As William Dalrymple promoted ‘Ganga Jamuni Tehjeeb’—a peaceful & interactive cohesion between India & Pakistan throughout his life, India observed this hyped phrase to be vain & a misguided notion. Yesterday, West Bengal observed another anguishing example of Dalrymple’s nugatory notion of Ganga Jamuni Tahjeeb. While India kept on bleeding on the ground “through thousand cuts”, Dalrymple’s promotion of Ganga Jamuni Tehjeeb continued to exist as a cruel joke.
Yesterday, Maa Kaali Idol of a significantly old Kali Temple at Alampur Village under Naoda Police Station of Murshidabad district, West Bengal was found burnt. The temple is around 70 years old & got attacked in the recent past when miscreants plundered ornaments of the Idol. Repeated such incidents at the same temple are raising eyebrows. Doubts were verbosely expressed in Social Media about probable communal nature of the attack.
It would be pertinent to mention that Murshidabad is a Muslim-majority district of West Bengal which had fallen in Pakistan after Partition & remained a part thereof for 3 consecutive days after which it became part of India. It’s also necessary to point out that Alampur Village is located on the way between Beldanga & Naoda. Beldanga is the very place that received shock of destructive anti-CAA riot that erupted first on December 13, 2019. People of Beldanga had burnt trains, uprooted rail tracks, jeopardized rail communication & burnt even fire brigade vehicles that arrived there to extinguish fire of burning trains. This means that people of this area have antecedents of burning down public properties & they maintain required preparedness to arson. Who were the people involved in anti-CAA riots? Who could be the people who burnt the idol of a Hindu Temple of Alampur?
It is also necessary to look at the location of Alampur Kali Temple. Around the temple there appears to be plenty of open land as per Google Map & within around 1 Kilometre of the temple, there are Institutions like Natun Alampur Jumah Masjid, Alinagar Jumah Masjid, Alinagar Uttarpara Jumah Masjid, Puratan Alampur Jumah Masjid Mathpara etc. The Kaali Temple, that way, is located strategically in such a position capturing which may change the overall mood & fabric of the place. This is the well-known modus operandi by which minorities’ properties be regularly captured in Bangladesh. Alampur Kaali Temple have a number of mosques in its vicinity & other Institutions with Islamic names. Hence, to raise doubts that burning the idol was Islamic aggression upon the temple as happens regularly in the adjacent Islamic land, is neither irrational nor baseless.
The Temple Secretary, Sri Sukhdev Bajpai has written a general appeal to people that burning of Maa Kaali Idol might be an accident due to electrical short circuit. Mr. Bajpai was defensive to claim that communal harmony of Alampur was unquestionable & giving communal colour to the incident was undesirable.
His declaration, however, didn’t mitigate the anguish of people in general but aggravated it. A section of West Bengal Hindus are furious against spinelessness of Hindus in general who took almost no time to write such an appeal. Moreover, people of the ruling party have floated the appeal of the Temple Secretary in the Social Media & ruled out communal nature of the incident. They claimed that Bharatiya Janata Party was intentionally adding pungency to it while it was a simple accident in reality.
However, questions are still remaining that how could an accident due to electrical short circuit be so selective that it burnt only the idol? Moreover, the same idol was attacked in the recent past too. Why’s the same idol & the same temple being repeatedly aimed by the miscreants? Doesn’t a known sinister plot be clearly visible? Isn’t it possible that Shri Sukhdev Bajpai wrote the appeal by political pressure?
It would be relevant to mention that Alampur Village under Naoda PS is a part of Baharampur Parliamentary Constituency & Naoda Assembly Constituency. While Naoda Assembly Constituency is currently represented by TMC in West Bengal Assembly, Baharampur Parliamentary Constituency is represented by Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of Indian National Congress at the Parliament. Baharampur is a place where infamous Popular Front of India (PFI) held anti-CAA rally where TMC’s Abu Taher Khan, MP of Murshidabad, was one of the speakers. Popular Front of India allegedly is one of the prime sponsors of Delhi Riot & the recent riot in Bangalore. Hence, usage of political pressure to have Temple Secretary, Shri Bajpai write an appeal ruling out communal angle of the incident cannot be eliminated.
All parameters considered together, idol-burning at Alampur Kaali Temple has miniscule possibility, if at all, to be a plain accident. Did Darlymple’s Ganga Jamuni Tehjeeb hypothesis fail once more?
Debjani Bhattacharyya