Scheduled Caste religious group with origins in Bangladesh is grappling with identity politics
On April 14, B.R. Ambedkar’s birth anniversary, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president J.P. Nadda held a road show in Bongaon town. The BJP, for which religious and sub-religious identities have emerged as the most crucial tool of the 2021 campaign in the West Bengal Assembly polls, the date and the place were well chosen.
Since the past two years, Bongaon, a sub-division in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district bordering Bangladesh, is witnessing a new identity politics around the Matua sect, a Scheduled Caste religious group with origins in Bangladesh.