West Bengal Elections: Neither A Voter, Nor A Citizen, Only A ‘Delete’

“Stripped of my name and what I am?

On soil I worked with my own hands?

…

The people’s hearts are my identity.

Go, take my passport away from me.”

―Passport (1964), by Mahmoud Darwish

As Gouranga Pandey cycles away with a torrid smile, his neighbours call him in unison. Pushing his brakes, he walks back. “He is delete(d),” a woman remarks. For the people of Karol, a hamlet in West Bengal’s Thakurnagar, of the Gaighata assembly (reserved) constituency, the word ‘delete’ has become an identity. For adults, while it is a diurnal reality check, for the children it is playful slang. Pandey, whose family had immigrated to Bengal from Bangladesh at the fag end of the 1980s, has found his wife and his name deleted after the adjudication process in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in the state.

“If people whose grandfathers were born here have had their names deleted, how do we as udbastu (refugee) people expect anything better? The numbers and the processes are too complex for a poor person like me to understand,” says Pandey. Most other people in the village, who belong to the Matua community―a marginalised Namashudra Hindu sect who were earlier considered avarnas―form the second-largest Scheduled Castes (SCs) community in the state. With most of them tracing their roots back to Bangladesh, the community’s history on both sides of the borders has been shaped by religious persecution, displacement, and a constant search for permanent identity.

“But it is okay, it’s just one election. We have been assured that the government at the centre will fix all of these once polls are done,” says Pandey, only to be violently interrupted by the people who had gathered. It was evidently not okay. For the people of Karol, around 90 km from Kolkata and 20 km from the India-Bangladesh border, couched in the middle of a Sal forest, it was a violation of everything this land promised them.

With over 30 per cent deletions from an initial number of 828 voters, life in the Matua village is suddenly all about negotiations with uncertainty again. According to data accessed by Outlook, the Gaighata assembly constituency, following an initial deletion figure of 6,769 voters, saw a rejection rate close to 88 per cent during the adjudication process, bringing the total deletions to 26,373, shrinking the electorate by about 10 per cent. The village, which falls under Ward 52 of the border constituency, with its high Under Adjudication (UA) rejection rate broadly reflects the pattern of deletion across the North 24 Parganas district which accounts for one of the highest number of deletions in the state at 12.7 lakh.

“It feels like a system designed to harass us,” says an animated Anita Mondal, breaking away from the reticent demeanour of the people who had gathered. Bringing out her list of documents, which included her Aadhaar, PAN, Voter ID-Card, School Certificate and 2002 electoral rolls with the names of her parents, she said, “They said they would allow Aadhaar. They wanted Madhyamik certificate, but my parents could not afford to keep me in school after Standard six. I have a signed certificate. My parents are on the 2002 roll. What the hell do they want after this?” For 48-year-old Mondal, who emigrated from Bangladesh when she was hardly a year old, the thought of being disenfranchised triggers a generational anger at being forced ‘to not belong’. Having been a voter since 2005, the sight of the names of herself, her husband, and son, who was born in India, deleted after being put under adjudication angers Mondal.

With almost 15 supplementary lists published since the adjudication process began, voters of Karol village of Thakurnagar awaited with bated breath. However, almost all placed under UA found their names removed after the process. “Do you come from the government?” asked Janaki Bala, another deleted voter nearing 70, with a hopeful spring in her voice. The question tipped the dominoes, as word spread around the village that people ‘from the government’ had come to help reinstate their names to the voter lists. Within a few minutes, people gathered near the temple yard with documents in their hands, making sure they did not miss one.

“This is how anxious they are,” says Sadananda Bala, a member of the local body. “The sight of anybody dressed in a shirt makes them scurry and rummage for every last document with momentary hope.” With people of the village aware that appellate tribunals are still looking at the appeals after adjudication, hope remains a solid constant among the Matuas. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court, invoking Article 142, ordered the ECI to release revised supplementary rolls two days before both the polling dates for the deleted voters whose names are cleared by the appellate tribunals. But the fate of almost 27 lakh deleted voters (more than 40 per cent of the 60 lakh voters placed UA) still remains undecided as tribunal hearings are underway.

Ripon Mondal, another deleted Matua voter, strongly holds on to the belief that lower caste votes do not matter to the people in power. Holding his documents tight he says, “All four names in our family have been deleted. Barring my mother, my wife, sister, and I were born here. I had also submitted my Standard Eight certificate along with every other document. What makes me ineligible then? I probably have my death certificate somewhere in this folder as well.” The area fell silent.

“I think death is better than existing in uncertainty. Today, I am not a voter. Tomorrow, I might not be an Indian. If being born here and having my family build itself from scratch for 50 years does not make me an Indian, I do not wish to be one. Somewhere in the pile of documents, I often think I might end up finding my death certificate,” Ripon clarified, as others nodded in acknowledgment.

For Matuas, however, the promise of citizenship has played an important role in determining the politics of the SC-dominated border regions of the district. The political lines of the area converge at Thakurbari, home to the Thakurs, the founding family of the Matua dharma. Built in the name of reformer and anti-caste crusader Harichand Thakur and his wife, Shaanti Maata, the establishment sprawls across a large area with the houses of all major political leaders representing both the TMC and the BJP camps from the family situated next to each other. In Gaighata, the primary contest will be between incumbent BJP MP Subrata Thakur, a prominent face of the Thakur family and the TMC’s Matua face Narottam Biswas, as the latter looks to wrest power and influence from the saffron camp in the region.

