Breaking bread and barriers: 40 people break fast together, volunteers mostly Hindus
Telegraph | 31 March 2025
Breaking bread together after a day’s fast is not just a Muslim ritual in Calcutta.
Many Hindus who have or have not fasted take part in Iftar. So do members of other communities.
The togetherness sends a message loud and clear. That the belligerent politics of polarisation that has reared its ugly head across the country might find it difficult to gain a toehold here.
At the heart of Metiabruz on Saturday evening, over 40 people broke their fast together. The majority of the volunteers who chopped fruits and prepared sherbets were Hindus.
The venue was Raya Debnath Free Medical Clinic on Paharpur Road in the interiors of Metiabruz. It is run by an elderly couple, Kushal Debnath and Alpana Dutta. The clinic is named after their daughter, who died in August 2020.
“Some of the volunteers are Nimai Chowdhury, Kajal Pakhira, Ashrafi Prasad and Anima Sarkar. They are chopping fruits for Md Sujauddin, Reza and Kalim, who are fasting. We are not doing anything spectacular. This is our culture. But we must preserve it dearly in the present atmosphere of hate and division,” said Debnath.
Last Sunday, in the assembly hall of Don Bosco Park Circus, more than 250 people gathered for Iftar. The attendees included former students, teachers and non-teaching staff and Salesian fathers of Don Bosco.
“It was a brotherly communion. We were all sitting next to one another and breaking bread together. There was no divide of religion, caste or creed,” said Avigyan Chakraborty, vice-president of the alumni association of Don Bosco Park Circus.
Pankajj Minocha, 59, a past president of the alumni association and a regular at the annual Iftar, attributed the spirit of togetherness to their upbringing in the Catholic school. “Our school taught us that we are all brothers. We live by that principle,” he said.
Md Azizul Haque, 58, also a former student and a regular at the programme, said: “Growing up, we would share each other’s tiffin. Even now, we are invited to Holi and Christmas programmes. This is Calcutta.”
In a pocket of Shibpur in Howrah, Hindu women have been taking the lead in chopping fresh fruits to prepare the Iftar meal for Muslim neighbours, often with bontis (knives) that are also used for puja at their homes.
Last Sunday, more than 600 people broke their fast together in a neighbourhood in Shibpur. Many of the participants came from the Priyanath Manna Basti, where a majority of the residents are Muslims.
Violence erupted in Howrah and Hooghly in the run-up to Ram Navami last year.
“Every such Iftar strengthens the resistance against attempts at dividing people. This shared living is the only antidote to the marauding juggernaut of polarisation,” said Joyraj Bhattacharjee, a theatre activist.
Bengal, which goes to the polls next year, has been witnessing a renewed bid to divide people on the lines of faith.
The BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari has been pushing the hard-line Hindutva envelope, threatening to throw Muslim lawmakers out of the Assembly and urging “sanatani solidarity” to unseat the Mamata Banerjee government.
The Trinamul Congress MLA from Bharatpur, Humayun Kabir, has been accused of making disparaging comments laced with communal overtones.
How members of the majority community must protest the diatribe against minorities was mentioned time and again at a “Dosti ki Iftari” in Park Circus on Saturday.
“How the minorities live in a country is usually determined by what the majority community feels about them. People-to-people connect is very important for this. That is why we organise interfaith Iftars where people can know each other better,” said Sabir Ahamed, convener of the Know Your Neighbour campaign that organised Saturday’s Iftar.
On Saturday evening, the majestic and illuminated Nakhoda mosque looked resplendent in the run-up to Eid.
The neighbourhood was crowded to the hilt. People from all over the city, many of them non-Muslims, throng Zakaria Street during Ramzan, mainly for Iftar delicacies like haleem, kebabs, sewai, bakarkhani (a type of bun) and sheermal (a type of sweet bread).
Mohammad Amzad, 19, a first-year BCom student who works at Raza Cap Palace near Nakoda Masjid, told The Telegraph: “We sold around 2,500 caps this year, beyond our expectations. This time last year, we sold around 800 pieces.”
“Ramzan teaches restraint, patience, peace and brotherhood. Every person is free. But no one is free to create communal tension,” said the Imam of Nakhoda mosque, Shafique Qasmi.