The West Bengal Assembly election results have left several political pundits, including those within the BJP itself, scratching their heads in wonder
The Bharatiya Janata Party's loss of an over-hyped West Bengal election only created confusion about the best electoral strategy of its victory machine. While it brought the hound of 'Sonar Bangla', it failed to run with the hare of Bengali nationalism. Its image of a prosperous future 'Bangal' lost to the Bengali intellect-driven, genteel and even maternal nationalism.The hyped 'Sonar Bangla' and 'asolporiborton' of Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the firewall of Bengali nationalism. Bengal sidestepped them by reviving a kind of 'Bengal first and Bengali first' narrative, instead of BJP's thrust on 'Let's make Bengal great again'. The irony of Bengal's election result was so sharp on the BJP that Prime Minister's allusion to Gopal Krishna Gokhale's dictum, "What Bengal thinks today, India will think tomorrow"got rephrased as "what Bengal thinks in 2021, India will think in 2024". On the flipside, the BJP held onto its project of a unitary powerful centre against Bengal's indivisible Bengali identity.
While the BJP in Bengal did not or rather preferred not to come to terms with Bengali nationalism and its sensitivities, the case of Assam is just the opposite. Like Congress of yore, BJP in Assam came to terms with indigenous ethnic nationalism of various communities and tried to arraign them against a common enemy of 'illegal immigrants'. In the case of Bengal, the BJP's emphasis on changed demography in border areas due to illegal immigration from Bangladesh coupled with Mamata Banerjee's appeasement of Muslims and neglect of Hindus to become a two-pronged campaign aimed at altering the settled contours of Bengali nationalism. The BJP wanted to create a segment of Bengalis buying ideas of anti-Muslim Hindu nationalism, who would also buy into the perception of an incoming corporate-business nexus that BJP's Hindi-Hindu nationalism might facilitate. To counter this mismatch, Mamata just had to allude to Bengal's tradition of social harmony and her robust social security programmes as being the core of her philosophy of governance. In effect, nothing such as appeasement theory, illegal immigrants, Hindu victimization, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh models of Vikascould stand upto her play of Bengali nationalism. A nationalism that includes all with their distinctive linguistic and cultural traits brought together under Mamata's social security programmes covering women, SCs, STs and minorities in areas of employment, education, healthcare and housing. Her campaign drew more resonance than the BJP's identity-based nationalism.
This contest between regional nationalism and centrist nationalism in Assam assumes a very different shape. Assamese middle class and elite-driven nationalism always constructed an outer limit of Bengalis of East Bengal origin, who are often categorized as Bangladeshis. Based on this perception, the BJP could successfully turn upper rungs of Assamese society against main opponent Congress' dalliance with All India United Democratic Front(AIUDF) of Maulana Badruddin Ajmal as partnering with a party of illegal immigrants. The incumbent chief minister Himanta Biswa Sharma termed 'Miyas' or so called illegal immigrants as a threat to AsomiyaVaishnavite culture and to Asomiya identity at large.It created a toxic mixture of anti-immigrant sentiments with pro-Asomiya native identity, which can act as the main plank of Assamese ethno-nationalism. It is here that Hindutva nationalism gelled with Assamese nationalism to present itself as an open ally of the latter. This strategy of not pursuing a Centrist Hindu nationalism in Assam, in contrast to BJP's Bengal strategy, gave it the biggest electoral benefit. It stoppedthe Congress-led alliance in establishing a larger alliance with Assamese nationalist political outfits like the Assam Jatiyo Parishad(AJP) led by erstwhile student leader Lurinjyoti Gogoi and also with Raijor Dol (RD) led by Akhil Gogoi. Anti-BJP votes suffered a split between Congress and these regionalist outfitsin crucial seats of upper Assam. This success story scripted singlehandedly by BJP's new Chief Minister of Assam Himanta Biswa Sharma has catapulted Assamese regional nationalism as an indispensibleally of BJP's centrist Hindutva nationalism.
In Bengal, Hindutva nationalism's projection of Hindi as its lingo met its toughest political resistance in Bengali linguistic nationalism that abhorred undue dominance by Hindi in the state. This emerged as the most important strand of cultural resistance that could make Mamata label BJP campaigners as 'outsiders'. In electoral terms, this resistance left Bengal's native Hindi speakers in a dilemma, as their votes losttheir counterweight to Bengali voters. Further, BJP's projection of Muslims as illegal immigrants and as tormentors of Bengali Hindus in the partition days and later in East Bengal stirred the dormant Bengali imagination of a unified Bengali national identity that already rose much above such narratives of violence and division of countries. BJP's mouthing of Bengal-turning-into-Bangladesh internally rewired the historic bond between Bengal and Bangladesh. Prime Minister Modi's visit to Bangladesh to offer prayers atOrakandi temple of the Guru of Motuacommunity only substantiated existence of suchan umbilical emotional bond. In effect, the Prime Minister stirred that strand of Bengali nationalist sentiment which rises above territorial and political divisions and finds its 'roots' in larger history, for example, in the episode when Jogen Mandal, the Dalit Bengali leader ceded Dalits from upper caste dominated 'bhadralok' Bengali society. Mamata's outsider jibe at such politically pregnant acts of BJP'scampaign to win over Bengal's Dalits pointed out exclusivism played by outsiders within Bengali linguistic and cultural identity. BJP's attemptedexclusivism createda furore when the image of Kazi Nazrul Islam, the quintessential rebel Bengali bard and musician, was removed from campaign stage of the Prime Minister even as he was delivering a campaign speech barely a kilometer away from poet Nazrul's birthplace. Bengali firewall against exclusivism and outsiders trying to take over Bengal only gotvindicated when Central forces fired at Sitalkuchi, leaving four Bengali Muslims dead.
BJP's electoral play of religious card only stifled its headway into the state. By pitching NRC and CAA, the BJP created an impression among Bengalis that it wants to play with their 'citizenship'. BJP fuelledanti-CAA sentiments in Assam were muchrestrained this time. It could just wade through because the opposition lacked unity in Assam. In Bengal, the BJP wanted to gain advantage by division of minority votes after a prominent Muslim cleric floated the Indian Secular Front(ISF). Already incensed by politics of polarization, the ordinary Bengali voter could realize the danger of division of minority votes by Left-Congress-ISF combine.The fear of common man in Bengal precipitated further as the Left alliance inched towards a policy of 'enemy's enemy is my friend' in relation to TMC and BJP. As a result, Left-Congress-Indian SecularFront might have increased its vote share to nearly 10 per cent, but it won just one seat in Muslim majority constituencies. The Left and the Congress drew a total blank. The common Bengali voters were made aware of the fact that BJP's plank of conducting NRC in Assam has got a large number of Bengali Hindus excluded from it.Hence, It will now be a difficult proposition for Assam's Himanta Biswa Sharma to maintain a balance between BJP's core Bengali Hindu voters and Assamese nationalists who aim to turn away Hindu Bangladeshis from Assam. The thin electoral marriage between BJP's centrist Hindutva nationalism and Assamese nationalism can break anytime because of BJP's mismatched game of NRC and CAA.
The election results showed the electoral efficacy of regional nationalism. Whether BJP can make itself a part of this regionalism, or a newalignment of regional parties shall emerge as a winning combination is a matter to be keenly watched now.
The author is a philosopher and an independent political analyst based in Shillong. The views expressed are personal.