BJP Scoring Self-Goals In Bengal With Its Contradictory Stands On Demands For Dividing The State

Bengal’s politics was thrown into a tizzy when a BJP Lok Sabha MP from Alipurduar in North Bengal, John Barla, supported the demand for carving North Bengal into a separate political entity in early June.

The party’s Jalpaiguri Lok Sabha MP, Jayanta Roy, also came out in support of the demand. The other two BJP MPs of the region--Nisith Pramanik from Cooch Behar and Raju Bista from Darjeeling--are also in favour of this demand.

The BJP’s Bengal leadership quickly dissociated itself from this demand and said that the party is opposed to any division of Bengal keeping in mind the strong emotions that this issue triggers in the rest of Bengal.

The Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, who projects herself as a staunch defender of Bengal’s interests and unity, was quick to criticise the BJP and accuse it of harbouring an ‘anti-Bengal’ agenda.

The controversy, however, was quickly forgotten as other issues took centerstage. But earlier this week, Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh revived it when he said that the demand for carving out a separate state of North Bengal was justified.

A day later, BJP Lok Sabha MP from Hooghly (in South Bengal) Locket Chatterjee and former state party chief Rahul Sinha spoke out strongly against the demand for division of Bengal.

Speaking at different programmes to mark ‘Raksha Bandhan’, Chatterjee and Sinha asserted that no Bengali would want Bengal to be divided.

‘Raksha Bandhan’ is closely associated with Rabindranath Tagore in Bengal--Tagore had urged Hindu and Muslim women to tie rakhis on men of the other community in order to promote ties between the two communities.

Tagore’s call was in response to the partition of Bengal by the British in 1905 on communal lines and was widely perceived as a sinister ploy to divide Bengali Hindus and Muslims. Since then, ‘division’ of Bengal, or Banga bhanga as it is commonly referred to in Bangla, has been a very emotive issue among Bengalis and evokes angry reactions.

One of the reasons for Mamata Banerjee’s popularity among Bengalis has been her staunch and steadfast opposition to the demand for Gorkhaland comprising Gorkha-inhabited areas of the Darjeeling Hills and Dooars in North Bengal.

The brutal crackdown on Gorkhaland proponents by the state machinery during the agitation for a separate state in 2017 won her a lot of support from Bengalis, especially in southern Bengal.

BJP MP Locket Chatterjee and the party’s former national secretary Rahul Sinha, who have their bases in south Bengal, were thus quick to oppose the demand for another state carved out of Bengal.

Chatterjee told reporters that “those who have Rabindranath in their hearts and minds can never support the demand for division of Bengal”. Sinha said that those who support the demand for division of Bengal are "insulting Rabindranath Tagore”.

In fact, she (Chatterjee) spoke quite like Mamata Banerjee when she asserted: “The culture of Bengal is different. We live in harmony and Bengal is very dear to each one of us. Bengal will remain Bengal from north to south and east to west”.

The Trinamool, understandably, was quick to lampoon the BJP and accuse it of doublespeak. Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Sekhar Roy said: “BJP is encouraging fissiparous elements to divide Bengal after suffering a humiliating defeat in the recent (Assembly) elections”.

The demand for Gorkhaland dates back to the early part of the last century and predates India’s independence. Fuelled by decades of apathy and neglect of the hills by successive rulers of Bengal since Independence, the Gorkhaland demand was first raised by a firebrand Subhas Ghising in the early 1980s. Since then, prolonged agitations for Gorkhaland have periodically rocked the Darjeeling Hills and parts of Dooars.

The BJP, which has won the Darjeeling Lok Sabha for three successive terms, has been ambivalent on the Gorkhaland demand. Officially, the BJP stands for a ‘political solution’ to the demand, but the party has depended on support from pro-Gorkhaland parties to win the Darjeeling seat. Alipurduar MP John Barla, a member of the Scheduled Tribe community whose ancestors were brought by the British from the Chota Nagpur plateau to work in the tea gardens of Bengal, has been vocal about a separate Union Territory for the STs.

“The scheduled tribes of North Bengal, almost all of whom are tea garden labourers, have been neglected by successive governments in Bengal. Our plight has not improved and has, in fact, worsened ever since the Trinamool came to power. We don’t have access to basic healthcare and education, unemployment is acute and many tribals face starvation and die of hunger and disease. That is why we want a separate Union territory of North Bengal,” he said.

The Koch-Rajbongshi community--the original inhabitants of North Bengal whose Kamtapur kingdom with its capital in Cooch Behar extended up to Nepal and Assam--have also been demanding a separate Kamtapur state.

All these demands have been fuelled by the abject neglect of North Bengal, including the Darjeeling Hills, by the Bengali-dominated regimes that have ruled the state over the last 75 years.

Even though Mamata Banerjee, after coming to power in 2011, has declared many sops for the different ethnic groups of this region, they have been merely symbolic and have not made any difference to the miserable lives of the ethnic communities of North Bengal.

Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh had said earlier this week that it is because of this systematic and long neglect of the region that the people of North Bengal as well as Jangalmahal (the tribal-dominated areas of West Midnapore, Purulia, Bankura and Birbhum districts of Bengal) want to break out of Bengal.

He said that Mamata Banerjee is to blame for the people of Jangalmahal and North Bengal demanding separate states. “They (the people of the two regions) don’t have jobs and have to migrate to other parts of the country for their livelihood. They stay in miserable conditions and are denied healthcare, education and access to even basic facilities. Mamata Banerjee has only given them cosmetic sops and doles which have made no difference to their miserable lives. So how can one blame them for demanding separation from Bengal which has given them nothing but misery?” he asked.

But while a case may be made out for these separate statehood demands, speaking in contradictory voices is doing the BJP no good and is leaving it open to Trinamool’s charges of doublespeak.

The BJP has to discuss this issue internally in a comprehensive manner and take a firm stand for or against these demands for separate states. It cannot afford to be ambivalent about these demands.

Ambiguity will cost the BJP the support of not only the Gorkhas, Scheduled Tribes and Koch-Rabongshis of North Bengal and Jangalmahal, but also the Bengalis.

Walking the tightrope will be very difficult for the BJP, more so when the Trinamool has pitted itself very unequivocally and strongly against any Banga bhanga.

However, the BJP can arrive at a delicate balance that will meet the political aspirations of the marginalised Gorkhas, tribals and other ethnic communities like the Koch-Rajbongshi while, at the same time, not alienating the Bengalis.

But that requires a lot of political finesse and sagacity which, unfortunately, seems to be eluding most of the BJP leaders in Bengal.