'Bengali Nationalism May Help Mamata Banerjee Retain Power'

'If the BJP becomes our political identity, our political face, if we are represented by the BJP, then what happens to our identity as Bengalis?'

"You need to be more than 148 seats in this Bengal to be dominant. You need to be able to hold your own in all the districts, which the BJP hasn't been able to do," Shikha Mukerjee, the veteran journalist and political commentator, tells Sheela Bhatt.

How do you see the BJP's standing in the political arena of West Bengal with reference to the emotions which are left behind after the Partition of Bengal?

What the BJP is trying to do is actually use the emotion, use the residue of the (Partition) emotion to build up its base because it fits in with its politics, with its ideology and its politics of communalising and polarising the population. So they have very strongly emphasised on the refugee population of the Muslims as infiltrators and intruders and encroachers into West Bengal's space.

The BJP's foundations in West Bengal are very new. The CPI-M, of course, accuses Mamata Banerjee of having brought in the BJP, when she was a part of the NDA in the time of Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The BJP was actually nowhere in West Bengal, not even the Jan Sangh they had. At one time they had one MLA in the state assembly and after that they had nobody. He was a very mild presence and a very respected leader. He had a particular base in a particular part of Calcutta, but other than that, there was no BJP base.

So what you have is a politics which from 1947 up to 2014 or rather 2016 had no space for a Hindutva ideological party. All you had was the Congress versus the Left, then you had the Left versus the Trinamool Congress.

The BJP's entry in 2016 marks a major shift when there is a polarising communal politics entering this space and trying to convert voters towards its ideology.

'It was not respectable to be loudly and aggressively anti-Muslim'

Shikhaji, as a writer of long standing, do you find this transformation surprising? And if it is so, why?

I find it not surprising, I find it shocking. There was a very hidden undercurrent of hostility towards Muslims in West Bengal politics brought more by the refugee population which came and started living in West Bengal.

Hindu refugees, who came and settled in West Bengal, they brought with them a kind of hostility towards Muslims which because of the political consensus in West Bengal, because West Bengal's Bhadralok culture did not permit it, they were not able to do so. It was not respectable.

Bhadralok and respectability go together. Therefore, it was not respectable to be loudly and aggressively anti-Muslim. Those who were (anti-Muslim) were looked down upon socially. Now that lid is off.

There are people who have over a period of time decided that being BJP, having this very strong anti-Muslim sentiment and being able to voice it in public, in the social space, is perfectly legitimate and perfectly respectable because the BJP has given them that respectability which they never had before.

How come Bengal never had any political party with a Hindu agenda?

The Hindu Mahasabha was formed here, but the Hindu Mahasabha was politically very weak. The Hindu Mahasabha had no base here in that sense. During Partition, just before and after Partition, there was Syamaprasad Mukherjee (the founder of the Jan Sangh, the BJP's parent) because the Hindu situation was linked to the Partition of Bengal. Then it all disappeared. The Jan Sangh's identity was that of a cowbelt party.

So when the BJP was formed, it was also a cowbelt party. Bengalis are by nature extremely snobbish. The cow belt does not fit into it, they look down upon it. So in all their snobbery, the BJP had no space.

'Amit Shah is not committing to a 2/3rd majority'

Society never changes overnight. Which are the agents of change which gave the BJP 77 seats in the 2021 elections, and now it is claiming a chance to form the next government? Which are the agents of this transformation in Bengal?

They think they have acquired respectability. Why? Because they are in power at the Centre.

So the BJP's rise is linked to the BJP's power at the Centre.

That is a transformation.

So that is the transformation. Modi was the big personality in 2014 when he talked about Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas.

The Gujarat model was what one section of Bengalis aspired for. In 2019 Bengal gave the BJP 18 out of 42 seats in the Lok Sabha. That was expected to give them a huge advantage in the 2021 assembly election. The expectation was that they will get at least 120-130 seats in the Vidhan Sabha. But what happened? The BJP got only 77.

