Kolkata: Union home minister Amit Shah left no stones unturned on Thursday to please the Koch Rajbangshi community of north Bengal – the largest scheduled caste group in the state which can influence election results in around 20 assembly seats in four districts.
Shah first went to the residence of Ananta Rai, a self-styled ‘Maharaja’ of Cooch Behar, who has been living in Assam since August 2020 to evade arrest by the police in West Bengal, where he is wanted in a number of police cases.
He leads a faction of the Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association (GCPA), which has a history of leading movements – often using violence as a mode of action – and seeks to carve out of the district of Cooch Behar and some adjoining areas of West Bengal and Assam to establish the state of Greater Cooch Behar.
Shah had breakfast at Rai’s residence of Ananta Ray in Chirang district of Assam and the meeting appeared to have ended on a sweet note, as Rai told media persons after the meeting that Shah had “accepted all long-pending demands of the Koch-Rajbangshi people” and that “good days were coming” for the community.
After that meeting, Shah came to Cooch Behar to address a public gathering, eulogised the heroics of the erstwhile princely state of Cooch Behar, and said that the tales of the bravado of the army of the dynasty, known as Narayani Sena, were known even in Gujarat. “Thinking of them, the Mughals used to count stars during daytime,” Shah said.
Shah also announced that the Indian paramilitary forces would name a battalion after the Narayani Sena and a training centre of the paramilitary forces will be named after Chila Rai, the legendary general of the Narayan dynasty army in the 16th century.
BJP supporters attend a public meeting addressed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the launch of forth phase of Poribortan Yatra, ahead of the West Bengal assembly polls, in Cooch Behar, Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021. Photo: PTI
The background of a desperation
Shah’s desperation was palpable, even though his announcements fell slightly short of expectations, as the Rajbangshi community’s demand for a Narayani Regiment in the Indian army has been longstanding. During the Cooch Behar’s merger agreement with India in 1949, it was decided that the name Narayani will be retained in India’s state forces even after members of the Cooch army were absorbed in the Indian armed forces.
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The BJP had made this electoral promise in Cooch Behar ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in which they managed to wrest the seat from the TMC. It became evident from the poll results that the members of the community had overwhelmingly voted for the BJP.
However, in January this year, Cooch Behar district Trinamool Congress chief Partha Pratim Roy – citing an RTI reply to Udayranjan Roy Prodhani, an assistant professor at a college in Dhubri in Assam – alleged that the Indian government had no plans to introduce a Narayani Regiment in the Army and that the BJP was fooling the Rajbangshi people with empty promises.
As the TMC launched a campaign across the district citing this RTI reply, the BJP immediately went into damage control mode. Moreover, this ‘RTI expose’ came barely two months after Mamata Banerjee announced the creation of a Narayani Battalion in the state police.
Besides, over the past one year, chief minister Mamata Banerjee has managed to win over a section of the community, especially with Bangshi Badan Barman, the leader of the other faction of GCPA, standing by her side.
Speaking to The Wire, a day after Shah’s visit, Barman said, “The BJP only makes promises. They fooled the people of Cooch Behar in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by promising Narayani Regiment in the Army. Mamata Banerjee, on the other hand, gave no promise but did whatever we asked for.”
Barman then cited the formation of the battalion in the state police, the creation of Rajbanghi Development Board and Rajbangshi (Language) Academy, approval to 200 Rajbangshi-medium primary schools and announcing a state holiday on the birth anniversary of Panchanan Barma, a leading icon of the community, as among the many steps Banerjee took for the community.
It was on their suggestion that Banerjee initiated the appointment of the first person from the community for vice-chancellor of a university, Barman claimed.
“We are telling people that since Mamata Banerjee has stood by our community, we too should stand by her,” Barman said on Friday. He has been touring different districts in north Bengal over the last few months, seeking to strengthen Mamata Banerjee’s hand.
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A profile of the community
According to the Census of 2001, the Rajbanshis had a population of 3,386,617 in West Bengal, making up 18.4% of the state’s total Scheduled Caste population. West Bengal has the highest SC population in India after Uttar Pradesh, with 23.5% of Bengal’s population belonging to the SC communities.
During the 1990s and the following decade, the GCPA, besides the Kamtapur People’s Party and the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation, was engaged in a battle for carving out a state of Cooch Behar and its adjoining areas in north Bengal and Assam. Barman himself spent six and a half years in jail in connection with leading violent protests.
Most of these organisations’ jailed leaders were released after the Mamata Banerjee government came to power and partially implemented her electoral promise of releasing political prisoners jailed during the Left regime. Apart from Maoists, people jailed in connection with most other movements were released during 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Ananta Rai ‘Maharaj’, however, landed in a major controversy in 2016 when it was learnt that he was raising a volunteer force called Narayani Sena and the TMC alleged that the Border Security Force (BSF) was training them. The BSF had promptly refuted the charge and the state police subsequently launched a crackdown on Rai’s supporters.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee addresses a public rally at Kalna, in Burdwan district, Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2021. Photo: PTI
However, neither Barman nor Rai raised the issue of statehood in recent times.
The Rajbangshis are spread across the districts of Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduars, North Dinajpur and South Dinajpur.
In the TMC and the BJP’s battle for north Bengal, this community is expected to play a crucial role. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won all the five seats where members of these community live.
According to a local member of the community who did not want to be identified, “One of the reasons most of us voted for the BJP was its promise to drive away infiltrators and the other was the promise of the Narayani regiment in the Army, which would have been a huge recognition. The community hopes such a Regiment will open job opportunities for the community in the Army.”
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The CAA and NRC
The community has an issue with infiltration from Bangladesh which they have alleged was changing the demographic character of their homeland. They have long been demanding land purchase restrictions in the manner of tribal-dominated areas in the northeast. Cooch Behar, North Dinajpur and South Dinajpur share a border with Bangladesh and have a sizable Muslim population.
While a section of the community has previously shown its support for a citizenship screening drive akin to Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC), they have also shown their opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act, or the CAA, which the BJP hopes will win it support from the Hindu migrants from Bangladesh in West Bengal.
On Thursday, Shah promised to end infiltration from Bangladesh once a BJP government came to power in the state but remained silent on the issue of CAA.
Later in the day, while addressing a rally in the refugee-dominated Thakurnagar area of south Bengal, where people wanted to hear some remarks from Shah over the implementation of the CAA, the home minister stopped short of giving a definitive timeline. He said that the CAA would be implemented once the COVID-19 vaccination drive was over.
Snigdhendu Bhattacharya is a journalist and author based in Kolkata.