Editorial: Dark portents in West Bengal

Spring is the season of communal trouble in Modi’s India. With the Sangh Parivar weaponizing festivals, fires are breaking out at several places in sequence, giving chaos a sense of continuity. With Holi, Eid, Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti coming in quick succession this year and coinciding with the passage of the waqf amendment, we’ve had no dearth of trouble in recent days.

This week, violent protests against the new waqf law erupted in Murshidabad in West Bengal in which three people were killed. With rioters blockading national highways, burning police vehicles, and attacking trains, the Calcutta High Court has ordered the deployment of central paramilitary forces to restore order.

Last Sunday (April 6), a Ram Navami procession through a Muslim locality triggered stone-pelting, rioting and arson in Khargone, Madhya Pradesh, forcing the authorities to impose curfew in the town. The state government responded by demolishing houses and shops belonging to Muslims. Hanuman Jayanti processions (April 11) provoked similar communal clashes in Jahangirpuri in Delhi and Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh.

On Saturday, April 12, 50,000 sword-carrying members of the Karni Sena menaced Agra to protest a supposed insult to the 16th century Rajput king Rana Sanga by a Samajwadi Party MP. Marching to commemorate the birth anniversary of the Rajput king, the Karni Sena demanded that history books be rewritten to remove the taint of “traitor” upon Rana Sanga.

This is just a small harvest of the rich crop of communal incidents being witnessed in India this spring. Increasingly, communal violence is becoming an accompaniment to festivals. Reporting a significant increase in communal riots last year, the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS) noticed a correlation between riots and religious festivals. Out of the 59 communal riots that were recorded in 2024—an 84 per cent rise from 32 in 2023—26 were directly linked to religious festivals.

Of the rash of communal incidents we’re seeing this year, the most vicious has been in Murshidabad. It’s a Muslim-majority border district with a previous history of trouble around the Ram Navami period. Deep demographic changes occurring over decades have set up a fertile ground for the BJP’s polarisation tactics ahead of the Assembly elections in the state in 2026. Incidents such as the current spurt in Murshidabad are an opportunity for the party to mobilise the Hindu vote in North Bengal and dislodge the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the state.

Murshidabad is a symptom of the alarming shift toward religious polarisation in West Bengal. An even more dangerous portent is the change in the Trinamool Congress’ strategy, its switch from being a secular party that protects minorities to one that is competing tooth and nail with the BJP to win Hindu votes. Pursuing this strategy, TMC is aggressively weaponizing festivals and cultural events including Ram Navami. Last year, the Mamata Banerjee government declared it a public holiday for the first time in Bengal’s history. Its MPs and MLAs have been encouraged to lead saffron-hued processions across the state. The chief minister herself has been flashing her Brahmin caste status publicly. Later this month, the state government is scheduled to inaugurate a Rs 250 crore replica of the famous Jagannath Temple in Digha.

Together, the BJP and the Trinamool Congress are threatening to turn West Bengal into a theatre of communal politics, and Murshidabad is a portent of the coming turmoil.