BJP AND BENGAL - - NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET 

Kajal Chaterjee

Kudos to the West Bengal Chief minister Mamata Banerjee for speaking the obvious ie "BJP, Bengal do not match in wavelength"! 

 

As if vandalisation of Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar bust was not enough(just before the voting of the last phase of 2019 general election),  the Bhakt brigade had dared to express audacity enough to malign Raja Rammohan Roy as "chamcha" of the British which proves their attitude towards the women folk! The great Humanitarian Amartya Sen gets character-assassinated as "land-grabber"! What a regular philistine attack upon the Great Bengal Renaissance personalities and souls of Bengal! 

 

A festival as secular and traditional as Bangla Nababarsha can be dramatically changed to "Hindu New Year" overnight just to dissociate our Bengali Muslim cousins from the festival and also to "Hinduise" it so as to remove the "stigma" of Bengali from it! How could BJP claim that "Joy Bangla" was an "anti-national" word!  How can Bengal accept such a force harboring such a deep contempt towards all things Bengal and Bengalis; which dare to place the picture of Amit Shah over Rabindranath Tagore on banners and ignorant enough to state that the bard took birth in Visva-Bharati(which itself got established 60 years after his actual birth in Jorasanko, Kolkata)! 

 

How could a saffron-clad "firebrand" leader from Uttar Pradesh dare to think that he would "pollute" Bengal with concepts of mythical "Love Jihad" and "Romeo Squad" and Bengalis would instantly lap it up! Perhaps he has got the answer through the 2021 West Bengal Assembly polls verdict! 

 

In a nutshell, that 2021 verdict was nothing but a zealous united protest by true Bengalis towards gross disregard for Bengali Renaissance personalities and Bangla language and culture! Also the verdict spoke of the victory of secularism, humanity, sanity, religious brotherhood, liberal Bengali ethos with utmost respect upon diversity of India and Constitutional values.

 

 By keeping at bay the  MERCHANTS OF HATRED from the power of Bengal, the Bengalis had proved that they are still retaining their inherent humanity. Yes, WEST BENGAL HAD  PASSED THE GREATEST EXAMINATION OF ITS HISTORY WITH FLYING COLOURS, THAT TOO ON THE 100TH BIRTHDAY OF SATYAJIT Ray - - The Master --- who had always spoken against communalism tyranny superstition orthodoxy with iconic films like Debi, Hirak Rajar Deshe, Ghare Baire, Ganashatru, Agantuk! 

 

Bengal gets accused by the racists as being "insensitive to what belongs to India" ! Perhaps this is the reason why Bengal does not get scandalised by communal pogrom, mosque demolition, church burning, murder in the name of "Gomata"/ "Love Jihad"/ "honour killings", annihilation of secular rationalists, atrocities on Dalits or language "wars" unlike rest of India ! May this "insensitivity" of Bengalis remain ! 

 

And this exceptional picture of liberalism has got established in Bengali psyche thanks to the good effects of Bengal Renaissance which have always accorded sole priority to humanity by remaining miles away from petty communalism.

 

Yes, Bengal is that land where Muslims come up with Durga temple , show light to the Devi during immersion, carry the dead of Hindu neighbours and where Hindus part with land to set up graveyards, offer sehri and iftar during Ramadan to Islamic brethren ! 

 

Bengal is the land of Swami Vivekananda who had initiated Kumari Puja by worshipping a Kashmiri Muslim girl in Kheer Bhawani temple and of Ramakrishna Paramhansa who had stressed "Joto Mot Toto Path" ("As many opinions, so many ways") in terms of attaining the divine. 

 

So instead of paying lip service to Vivekananda-Ramakrishna, the anti-Bengali racists must try to learn the values of them and pay a visit to Dakshineswar temple(associated with these 2 Godly souls) to witness how portraits of Krishna, Mahavir, Meerabai, Sadhak Bamakhyapa, Rishi Aurobindo rub shoulders with that of Jesus, Max Muller, Roma Rola and also offer them company Kazi Nazrul Islam and Yes, Tipu Sultan too --- that great Mysore warrior whom Hindutva elements love to demonise ! 

 

This is the moral and humanitarian height of Bengal which anti-Bengali force and its Bhakts would never succeed to envisage! Despite unleashing State power for months with churning of a deluge of communal poison, they had received a severe thrashing by the Bengal electorate in free and fair polls ! So instead of character-assassinating the Bhadraloks out of sheer hatred and revenge, the Bengali-baiters should try to learn the essence of humanity and India from Bengal.