Citizenship concerns among Matua community amid SIR in bengal

New Delhi: The contentious citizenship issue of the Matua community has come to the fore again with the Election Commission's ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal months before the state goes for Assembly election next year.

The state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) has also approached the EC over the Matuas' concerns and offered suggestions. It has urged the poll body to strengthen the SIR process pointing that West Bengal "poses a challenge not faced in the first phase of SIR in Bihar".

It pointed out "the Matua community, along with other similarly situated Hindu migrants, has expressed growing dissatisfaction due to insufficient clarity on their documentation status" in a letter to the EC on Wednesday, November 26. The Matua are a socio-religious community of Namashudra Hindus with roots in present day Bangladesh.

Millions of them have migrated to India since partition, with a surge in the 1971 war against Pakistan that created Bangladesh. The exodus still continues under the religious persecution they face across the border.

While many of them have assumed Indian citizenship through legal and natural processes, those who have come later are awaiting the status.

There were widespread apprehension and anxiety over rumours floated around National Register of Citizens (NRC), especially when the exercise was undertaken in neighbouring Assam.

Their plight has been politically leveraged during elections since the group is the state’s second largest among Scheduled Caste (SC).