SIR Takes Communal Turn in Kolkata's New Town, Media Adds Fuel to Fire

Standing in front of the 'Tero Family' or 13 Family slum, located directly opposite the entrance to the posh Dhamsha Tribal Resort and Eco Park Golf Course in New Town, Kolkata, Babu Mollah, 32, looked desolate.A scrap dealer and resident of the slum, Mollah, has not gone to work for the last two–three days. If he works the entire day, he can earn about Rs 300–350. The loss is considerable. Yet, Mollah is choosing to stay home to shoo away 'Godi media' that have been entering the slum, and creating a ruckus by labelling them as "Bangladeshis". "They are calling anyone and everyone Bangladeshi and shooting videos. The day they came, all of us from the slum had gone to work. Our houses were locked. They said these houses belong to Bangladeshis who have fled after hearing about SIR."Babu MollahThe slum dwellers claim to know why they are being targeted as "Bangladeshi." "It's just because we are poor and Muslim,” he said, adding that his family has lived in these slums for generations.Similar tales have sprung up from several ares of Kolkata and other parts of West Bengal, especially ones with a high Muslim population, since the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) began in West Bengal about two weeks ago.Government-appointed Booth Level Officer (BLOs) and political-party-appointed BLAs have been going door-to-door, distributing SIR forms. The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal office, has clearly stated in writing and through video messages that neither BLOs nor BLAs have any authority to inspect any documents of voters. But despite that, confusion has erupted in areas like New Town, adjacent to Kolkata city. Amid confusion about rules, sections of the media have been adding dangerous communal fuel to the fire, leaving many like Mollah concerned about their citizenship in the days to come.Bihar: SIR Deletions Exceed Win Margins in 75 Seats NDA Snatched From OppositionThe woes of New Town's slum dwellers began about a week ago when the broadcaster Republic Bangla first began flashing "reports" claiming that scores of illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslim infiltrators had been living in slum areas around New Town for many years. The report also alleged that as soon as the SIR process started, these infiltrators locked their homes and fled to Bangladesh. Along with this news, video footage was shown of several locked homes in the slums of New Town.Afraid of falling behind in the TRP race, other 24×7 Bengali news channels also pounced on New Town like hunters waiting in ambush. They began entering slums to search for “Bangladeshis.” Journalists thrust microphones into the faces of slum dwellers, asking directly, “Are you Bangladeshi? Where are your papers?”Soon, the national media followed suit.Even though those connected to the SIR process have no right to ask for any documents, TV journalists began demanding papers from ordinary people with complete impunity. And if anyone protested, they were immediately labeled "Bangladeshi" or "Rohingya infiltrators".Mollah, who is originally from Pitapukur Panchayat under the Bhangar Assembly constituency, states that his father Mosharraf Mollah and mother Rabia Bibi’s names are in the 2002 voters' list. He brandishes his family’s land deed from 1962 and the 2002 SIR list with his parents' names on it. (To ensure one's name is in the West Bengal electoral roll, voters must find the correctly spelled names of their parents or relatives in the electoral roll from the last intensive revision held in 2002).Mollah had never needed these earlier but he keeps the documents handy now. Despite being a daily wager earning a meagre income, he is home so that if the media attacks his slum again, he can give them a strong answer.So are these slums in New Town really dens of "Bangladeshi infiltrators" as is being projected by the media? In the Rajarhat block of the North 24 Parganas district, about 37 sq km land was acquired by the government in the early 1990s to build a modern township. The land on which the "13 Family" slum stands today was once owned by the family of zamindar, Haji Badsha Ali. Members of that family are still active in the area. Badsha Ali’s grandson, Mohammad Shah Alam, is a Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader of the Jangra Hatiyara-2 Panchayat.Speaking to The Quint, Shah Alam, gives us a look back at the history of the area. “In 1993, 63 bighas of our land was acquired for the construction of New Town. The golf course, the Herbal Garden, the Dhamsha Tribal Resort, everything you see has been built on our land. Before New Town was created, most people in this area were from the minority community. Even today, New Town is officially under the Jangra Hatiyara-2 Panchayat of Rajarhat block. Right next to Rajarhat are the Bhangar and Canning blocks and their Assembly constituencies in South 24 Parganas. Historically, most of the population in all these regions has been Muslim. After New Town was built, many of them came to the city in search of work. Some pull rickshaws, some collect garbage, some work in people’s homes. Now calling them Bangladeshis is simply unjust.”Mohd Shah AlamAkbar Ali, another resident of that slum, a mason, whose parents' names and his own name are in the 2002 list, explained that before New Town was built, 293 poor working class families, Hindu and Muslim alike, lived in the "13 Family" slum. Now that number has increased to nearly 1,400 families.