Maa, Maati, Maachh: How Fish Became A Political Hook In Bengal Elections

In a state where food not only links communities, rituals and cultures but also defines them politically, many feel it is almost poetic that it has become an electoral flashpoint in poll-bound West Bengal. Food, in Bengal, is a window into the region’s history, evolution of identity, demographic shifts and its harmoniously existing socio-political milieus. It governs life, where patterns are established through practice. In Bengal, food is ritual and yet fluid- taking the shape of the syncretic jar of the state, to present itself as a mirror to the soil and its diversity. While it has always been a ubiquitous element in socio-cultural discussions through centuries, for the first time ever in the history of the state, it has become a pressing poll plank. Not a passing mention. Not a playful salvo. A grand fat poll issue.

Of the most-discussed issues in poll-bound Bengal, fish has become a cardinal talking point. As Chief Minister Banerjee intensified her onslaught against the BJP over its moral and ideological stand of vegetarianism, the saffron party responded by making its candidates carry fish to electoral ground zero. Banerjee, at one of her rallies, claimed that if the BJP came to power in the state, they would not allow consumption of fish, meat and eggs. However, BJP’s attempt to counter the claim has seen more manifestations than one could have imagined. From campaigning with Catla fish in his hand to polystyrene cut-outs of Hilsa stuck to rally trucks, the ‘fishy’ conundrum, despite being discarded by the BJP top brass as unnecessary controversy, has been a primary plank for the BJP in the state.

The exchanges, despite being juvenile, have been essential to the electoral slate for both camps. Bengal is no stranger to the practice of television news channels airing programmes specifically dedicated to capturing the dietary routines of candidates during summer. However, as the war of words over fish ensued, numerous BJP leaders were seen choosing fish over other proteins. In a public display to up the ante, BJP MP Anurag Thakur was shown having rice and shorshe maach (mustard fish) with other party workers at the hotel in Kolkata.

What was perceived as the usual Bong foil to general electoral tussles, trumped other issues when Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked the TMC government for Bengal’s poor record in fish production and export. “In 15 years of its rule, the TMC has not been able to give you fish, which is a misfortune,” he said, adding that Bihar and Assam, who used to import fish from other states, have become self-sufficient under the rule of BJP. In every ‘prestige’ jibe to the ruling dispensation, the TMC has hit back, trying to reinforce the BJP’s image as the ‘mercenary vegetarian outsiders'.

Actor and BJP leader Ravi Kishan, who is in the state campaigning for numerous candidates, has promised to “bring in four-times the fish from states like Uttar Pradesh and Bengal to Bengal if BJP comes to power on May 4.” At another rally, Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma said that “BJP’s people in Assam consume more fish and meat than TMC’s in Bengal” and went on to challenge CM Mamata Banerjee to a fish-eating competition. “Prepare rohu or ilish (hilsa). I can guarantee that I will eat 1 kg more than you do,” he remarked. Over the course of shedding its ‘anti-meat’ image in the state, the BJP leaders have announced multiple times that on coming to power, Bengal will have a fish-eating Bengali Chief Minister.

BJP’s constant attempts at threading fish into the conversation are being considered part of a broader strategy to consolidate middle-class Bengali Hindu voters and do away with an image heavily associated with periodic meat-bans and religious imposition of vegetarianism. Veteran TMC leader Madan Mitra said that the apprehensions among people were real as BJP is associated with episodes of meat-bans and food-based violence across the country, while Kolkata’s Mayor and TMC leader Firhad Hakim suggested that the Prime Minister should seriously consider opting for fish and meat instead of his strictly vegetarian diet.

In a riposte directed at Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, TMC MP Mahua Moitra replied to Modi’s images of boat-ride on the Hooghly, “Hello Amit Shah, so lovely to see your boss Narendra Modi enjoying his river cruise in the City Of Jhopadpattis. All he needs now is a good plate of chicken biryani on that boat”, referring to Shah calling Kolkata a city of slums at a recent rally and the incident of 14 men being arrested in Varanasi after a video captured them holding an Iftar party and consuming chicken biryani while boating on the Ganga.

However, behind the elevation of food as poll plank, lies several crucial factors. Food historian Pritha Sen attributes the political usage to the instances where food has been used to segregate people in recent past. “Under the BJP’s rule at the Centre, with episodes of lynchings under the suspicions of beef consumption coming to fore at the very beginning, they weaponised food, which in turn hit directly at identity of people. In Bengal, however, the attempts at trying to build an image through the spectacle of fish is specifically aimed at avoiding alienating the middle-class Bengali identity, which has been the issue for BJP in the state. TMC has intensified this rhetoric drawing from BJP's past record of using food as a tool to divide,” she says.

