Why Prime Minister Modi is visiting a shrine in Bangladesh

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is embarking on a two-day state visit to Dhaka on March 26 to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence. Among his significant visits on March 27 will be a helicopter ride to Orakandi Thakur bari, a shrine around 200 kilometres south-west of Dhaka. The visit is key to the West Bengal elections which also begin on March 27. The shrine is revered by the Matua community, which comprises Hindu-Dalit refugees who fled from Bangladesh after 1947 and 1971 to India after facing religious persecution.

As part of its poll campaign in West Bengal, the BJP has been wooing Matua voters. There are 17 million Matua voters spread over 84 constituencies in the state. The BJP recognises them as a key demographic to please in order to wrest power from the Trinamool Congress.

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This, though, is not the first time the BJP is reaching out to the community. In February 2019, ahead of the Lok Sabha election, PM Modi flew in to Thakurnagar, North 24 Paraganas, to meet Matua matriarch Binapani Devi, also known as Boroma, a fourth-generation descendant of the sect’s founder Harichand Thakur. He sought her blessings and touched her feet. Her grandson, Shantanu Thakur, contesting on a BJP ticket against his aunt Mamata Bala, won from Bangaon constituency with a huge margin of one lakh votes.

Two years later, the contest has intensified. The BJP, though, is on uneven footing with the community. It has failed so far to grant them citizenship, a promise it had made in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Today, the BJP is wooing the community with the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

Orakandi is the birthplace of Harichand Thakur. After his death, one of his sons, Guruchand Thakur, helped to organise the sect and its people. But the power doesn’t simply rest within the Thakur family still. The Matuas today have found a leader in Narottam Biswas who is not part of the Thakur family. The TMC has fielded Biswas from Gaighata constituency, which houses the Matua headquarters in North 24 Parganas. The TMC has been popularising the fact that Biswas’ grandparents are not only among the donors of the main Harichand Thakur temple in Orakandi, the one Modi is due to visit soon, but they also built another temple in Thakur’s name in the Saplidana area of Gopalgunge, Bangladesh.

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The decision to field Biswas as a candidate was taken after the aggrieved Matua followers petitioned chief minister Mamata Banerjee to keep politics away from the Thakurbari. Over the past decade, since Mamata came to power in 2011, family members of Thakurbari were pitched by political parties and sent to Legislative Assembly and Parliament. The BJP, dangling the CAA carrot, has also attempted to charm its way into the first family and break the hegemony of the TMC.

The Matuas, though, had to weather the CAA storm alone despite Shantanu’s win. The leader, surprisingly, went missing after his victory in 2019-20. When the Matuas needed him the most—to clear the confusion and controversy being stoked by the TMC around the grey areas of the CAA—Shantanu was nowhere to be found. The murky rules to apply for citizenship rights involved them declaring they had an ancestral home in Bangladesh. The Matuas feared that such a declaration could jeopardise their position within India and render voter cards and other identification documents as null and void. Stoking such fears, the TMC tried to recover lost ground.

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Insulating the Thakurbari from politics was the principal demand of the apolitical All India Harichand, Guruchand Bhakta Matua Sangha. Harichand Thakur was a social reformer, who empowered Charals/ Chandals (who were later included in the 1907 Census as Namashudras) from the oppression of Manuvaad or Brahmanical faith and who sought refuge in Christianity or Islam. Matuas have 2 per cent Muslim and 1 per cent Christians among their members and their philosophy doesn’t allow one religion to prevail over another. Therefore, the Matuas did not appreciate the chants of “Jai Shree Ram” or the political sloganeering of the BJP or TMC from its temple compound.

Among the Matuas’ other demands is an official holiday to commemorate the birth-anniversary of Harichand Thakur, a university in his name, and that a chapter on his life be included in schools’ history syllabus. The Sangha put forward Biswas’ name as candidate for the assembly poll and the TMC readily agreed. Moreover, Mamata has fulfilled almost all their demands and also created a Matua Development Board comprising ordinary members of the sect, to look after the development of the Matuas. A grant of Rs 10 crore has also been sanctioned for this.

As a counter move, the BJP has fielded a direct descendent of the Thakurbari and Shantanu’s elder brother, Subrata Thakur. Subrata has a degree in hospitality management from a University in Sydney. “All said and done, Matuas will vote for someone who is in the bloodline of Harichand and Guruchand Thakur and not an outsider. Narottam might claim to be a devout follower, but he doesn’t belong to the first family. Why will people accept him as a leader when cases of gold-smuggling are slapped in Mumbai court against him?” says Dhyanesh Narayan, who joined the BJP recently after years of being with the TMC.

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In 2019, the BJP had secured a lead of 35,000 votes in Gaighata. Making Biswas a face of the Matuas has caused considerable heartburn among old TMC leaders and supporters. “Narottam is a new entrant and he could manage a ticket because of his nexus with MLA Jyotipriyo Mullick, who arranged a meeting between Narottam and Abhishek Banerjee,” says a TMC insider on condition of anonymity. This difference in opinion within the TMC will likely work in the BJP’s favour.

According to Narayan, Modi’s Orakandi visit has already created much excitement among Matua supporters. Moreover, the promise of citizenship via the CAA in the BJP’s election manifesto along with a financial assistance of Rs 10,000 a year to all Matua households for the next five years and pension for Matua persons, will further strengthen the party’s position in the community. “The mood is upbeat. Subrata is yet to hit the roads. Just wait and see what happens when he does. I am sure both Modi and Shah will line up their rallies in Gaighata to consolidate the Matua votes, which are a bit scattered with too many small fries in the poll pan,” says Narayan.

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