Wooing Muslims in West Bengal

the Left Front has gone a long way to reach out to the community. It has fielded as many as 57 Muslim candidates, possibly the highest ever, for the 2011 make-or-break State Assembly elections.

Left parties who ruled over the state for about 30 years did not give much representation to the Muslims either in the party fold or in terms of giving tickets to fight state Assembly or Lok Sabha elections. A decade ago only a handful of Muslims used to get a ticket to fight state Assembly polls. A few educated Muslims, such as Hashim Abdul Halim, Mostafa Bin Kasem or grassroots leaders like Abdur Rezzak Mollah made their presence felt on the assembly floor.

It may be recalled that in the earlier days prominent Muslims such as Muzaffar Ahmad, Abdul Halim and Syed Sahedullah took a leading role in building the communist movement in Bengal.

Despite their pronounced adherence to secularism, Left parties so far did not give equitable representation to the Muslims in the state politics. Left politics has been mostly dominated by upper-caste Hindus the Banerjees, Moitras, Chowdhurys even in districts like Malda and Murshidabad where Muslims are a majority. Even as they introduced themselves as communists devoid of religion and caste, the Muslims slowly turned out to be back benchers as ardent Left supporters. The situation was quite different from the days when prominent Muslims such as Muzaffar Ahmad, Abdul Halim and Syed Sahedullah took a leading role in building the communist movement in Bengal.

Octogenarian CPM trade unionist and party politburo member Mohammed Amin is perhaps the missing link between the two shades of Left one in Opposition and the other in the ruling for 34 years.

During the early eighties, young leaders such as Mohammed Salim, Moinul Hasan and Anisur Rahman emerged in Left politics as accepted leaders and not just minority representatives. There are some more known faces, such as CPM’s Mafooza Khatun from Kumarganj or RSP’s Jane Alam Mia who made it to the assembly more than once. But there was a void in Muslim representation in the Left parties since long. In fact, the party secretariat in most districts does not represent the cross-section of the population not just Muslims. It includes Adivasis, Rajbanshis and other categories.

The Left Front is conscious of the fact their rival Trinmool Congress, once an urban-based party, has extended its influence in the rural areas with the support of Muslims. It has also the tacit support of the Maoists. Trinmool Congress is now a formidable challenge to the Left Front. The Trinmool chief Mamata Banerjee has already garners support of the rural people by opposing the land acquisition drive of the Buddhadeb Government.

The Maoist who consider the Left Parties as their arch enemies found Mamata as a friend to protect their interests.

The Left parties appeal for class politics and class struggle in the state has become weak and almost irrelevant with young minds looking for better and lucrative standards of living in the era of economic liberalisation and globalisation of trade. The Left parties which once sworn in the name of secularism and socialism are now shifting from class politics to caste and minority community politics.

They are telling the Muslims that West Bengal is not Gujarat. In West Bengal their interests can be protected and they can live in peace. But the a new generation of educated middle-class Muslims are unable to buy this argument of the Left parties. Besides peace they want jobs and empowerment that the Left Front government could not deliver.

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List of Muslim candidates of CPIM-led Left Front in West Bengal