Right-ing On The Wall

Mamata Banerjee faces her toughest test as the BJP grows rapidly in West Bengal. Why and how is the state turning saffron?

- Rabi Banerjee

IN 1873, a play by Kiran Chandra Banerjee sparked the imagination of people in Britain-ruled Bengal. It told the story of a woman and her husband, inspired by Bharat Mata, leading a rebellion against the British. Moved by the play, a retired deputy magistrate of Midnapore, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, wrote the novel Anandamath, in which Bharat Mata sings Vande Mataram. The British banned the book.

The British also banned Abanindranath Tagore’s painting of Bharat Mata. Such was the power of the idea of Bharat Mata then. But when Narendra Modi invoked Bharat Mata in 2014, not many in Bengal chanted along. Now they are chanting ‘Bharat Mata’ and ‘Jai Shri Ram’ with fervour.

Exasperated by chants of ‘Jai Shri Ram’, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee recently got out of her car in Paschim Medinipur and confronted the chanters. She said they were “abusing her”.

On May 14, there were violent clashes between student wings of the RSS and the Trinamool during BJP president Amit Shah’s road show in Kolkata. Trinamool supporters allegedly threw stones at the procession while it was passing Calcutta University. Their rivals, in retaliation, allegedly tried to break the gate of the nearby Vidyasagar College and vandalised the statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar there. “I will not spare them,” Mamata said at a rally in South Kolkata.

Mamata reportedly has ambitions of leading a coalition government at the Centre, for which she has to win most of the 42 seats from West Bengal. Many parts of the state, however, have seen a saffron surge during the election campaign. Leaving nothing to chance, the chief minister has gone on a fierce barnstorming across the state, much like she had done when she was opposition leader two terms ago.