An audio clip accredited to National award-winning Bengali singer and TMC politician Kabir Suman speaking to a journalist from R Bangla is making the round of social media. Though HinduPost has not independently authenticated the audio clip, as per an article published in Bengali news site Aajkal, the singer admits that he will repeat this behaviour again. The unspeakable expletives hurled at the journalist by the artist have taken the people of Bengal by shock. 

Translation: The journalist opens the conversation with a “Namaskar” and introduces himself as a journalist from R Bangla. To which Kabir Suman fumes, “Republic? That piglet of a channel belonging to the RSS? That RSS TV? Hang up. Say “Jai Shree Ram” and hang up.” The journalist politely tries to convince him to talk but Suman continues, “Hang up journalist, say Jai Shree Ram and hang up” he then proceeds to say, “This is Bengal. This is not the country of your Maora (slang used for Marwaris) Hindus. 

The journalist clarified that he has called as a Bengali to which Suman blasted, “I f**k Bengali’s mother. Hang up, you piglet…. BJP is paapi.. you are Bokach*da. S@@la, keep the phone down,” he also mocked the phrase “Jai Shree Ram” several times before hanging up on the journalist. 

Who is Kabir Suman?

Kabir Suman is a prominent leader of the Trinamool Congress and was a Member of Parliament from 2009 to 2014 from the Jadavpur constituency. He had once showered praises on the West Bengal CM stating, “Three hundred years from now, people will worship Mamata as a deity; temples will be dedicated to her.”

Conversion to Islam

Suman was born in a Bengali Brahmin family as Suman Chattopadhyay who accepted Islam at a later point in his life. Though he stated, “I became Kabir Suman from Suman Chattopadhyay when I converted to Islam. There were anti-Muslim sentiments everywhere and therefore by converting, I wanted to share their plight, their fate. The killing of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons by Hindu fundamentalists made me reach a thresh-hold. It might sound crazy to some but by changing my identity or rather, embracing a different religion, I wanted to send a signal,” the reality as believed by many is that he had converted to Islam to marry a Bangladeshi Muslim singer who he started an affair with while being married to his German wife. Celebrities like Dharmendra and Mahesh Bhatt have also adopted this way out to have multiple wives. 

His claim also sounds phoney because had he wanted to protest the death of the Australian Evangelist, he would have converted to Christianity. Again, being a Hindu Bengali, who had visited Bangladesh multiple times, wasn’t he aware of the persecution of the Hindus at the hands of the Muslims? If the death of one family can move him away from Hindu Dharma, how did he gravitate towards Islam being aware of how lakhs of Hindu Bengalis were slaughtered by Muslims in the Islamic nation? 

Suman, who has been married five times, needed to convert to Islam and marry Bangladeshi Muslim singer Sabina Yasmin and has been a Muslim since 2001. 

Kabir Suman’s Anti-Hindu stance and vulgar personality

An advocate of hijab, since his conversion to Islam, Kabir Suman has hurt Hindu sentiments repeatedly in a number of ways like calling Maa Durga an outsider, while celebrating Mahisasur. Through a poem published on his Facebook page in 2020, he suggested that Maa Durga was attracted to Mahisasur and had wanted to establish a relationship with him. In another outrageous poem, he had advocated raping Hindu daughters to avenge the alleged rape of Asifa. These poems had earned him immense flak on social media. 

Social media users have also come forward alleging that though he was a celebrated artist he had exposed his cultural depravity numerous times while doing shows at various colleges. He would habitually use expletives and the onlookers, assuming it was the trend, would applaud his obscenities. 

The presence of Suman in the political landscape of Bengal only exhibits the cultural death the state is faced with. Though a police case has been lodged against him for this crude behaviour with the journalist and his rampant usage of expletives, it is safe to infer from available precedence that no action will be taken against Suman.