Vivekanand Jha Ranchi: With West Bengal election already in the midway, the unambiguous message emanating from there is laud and clear: West Bengal, unprecedentedly, drifting away from its past moorings, is reconciled to work out a new trajectory for its own salvation: giving a decent burial to its hitherto embracing of the ‘Bengali sense of pride’ with that of its total integration with the ongoing national psyche: ‘Jai Shri Ram’. Interestingly, West Bengal’s rapid transformation from that of a culturally self-sufficient state, seeking its summum bonum in its inordinately advanced culture, relegating in the process, the economic regressuon brought about by the so-called indigenous rule-first, by the discredited Communist rule, and then, by the ‘daughter of West Bengal’.
Regrettably, the glorious status of West Bengal as the most industrially advanced state, in the post-independence phase, was disastrously converted into one of the laggard states of the Union, over decades, courtesy ‘Lal Jhanda’ and ‘Syndicate Raj’. Worse still, the overweening ‘Bengali Pride’, which was orchestrated intermittently to manipulate the people that ‘all is well’, helped Communists to rule over West Bengal for decades, even though the flight of capital had already made its big headway towards greener pastures. Significantly, over decades, while Bengalese were kept in false humour of being the ideal place of cultural finesse, the malicious attempts were already underway to drive out the industrialists from the state. The proletariat awakening, which was at its zenith in the state, rapidly contributed to Kolkata and the suburb being degenerated to the graveyard of industries. With the slogan of ‘Duniyar majdoor aek hou’, (The proletariat class, across the world, should unite)reigning across West Bengal, the employable youth who fancied no productive employment in the state, made a beeline towards Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat and other states.
Paradoxically, whereas the state of West Bengal, failing to provide any gainful employment to its own citizens, the Communists, in a spectacular exhibition of skulduggery, substantially complemented by its dishing out an opium for the masses about the quintessence of Communist ideology being an integral part of Bengali culture, ironically resonated with the Bhadralok and Bhadramahila who looked upon an imported Communist ideology as their exclusive summum bonum. Reprehensible enough, it seldom appeared to the Bengali Bhadralok Class that, how the Communists, in their ulterior motto, were robbing Bengal of its glorious heritage-the legion of Hindu icons from Ramkrishna Parmahansa, Swami Vivekananda to Rishi Aurobindo-were sought to be relegated to the backyard of Bhadralok’s memory while Marx and Lenin were continuously fed upon them. Even the text books showcased the glory of Marx.
Worse still, the Communists, in their utter naivete brought about by their aversion towards Indian freedom fighters, outrageously dubbed Netajee Subhas Chandra Bose as ‘burjua'(capitalists’agent) Much later, perhaps impelled by the political expediency, Jyoti Basu, the stalwart patriarch, sought public apology for calling Netajee as burjua. Whereas the Communist, on one hand strived to weaken Hindu icons and religion, it strategically promoted the minority appeasement policy. The Muslim fundamentalism was sought to be lubricated by the Communists. In fact, pandering to Islamists’ fanaticism began under the Communist regime when, Jyoti Basu, succumbing to the pressure of fundamentalists, banned the book Lajjya, written by Taslima Nasreen, A Bangladeshi writer, who, biting the bullet, dared to portray the excessive sufferings of Hindu women in Islamic Bangladesh. However, Singur and Nandigram proved to be the final nail in the coffin of Communists; Mamata Banerjee, the new messiah rose on the horizon of West Bengal by promising Bhadralok and Bhadramahila a new future; the future based on the past Bangla glory. The dawn of Mamata Raj, far from restoring the pride of Bangla culture and awakening, taking cue from her predecessors, promoted the social divide between Hindus and Muslims to an all time high. The Muslim appeasement policy has transcended all limits: Mamata, keeping a close tab on her political edification, transformed her image as Mamata Begum.
The worst form of political expediency witnessed Mamata going bonkers on embracing Islam, even publicly, when she had mastered the art of political appeasement of Muslims by reading Kalma; even the government text books, unabashedly though, introduced such words as Khala, Fufa etc. Regrettably, Mamata, while going great guns, had given a preference to 30 percent of Muslims over that of 70 percent of Hindus when, on the occasion of the immersion of Druga idol coinciding with that of Muharam, the latter was allowed to be performed while deferring Durga Puja to the next day, caused a tremendous heart burn in Hindus. Even Bengali Hindus were deeply agitated and anguished by this blatant partisanship of the chief minister of the state. But then the biggest outrage that overwhelmingly stirred Bengali’s psyche was, Mamata’s inveterate aversion for ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogan. Her anathema to ‘Jai Shri Ram’ was so virulent that, on hearing the slogan raised, she almost ran hysterically to chase the offenders.
This was the height of Mamata’s paranoia towards the soul of Bharatvarsha. Swami Vivekananda, the greatest exponent of Hinduism, over last two centuries, while drawing an analogy between Ram and India, had famously said, ‘ Go to any farthest part of India, and ask any farmer ploughing the land, you will find that farmer closely seeking an affinity with Ram. Ram is the soul of Bharatvarsha’. Mamata, willy-nilly had outraged nation’s modesty by showing her deep aversion towards Maryada Purushottam, and if she loses the election, she has herself to blame.
The Indian democracy, in the conspicuous absence of a viable opposition, has been rendered ineffectual. Hence in this backdrop, all eyes are set on West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee, being a strong leader, could manage to stop Modi’s juggernaut; in fact, Modi’s Ashwamedha However, the situation of West Bengal drastically calls for its solid integration with the national psyche or else, its inevitable drift towards greater islamisation could not be ruled out. Significantly, West Bengal today provides a daunting challenge to the nation, especially when the state government, in cahoots with that of Islamist forces, are leaving no stone unturned towards taking West Bengal further towards Bangladesh, another mounting Islamic challenge. With the text books already Islamised to some extent, the return of Didi poses a predicament of worst degree. Also, the infiltration of Muslims from Bangladesh, which has already offered a humongous demographic challenge to the state, especially when districts like Murshidabad having already turned into a majority Muslim dominated district, the exodus of Hindus from Murshidabad has already begun. In fact, the worst fear is this: if the trend of growing Islamic influence which has already started at such a faster pace, might escalate into a grater crisis if it is not arrested forthwith. With non-muslims not allowed to buy the land at least from 10 kilometers away from the Bangladesh border, it is already an alarming situation for the nation.
Thus the situation is extremely alarming where the strategic national interest is involved. No wonder democracy cannot be welcomed at the cost of bartering away of national interest. Whereas BJP too, does not evoke much hope, with political turncoats populating West Bengal BJP today, yet BJP being a national party, with a nationalistic agenda, inspires hope and confidence. Therefore, in order to prevent West Bengal’s degeneration into that of another Jammu and Kashmir, Bengal’s integration with the national psyche of Jai Shri Ram increasingly resonating with Bengalese, is a positive development with West Bengal’s identification with the soul of the nation: Shri Ram. Hence, democracy can wait, but national interest cannot. It is the nation that is calling West Bengal to embrace the soul of the nation as per Swami Vivekananda’s exposition. West Bengal certainly intends to amend its past transgression: The deliberate affront to Shri Ram when the entire nation was celebrating the Bhoomie Pujan in Ayodhya, West Bengal was closed as a token of mourning; to avenge such a humiliation, Bengali Hindus are gearing up to embrace Shri Ram as their exclusive summum bonum, is the vindication of coming of a new West Bengal which intends to intimately merge its own identity with that of the nation.
