Kolkata: The kidnapper or ‘chele dhora’ has been a device used by generations of families in West Bengal to scare wandering children into coming back home at a certain time or from straying. The other narrative that has survived generations of retelling is the snatching of unattended babies by sanyasis. In popular imagination, the suitably clad ascetic is both anonymous and dangerous.
The archetype of the chele dhora, a criminal disguised as a saffron robed sanyasi, is perhaps a variation of Ravana kidnapping Sita in the Panchavati forest. The reinvention of the trope, using disguise to nab the children is a reversal of roles and a sneaky, smart move that insinuates that there is a connection between the Bharatiya Janata Party and crime. After the arrest of Juhi Chowdhury, a local leader of the BJP’s women’s wing in North Bengal for alleged links to a baby adoption racket, the controversy has now brought within its ambit Kailash Vijayvargiya, general secretary of the BJP in West Bengal and, Rajya Sabha MP Roopa Ganguly. It had emerged that Chowdhury had met them after her name surfaced. Chowdhury had been on the run and was arrested a few days after allegations against her name were made.
Vile as the crime of trafficking in babies is, the political connection has brought into sharper focus the ‘huge networks’ that run these operations. The police also arrested the Darjeeling district child protection officer (DCPO), Mrinal Ghosh, exposing the underbelly of the network that includes errant officials, doctors, nursing homes and NGOs. The arrests were made after key accused Chandana Chakrobarty — who owned the children’s home and the shelter for the mentally ill and disabled, Bimala Sishu Griha and Ahsray — revealed details about how the nexus worked.
The crime has inevitably become entangled in the saffron groups versus Mamata Banerjee tussle over political turf. This one dramatic case, both, focuses public attention on the problem and also shields the size of it from closer scrutiny, because the ‘huge networks’ that operate to keep the trade going, continue to do so.
It points to a chilling reality. In West Bengal, which tops the list of Indian states for trafficking in women and children, acquiring or procuring people – babies for adoption, the young and the able bodied as labour, women, girls and boys for the sex trade, the healthy for organs, for organised for begging and for every other form of exploitation that the imagination can conceive – there is a well- established supply chain that procures what the market or trade in persons wants.
