Bangladeshis are unnerved. No, it is not their domestic issue. They are irked by BJP's success in West Bengal polls. The unprecedented Hindu unity has left them devastated and worse, they found like the rest of the world that the so-called 'Muslim unity' split recklessly in the just concluded elections.
The BJP under Narendra Modi holds power in New Delhi since 2014.
The same pro-Hindutva nationalist party now also governs the states of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura — all of them bordering Bangladesh.
These states are home to significant Bengali-speaking populations and an overwhelming of them are Hindus. In Assam too, the BJP won as many as 82 seats on its own in the 126-member assembly and 20 others came from two allies Bodo People's Front and the AGP.
Bangladeshi intellectuals and even former diplomats have got busy participating in talk shows on TV channels. The regularit maintained by a few channels to discuss Mamata Banerjee's debacle and BJP's emergence as a dominant force shows the Bangladeshis - at least an influential section of them - in their hearts know the fallout their country could face due to such a 'Hindu' mandate.
One speaker even questioned the 92 percent turnout - a possibility not raised by TMC or even masters of self-punishing googlies Rahul Gandhi. The foolish scholar says: "even mathemtically it is not possible". The ill-informed gentleman could not conceal his 'hatred' towards India and says:
"Akhand Bharat to durer katha... Bharat namak rashtra thakbe ki na ...
("Forget Akhand Bharat - undivided India of the past - even India as a nation we know may not survive for next 50 years"). If someone from Bangladesh later says the participant was on Pakistan's government's payroll one need not be surprised.
The worldwide Narendra Modi's and BJP's success in these elections have been hailed positively. In an article 'The Washington Post' says:
"Narendra Modi keeps running circles around his critics
Another major BJP victory underscores how resilient the Hindu nationalist movement has become."
It also said: "For years, Western liberals and India’s opposition have both consoled themselves with a theory: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an authoritarian, India’s overwhelming diversity is ultimately incompatible with strongman rule and thus his illiberalism will naturally backfire."
But this did not.
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| Suvendu Adhikari in 2007 - Nandigram agitation |
A contention that needs closer study is Bengal, a region known for its secular traditions, has seen rise of religion in politics as Islamists grow stronger on the Bangladesh side.
But Indian Sickularism narratives kept Hindus divided for as many as 49 years under Left and TMC.
Now, the rise of Hindu nationalist BJP in West Bengal is a phenomenal journey. One participant in a Bangladesh TV went a step further. He extended 'support' to Bengalis (certainly he meant Hindus and Muslims) to fight for right cause in West Bengal. In other words without saying so in as many words - he says West Bengal should go for a separatist movement.
Mark his words in Bangla: "oi parer Bangali jara achhen .... apnader janya amader taraf theke shuho kamna thakbey ebong amader taraf theke ja ja sho jogita dorkar ...".
How much credibility such voices in Bangladesh have is also a matter to be judged at a later judge.
Of course it is a fact the Bengal region once boasted a "shared identity" which "allowed people to be both Bengali and Hindu, or Bengali and Muslim".
But such a jolly-good picture was spoiled long back.
Now, it is possible to pass a remark that on both sides of the border, political narratives are increasingly framing 'religious identity' even overlapping the same language, culture and heritage.
Mamata Banerjee encouraged a culture under which Ram-dhanu as a Bengali word for rainbow should be replaced. She had problems with the name of a flowe being Krishna-kali.
Somewhere people had to resist and the Hindus have done so this time.
In Bangladesh of course, the February parliamentary elections marked a major moment for Islamist politics, with Jamaat-e-Islami winning nearly one third of the votes. This was the strongest showing yet. In diplomatic sense perhaps a sense of relief prevailed because BNP won the elections in Bangladesh marking a seemingly permanent end of 'deep state' influenced pro-Pakistani puppet regime of Yunus.
Nevertheless, the "Hindu nationalist BJP" surged from about 10% vote share in 2016 to nearly 46% this year.
Needless to add; This was good enough for the BJP to secure 207 out of 294 seats in the state assembly.
There might be certain "ill-motivated" shift in rhetorics in Bengal. Like ulta-latka denge and so on.
But this was not against Muslims. It was against wrongdoers and TMC-sponsored lawbreakers.
Bengali writer and analyst Abhra Ghosh argues in a German news outlet that the BJP's landslide victory reflected voter discontent more than ideological support for Hindutva — nationalist identity.
"This was less a vote for Hindutva, and more a rejection of the TMC at any cost," he said.
This holds true because a large number of Left voters undertook so called tactical voting and ensured defeat of TMC candidates including Mamata Banerjee herself. And they did not mind BJP winning the historic election.
Bangladesh, under Hasina, made partial concessions to religious and nationalist forces — expanding madrassas, removing secular content from textbooks under Islamist pressure, and building hundreds of mosques. This backfired.
The major issue, in Bangladesh; there should be a genuine search for a form of secular identity that is compatible with Islam and not opposed to it, as remarked Chakrabarty.
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