A SHADOW OF '46

 A SHADOW OF '46

I witnessed a shadow of pre-Partition 1946 Bengal on Montel News, a Bengali news channel, where a street meeting staged by Muslim clerics to oppose the proposed Waqf Amendment Bill of 2024 was telecast and is being repeatedly telecast for wider dissemination of the message. The meeting was in Kolkata, so far as I could gather but was conducted entirely in Hindi interspersed with a delicious dose of Urdu. A lot of vehemence, the clarion call sent out to unite the Muslims, crafty ploys to divide the Hindus, calls to Nitish Kumar and Chandra Babu Naidu for whatever veiled reason, one may easily guess, Islamic references including that of the kalmā, references to the RSS and Shree Mohan Bhāgavat, and even open messages sent out to the assembled audience and beyond to remain united and prepared to rise in defence of the Deen should the Waqf Amendment Bill be enacted. It was much verbal vitriol from almost every speaker barring one old gentleman who exhorted the Muslim children to excel in secular studies as well so that Muslims may get a more significant representation in professions of significance. There was one speaker from the All India Muslim Personal Law Board who was especially verbally inciting. Such speakers, their manner, mode and content of speech brought visual images of what must have been Bengal in 1946, what East Pakistan was till 1971, what it thereafter has been as Bangladesh and what Kashmir and Pakistan have been for the Hindus. The entire proceedings of the meeting was telecast by Montel News, courtesy another Bengali news channel, and is being continually re-telecast now for greater dissemination of the message, a perfect ploy of appeasing the 33% Muslim minority electorate, Montel News being pronouncedly pro-Trinamool. 

It was an eye-opener for me and I gained greater insight into the malefic minds of Muslim clerics who are driven by Islamic theology to indoctrinate and influence vast numbers of ordinary Muslims to serve the political ends of Islam The intent of Islam in India came clear---the transformation of India into an Islamic state by gradually transiting from its Makki version now in operation to its full-fledged Madinah one as and when power through demographic change passes into Muslim hands. After all India was Islamic property for centuries, which the Waqf Act testifies to, and it must remain so till Qayāmat, Inshallah. This was what that venerable gentleman of least verbal vehemence said. Imagine now what the others did then amid repeated shouts of Nara-e-Taqbeer. And this is West Bengal today, the summation of past appeasement politics and the effect of present appeasement in the name of secularism. 

Written by Sugata Bose