“We are simple agricultural people. We cannot afford to live in apartments. This is why we live in tin shaded houses. We are poor, so it's easy to harass us.”Akbar AliA member of the original 13 families of the slum, Mohammad Hamza Mollah, 38, whose grandparents fled to "epaare" (this side) during the turmoil around the creation of Bangladesh in 1972, also has his birth certificate ready to prove his citizenship. "I was born here," he asserts.Evictions in Assam, SIR in Bengal? Migrants Pay for BJP's Anti-Bangladeshi PushIt isn't just the Muslims of the area that are suffering. Sweety Mondal from Moshat in Hooghly District also lives in this slum. She earns Rs 8,500 a month working at a beauty parlour and pays Rs 700 monthly rent. Living in the cheap accomodation allows her to send Rs 4,000–4,500 home every month for household expenses. "With all this trouble going on, I am afraid to tell people at work that I live in the "13 Family" area. What if they call me 'Bangladeshi' and throw me out from my job?”Many share similar fears. A short distance from the Jangra Hatiyara-2 Gram Panchayat office is the home of Mintu Mondal, who has rented out several rooms on his land. “I have checked my tenants’ documents before giving them rooms. Some tenants are from Khanakul in Hooghly, some from Darbhanga in Bihar. Because rent here is much cheaper compared to proper New Town, even students from Nigeria live here on rent," he said.Last week, he got a call from his tenants, who were being asked to show their papers by the "media". Mondal reached the spot and protested and a video of that altercation went viral. His own house was attacked as well when a "journalist" from a YouTube channel called Rashtriya Bangla directly accused him of being a "Bangladeshi". Mondal wants to know: "Who gave them the right to demand documents. Will media decide who is a citizen or not? The reply I got was that I must be "Bangladeshi", that’s why I was scared to show my papers.”Locals feel the BJP is raising this issue only to get votes of the burgeoning Hindu middle and upper middle class households that are moving to New Town amid its real estate boom, most of whom remain clueless of the area's original demography and land history. And the BJP's campaign seems to be working.Milan Biswas, 20, a graduate Hingalganj College in North 24 Parganas currently working as a Rapido driver in New Town, for example, firmly believes that the city’s slums are "full of Bangladeshis".He himself, however, lives in a lower-income area of New Town and, ironically, plans to do the exact same thing he accuses the "Bangladeshis’ of doing—include his name in the voter list once the SIR process is complete to become a permanent resident of New Town.'Send to India': Bangladesh Court on Deported Pregnant Bengali Woman, 5 OthersAnother Muslim-majority neighbourhood in Kolkata, Gulshan Colony has also become a hub of media fear-mongering. The allegation is that the densely populated neighbourhood has only about 1,700-3,000 voters- The area has a population of about 1.5-2 lakh. The gap in registered voters and residents has now become politicised.Golam Sarwar, who runs a grocery store near Gulshan Colony, calls it all "propaganda". He bought a flat in the area after moving from Rajabazar a few years ago. Another resident, Gulam Jilani, son of a former Kolkata Police personnel, also recently bought a flat in Gulshan Colony because their "old house in Ripon Street was becoming small and the family was growing".Residents argue that the Gulshan Colony booth is newly created. Not all residents have had their names added to this booth’s voter list yet. Until now, residents of this area used to vote in four-five booths in the West Chowbaga area, each having about 8,000–10,000 voters. Additionally, the booths in the Martin Para area have about 5,000 voters. In the last few elections, BJP is leading from the Martin Para booth.Voting will take place in this booth during the 2026 Assembly elections for the first time. It is natural that the number of voters in this booth is still low.Jilani says, “There are three voters in my household. But not everyone’s name has been added to this booth’s list yet. I went to the SIR help camps run by various political parties, and they told me that names cannot be transferred until SIR is complete. I must wait.”Some people who migrated long ago from Bangladesh or East Pakistan have been living in Martin Para for years. During the Left Front government, several refugee families were rehabilitated in this area with 1.5 to 2 kathas of land. Nevertheless, countering allegations of being from Bangladesh, local resident Meherbuddin Khan points out that Bangladeshis speak Bengali. "But if you go around this area, you will barely find any Bengali speakers. Most of the people here are Urdu speaking people from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi".A veteran sub-assistant engineer of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, who has worked for many years in West Chowbaga, Martin Para, and Gulshan Colony, on condition of anonymity, confirms that though allegations of illegal construction, civic issues like poor drainage, no streetlights of garbage management may be true, the place was "definitely not a hub ob Bangladeshis"."Bengali-speaking people or Bengali signboards are rare in these areas. So, the idea that these places are filled with Bangladeshis seems like nothing more than imagination.”KMC OfficialRegarding this controversy, TMC leader Arup Chakraborty told The Quint that the BJP has employed "its army of paid media to spread hate campaign and disinformation" across the state. "In certain areas of Kolkata, such as Burrabazar, the BLOs haven’t found around 40 percent of the registered voters, as they have gone to Bihar to vote for the BJP there. The BJP leads in these parts of Kolkata, you won’t find the media making any fuss about it," he alleged. He further claims that the Election Commision of India (ECI) is "allowing double entry of some names in BJP-majority areas in voter lists of two separate states" while the media is labelling "Indians as Bangladeshi" in places such as New Town and Gulshan Colony.