Why fish? Sen identifies fish as “a leitmotif through every aspect and phase of the Bengali evolution, culture and its people and an auspicious symbol of sustenance and well-being.” She roots it to the ecological bloom of the region where the besides being most fertile region of the Gangetic delta, the rich mangrove ecosystem and the wetland networks, have historically allowed an abundance of fish.

The fact that fish is not to be taken lightly in Bengal, could not be more evident. Sen traces it back to the Arthashastra, where the political law of the Matsanyay (law of the fish) is talked about, signifying a period of absolute anarchy and chaos where the big fish gallops the smaller, thus establishing survival of the most powerful. For Sen, transmogrification of the fish to the political sceptre, in its current context, is deeply metaphorical. “The Matsyanyay has been talked about in the context of Bengal thrice when the region witnessed utter turmoil and rampage: following the death of Shasanka, the ruler of Gaur (medieval kingdom of eastern riverine plain), between the seventh and the eighth century; the Muslim invasion of Bengal in the thirteenth century, and the years following partition in 1947.”

Sen notes the importance of fish’s place in the Bengali ritualistic tradition, from a baby shower to the post-death ritual of sraddh, where through the cycle of life, fish stands to be a symbol of union, prosperity and propagation. “Pujas in Bengal are also connected to the spawning cycle of fish. For instance, in Bangal tradition(originating from erstwhile East Bengal), the last Hilsa is consumed during Kojagori Laxmi Puja in autumn, after which it is allowed time to spawn, breed and swim upstream. On the occasion of Durga Puja, Durga is a daughter visiting her parents’ place. In similar Bengali traditions, she is bid farewell after being offered fish on the last day. The connection is ritualistic, familial and dear- it is stamped into our cultural DNA,” she adds.

Numerous critics have discarded this as political theatrics and a bankruptcy of political rhetoric within the saffron camp. In a state where food forms an existential core, it is not surprising for a party trying to come to power for the first time to use it as a prominent tool of outreach. However, for many, this brand of political theatrics flirts with the precarity of cultural appropriation. Essayist and academic Sayandeb Chowdhury feels the recent chain of events in Bengal have made cultural appropriation an act of caricature. Threading to a fundamental decree of acting, he says that if an act reveals that one is staging it as a stunt or a spectacle, they are not doing a good job. “Going by the reaction on social media, these recent episodes have been perceived as comical. Instead of producing local faces, if the BJP feels that a candidate running around with fish would make it a Bengali household factor, they are gravely mistaken.”

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Chowdhury further associates the BJP’s attempts at appealing to the gustatory as its foremost strategy to shed its ‘anti-Bengal’ image. “BJP does not have an organisation in the state, and neither does it have solid vote banks here. This is where the essentially Bengali element of a fish or a Jhaalmuri comes in. Politically speaking, when you do not have a historic vote base, a serious poll issue, or even a Chief Ministerial face, what remains is spectacle. Spectacle shaped by a range of theatrics, which is designed to warrant some sort of legitimacy and entry into the political soil of Bengal,” he says.

However, both Sen and Chowdhury believe that the political spectacle surrounding food has minimal impact on the rural electorate. Chowdhury also believes that political theatrics, which have usually played a consistent role in swaying rural and sub-urban crowds, need to arrive with ground-level political discourse. “In Bengal’s rural areas, I do not think they care if BJP leaders are eating fish or meat. And for the urban crowd who want the BJP in power, they want to vote for them to actively participate in the pan-Indian Hindutva concern, and not for the fact that they consume fish or not. So, either way, this brand of food related political theatrics falls flat on its face.”

Beyond religion, rituals, folk culture, songs and literature, sub-cultural sporting rivalries in the state, fish defines identity, sustenance and evolution of a community. Food habits in India have been political and often end up being definite stances against towering waves of hierarchical imposition across centuries. At the core of the political contest this year, lies the question of identity. Of preservation versus redefinition. Sen believes that outside its mentions in the Arthashastra, and the aforementioned three instances, the Matsyanyay finds context in the current political scenario of Bengal. Amidst the chaos, fish, invariably webbed into the cultural fabric of Bengal, has breached the final bastion - politics. When it comes to food, Bengalis do not like a lot of wear and tear. However, as the poll bells sound, the state finds itself in quite an unsolicited piscine pickle.