground, a small favour from a Trinamool leader like permission to run a tea stall or shop on government land, or run an auto-rickshaw illegally without paying taxes, matters a lot. That is also why the lakhs of people who run micro enterprises illegally vote for the Trinamool.

To many Bengali Hindus, the BJP is viewed as a party of outsiders. The Trinamool Congress has been quite successful in creating this impression, which has only got strengthened by some missteps of the BJP itself. 

The pronounced sub-nationalism among Bengali Hindus makes them turn away from the BJP which they view as a ‘North Indian’ party whose culture is alien to that of Bengal. 

The BJP, admittedly, has done little to counter this impression. 

A major factor for Hindus not voting for the BJP in much larger numbers is the saffron party’s weak organisational base. This means that the BJP lacks the strength on the ground to ensure that its supporters can go to the polling booths fearlessly and cast their votes. 

In West Bengal, where political violence is widespread and intense, it is important for a party to ensure the safety of its supporters. 

A political party has to have a strong organisational base to counter a rival election machinery that 'rigs' elections. 

The BJP lacks this and, hence, even though many Hindus may want to vote for the party, they simply cannot muster the courage to go to the polling booth and cast their votes fearlessly without inviting retribution from the ruling party's cadre. 

The BJP does not even have enough karyakartas on the ground to deploy them as polling agents inside booths to resist attempts at organised rigging. 

The urban Bengali Hindu, especially in Kolkata and other urban centres in South Bengal, has long been afflicted with the communist bug. 

This is why most of them had supported the Left and, after the communists faded away from Bengal’s political landscape, shifted allegiance to the Trinamool Congress. 

This section of Bengali Hindus harbour an antipathy towards the BJP and view it as a communal party. They are the ones who provide intellectual heft to the Trinamool Congress. 

Strangely, even non-Bengali Hindus do not prefer to vote for the BJP. In the few Assembly constituencies of the state where non-Bengalis are present in large numbers, it is the Trinamool Congress which wins. 

This is because the BJP has failed to prop up popular faces from the non-Bengali communities. The state BJP leadership has not only ignored the non-Bengali Hindus, but have sidelined young, articulate karyakartas among them who have a standing in their community. 

The Trinamool’s outreach to the no n-Bengali Hindu communities has been much stronger than that of the BJP. Some non-Bengali Hindus within the saffron party told Swarajya that the impression is that the state BJP’s organisational leadership is not really interested in their votes. 

Internal dissensions within the BJP, especially its top leadership, coupled with the party’s failure to project a leader who is acceptable across the state and to all sections of Hindus, including the urban Bengali bhadralok, has also kept many Bengali Hindus from voting for the BJP. 

Thus, the Hindu voter in Bengal is not to blame alone for voting in parties which appease Islamists.     

The many failings of the BJP also account for the Hindus of Bengal not voting for the BJP in much larger numbers.