West Bengal in 2025: a year of religious polarisation

Despite not being an election year, 2025 was a tumultuous year for West Bengal politics.

The year began on a high note with the West Bengal government under Mamata Banerjee inaugurating a Jagannath Temple in Digha. The ₹250 crore religious project in the State’s Purba Medinipur district was aimed to counter the Hindutva push of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However, little did people behind the project realise that the temple would create such an impact in the State that even they will not be able to contain it.

The Trinamool’s push for temples had prompted another project — construction of a ‘Babri’ Mosque at Beldanga in State’s Murshidabad district. Suspended Trinamool Congress MLA Humayun Kabir on December 11 laid the foundation stone for the construction of a mosque styled on ‘Babri Masjid’, the disputed structure in Ayodha that was demolished by kar sevaks, paving way for a Ram temple after decades of legal battle.

The very site where the foundation stone was laid has been drawing hundreds of visitors everyday. Mr. Kabir’s argument is that if the State government can construct a temple, why can’t Muslims of the construct a mosque. The temple-mosque politics is threatening the split of Muslim support base of the State’s ruling party with Mr. Kabir announcing a new party Janata Unnayan Party would contest in the next year’s Assembly polls.

West Bengal in 2025 also witnessed one of its worst communal riots at Shamsherganj in Murshidabad district. Violence erupted in the second week of April in the district during protests against The Waqf (Amendment) Act. Two persons were lynched to death by a mob, while one person died in police action. The riots not only widened the communal rift between the two communities but came as a major embarrassment for the Trinamool Congress government which champions itself of promoting religious amity.

The year also saw the harassment of Bengali-speaking migrants across different states in the country. After a circular by the Ministry of Home Affairs in May, hundreds of migrants from the State were detained in different States in holding centres and some were pushed back in Bangladesh despite unsuccessfully trying to prove they were residents of West Bengal.

The detentions not only led to disruptions in the work cycle of the migrants but gave a handle to Trinamool Congress to target the BJP-ruled Centre, accusing it of being “anti Bengali”. Ms. Banerjee held several protest marches against the attack on migrant workers and even announced a scheme to provide monthly aid to workers who return to the State.

Despite these attacks, the migrants of the State continued to travel to other states for work as the alternative employment opportunities in the State remain thin.

The year also saw about 25,000 teachers and non teaching staff being terminated from their services after the Supreme Court upheld an order of Calcutta High Court which had said that the recruitment in 2016 was fraught with irregularities. For the first time, the recruitment agencies had to issue a list of hundreds of candidates who were appointed by using illegal means. For months the affected teachers were on the streets but got no relief from the administration and the courts.

Among the list of eventful events in December was the violence at Salt Lake Stadium during an appearance of football legend Lionel Messi. The fiasco where football fans turned violent after being unable to catch a glimpse of their favourite football star despite paying high prices for tickets drew an apology from the Chief Minister herself.

The year also saw a lot of political posturing on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) with Trinamool Congress reconciling with the process and the BJP claims of one crore deletions falling flat. After the first phase of SIR, about 58 lakh names have been deleted from the electoral rolls. The SIR process will spill over to 2026 when the State will have Assembly polls.

If year 2024 was the year of the protests, the year 2025 saw an increase in politics of polarisation something that has been evident with the rise of BJP and other Hindutva forces in the State. The political unrest across the border in Bangladesh and reports of attacks on Hindu minorities has also widened the divide as the State heads for another high-pitched electoral battle in 2026.