The opposition has criticised the BJP’s attempt at appropriating Bengal’s cultural icons and iconography.
The letter expectedly plays into the politics of welfarism as the PM highlights BJP’s welfare plans
The letter also talks about the youth being forced to migrate to other states and women in the state being unsafe
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent open letter to the people of West Bengal invokes ‘Maa Kali’ before sounding the electoral bugle. A departure from the BJP’s usual invocation of Ram, the letter through PM Modi’s words presents a condensed manifesto for the party a few weeks away from the assembly polls in the state.
“Jai Maa Kali. The fate of West Bengal will be decided in just a few months…The youth, elders, and women who dream of 'Amar Sonar Bangla' are in great pain today. My heart is also pained by their suffering. Therefore, I have taken a deep resolve to make West Bengal 'Viksit’ and prosperous,” the opening paragraph of the missive reads.
The Battle Of Welfarism
Following much talk about Mamata Banerjee’s new Yuva Sathi Scheme and hikes in the Lakshmir Bhandar amounts announced by the state government in the recent interim budget, the letter expectedly plays into the politics of welfarism as the PM goes on to highlight BJP’s welfare plans highlighting public welfare and overall development.
The exchange on state-centre cooperation continues to be coarse, as PM Modi writes, “Despite the non-cooperation and opposition of the state government, today about 5 crore people of West Bengal are connected to the banking system through the 'Jan-Dhan Yojana'. Under the 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan', 85 lakh toilets have been constructed in the state. When the state’s ruling party was snatching food from the poor, we extended a helping hand by providing loans worth Rs 2.82 lakh crore to small businessmen and entrepreneurs.” This comes on the back of TMC’s persistent allegation against the Centre withholding funds allocated to the state over the years.
In The Land Of Tagore and Bose
Modi’s rhetoric is yet again under the scanner, as he uses Rabindranath Tagore's lines from the poem, 'Where The Mind Is Without Fear' and associates the state to the legacies 'of Swami Vivekananda, Rishi Aurobindo, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Rabindranath Tagore'. The opposition has criticised BJP’s attempt at appropriating Bengal’s cultural icons and iconography multiple times in the past. From RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat interpreting Tagore’s ‘Swadeshi Samaj’ as his vision of a Hindu Rashtra in 2015 to BJP’s fervent attempts at threading Subhash Chandra Bose into most conversations surrounding the state, critics and academics have pointed at the fallacy as both Tagore and Bose harboured an idea of nationalism that denounced fundamentalism, religious majoritarianism and was directly in contrast with from BJP’s ideological core of Hindutva. Keeping in the mind the numerous instances of violence against Bengali speaking workers in numerous BJP-ruled states of Bengal which had led to major popular dissatisfaction against Centre’s hold over the matter, critics identify this as a rehashed strategy of the BJP trying to prevent alienating the Bengali middle-class.
Infilration At The Core
Talking about ‘misgovernance and politics of appeasement’ in the state over the last six decades Modi further writes, “After independence, West Bengal used to decide the direction of the country's economy and was a leader in industrial development. But today, seeing the dilapidated condition of this glorious state, my heart is pained. The irreparable loss caused cannot be described.”
Further amplifying the most common point in his recent speeches concerning the state, Modi further writes about the youth and women voters, who comprise a major portion of the TMC’s vote bank, being forced to migrate to other states due to a lack of employment and not feeling safe respectively.
Infiltration continues to be the central point in Modi’s latest letter where he writes that infiltrators have tainted Netaji’s Bengal and that, “Fake voters are dominating the 'Sonar Bangla' of Kaviguru Rabindranath Tagore. Today the whole country is worried about seeing West Bengal sinking into the darkness of anarchy.” Harping on illegal immigration and assuring asylum to Hindu people facing religious persecution, he assures in the letter that the BJP government through CAA and checks on infiltration would bring about a change in the functioning of the state’s machinery.
Crediting Hindutva leader and Jan Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee for "integrating West Bengal with India", Modi signs off by appealing to the people of state to come together under the umbrella of 'Viksit West Bengal' in 2026 and the call for “E baar, BJP sarkar” (This time, BJP Government). According to sources, the letter is to be distributed in a door-to-door campaign to be launched by the BJP in the state ahead of the polls on the lines of the RSS' Griha Sampak Abhiyan, a grassroots outreach campaign launched last year.
