Ground Report: What Led To The Uprising Against Trinamool In Bengal’s Sandeshkhali

Sandeshkhali is quite a nondescript rural expanse like any other in Bengal. 

Like the rest of the state, it exhibits visible signs of not only poverty and backwardness but also the Trinamool Congress’ stranglehold on people’s lives. 

The ruling party’s presence is ubiquitous: the entire area is plastered with fresh and faded Trinamool posters, flags, and slogans written on walls. Mamata Banerjee's and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee’s smiling visages (in party posters, banners, etc) peer out from all nooks and corners of Sandeshkhali.

But it is the invisible clout of the Trinamool that had triggered a mass uprising which singed the local Trinamool leadership last week. 

The spark, say locals, was a small clash between Trinamool and BJP activists Wednesday (6 February) after a heated argument over serious allegations of loot of the state exchequer by the ruling party. 

The Trinamool activists, in a bid to assert their supremacy, raided the houses of some BJP supporters and functionaries late that evening. Womenfolk protested, and when they were manhandled and abused, local people rose in revolt. 

“We were fed up with the Trinamool’s tyranny. We are poor people, but have to pay a good part of our earnings to the party (Trinamool) every week. Our womenfolk are molested and abused regularly by Trinamool goons,” Anil Sardar, a vegetable seller, told Swarajya. 

Trinamool leaders — including the notorious Shahjahan Sheikh who has been absconding since an Enforcement Directorate (ED) team that had come to Sandeshkhali to search his palatial residence on 5 January were brutally attacked by his supporters — are accused of forcibly taking over huge tracts of land running into hundreds of acres from locals. 

Allegations of molestation and rape of women by Trinamool goons and functionaries had reached epidemic proportions, but no one dared to protest.

Shocking incidents of women — married and unmarried — being forced to go for ‘party meetings’ late evenings have surfaced. 

Women used to be allegedly picked up from their houses late evening by Trinamool cadres and taken away to fulfill the carnal desires of party functionaries and activists. The hapless people of Sandeshkhali were forced to put up with these horrifying atrocities. 

“Such was the tyranny that protesting was out of question. Those who protested in the past were beaten up, dispossessed of their properties, arrested and prosecuted under false charges, and even killed. So no one dared to raise a voice,” said a trader who owns a grocery store in Sandeshkhali.  

Years of such shameful atrocities, combined with Trinamool’s totalitarianism, resulted in last week’s outburst against the ruling party. 

Sheikh, and his two close associates — Shiboprasad Hazra and Uttam Sardar — are accused of forcibly taking over more than an estimated 5000 bighas (3095 acres) of land and converting them into fish ponds (called bheries in Bengal). 

“Shiboprasad Hazra took ten bighas (6.24 acres) of land from me on lease in 2018 and converted most of it into bheris. But despite repeated requests, he hasn’t paid a single Rupee to me. Last November, he told my brother to forget that the land belongs to us,” said a farmer who did not want to be named for obvious reasons. 

There are many like him who have given their lands on lease to Hazra, Sardar, Shahjahan Sheikh, and other Trinamool functionaries, but are not being paid any rent. 

“The lands that they (Trinamool functionaries) took on lease have become theirs for all practical purposes. The landowners have lost all hopes of getting back their lands,” said Sukumar Das, a paramedic at a government hospital in Kolkata who hails from Sandeshkhali. 

Sukumar’s father is one of the many victims of Uttam Sardar, a Trinamool Congress Zila Parishad functionary like his senior associate Shiboprasad Hazra. Sardar and Hazra also owned a few poultry and goat farms on forcibly occupied lands. 

Wednesday night’s atrocities by Trinamool cadres was the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back. The protests by the womenfolk gathered steam and soon, the entire Sandeshkhali rose up in revolt. 

Thursday and Friday (8 and 9 February) saw large mobs of women armed with choppers, machetes, and sticks attacked properties belonging to Sardar and Hazra. Poultries and goat farms belonging to the two were torched, and a few shops belonging to other Trinamool leaders were ransacked. 

Reporters from TV channels and the print media who traveled to Sandeshkhali were aghast at the tales of sexual torture faced by the women of Sandeshkhali. 

One woman, a mother of a boy aged six and daughter aged three narrated her tale to Swarajya: “The torture started about two years ago. A Trinamool leader told my husband, who is a small trader, that I would be required for party work. In Sandeshkhali, ‘party work’ means being made a sex slave of Trinamool functionaries. My husband did not dare to refuse”. 

“Some Trinamool men would come and pick me up in the evening and take me to the house of a leader where I would be raped. After the assault, I would be dropped back at my house late the same evening or past midnight. This went on for a few months till they stopped bothering me. I guess he (the Trinamool leader) grew tired of me,” the woman said. 

She added: “Initially, I was very ashamed of showing my face in public. But then, there are countless women in Sandeshkhali like me who have been sexually assaulted regularly by Trinamool leaders. So I realised that since there are so many victims like me, why should I feel ashamed? We, the victims, should feel angry and outraged, and it is the evil Trinamool leaders who ought to feel ashamed.”

Taken aback at the unprecedented and widespread public uprising, Trinamool leaders and functionaries fled Sandeshkhali. An alarmed Trinamool leadership felt that strong action was required to regain control over Sandeshkhali. 

Hence, the police were mobilised to quell the uprising. On the direct orders of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, top police officers descended on Sandeshkhali to oversee a pushback against the people who had rebelled. 

Locals say police, in association with Trinamool cadre, launched a crackdown on Friday (9 February) evening. 

Those who led the protests were arrested and, allegedly, false charges were slapped on them. Police and Trinamool goons raided and ransacked their houses, molested the womenfolk, and issued dire threats. 

Ghastly tales of police brutalities have surfaced over the last two days. Section 144 of the CrPC prohibiting assembly of five or more persons and imposing restrictions on movement of people have been imposed and internet services suspended so that the accounts of atrocities being faced by the locals do not reach the rest of the world. 

But even as the police crackdown continues, there have been reports of sporadic shows of defiance and protests. Police and Trinamool leaders have had to face belligerent locals who refused to back down at Khulna, Korakati, Durga Mandap, and some other areas of Sandeshkhali. 

Right now, an uneasy calm, punctured occasionally by angry slogans against the Trinamool and the pliant police, prevails in Sandeshkhali. But there is a lot of anger simmering under the surface. 

This anger has the potential to spread like wildfire in many other swathes of rural Bengal which have been facing similar treatment by Trinamool functionaries.