Elections 2019: Between BJP and TMC, Bengal is Being Torn Apart

When Kazi Nazrul Islam wrote of the “bird pierced in the tender bosom by an arrow” did he imagine today’s West Bengal, or is it Rabindra Nath Tagore’s vision of “where the mind is without fear” that is being destroyed? For, there is no escaping the fact that the ongoing election process is sowing poison seeds in the state that will yield an incendiary harvest in the years to come.

A few days ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a public rally in Srirampur, addressed the gathering as bhakts of Ram, Durga and Saraswati, and claimed that they could not observe their religious festivals, their daughters and sisters could not go out of the house while “the others” could do what they like, with impunity and at their pleasure. This has been the tone and tenor of Modi in most of his public speeches in Bengal. He has held seven public meetings catering to just 18 parliamentary constituencies that have gone to polls till date, showing the high priority that he and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are giving to Bengal. Reportedly, Modi may address another 15 public meetings for the remaining 24 constituencies.

BJP president Amit Shah, not to be left behind, has also held several public meetings in one of which he declared that not only would a victorious BJP implement the National Registry of Citizens (NRC) in Bengal but that they would ensure that all illegal immigrants (meaning Muslim immigrants) would be picked up one by one and thrown into the Bay of Bengal. If this is the way the leading lights of BJP are speaking, you can imagine what kind of venom leaders lower down the order would be spewing.

In a state with 27% Muslim population, and a sensitive cross-border immigration issue with neighbour Bangladesh, this is a strategy of open polarisation on communal lines, with only one purpose: to get more votes and win more seats. Why this desperation? Because BJP knows that it needs to make up for seats from other states that it is losing in places like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and other North Indian states. But, in the process, BJP is initiating a long war, a future that will see civil strife at an unprecedented scale and sweep. It is blind to this, or perhaps, it does not care. Or maybe that is the objective.

A Plan Long in Making

For those who have followed events in Bengal in recent years, it is evident that this communal strategy is not a recent invention of Modi’s backroom campaign managers. It has been the BJP/Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s key strategy for Bengal for several years now. And, like all such strategies, it has benefitted from the sectarian and strong-arm politics of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) led by Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of the state.

First, have a look at the sudden rise in communal violence in the state after Modi’s storming to power at the Centre in 2014.

Information from the government is available only till 2017, but the trend is shockingly clear. The number of communal incidents in the state have risen by nearly four times between 2014 and 2017.

While Banerjee and her party were ‘consolidating’ the Muslim base through a series of policy measures that were a mix of reasonably justified and out and out pandering, the BJP/RSS was pushing a militant Hindutva agenda as a counterpoint. It started organising aggressive parades on Hindu festivals and protests at so called illegal immigration. Hindus were portrayed as victims of discrimination – a travesty in a state with 73% Hindu population.

There were a series of communal clashes in 2016-17, mostly arising from competing claims of Durga idol immersion and Muharram processions in October. These were spread across the state, and BJP utilised the coincidence of the two festivals to precipitate violence, while the TMC government and its police continued with its strong-arm tactics. Violence flared up in West Midnapore, Burdwan, Kolkata, Howrah, Hajinagar, Ilambazar, etc. In Kaliachak, Maldah, a Muslim mob went on a rampage and burnt down the police station over derogatory statements made by a Hindu Mahasabha leader.

In 2018, in March, the BJP openly organised a series of events ostensibly to mark Ram Navami which ended in a bloodbath. In several districts of Bengal and adjacent Bihar, bike processions with riders carrying swords and tridents among saffron flags were taken out, leading to violence after provocative slogans were shouted, and the police moved in to curb the mounting tension. At least three people died in the clashes between two communities. In the Asansol-Durgapur-Raniganj belt, rampaging mobs indulged in looting and an Imam of a mosque was killed.

It is this relentless drive of the BJP/RSS and affiliated organisations that has laid the ground to what is now being seen as an electoral battle royale between the BJP and TMC.

Resurgent Left

After its dramatic loss in 2011 Assembly polls, the Left has faced a sustained attack from TMC gangs across the state. But in recent years, it has seen a revival with influx of youth and a policy of large mobilisations for agrarian and working-class issues. This third stream is carrying out a dogged battle against both, the advancing storm troopers of BJP/RSS as well as the entrenched TMC in government. Much of media attention is focused on the BJP-TMC war, but the rise of the Left, especially the Communist Party of India (Marxist), is largely ignored. In the process, the Left’s brave confrontation of the communal drive is also ignored.

In fact, it is only the Left that has been consistently fighting to save the soul of Bengal by exposing the imposition of violent Hindutva or attempts to peddle soft Hindutva, as recently undertaken by Banerjee by organising Hindu religious processions to prove her own credentials.

But in this dirty dynamic of the election, the poisoning of Bengal is a tragedy that India has not fully realised. Between Mamata Banerjee and Narendra Modi, the soul of Bengal is being crushed, and only the Left is standing up to it.