So somewhere along the line, when it comes to state level politics, the BJP is not the most exciting, the most powerful, the most attractive idea. In 2021 the double engine model got rejected. There got 77, they may have declined to 65 now, but whether it is 77 or 65, it is still a big base.

So from here they need to now go up to at least a majority. Now you ask Mr Amit Shah and he says we will get a majority. Arey bolo, will you get a 2/3rd majority? But he is not committing to it. So it is odd, from 3 seats in 2016 you wanted a 2/3rd majority in 2021. Now when you have 67, whatever it is, you are not saying what you want.

What it means is that the ruling party is giving a tough fight.

'The party which comes to power must dominate the state'

What are the chances of the BJP winning the state and what are the chances of Mamata Banerjee retaining Bengal?

In West Bengal, there is a peculiar politics of area of dominance. The party which comes to power must dominate the state. If you look at the Congress, it dominated the state. If you look at the Left, it totally dominated the state. It built up from a large base, but it became the dominant force.

Today I don't know whether the BJP has arrived at being the dominant force in West Bengal politics. Mamata Banerjee is still a very dominating personal personality. Her party is still very dominating. The entire EC process of SIR and everything else is a challenge to Mamata's domination.

That's right.

So if I am looking at the patterns in which West Bengal has traditionally voted, then I don't see that the BJP is as yet that kind of dominant force.

In case, the BJP makes it to the halfway mark?

It is a weak force.

Why do you say so?

Because it is not a dominant force in society. You need to be more than 148 seats in this Bengal to be dominant. You need to be able to hold your own in all the districts, which the BJP hasn't been able to do.

The BJP has strong pockets.

But not everywhere.

People who understand Bengali culture and understand intellectual moments in Bengal's history in the last 100 years, what would those people be thinking today if the BJP reaches the halfway mark?

I was asking a friend today what is the crisis that we face. The crisis of identity actually, because if the BJP becomes our political identity, our political face, if we are represented by the BJP, then what happens to our identity as Bengalis? This fight is about jaati satta, in other words, Bengali nationalism, our identity as Bengalis.

And so I thought to myself, what is this Bengali identity? First and foremost, in order to establish its credentials in Bengal, Mr Amit Shah at a press conference says that our chief minister will be Bengali for sure, but he will be a fish eating Bengali.

You don't have to tell a Bengali that you are fish eating. You see, that's where the identity issue comes in. There are people from the BJP who have been campaigning with fish, which is ridiculous because if you are a party that is deeply rooted in Bengal, you don't have to carry a fish because everybody knows that you eat meat and fish and enjoy doing so.

And then I was thinking to myself, what is Bengali satta, jaati satta all about? It is planning to eat mutton rolls and mutton biryani during Durga Puja.

But all BJP leaders including Suvendu Adhikari and Samik Bhattacharya eat non veg, so what's the problem?

Who makes it a part of Prachar (election campaign)?

Because the BJP's national image is different.

So in other words, it is not a local party.

No, but the local BJP may be normal.

If you are a deeply rooted local party, you don't need to go out of your way to establish anything.

So in other words, the BJP's national preferences and choices dominate.

I understand your point which you raised about preferences of food and the BJP, but I want to ask you about the 77 seats the BJP got in 2021. They all came from Bengali voters. They must have accepted the BJP the way it is.

So they must have, but 77 is not the ruling party. Everybody is joking about it. Ki ye election commission toh barbaad kar diya. Because they stopped all the liquor shops for 4 days.

If Mamata Banerjee wins this election, retains power, what would have helped her to retain power?

Bengali jati satta, Bengali nationalism, Bengalis' cultural pride in their own identity. They are not at all happy with being a part of somebody else's identity.

Bengalis as a people are very conscious of the fact that they are better and superior to everybody else.

And the issue of identity will dominate more than everything.

We are different, we are superior. That's the way Bengalis are.