“They guaranteed us citizenship through the Citizen (Amendment) Act (CAA). Now, they are taking away our voting rights. We were being used. It was a mistake trusting the Prime Minister,” adds Ripon, outlining the problems the people of the village have had to face regarding CAA registrations. Numerous CAA offices and helpdesks dot the Thakurbari area, as a few thousand applications are pending.

The villagers, most of whom are daily wage earners, claim that they had filed for the CAA with Rs 900, but most of them have not received a single update regarding their applications. The constituency, among the four Matua-dominated ones in the district, had voted in favour of the BJP in the last two assembly elections. For the BJP, the Matuas have been a strong support base in the state, which they have managed to bring into their fold, with the promise of the CAA. The All India Matua Mahasangh has also issued Matua/Hindu Cards, an identity card for the Matuas, at a cost of Rs 50-100 over the years. “We were told the Matua cards would help. What use is it if it does not even protect our basic rights?” asks a livid Ripon.

However, the CAA narrative has started to fall through for most voters of Thakurnagar’s Karol. Many of whom who were disenfranchised now question the legitimacy of the act―doubting if it is a ploy to make them ‘surrender as Bangaldeshis’. Despite being aware of the CAA and its nuances, the SIR has instilled an almost inexplicable fear in the minds of these voters. “What scares me the most is that if SIR is the beginning of the end? What if this is the process to oust all of us? And put us in detention camps like they did in Assam? What if the CAA is to formally identify us as infiltrators?” asks Dipankar Mondal, 64, another deleted voter.

At the heart of Matua politics lies a fragmented family with opposing allegiances. Shantanu Thakur, a Union Minister and MP from Bangaon, Subrata Thakur, the sitting MLA from Gaighata, lead the BJP’s wagon, while Mamata Bala Thakur, Rajya Sabha MP, and Madhuparna Thakur, Shantanu and Subrata’s cousin, represent the TMC’s colours in the region. Shantanu’s wife, Soma Thakur, is pitted against Madhuparna in Bagdah, the adjacent constituency, for this year’s polls. Despite cracks, the electoral weathervane finds itself firmly lodged within the premises of the Thakurbari.

“When they are not sure about their politics, how can they be of ours? The family has profited off our name, and we hold them in no regard. This is not what Harichand Thakur would have ever wanted,” says Dipankar, arranging the documents of his family members, who have all been purged from the voter list.

However, Subrata Thakur is confident of the BJP’s hold over his people and the community at large. “For almost 50 years, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) and the TMC have facilitated the creation of fake documentation and certificates to establish their vote banks in the state. The SIR was needed to weed out dead, shifted and absent voters in the state, and illegal immigrants, mostly Muslims from Bangladesh and to weed out illegal immigrants who leech off the country’s resources like the Rohingyas. It is not the first time the SIR is happening.” For Thakur, the panic is being triggered by narratives created by the Mamata Banerjee government in the state.

Reports confirm that almost 60 per cent of the 91 lakh deletions in the state are Hindus. The Matua belt reflects the same with the major percentage of deletions being Hindu. “It is a Hindu majority state. It is obvious that most deletions will be Hindu. It pains me to see that a number of Matuas will not be able to vote this time, but that’s what happens when a system is implemented,” Thakur tells Outlook, adding that a major percentage of these deletions were done by underqualified block booth level officers under the pressure of the TMC government.

While both the Supreme Court and BJP leaders have pressed upon the fact that deletion from voter lists does not affect citizenship, Matua voters in Thakurnagar’s Karola are not convinced. Many allege that they were not allowed to vote during the CPI-M rule in the state, with only Mamata Banerjee’s government ensuring their voting rights after coming to power. Others feel that the TMC has been opportunistic and has not done enough to prevent the bulldozing impact of the SIR.

They feel that the high deletions of Hindus in these constituencies reflect an inability on the part of the BJP government at the Centre to safeguard the community they stand for. “Our parents fled from Bangladesh owing to religious persecution, and now this is another form of persecution. How can they say so causally that it is fine to miss an election? Isn’t it my right?” asks Ripon.

However, for several people in the village, the BJP and their Hindutva represent a diametrically opposite world from the teachings of Harichand Thakur and his successors. Matua dharma was born in modern-day Bangladesh, out of a reformist belief against status, rituals and religious hierarchy while being rooted in a strong voice against Brahmanical oppression.

“They will use us for vote bank politics and claim to protect us. We don’t need upper caste protection. Harichand Thakur, Guruchand Thakur (his son) and B. R. Ambedkar gave people like us the strength to value education over religion,” adds Ripon.

As children of the village play the dhol and bells toll in the small newly-constructed temple of the village, people of the hamlet gather in numbers. They don’t pray, but sing, dance and believe. Oscillating between hope and panic, the Matua people of the village pray for their children to grow beyond the uncertainty and ‘unbelonging’.

As the word spreads around the village that the tribunal hearings are on, the community awaits a new dawn―that a single notification that would identify them as a voter. Dipankar, Ripon, and others walk off with their families―all of them currently existing in a vacuum. Neither a voter, nor a citizen. Only a ‘delete’.

Clasping onto his grandson, Dipankar says, “I hope there’s some rest soon. We have walked so far, the slippers are wearing off.”