BJP plays Matua Dalit identity card, snubs RSS’s unified Hindu rhetoric

The codification attempt is viewed as the first substantive move by Dalits to assert their distinct religious identity, separate from the broader Hindu community that the Parivar has been working towards.

The Matuas, a monotheist sect, had emerged from a Hindu reformist movement initiated by Harichand Thakur in the mid-19th Century in undivided Bengal. A scheduled caste community, it had wanted to free itself from Hindu-Brahmin domination.

Rituals differ

The Matuas generally don’t believe in idol worshipping and promote the concept of one God. Their socio-religious rites also differ in many ways from Vedic Hindu customs. For instance, in a Matua marriage ceremony there is no ritual of Kanyadaan unlike a Hindu wedding where the bride's father gives her away to the groom.

The Hindu ritual of ‘Pind Daan’ (honouring deceased ancestors by offering food and prayers), being integral to the Shraddh ceremony is not followed by Matuas as well. These rituals are performed by Matua Gosais or sadhus and not by Hindu Brahmins and they do not use Sanskrit mantras. There are many such dissimilarities.

Also read: Bengal’s Matuas wait and watch, refuse to take CAA bait as poll battle hots up

Classifying Matua customs

A faction of the All India Matua Mahasangha at a Chintan Shivir held earlier this week decided to classify their distinct rituals to enable them to seek legal protection.

Shantanu Thakur, a Union minister and leader of the Mahasangha said, “We will codify all the customs and rituals of the Matua society after deliberations among Gosias and the office bearers of the Mahasangha. After that, we will move the Supreme Court for legal recognition so that no one can prevent us from observing our customs.”

The development is highly significant as a senior BJP leader is pushing to assert their identity that may eventually undo the popular belief that Matua is a Hindu sect. Though early writers of the Matua religion have clearly differentiated it from Hinduism.

However, Thakur pointed out that Matuas are part of the larger Hindu community and the codification will not change this.

Misleading move

TMC’s Matua leader and MP Mamata Bala Thakur, who is also Shantanu Thakur’s relative, said the latter is trying to mislead the people.

“The community felt the need to codify its rituals and customary practices so as to prevent overlapping and infringement of Hindu practices,” she asserted, while welcoming the Mahasangha’s decision. She heads the other faction of the Mahasangha.

“It is good if they do it. It is necessary to recognise Matua as an independent religion,” she said. But she also questioned the intentions of Thakur and the BJP in the same breath.

It is the BJP’s desperate attempt to woo the Matua community, which has ‘deserted’ the party for deceiving it by not giving unconditional citizenship under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019, said Mamata Thakur.

Also read: Matuas to get citizenship, Mamata can’t stop CAA implementation: Shah

BJP's vote bank

Matuas, who mostly migrated to West Bengal from erstwhile east Pakistan and later Bangladesh, were until recently considered as BJP’s vote bank. But its support base among the community has significantly eroded lately. In the last Lok Sabha elections, the TMC won eight of the 12 Matua-dominated constituencies.

Debashis Chakrabarti, a political commentator and Commonwealth Fellow, felt the BJP was going all out to woo the Matuas with this move.

“With the CAA-card no longer effective, the BJP is now trying to play the Matua identity card promising to codify their rituals, essentially going against the larger Hindu narrative promoted by its ideological fountainhead, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS),” he said.

Electoral expediency

This is not the first time that the BJP has sidestepped the RSS’s unified Hindu identity narrative for electoral expediency.

Ahead of the Jharkhand elections in November last year, the party promised to consider introducing the Sarna Religious Code in the official census.

Adivasis, mainly of Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, and Assam, have been demanding that their Indigenous faith, “Sarna,” be recognized as a separate religion, challenging the Sangh Parivar’s narrative that their faith aligns with Hinduism.

To win tribal votes, the BJP compromised its ideological premise in Jharkhand.

Similarly, there seems to be a hint of an ideological compromise in the promise made by BJP's tallest Dalit leader in West Bengal, to allow Matuas to codify their rituals and customs.