Bugles Before Round Two

‘Jai Shri Ram’ gets Mamata’s goat; battle is joined with BJP; Bengal’s division into two warring camps continues.

- Probir Pramanik in Calcutta

FOR high political drama encap­ sulated in a few minutes, it has few parallels; as a continuation of the pitched battle—verbal and otherwise—fought in Ben­ gal by the Trinamool Congress and the BJP throughout the poll sea­ son, there can be no greater confir­ mation. A motley group shout ‘Jai Shri Ram’ as the convoy of West Ben­ gal chief minister Mamata Banerjee passes through an industrial belt on the northeastern fringe of Calcutta. As if on cue, the vehicle carrying Ban­ erjee, the TMC chief, stops and she steps out. “Who’s shouting Jai Shri Ram?” she demands angrily. No one volunteers an answer. “If I am alive, I will see how far you go. Bengal will be ours,” she thunders, instructing the police to note down names of the men who shouted the slogan—a veritable war cry of BJP workers.

Bruised and embittered by the 18 Lok Sabha seats lost to the saffron surge in Bengal—until now, perceived as a secular frontier—Mamata is trying to counter ‘Jai Shi Ram’ with ‘Joy Bangla’ and ‘Jai Hind’, public exclamations that have represented secular Bengali and Indian patriotic sentiments for decades.

But, has the feisty Mamata, known for her street-fighting cred since her earliest days in politics, walked into a guileful trap by regarding the saffron brigade slogan as a taunt directed at her, almost as a personal affront?

Ever since the BJP’s unexpectedly good showing in Bengal, analysts say that the otherwise seasoned Mamata has reacted in a foolhardy manner. For, a petulant, even choleric, rejection of a Hindutva slogan can only play into the hands of the speedily-expanding BJP-RSS combine in Bengal, allegedly helping them to further deepen the communal divide.