RSS-BJP
Liberating Bengal Hindus?
WHAT
HAPPENED WHEN MARATHAS CAME TO LIBERATE HINDUS OF BENGAL: A PEEP INTO ‘HINDU’ NARRATIVES
OF BENGAL HISTORY!
The
whole thrust of the RSS-BJP election campaign for 2021 state assembly elections
in Bengal has been to save Bengal from the rule of Mamata Bannerjee who is not
a ‘Hindu’.
PM of India, Narendra Bhai Modi, a
self-proclaimed Hindu nationalist, as usual set the polarizing agenda. While
addressing the first election rally, he called upon the electorate to overthrow
the ‘nirmam’ (cruel) rule of Mamata by showing a
‘Ram Card’. He did not name Hindus directly but there was no confusion about
the religious identity of the electorate Indian PM was addressing to. [1]
Amit Shah, the RSS-BJP; Chanakya or the main
strategist for Bengal polls minced no words in exposing the anti-Hindu Mamata
Banerjee. According to him, “school teachers in Bengal were beaten up for
organising ‘saraswati puja'. The TMC dispensation does not allow Saraswati puja
celebration in schools.” [2]
Amit Shah kept on harping upon
the theme that Mamata-led government was behind the infiltration of the
Bangladeshis [meaning Muslims] in Bengal “who are loved dearly by Didi”. Thus Mamata
Bannerjee was indulging in appeasement of Muslims. He added another crime of Mamata
against Hindus when he alleged that the latter did not get permission for doing
visarjan [immersion] after Durga Puja under Mamata government's rule." [3]
How the star ‘Hindu’ campaigner from Bengal
Suvendu Adhikari targetted Mamata Bannerjee for chanting ‘Inshallah’
[Allah-willing] and ‘Khuda Hafiz’ [Khuda takes care] used by Muslims and not
‘Jai Shri Ram’ was made clear by Monideepa Banerjie, a Bengal
based renowned journalist in the following words:
“A
campaign that has seen Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP repeatedly addressing Mamata
Banerjee as ‘Begum’ [Muslim lady], repeatedly referring to the threat of
Nandigram turning into a mini-Pakistan if she is voted to power, repeatedly warning
people that if the Trinamool wins this time, the Hindus will not be able to
wear the traditional dhoti and the traditional tilaks (the
smear of red on the forehead.)” [4]
RSS-BJP also fielded Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi
Adityanath, a hard-core Muslim basher and anti-secularist as a prominent
campaigner after Modi and Amit Shah. In a series of meetings he declared Trinamool
Congress (TMC) led by Mamata Bannerjee as a party which was opposed to the
chant of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ [Hail Sri Ram]. Yogi was confident that that the public
would definitely punish the 'Ramdrohis' [disloyal to Rama].
Yogi Adityanath in an election meeting held in the
first week of March (2021) went to the extent of describing Mamata Banerjee-led
TMC as an organization which was opposed to God (‘bhagwaan’) in the state. Since
festival of colours, Holi was few days away, he reminded the audiences, "Holi
will be celebrated after few days. Holika is lit on the day of Holi. Holika
also opposed God." He was seeking votes for RSS-BJP so that anti-god party
like TMC meets the fate of Holika. It was not difficult to miss the connection
between female demon Holika and a female leader Mamata. Mamata needs to be
destroyed. [5]
Adityanath while attacking Mamata Bannerjee kept on
referring to other anti-Hindu crimes of her borrowing from the RSS hateful propaganda
literature. Cow slaughter, smuggling and ‘love jihad’ were happening due to the
‘appeasement politics’. Without naming Muslims, he kept on stating that
"appeasement politics for the sake of vote bank
has endangered the security of not only West Bengal but also of the country.”
He also kept on telling the audiences that the raising
of ‘Jai Shri Ram' slogan was not allowed in West Bengal, Durga Puja was banned
so the TMC government should be punished for "playing with their religious
sentiments". What did he mean by ‘their’ was not difficult to surmise. [6]
Those of us who are familiar with the RSS-BJP’s
propaganda mechanism would know that mere allegations of anti-Hindu crimes of Mamata
Bannerjee were presented as truth without offering any proof. Interestingly,
the Left and to some extent Congress competing with TMC in these elections
criticized her for appeasing the Hindutva forces in Bengal.
Economist, social justice thinker and Nobel laureate
Amartya Sen expressed his indignation at
“the
fanning of the dangerous flames of communal divisions [that] has not occurred
as strongly in Bengal since 1946”.
According to him the saddest part has been that “one
of the major political contenders in the electoral battles portrays a part of
the ‘insider’ population of Bengal — in particular, Bengali Muslims — as less
deserving of support, while deriving their strength from the support of Hindu
activists coming originally from outside Bengal, the dividing lines are hard to
be kept pure”. [7]
UP chief minister Adityanath has been reminding the
electorate in Bengal that
"the
national leadership of the BJP and every worker of the party has come here to
connect to the Bengali brothers and sisters to re-establish the identity of
Bengal and carry forward a new change through this".
