Despite being Mamata's favourite, why big-mouthed Barkati was given the boot
He had been throwing his weight around for quite some time now. Not because he weighed over 100kg but because he loved to flaunt power, political clout and VIP proximity, wilfully allowing such trappings to weigh him down.
Spitting fatwas at one and all, Noor-ur-Rehman Barkati, the former Shahi Imam of Tipu Sultan mosque, with his mehendi-dyed and trimmed beard, faiz topi in place, zooming in and out in a huge sedan, with a red beacon flickering atop was power and privilege personified.
Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi, litterateur Salman Rushdie and novelist Taslima Nasreen were not spared from his fatwa-hurling habit for this and that.
He, as the chief clergy of one of the oldest mosques in the state, announced a prize money of Rs 25 lakh for shaving off Narendra Modi’s head and beard in January 2017. The reason being Prime Minister Modi’s demonetisation drive, but the actual trigger was Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s declared “jihad” against the PM for setting the CBI on her heels.
Not only this, for the last six years of Mamata Banerjee’s rule, Barkati’s loyalty towards the chief minister was unquestionable and consequently his heavyweight presence as the head clergy but more for being a weighty representative of a particular community became fixed in political dais, government programmes and even in closeted prayer halls, where the imam asked the voters to vote for a particular party.
Stomping around as he did, in immaculately white kurta-jacket or bandhgala, voluminous in girth, heavy on his gait and in full command of his position, till he was forced to step down a week ago, Barkati’s strength and power-house was the chief minister and her complete licence to let him be, become big and powerful.
For all the fatwas he announced, the chief minister did nothing. “In fact she was happy to give Barkati a long rope. If Dilip Ghosh (BJP state president) wanted to drag Mamata by her hair and throw her out of the country, Barkati felt that Ghosh should be stoned and driven out. Ghosh was made to apoligise in the Assembly, but Barkati got away, without even a rebuke,” said poll analyst Biswanath Chakrabarty and professor of political science at Rabindra Bharati University.
To RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat’s desire of creation of a Hindu India, Barkati’s muscle-flexing quote was — “If India ceased to be a secular country, India’s 25-30 crore Muslims should be given their Pakistan.”
In January 2017, Barkati as a principal speaker of a joint press conference held under the banner of All India Majlis-e-Sura and All India Minority Forum, dubbed Modi as “Communal” (daangabaaz — an epithet Mamata Banerjee frequently used for Modi) and Mamata as figure of “communal harmony.”
Barkati was unstoppable to a point of no redemption. He was even speaking the language, lip-servicing the words chief minister used from her lexicon. And the sweet indulgence came from none, but the chief minister, who was happy to have created a counterfoil to the fire and flame spitting Hindu fundamentalists.
Barkati, power and publicity hungry that he was, was wearing his allegiance for Mamata Banerjee on his sleeve. He made sure to parade his proximity to Mamata at the drop of his hat (aka Faiz Topi).
When the controversy over Barkati’s refusal to take off the red beacon was raging in the state, he had the guts to say: “Who are they (the Centre) to order me? The British government permitted us to install red light and so why should I remove it, not even if the Prime Minister asked me to do so. The chief minister did not oppose to my using the red beacon... I will remove only if the Prime Minister and his cabinet colleagues were ready to live without security guards,” he went on, shooting off his mouth, as he allowed the red beacon to glow for 12 days even after the imposition of the ban.
Everything was going fine till it occurred to the chief minister that Barkati's cravings for power, publicity and political aspiration and his greed for gigantism were bloating big to a point of rupture. “He was using the chief minister as a shield for his unconstitutional acts, for stoking up Hindu sentiment, leading to consolidation of Hindu votes, never seen before,” added Chakrabarty.
“He had done a lot of damage for the party. He has consecrated the post of a religious leader by being undemocratic, unconstitutional and by showing interest in political affairs. It was unbecoming of him and allowing him to continue as a religious leader would have been disastrous. We under the banner of Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind has launched a protest against Barkati,” said Siddiquilla Chowdury, library minister of Mamata Banerjee cabinet and prominent leader of Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind.
The Jamiat-Ulema-i-Hind was instrumental in pulling down Barkati from the post of Imam of Tipu Sultan mosque.
Incidentally, Mamata did not come to his rescue this time. Realising that Barkati had become highly unpopular within his own community and the cry against him had turned into a loud wail, the chief minister just took a few minutes to dump him.
The urban development minister Firhad Hakim was rushed to Barkati’s house on May 13 to make him abide by law and take off the beacon and Siddiquilla Chowdhury and MP Nadeemul Haaque were set into motion to criticise, condemn and strip off the Imam from all his flamboyant trappings, as part of Mamata Banerjee’s damage control exercise.
The objective was "served” to win kudos, both from the Muslims and Hindus alike, who felt it was time Mamata disciplined and shut the big-mouthed.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)