HINDUTVA WITH A BENGALI ACCENT

AHEAD OF THE 2024 GENERAL ELECTION, THE BJP IS TRYING A NEW TACTIC TO WIN OVER BENGAL-COOPTING THEMES NATIVE TO THE STATE, RESUSCITATING HALF-FORGOTTEN TEMPLES AND REIMAGINING 'ANCIENT' PILGRIMAGES

- Romita Datta

It was supposed to be a soiree celebrating the birth anniversaries of two great Bengali poets—Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam—in the sprawling nat mandir (dance hall) of Radha Govinda Jiu temple at Nabadwip, in West Bengal’s Nadia district. But, an hour before its start on May 24, amidst sudden commotion, the organisers were made to remove a picture of Nazrul and delete his name from the title— Rabindra-Nazrul Sandhya—by temple authorities. Later, it emerged they had bowed to ‘pressure’ from the BJP, who did not appreciate the celebration of a Muslim poet in a Hindu temple space.

The targeting of Nazrul by the BJP has a history. As an icon who in many ways bridges the religious chasm that has scarred Bengal, he may not be particularly easy to villainise, but typifies the culture of exchange and reciprocity the party tends to look askance at. So it was entirely in character when, during the 1999 Lok Sabha campaign, Bengal BJP leader Tapan Sikdar disparaged him as a "modhyo-medhar Mussalman kobi" (a second-rate Muslim poet). To that extent, the basic instinct is familiar from other saffron laboratories: go hard at spaces and figures of syncretism who create a climate opposite to one conducive to Hindutva. But under that broad umbrella, the BJP’s ongoing advance into West Bengal politics has been seeing a perceptible shift—a conscious tactical adaptation to the local habitus.