In the light of the totality of the content of his
speeches during the current Bengal elections or otherwise it is too obvious to
know that Adityanath’s reference to Bengali brothers and sisters meant Hindus
of Bengal only. [8]
Interestingly,
it is not for the first time in the history that Hindus of Bengal are being
promised liberation from the anti-Hindu rulers by the outsider Hindus. RC
Majumdar (1880-1980) was a doyen among Indian historians whose works on ancient
India and freedom struggle are rated highly. He is even described by the
Hindutva scholars as a true ‘Bhartiya’ historian. He narrated how once Marathas
promised to establish ‘Hindu Raj’ [Hindu rule] and what the consequences were.
According
to Majumdar,
“There are good grounds to
believe that some such idea was present in the mind of the great Peshwa Baji
Rao 1 (1700-1740), and he openly preached the ideal of Hindu Pad Padshahi (Hindu
empire). This ideal evidently helped him in great deal, as the Hindu Zemindars
and ruling chiefs showed active sympathy with the Maratha cause. But,
unfortunately, this ideal was not systematically pursued, and seems to have
been altogether given up by his successors. As an evidence of this, we may cite
two positive facts.
“In the first place, when the
Marathas invaded Bengal during the reign of Alivardi Khan, they terribly
oppressed the Hindus and Muslims alike. Contemporary Bengali records seem to
indicate that the Hindus of Bengal at first regarded the Marathas as deliverers
from the yoke of the Muslims, but the incredible atrocities perpetrated by the
Marathas completely alienated the Hindus from them. Secondly, it is a
well-known fact that far from enlisting the sympathy and support of the great
Rajput chiefs, the Marathas terribly oppressed them and made them their
enemies. [9]
Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870-1958), again a renowned
historian, held no brief for Islam or Muslim rulers in India. In fact, he is
regarded as a narrator of the Hindu history during the Mughal rule. However, his
description of the Maratha invasion of Bengal in 1742, too, makes it clear that
this army of ‘Hindu nation’ cared least about honour and property of Hindus of
Bengal. According to Sarkar, “the roving Maratha bands committed wanton
destruction and unspeakable outrage”. [10]
Sarkar, in his monumental work on
the history of Bengal, quoted eyewitnesses to relate the stories of sufferings
of Bengali Hindus at the hands of Marathas. According to one of the
eyewitnesses, Gangaram, whose testimony was reproduced by Sarkar, the Marathas
snatched away gold and silver, rejecting everything else. Of some people they
cut off the hands, of some the nose and ear; some they killed outright. They
dragged away the beautiful women and freed them only after raping them. [11]
Another
eyewitness, Vaneshwar Vidyalankar, the court Pandit of the Maharaja of Bardwan,
thus narrated the horrifying tales of atrocities committed by the Marathas.
“Shahu Raja’s troops are niggard
of pity, slayers of pregnant women and infants, of Brahmans and the poor,
fierce of spirit, expert in robbing the property of every one and committing
every kind of sinful act.” [12]
What the RSS-BJP is attempting to
accomplish as champions of Hindus of Bengal is not a new strategy of the ruling
classes when faced with challenge to its dehumanized exploitative rule from its
own people. Karl
Marx, in his monumental work, The
Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), brilliantly, highlighted
this character of the rulers who when faced with periods of revolutionary
crisis,
“Anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their
service and borrow from them names, battle-cries and costumes in order to
present the new scene of world history in this time-honoured disguise and this
borrowed language.” [13]
Shamsul Islam
April 22, 2021
Link
for some of S. Islam's writings in English, Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, Malayalam,
Kannada, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati and video interviews/debates:
http://du-in.academia.edu/ShamsulIslam
Facebook:
https://facebook.com/shamsul.islam.332
Twitter:
@shamsforjustice
http://shamsforpeace.blogspot.com/
Email: notoinjustice@gmail.com
References:
[1] https://theshillongtimes.com/2021/02/08/bengal-got-nirmamta-in-mamatas-rule-pm/
[4] https://www.ndtv.com/blog/in-nandigram-begum-mamata-vs-suvendu-the-traitor-2403225
[6]
https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/west-bengal-assembly-polls-2021/story/uttar-pradesh-smuggling-love-jihad-appeasement-politics-yogi-adityanath-west-bengal-malda-mamata-banerjee-1774771-2021-03-02
[8] https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/west-bengal-assembly-polls-2021/story/uttar-pradesh-smuggling-love-jihad-appeasement-politics-yogi-adityanath-west-bengal-malda-mamata-banerjee-1774771-2021-03-02
[9] Majumdar, R. C., History of the Freedom Movement in
India, vol. i (Calcutta:
Firma KL Mukhopadhyay, 1971), pp. 2-3.
[10] Sarkar, Jadunath (ed.), The History of Bengal-
Muslim Period 1200 A.D.–1757 A.D., volume
ii, (Delhi: BR Publishing, 2003), (first edition 1948), 457.
[11] Ibid., p. 457.
[12] Ibid., p. 458.
[13] Marx, Karl, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,
in Karl Marx–Frederick Engels Collected Works, Vol. 11, Progress Publishers,
Moscow, 1979), p. 130.
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