Bengal's wake-up call: Seizing the moment or surrendering to fate

Bengal. We all worry about it, but we don’t know what to do about it. Bengal. Once the epicentre of Indian intellectualism and revolution is today a meek, silent and servile entity in the geography of India. Bengal, which could once be easily aroused by the call of the Communists, has for the past decade, allowed its spirit to be doused by Mamata’s Trinamool Congress. Today Bengal continues its existence as a spineless and speechless community, wanting relief, but not welcoming any opportunity for release! This is the irony of Bengal. This is their self-made tale.

When West Bengal got the opportunity to welcome the BJP in 2021, they let it pass, just as an inefficient defender allows the football ball to score a home goal.

Bengal is not just the BJP’s worry but should cause anxiety to the whole of India. The illegal Bangladeshis are not even covert in their movements all over the country. With the Trinamool Congress openly welcoming them with the gift of immediate Aadhaar cards, thanks to the benevolence of Mamata Di, their forward migration is ever so easy. Her gift comes with a caveat. When Assembly elections happen, they must rush back to Bengal from where ever they are, to vote for Didi Mamata!

Just now it appears as if New Delhi has long-term plans for Bengal. It is not doing anything alarming in Bengal to caution the people of what is to come. They are allowing some suspense to hang in the air and give some talking points to the people. Whilst leaders from the Centre are making themselves visible every now and then, the people of Bengal, particularly the Hindus, are still looking for a Bengali amongst them. Being a very race-driven parochial community, the Bengali feels that it will take him time to develop some more faith in the BJP or feel close to it. So far, BJP sits in the hearts of a bold few, a secretive few and a meek few. Not everyone is courageous enough to express support for the BJP openly, lest Mamata’s goons hear of it. The consequences can be dangerous, both for people and property, but the unafraid are often heard saying, ‘Mukhe Mamata aar buke BJP’. Its translation is not difficult. Their mouths take Mamata’s name but their hearts call out to the BJP.

It is quite possible to make the BJP occupy more space in the hearts of the Bengalis and this can be achieved by just giving the Bengalis a Bengali BJP face who they can consider to be their ideal person; someone who will help usher them into Bengal’s new dawn and can lead the people of Bengal just like the Pied Piper of Hamlin. This is not to call the people of Bengal mice. After all, the Bengalis like to believe that they are tigers. BJP would like to see that side of them, under Mamata.

The supporters of the BJP in Bengal disapprove of the erstwhile TMC faces who are now well-settled in BJP, Bengal. Bengal is looking for something fresh and something new. Someone bold and not so old. Perhaps someone who can come as a surprise from nowhere, as a breath of fresh air with neither the weight of previous baggage nor the load of any current bias.

The BJP government does understand the challenges with West Bengal under a Mamata, who is determined to let the state government ruin Bengal to a point from where it can never return. Bengal is fully aware of how Mamata Banerjee’s party is allowing the Bangladeshi illegal immigrants to spill in each day, in large numbers so it can help the TMC further establish their Muslim votes. The larger the number of immigrants, the more they can further their appeasement and strengthen and serenade their already well-established Muslim vote bank in Bengal. Many say that Mamata’s ultimate aim is to reduce the composition of Hindus in the state and turn them into a minority population. In this scenario, if Mamata does achieve this, one can be sure to welcome a new Bengal, determined by the laws of the Sharia and not the Shlokas for the Shiva.

A scenario like this should make the educated and well-to-do intelligentsia worry and give sleepless nights to the not-so-rich Hindus. Mamata Banerjee makes no bones about her image. Her open opposition to the inaugural function at Ayodhya and her abhorrence for the Sanatan Dharma, clearly states her position and her purpose, her aim and her aspirations. In the end, it is the educated and uneducated men, women and youth of Bengal who must actually decide on what they actually wish for Bengal. If despite everything, they still vote for Mamata Banerjee, then what is left to say?

If this is not the case, then to avoid any further damage to Bengal, the intelligence must mobilise and the masses must meet. Together, they can become the wind beneath BJP’s wings when the time comes to go to the Assembly polls of 2026.

This is an urgent need since the state of West Bengal has been asleep for too long. It has been in a state of ‘No Ship’ for too long. It has no industries, no enterprise, no employment, no ambition, no infrastructure, no jobs, no spine, no determination and no will.

Too used to being treated like mushrooms being kept in the dark and fed bulls**t, the Bengali voters have turned to ‘sleep mode’. As a Bong, this angers me the most. What has happened to our spunk and what has happened to our tall talks about being the most superior race in India?

What happened to those lines gifted to us by Rabindranath Tagore of ‘Where our minds are without fear and our heads are held high’? Tagore wrote these beautiful lines and we Bengalis have forgotten the essence of those deep thoughts and sentiments. I wish to quote the rest of the lines by the great poet. ’ Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection…Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way…Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit.’ The words are profound and so apt for Bengal, yet the Bengalis don’t turn to these words to inspire and encourage them.

