I no longer want to write such stuff. I have already written enough. Still, today I am forced to write a few words in favour of my countrymen—the men who toil in farm and factory, in four corners of our country to eke out a bare living. It is my moral responsibility to uphold the truth, to speak for the oppressed.
The entire SIR process (Special Intensive Revision) is not clear, full of alleged mistakes. And in Bengal its foremost target is a community. On 28 Februry, 2026, it is proved. Reports suggest 60 lakh people in the Final Draft List are declared ‘Under Adjudication’( UA) category. And unfortunately, majority of them are Muslim.
We are learnt that UA simply means that the documents submitted during SIR Hearing are still pending to be verified. Hopefully, they will be verified. And hopefully, many of them will clear SIR tests, as almost all of them have valid documents.
The columnists, the TV anchors, the politicians, the cultural activists, the educated– all know well from the very beginning that SIR has a design. Everybody—from the chaiwala to the chairman, from the peon to the professor, from the hawker to the hand-bill delivery sisters and brothers know it well who they are.
Certain communities are safe (with some exceptions, for example, the Matuas, Namasudras), not for any valid documents, but for their names. A specific community is the aim. Bengal needs to be purged from the unwanted working mass.
Booth after booth, polling station after polling station reflects the same trend. A specific community is finding their Muslim neighbours are Under Adjudication (UA). On what basis? On what logical ground? Hindus and Muslims are living for ages together. They are born in the same yard, in the same hospital or nursing home. They work in the same farm. They die and are burnt or buried in the same adjacent burning ghat or burial field. I think they have the same documents. Nothing less or more.
So, why this logical discrepancies? Why is their fate hanging in the balance? Who are responsible for their harassment? Who will take the responsibility?
I say nobody will take the responsibility. Here the party colours mingle to crush the downtrodden. Here the party bosses, the hardliners and the softliners, the saviours of the oppressed and the oppressing monsters will dine happily on the bones of the ill-fated working people.
Muslims are burning, in fact at every home. Not a single Muslim is freed from SIR harassment. An individual Muslim may find her name fine in the Final Draft Roll, but her sisters and borthers and relations, close or distant, are in panic. In Bengal village after village, district after district the voters of a certain community are in fear and anxiety. What an irony? The lie is imposed on them, and the working people of Bengal are hurrying and scurrying like ants in a boiling pot.
Three interesting issues are emerging:
1) Neighbours, friends of a specific community, summoned for SIR Hearing and have shared the same fear and anxiety till 27 February, on 28 February they suddenly fall into silence. They seem to have suddenly lost interest in SIR.
2) Educated Muslims who have been rallying under this or that party till date are suddenly pushed against the wall to launch some platforms to save their rights to vote. These platforms have hardly mass contacts who are the worst victims of SIR process as they are illiterate, unfed working people. They work hard from sunrise to sunset to bear the burden of their family. They don’t know what is happening in the land. They are living dead. Such living dead you find in each corner of Bengal irrespective of their religion. I am not sure how the educated and popular online savvy platform organizers will take the case of the underdogs who are the real sufferers.
3) What a pity! We are launching platforms to save our rights to vote. If our right to vote is restored, we will fall to the feet of their respective political goddesses and gods.
Where the right to life of the marginalized is being crushed at each moment, what do you do with your right to vote? Have you ever ask at the dead of night whom do you vote and whose hand we bolster? Have we still been able to recognise our enemies at home and abroad? Have you ever asked why do you vote at all?
In Bengal the Adivasis, Dalits, women and minorities are the fodder of all the political parties, small or big, ruling or in opposition, irrespective of their colour or ideology. The brahmanical forces rule the roost. So, it hardly matters in Bengal, who win and who lose; who come to power and who sit in opposition. The political and economic control must be in hand of the brahmanical forces. And ironically, the non- brahmanical elements (the working people) are as happy as the first boy to serve the fringe brahmanical power to their destruction and death.
Simply put, people must ask who are really suffering due to SIR exercise. Whose and life and death are hanging in the balance? Who have lost sleep and why? Are they the leaders of the vulnerable and the oppressed? Does caste matter in Bengal or not? Are we not witnessing a particular pattern of honeymoon between caste and class? Which caste is oppressing whom? Must we not ask?
In Bengal if we vote for our own profits, we should move ahead. If we think for the survival of the oppressed, irrespective of caste or community or religion or language or even nationality, we need to seriously think and change the ways we have been treading on for over 75 years.
