Mamata's minority vote bank game becomes BJP's trump card.
Excalibur Stevens Biswas
West Bengal power politics has been all about minority vote
bank for every party .Every party plays open to embrace the communal equation as key to power here whether it is Congress or Communists, but no one took this minority vote bank as a political agenda,as MK Gandhi used hindutva in politics.Key to power in Bengal always remained the agenda of securing 28% muslim vote bank.
Even before partition,long before the introduction to two nation theory,muslims played key role and led all the three interim governmnts supported by dalits.It was the original Dalit Muslim combine as we are aware of the set in the cow belt these days.
Since the demographic readjustment,dalit population has been the victim of the partition and the dalit refugees have been scattered nationwide,the combination was broken.
Muslims or Dalits in Bengal may not govern Bengal anymore and it reduced muslim politics as well as Dalit politics to subordination predestined and it made Bahujan Politics in Bengal quite irrelevant.
Side effects of this communal identity politics turned Bengal into a communal furnace which further fuelled the traditional anti muslim sentiments amongst hindu communities.
Simply,this communal politics is the trump card for extreme rightist, Sangh Pariwar and BJP,all of which have deep roots in Bengal since pre partition Hindu Mahasabha days which shattered the only existing Bahujan Samaj of combined Dalits,OBC,ST and minorities sustained for centuries until Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim league jointly broke it.
Thus, without any effective wide ranged cadre based activism Bengal is under Hindutva tsunami. Hindu Rastra was always the mission of the ruling castes and class in Bengal,underplayed during Marxist rule and now Sangh Pariwar is getting the passive support of the majority, dominant hindu voters who had been quite annoyed with Muslim Vote Bank politics.
West Bengal was already a centre of communal tension till pre independence as well as post independence time and the undercurrents of monopolistic racial and communal discrimination has always been active under over displayed Bengali Nationalism.
Every politician misused this 28% Muslim vote bank without doing anything in Muslim favor, but highlighting the age old communal racial divide.
During Marxist rule secular Bengali nationalism just kept on the demographic balance which incidentally aborted communal tension and classes for thirty five years.
Muslim vote bank was captured by the Marists all the way since late sixties.
Mamata adopted ultra communal tools to dethrone the Marists and succeeded to set yet another political equation high voltage based on ultra communal identity.
As soon as Mamata came to power, she tried her best to woo the muslim voters skipping the much needed economic empowerment of the people.Her politics is all about the sustenance of the subordinate 28% muslim vote bank and her rhetorics also annoyed the thinking Muslim intelligentsia not to mention the dominant Hindu psyche.
IPS writer Nazrul Islam exposed her fraud for the first time as she broke all the limits. The way she was throwing away subsidies for muslims and the way she started salary system for Imams in Masjid it enraged many Hindus as well as a conscious section of the muslims as they discovered that Muslims are being misused and getting nothing.
Hindus in Bengal openly began asking,"What crime did our Purohits that they were deprived of this system!!!!".
Mamata did sense it but tried to show off aggressive secular stance. The way she declared 5 days` holiday for Durga Puja purpose. The chief minister personally, all her ministers,MPs and MLAs and other top party leaders became ultra religious.
Invoking the religious icons Mamata made politics mixed with religion. She tried her best to attend the opening ceremonies at puja mundops, trying to show that she is hardcore Hindu.It did not please either Hindus or the Muslims anyway.
But her propaganda as being secular was exposed and she claimed the popular title of Mamata Begum among the hindus.
Right now in Bengal, Mamata's muslim vote bank politics has enraged the Hindus so much so that it polarised the entire population on communal line which is the advantage for the rightist Sangh Pariwar and it is in harvesting mode as they always want to convert Bengal as a Hindu land long before Sangh Pariwar accomplished the Hindu Nation agenda.
It is so much so worsened that people openly explain how unhappy they are with the muslims.
It is all time echoes of the Hindutva voice which claim that mostly Muslim communities are involved in criminal acts.
The well known Muslim areas in kolkata are specifically marked hostile as Beckbagan,Topsia, Metiabrudge,Park Circus and made well known for criminal background.Induction of criminal element in power corridor worsened the communal harmony.
Eventually,the entire cadre base of the Left,ruling TMC and Cogress crossed the fence and joined the Hindutva band wagon as BJP arrived in a position where it may challenge anywhere any party all over the 282 assembly seats.
It did further influence the people on communal line and people got simply shforonized.
Everyone knows BJP's hardcore politics targeted against the muslims and its goal for Hindu Rashtra.Mamata reduced the majority Hindu population in Bengal as much as communal as they look forward to BJP as their saviour who would bring justice to the deprived Hindus.
As people are now in totally in dilemma why they brought her to the power because after her arrival Bengal's conditions got worsened, Job Ratio fell, criminal activities rose, law and order totally dissolved and most importantly, it`s the Mafia syndicates which do control the things in the streets as well as day today life.
People do know about BJP's policy of hard state, and the facts of Gujarat Genocide during lok sabha but they feel helpless under Mamata regime.
Thus,people are now joining BJP, and also those who weren't appraised in TMC ,who were the initial members while building up the party and later became underdogs while the newcomers got the promotion.
Same thing happens with the progressive communists as they were afraid of TMC ruling terror and feel insecure everywhere. Simply they all,cadres as well as leaders are joining BJP as they know BJP is a national party and it can provide them protection as they are in the central government.
So the game that Mamata played totally turned against her and it became trump card for BJP and TMC is on its way towards extinction.
What Mamata is trying to survive is a proposed alliance of LEFT TMC which eventually would enhance BJP`s chances in the next elections and would divide Bengal further on Communal lines.