Neither Modi nor Shah seem to understand meaning or context of Sonar Bangla, or do they?

It appears that the BJP’s Chanakya, Amit Shah, has lost his skill and has nothing new to offer except some old decadent and outdated rhetoric.

The most potent offer he and his boss Narendra Modi has made to the people of Bengal has been creation of Sonar Bangla. He and Narendra Modi have been harping on it, probably without knowledge of the context and implications contained in the phrase.

The phrase appears in a song composed by Kaviguru Rabindranath Tagore as an expression of how precious the Bengali language is and how much its speakers value it. One of India’s most cherished renaissance figures, Rabindranath Tagore put India on the literary map of the world when “Gitanjali” was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. Gandhiji called him the ‘Great sentinel’. Introducing “Gitanjali”, W.B. Yeats wrote: ‘[the poems] have stirred my blood as nothing for years…’.

Tagore's worldwide acclaim as a social, political, religious, and aesthetic thinker, innovator in education and a champion of the 'One World' idea makes him a living presence. The poem is also the national anthem of Bangladesh.

Shah and Narendra Modi should have taken pains to understand why Bangladesh adopted this poem as its national anthem. The primary reason is because struggle for Bengali language, culture and social ethics united the people and led to the freedom struggle and liberation of Bangladesh. The song is a hymn to the Bengali language and culture.

Modi and Shah have however dissociated the phrase from language, culture and social ethos, and made it look like their jumla of Vikas in materialistic terms. Tagore would be turning in his grave.

But it does have a design. They both probably know that in order to 'conquer' Bengal and rule the state, they have to chop its language and cultural and social ethos. And in order to accomplish it and create the illusion of a golden deer, the first step taken by them in this direction has been to make people of Bengal conscious of their caste identity. Their caste identity comes before their language and culture is the message.

Both leaders have used their offices and energy in promoting caste and casteism which in their perception is the first step forward towards creation of a Sonar Bangla. It is an open secret that caste has never been the deciding factor in the politics of the state. Till a few years ago, a common Bengali would outright deprecate any reference to caste. Though the upper caste politicians ruled the state for decades, they also did not patronise caste or worked to preserve the interests of their castemen unlike the practice in several other BJP ruled states.

Both leaders made it an issue in the 2016 assembly election. Their key players in the game were members of the Matua community which belongs to the scheduled caste category. Mamata Banerjee also used this to consolidate her position. But it was the BJP which trounced her and gained an upper hand. In the Lok Sabha election of 2019 also it benefitted the BJP.

The urgency to woo the community this time was such that Prime Minister Modi rushed to Bangladesh on polling day to visit temples of the Matua community there. He certainly appears hopeful that his brazen overtures to caste will again yield rich electoral dividend.

While BJP is trying to fuse the Mauta caste identity into Hindutva identity, TMC is projecting Matuas as Bengali refugees from Bangladesh aspiring for Indian citizenship, which is why the BJP has been pushing the Citizenship Amendment Act as an electoral issue in Bengal.

Ironically, many BJP old timers in Bengal do not seem to endorse the push for caste identity or raise political slogans of Jai Shri Ram. They hold it merely as a political slogan. Party sources maintain that this was primarily the reason why most of the old timers were denied ticket to contest the assembly election this time.

These old leaders in many places have tried to revive the defunct Jana Sangh and filed their nominations as its candidates. In Malda which has been a hot bed of the BJP, these old leaders have joined the Jana Sangh and are contesting from eight of the 12 assembly seats. Their primary aim is to ensure the defeat of the official candidates. Sanjit Mishra, former district BJP president, is the new district president of Jana Sangh.

The Jana Sangh was merged with the Janata Party in 1977 and L.K. Advani was its last president. In Bengal the Jana Sangh was revived by an old timer Subrata Mukherjee, the great-grandson of Syama Prasad Mookerjee. This development in Malda, a district with a minority population of around 55 per cent, has unnerved the state leadership. In Malda while the BJP is trying to polarise voters by focusing on caste and communal issues, the newly revived Jana Sangh is harping on Hinduism.

BJP is using caste to break the political hegemony of the upper caste as it is convinced that this snobbish section upholding traditions of the Bhadralok , would not allow it to grow in the state.

IPA Service

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