The ISF was formed in 2021 and is led by Pirzada Abbas Siddique and Nawsad Siddique - popularly known as Bhaijaan or “revered brother” - of the popular Furfura Sharif shrine. Given the centrality of Furfura Sharif and its Bhaijaan leaders, the ISF is often somewhat derogatorily portrayed as representing a kind of emotional “shrine-based politics” in the mainstream media and in popular political discourse. In this seminar, however, Abdul Matin argues that the emergence and appeal of the ISF must not be reduced to merely a form of community-based political mobilization anchored in religious or emotional sentiments. More importantly, the appeal of the ISF is derived from the deeply embedded historical experience of social, economic and political marginalization of Muslims across West Bengal’s postcolonial history. Here, shifting state governments led successively by the Congress, the Left Front, and the Trinamool Congress, have all tended to frame the Muslim question along the “secular-communal axis”, thereby eliding any substantial engagement with questions of social justice and dignity. The appeal of the ISF is that it promises to make these questions central to state politics.
Dr. Abdul Matin has a PhD from the Center for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and is currently Assistant Professor of Political Science at Jadavpur University, Kolkata