CAA: Initial euphoria over, Matua leaders in Bengal tell members to wait, not apply yet

Having passed the CAA in 2019, the Narendra Modi government notified the rules only on March 11, days ahead of the announcement of the Lok Sabha poll schedule.

With the BJP hoping to cash in on the Matua vote in Bengal, which is among the high-priority states for the BJP, Trinamool Congress supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was among the first to caution the Matuas not to apply under the CAA. “I will be happy if anyone get citizenship, but the BJP is fooling people,” she said. “The moment one applies for citizenship, they will be identified as intruders. After this, the NRC (National Register of Citizens) will be implemented, and these people will be sent to detention camps.”

MOS shipping , BJP MP and Matua sect communities one of the leader Santanu Thakur along with family members and followers celebrates at Thakur Bari, the epicenter of Matua community, after the  Notification of the rule  of CAA on March 11. (Express photo by Partha Paul.)

The message has hit home, among people who are used to promises drying up. “I came to India in February 2004 and my mother came two months later. Now I have been making frantic calls to Bangladesh, where her sisters live, to get documents proving that she once lived there. They do not have them,” says Sujan Haldar (32), a resident of Bongaon, who came to India from Barisal province in Bangladesh.

Haldar adds: “My family and I will not apply right now… there are a lot of unanswered questions. We bought land in 2004 and built a house here in 2005. That was on the basis of the voter card and other documents we made here. Once we apply (under the CAA), will the land deed be valid? Will my graduation certificate be?”\

A 43-year-old state government employee who came to India from Faridpur province in Bangladesh in 2001 says: “Have you heard of Sindel Chor? These thieves dig a hole through the mud floor of a village house, and first push through an earthen, black, round pot. If the pot is not detected, then they slip in. This is our condition too. We are all waiting for others to apply and see what happens.”

On Tuesday, the Matua Mahasangha, the largest organisation of the community in Bengal, said the CAA rules notified recently need rectification, and that community members who want to apply under the CAA should wait till the formation of a new government at the Centre.

Matua Mahasangha general secretary Mahitosh Baidya told The Indian Express: “Some people tried applying on the CAA portal, but many people after getting voter and Aadhaar cards here have destroyed their documents related to Bangladesh. How can they apply now? To clear that confusion, we advised them to wait.”

However, the Matua Mahasangha is itself divided into factions, with one controlled by the BJP under the leadership of Shantanu Thakur and another dominated by the TMC under the leadership of Mamatabala Thakur.

Both the factions have been accusing the other of trying to fool the people before the Lok Sabha elections.

The Matuas, who are Hindus and are considered Scheduled Castes, have been crossing the border into Bengal for a long time, before and after Partition, and then before and after the 1971 Bangladesh War.

A shop owner selling photos of Matua community leaders adjacent to Thakur Bari. (Express photo by Partha Paul.)

A 36-year-old, who works in an IT company, admits people like him didn’t face any problems getting official documents after crossing over in 2004-05. “We made all the needed residential papers, opening businesses, taking up jobs, including in government offices. Now if you ask me to get citizenship, what will happen to my job? There is also social stigma. Everyone will know that it’s now, in 2024, that I have become a citizen,” the employee says.

BJP Haringhata MLA Asim Sarkar says they have told the party leadership in Delhi about these issues, and admits that it might be preferable for the CAA applicants to wait for now. “We are not saying do not apply… Those who have all the documents can apply now too. But those who do not, should wait for the formation of a new government. We intimated our Central leadership that this rule needs further amendments, but with elections announced, it is not possible to change the rules.”

Asim adds that the party believes that even those who have no documents of Bangladesh but have come before the deadline of 2014 should be given Indian citizenship.

Matua leader Shantanu Thakur, a Union minister in the BJP government and its candidate from Bangaon in the coming elections, however, discounts any problems regarding the rules.

“I don’t know what the Matua Mahasangha has said. The documents which have to be uploaded on the CAA portal are only for filtration, so that no terrorist or criminal gets citizenship. It has already been said that if any eminent person certifies that someone has been living in India from on or before December 31, 2014, he or she will get citizenship. The TMC is spreading misinformation.”

The head of the TMC-leaning Matua Mahasangha faction, Rajya Sabha MP Mamatabala Thakur, says: “It is clear now that the BJP government rushed these rules just before the Lok Sabha elections to fool the people. People will answer on voting day.”

Matua leader Mukutmani Adhikari, a BJP MLA-turned-TMC leader, who is contesting from Ranaghat in the Lok Sabha polls, says: “The BJP always fools people. But, you cannot fool people all the time.”