Being a Bangla-speaking Indian citizen tends to be bad. To be a Bangla-speaking Muslim Indian citizen is worse. And to be a Bangla-speaking Muslim Indian citizen hailing from Murshidabad is the worst. A crime indeed!
In our land, to be a Bangla-speaking Muslim Murshidabadi migrant is itself a punishable offence. His existence is an eyesore not only to the non-Bengali ladies and gentlemen of India in general but to the caste bhadroloks of Bengal in particular.
Mehbub Sheikh of Murshidabad and Netai Mondal of Murshidabad (Let the upper echelons of Bengal have a go in this case) are of the same class. But can they be the same? Netai Mondal cannot be a Bangladeshi, following the popular sentiments of our people. But Mehbub is a doubtful case. He may have all the valid documents applicable for Indian Citizenship.
Being a non-Muslim has many advantages in Bengal and the rest of the country. Class matters. Caste and community matter more, especially in Bengal. Certain castes, irrespective of party colours, party lines, have a monopoly over thousands of castes in Bengal.
It has happened in Maharashtra. But it is happening in every place across the country. It is happening in trains, buses, workplaces, on roads, in streets, in neighbourhoods. Who will report? How many will they report? And to whom?
Why does a poor Muslim labourer from Murshidabad have to suffer such humiliation, such harassment? Why is he suspected to be a Bangladeshi national, in spite of having valid proof of his nationality? Who is acting for whom and for whose interest?
The humiliation of Mehbub Sheikh is the tip of the iceberg. Such Sheikhs are scattered across Indian cities and suburbs. They do manual and menial jobs for a bundle of notes. And with that money, they keep their family going—medicines for elderly parents, education for children, marriage for their sisters and so on. They are the sole earning members of these families, and they earn some money through their hard and risky work.
Bangla-speaking Muslims have nowhere to go. As Muslim name bearers, they are stereotyped in the mainstream Hindu imagination as traitors and terrorists. And See! Their mother tongue has now increasingly been a source of harassment and humiliation. Mother tongue is akin to mother’s breast (matri vasha matri dugdher soman). And that mother tongue has been a barrier to their survival. What a mockery! What a joke we are witnessing today.
Now, the Bangla-speaking Muslim labourers of Murshidabad are afraid of going outside the state. Some months back, they were driven out of Odisha.
Some leaders are giving a homecoming call to the Sheikhs? But do the migrant labourers, Sheikhs of Murshidabad, really have a home? Mehbubs have no homes. Where an educated, relatively better Muslim is denied a home at hotels, a flat or a plot in neighbourhoods, how can a Muslim migrant labour have a home in the city of joy or its surroundings?
I ask this of the so called progressive academics and activists of Bengal. Is there a home in Bengal for a Mehbub Sheikh?
(Picture credit: Indian Express)
