Bengal’s violent politics of area domination

Eight people were burnt to death in a village in the State’s Birbhum district on March 21, as a retaliation to the killing of a local leader. What makes West Bengal so susceptible to vendetta politics and deadly violence? Why are factional feuds on the rise? Shiv Sahay Singh reports from Bogtui

As smoke from houses set on fire continues to rise, villagers are confronted with uncomfortable questions. How will people who have lost family members come to terms with their loss? Will they return? What will they return to? The answers are up in the air as Bogtui village in West Bengal’s Birbhum district witnessed an unprecedented violence on March 21. Eight persons — six women, one child and one man — were burnt to death.

In 48 hours, the fires have been doused, but there is simmering anger and grief. When Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee left Bogtui on March 24, after making elaborate announcements on compensation and rehabilitation to the violence-affected villagers, Sukhtara Khatoon could not hold back anymore. She began recounting the events of the night, as tears flowed. “I hid under the bed. They burnt my entire family to death before my own eyes. When I finally managed to break the lock to pull them out, they were in a terrible condition,” she said. A few other women joined her on the village road, weeping inconsolably, surrounded by policemen. “We don’t want any money, we want the perpetrators to be brought to justice,” they said. It is not unusual for men to flee villages in West Bengal after clashes or bouts of violence. But setting fire to homes where women and children were hiding, after locking them from outside, is a first for a State accustomed to violence over area dominance.

There is little doubt that the violence at Bogtui, located more than 220 km from Kolkata, was in retaliation to the murder of the Trinamool Congress deputy pradhan Bhadu Sheikh, who was killed on the evening of March 21. In less than an hour, his supporters went on a rampage in the village picking and choosing houses belonging to rival Trinamool Congress camps in the village. It was at the house of Sona Sheikh, once an associate of Bhadu, that seven charred bodies were recovered on March 22.

Even though people had assembled in two groups (relatives of victims of the fire and Bhadu Sheikh’s family) at two different locations when the Chief Minister arrived, a majority of the villagers owe their allegiance to the State’s ruling party. The violence was the result of a factional feud brewing between supporters of the ruling Trinamool Congress, but this is not the only kind of violence which West Bengal has witnessed in the past few months.

Days before the Bogtui horror, on March 13, two elected municipal representatives were shot dead within hours of each other. Video grab from a CCTV showed Anupam Dutta, a Trinamool Congress councillor of Panihati municipality, riding pillion on a motorbike when an assailant emerged from nowhere and shot him in the head. The Trinamool Congress leader slumped to the ground. Hours before that Congress councillor Tapan Kandu was shot dead at Jhalda municipality in Purulia district. The municipality had thrown up a hung mandate in the civic polls and Kandu was allegedly under pressure to shift allegiance to the Trinamool Congress so that the ruling party could have a board at the civic body located in one of the most backward districts of the State about 300 km from Kolkata. The death of student leader Anish Khan in Howrah, where police personnel barged into his house in the early hours of February 19 and allegedly pushed him to death from the second floor, had exposed the link between local leaders and the police.

Over the past few years, there have been several incidents of violence, a similar thread running through each. The use of violence for area domination has been normalised, and it is linked to money and muscle-power, contends Anuradha Talwar, a social activist. Together with this, the thwarting of dissent helps the party in power during elections, at all levels, to sway votes in its favour. However, the politics of area domination creates bitter feuds and rivalries, sometimes in the same party, among leaders who are always competing with each other for a share of resources from the State-run panchayat and other government funds.

At Bogtui, the dispute was also about the share (‘bokhra’), the villagers claimed. “There was a dispute about the share [from panchayat funds, and businesses linked to sand, coal and stone chips]. These days everyone wants a share,” Marfat Sheikh, father of Bhadu Sheikh, said, when asked what led to the murder of his son.