BJP TO STEP UP ITS AGGRESSIVE CAMPAIGN IN BENGAL

GHOSH’S RENOMINATION
AS PRESIDENT STRENGTHENS RSS HARDLINERS
By re-nominating Dilip Ghosh as the party’s State chief for the next three years, the BJP has given a clear message to its voters and supporters in West Bengal. The party will fight the next year’s State Assembly elections under his leadership. Ghosh is known for his crude and distasteful language. He also disdains to conceal his contempt for the State’s literati and the intelligentsia. In one of his recent public meetings he said that only those who were not sure of their parentage need be concerned about the NRC and CAA. The party faithfuls clapped enthusiastically just as about a decade or so ago loyal party supporters had clapped when a senior CPI-M leader had compared Mamata Banerjee with women of Kolkata’s red light area.

There is no gainsaying the fact that a large section of West Bengal’s traditionally Left-leaning population has become supporters of the BJP since 2014. Even those who had once participated in democratic movements are found to have developed a sympathy for the propaganda of the Hindutva protagonists. The usual talk is that the “Mians” (Muslims) have started flexing their muscles (khub bere gechhe) and the BJP is doing a good thing by striking terror in them. This is not the way West Bengal’s Hindu population used to think and talk in the past. But the past is past. One has to accept the present reality and deal with it. It will be unwise to under-estimate the challenge of the BJP in West Bengal.

The leit motif of BJP’s propaganda is that the NRC and the CAA are meant for giving, not taking away, citizenship. By amending the Citizenship Act, the BJP has paved the way for granting citizenship to all Hindu migrants from Bangladesh because they are the victims of religious persecution. But the Muslims will have to prove their Indian citizenship. Nobody exactly knows what are the “proofs” that will be required. Contradictory statements are being made by the BJP’s central leaders themselves, making confusion worse confounded.

Will it be necessary to produce one’s birth certificate, or does one have to show proof of where their parents were born and what were their birth-dates? Will the voter identity card, PAN card, passport, and the Aadhaar card be accepted as proof of one’s Indian citizenship? Some BJP leaders say, “Yes” while some others say “No.” Common people are getting confused and panicky.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been clearly and emphatically saying that her government will not enforce the NRC and the CAA. The padayatras (foot marches) she has been organizing and personally leading all over the State and the huge number of people joining these foot marches clearly indicate that she and her party, the Trinamool Congress, will fight the BJP all along the line on the issues of NRC and CAA. The State and central BJP leaders’ ceaseless denunciation of Mamata and calling her a Pakistani agent underscores the seriousness of the challenge she has thrown at the BJP.

When the NRC recording process starts and the machinery of the West Bengal Government abstains from taking part in it, what will the Centre do? Will it dismiss the State Government? Mamata says she is even ready for that. It will create an unprecedented situation of Centre-State confrontation in the run up to the State Assembly elections. But all these lie in the womb of the future.

Meanwhile, the CPI-M and the Congress have stepped up their movement against the NRC and the CAA. Judging by the size of their rallies, they have reasons to derive comfort. After a long time, Kolkata and other Left strongholds are witnessing a sea of red flags. If the Congress and the CPI-M had joined forces with the TMC, their combined strength would have thrown a formidable challenge to the saffron camp.

That, however, is not to be. The CPI-M lives in a make-believe world of its own and believes that Modi and Mamata have a “setting”, which means they have a secret understanding. The political war the two are fighting is sham. Recently, the State Congress has also joined the chorus. Objectively, whatever percentage of votes the Left and Congress combine gets in the next elections, will be anti-BJP votes. The splitting of anti-BJP votes will make BJP happy but it cannot prevent the victory of the TMC.

But there is a larger perspective which goes far beyond elections. The challenge that the Sangh Parivar has thrown to the concepts of secularism and democracy will have to be accepted and fought at different levels and in different fronts. There has to be ideological clarity on how to combat the authoritarian and communal forces on a long term basis, irrespective of which party wins or loses this or that election. Also, the socio-political reasons for the response the Sangh Parivar is getting in a liberal, Left-minded State like West Bengal, have to be analysed. The battle against authoritarianism and communalism will be a long one and has to be fought at grassroots level.