Sadly, today’s Bengal is a shadow of its old self. It’s a sorry figure, with its back bent and its legs struggling to hold itself upright, but that is not what most troubles Bengal. The main problem is the blindness in its eyes and darkness in its vision.

The same Bengalis, who under the Communists, would take no time to ‘gherao’; preventing those in authority from leaving until their demands were met or resolved and who would willy nilly join processions to voice their demands loudly, today accept their fate in quietness. They sit mum as if they have mortgaged both their vocal cords and their future to Mamata.

When people outside Bengal ask, ’ What is wrong with the Bengalis? Why can they not get rid of Mamata?’ I say, ‘If they really want her out so badly, then it only takes some coordination and a certain amount of perseverance to achieve a Trinamool-free Bengal. All they need are two ingredients, first, the will to hit the streets and accumulate in the largest numbers to reject Mamata and second, the perseverance to not stop until they have achieved their goal to remove Mamata’s government permanently. The question is, is Bengal still capable of any revolt and revolution or was that a Bengal of the past, that can never return again?

We are waiting to see, how much longer the people will remain silent. We are waiting to see how much more Bengal will bear Mamata Banerjee’s torturous regime. We are also waiting to see how much more money the people of Bengal wish to see emerging from the private cupboards of Mamata’s ministers and we are waiting to see how many more frauds and scandals, our eyes have the courage to witness.

In the end, Bengal will have to turn to the BJP. The BJP has come into Bengal like warm wind on a cold winter’s day as a government at the Centre that can in a single stroke absolve Bengal of all its problems. We, the talkative, verbose and opinionated Bengalis must admit that we can no longer afford to misjudge the BJP on flimsy rumours and grounds.

Our complaint in 2021 was that Shri Ram, whose chants and slogans were filling Bengal’s air, was not music to our ears since Shri Ram is not a Bengali God. We are parochial in spiritualism too. We perceive the BJP to be a party from the north of India and speak a language, alien to Bengal. How easily the Bengalis have accepted Mamata’s words and accusation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah are ‘bohiragotos’ or outsiders, in a state that puts Bengalis above other Indians.

It is embarrassing that the Bengalis still maintain their age-old animosity towards non-Bongs and reject them by brushing them off as mere non-Bengalis! As if being a ’non-Bong’ means being a lesser Indian! Bengalis have forgotten the age-old saying ’that what goes around, comes around’. Once it was a Gandhi and a Patel leading India and today it is a Modi and a Shah. For how long can they be prejudiced or remain in denial mode of the reality of today’s India? If we Bengalis are incapable of helping ourselves, then we have no choice but to allow the Gujaratis to save us from further ruin.

On one hand, Modi has shown the world his capability as a leader by giving India what it deserves militarily, economically, technologically, spiritually, academically, politically and internationally. For how long can we be unwelcoming of his good motives for our state? Modi is a proven leader and administrator and his government has a squeaky-clean image. His aim for Bengal is simple. He wants dirt out and ‘swachhata’ in. The bottom line is simple. All he wants for Bengal is progress in totality, including education, infrastructure, industries, employment, internal security, security for women, security for the farmers, the old and the aged. The other thing he desires in Bengal is the return of dreams in the eyes of the youth of Bengal. He is not asking for much in return, except the support from Bengali voters.

Bengal can only blame the educated on one hand, and the poor on the other for their lack of any collective motivation to alter their fate. The educated are secure in their earnings and savings and the state of their State does not affect their lives, particularly their evenings at Kolkata’s elite clubs. Bengal’s, darkness is irrelevant to the lives of the middle class. The poor, on the other hand, are so busy enjoying the freebies doled out to them by Mamata Banerjee, that it is of no concern to them that the freebies are impoverishing the state and then further. For the moment, free supplies of food come before their future and Mamata’s dictatorial regime appears better than self-determination.

They say that fools learn from their own experience while intelligent people learn from other people’s experiences. Bengal has been fooled by their own experience, time after time. They tried supporting the Communists who drowned their future and then, Bengal voted for the TMC who ensured that the drowning Bengal would never come afloat again.

Now, their only chance is to turn to the BJP and allow them to save them and help them soar freely in the sky.

Bengal’s Assembly elections are two years away but now that the parliamentary elections are nearing, I hope that the Bengali race will be fearless and be truthful to themselves for once and vote for Modi’s BJP. May Ma Durga give them the wisdom and Ma Kali the fearlessness to vote boldly.

As Tagore had once written, ‘Shey din dujone, dulechhinu bone, phoolo dore bandha jhuloona.’ Translated, the beautiful song says that it was the other day that we had both swung on a swing, adorned in flowers. It is time for Bengal to get on the swing with the BJP and let the fragrance from the flowers adorning that swing, scent their lives with the fragrance of a bright new Bengal.

The writer is an author, poet, and a member of the BJP. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.

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