“This whole controversy erupted after Amit Malviya first spread this rumour of illegal Bangladeshis staying in New Town. If really there are illegal infiltrators in these areas, what is the central forces such as the BSF (Border Security Force) doing? Why are they allowing infiltrators to come so deep into the state?”Arup ChakrabortyThe BJP’s take on this issue is rather balanced. One of the state BJP’ spokespersons, Mohit Roy, said to The Quint, “The BJP doesn’t have much to say about this process as it is an administrative procedure, and we don’t pay the media to peddle fake narratives. The sole motive for the SIR process is to weed out illegal entries from the voter list. So if certain people realise that their names had been added illegally, and through this process those names will get cancelled, and as a result if they decide to leave India, it is a welcome move”.Reacting to TMC’s allegation, that double entry voters are there in BJP-dominated pockets such as Burrabazar, Roy said, “Even for the sake of argument, if I accept that there are such illegal voters in Burrabazar, it is highly probable that they vote and function for the ruling party of the state. I am optimistic, that through SIR all these anomalies will get ironed out”.A section of "13 Family" slum voters cast their vote at Ghuni Free Primary School booth. The BLO, assigned to that booth spoke to The Quint on the condition of anonymity, assuring that the ECI took all care to avoid malpractice. “The Election Commission’s mechanism ensures that there is no scope for dual entry. Even we can identify whether a person’s name is enrolled in two separate places or not. Also, the presence of multi-party BLA’s ensures that all the enrolled voters received their SIR form. However, it is not my duty to determine their nationality. If the data matches, I am sure no valid voter’s name will get knocked out from the final list.”A government teacher by profession, the BLO declined to comment, whether she came across any ‘illegal Bangladeshi’ while distributing the SIR forms in "13 Family" cluster.The Quint tried to contact the Bidhan Nagar Police Commissionerate for a quote, but till now we received no response.Tagore, Bankim, and BJP's Bengali DilemmaDeliberating on why such fictitious Bangladeshi narratives are being amplified, social worker and Calcutta High Court lawyer Samim Ahmed says that the entire process is to scare marginalised and minority communities for electoral gains. "These people are being frightened and indirectly told that if they support BJP, their citizenship issues will be resolved. But if they vote against BJP, their livelihood will be thrown into the uncertainty of detention camps," the lawyer said.According to Ahmed, a section of the media knows very well that most poor people in these areas, including New Town, are Indian Muslims. Yet they are "constantly being harassed" and asked to carry their land deeds or other documents so that they always "remain under pressure and surrender to the BJP for safety.”Raising questions about the SIR process, he adds:“The SIR notification was issued using Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act of 1950. But the third subsection of that section clearly states that such special revisions must consider the voter list of the last election. According to that, the 2024 voter list should be used, but the 2002 list is being used instead as a point of reference.”Ahmed says the reason is that in 2003, the then BJP government at the Center first laid the foundation for the National Register of Citizenship (NRC). That is why the 2002 list is given such importance.Social activist Sugata Roy says, there are many across the state who crossed the border and came here 30–50 years ago. They worked in this country, gave birth to children, contributed to nation-building, bought land, and built homes. "If today they are thrown out of the country simply because they lack some documents, then where will they go? Because Bangladesh will not take them back. This is an inhuman situation," Roy laments.Arguing that by making the type of documents required for the SIR those that most poor people, regardless of religion, do not have, Ahmed feels “the BJP government wants to turn a large section of poor people, including minorities, into stateless labourers who can be exploited easily because they would have no citizenship rights."(Anindya Hazra is an independent journalist covering news and politics form Kolkata, West Bengal.)

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'We're Not Bangladeshi': How SIR in Bengal is Taking on a Communal Colour

Urban areas like New Town, and Gulshan Colony in Kolkata with high Muslim density have been targeted by media.

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Topics: West Bengal Bangladeshi Uncovering Hate