Bengal is battling over its icons
They have exhausted the Gods, or so it seems. Political parties in Bengal are now fighting a fierce battle for the ownership and legacy of the torchbearers of Bengal, who made the state proud across the globe.
This is because the way to a Bengali's heart is through his icons - Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose - who are God-like to them. Realising the Bengalis' pride for their heroes, Mamata Banerjee has, after coming to power, made it a point to remember and celebrate the birth and death anniversaries of (by and large) all legends of Bengal with much fanfare. Their names have cropped up on signboards of little-known lanes, boards of public pay-and-use toilets, and names of metro stations.
However, some great men such as Syama Prasad Mookerjee and Swami Vivekananda were spared, perhaps because a particular political party - the BJP - had already staked claim on them as its heroes.
The divide along political lines became apparent last September when the Bengal government refused to tune into Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech in its universities and colleges on the occasion of the 125th year of Swamiji's Chicago speech. Though it was an attempt to plug off Modi, the message did not go down well among Bengalis, and murmurs were heard about the pettiness of the ruling party. As compensation, the Trinamool Congress this year decided to steal the show from the BJP and planned a year-long event to mark the 155th birth anniversary of Swamiji. But the saffron party was not ready to part with its hero so easily.
The stage was set for a face-off. The BJP planned to take out a motor bike rally - "Protirodh Sankalpa Aviyan" - a general movement of protest and resistance-building against atrocities of the Trinamool Congress, a day prior to Swamiji's birthday as a mark of respect to the great leader. The ruling party was also gearing up for a grand and unimaginable rise-up for the occasion.
The result was a face-off leading to an inevitable scuffle and blood on the streets between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress supporters on their respective marches to honour Swamiji.
When the BJP, which till the other day thought it had complete monopoly over Swami Vivekananda, saw that the Trinamool Congress was hijacking its hero, it made a desperate bid to flex its muscle. The BJP decided to vroom in bikes, sent from Yogi Adityanath's state, and literally go for some show of strength.
There were brawls, showering of abuses, brick-batting and pelting of stones. Vivekananda was lost in the milieu and the day turned out to be another political duel, another occasion for show of one-upmanship."Our main objective was to prevent the bike rally, which was organised to harass the people of Bengal. The BJP might try to gain mileage out of this attack by showing us in poor light and telling people that we attacked a peace rally for Swamiji, but the fact remains that the BJP had evil designs with bike rally," said a Trinamool Congress leader of central Kolkata, where violence erupted.
The ruling party agrees that some damage was done but it has ways of setting things right. The chief minister announced a programme to involve the youth of Bengal in a yoga camp and workshop in the city. The camp will involve training the youth in yoga and body building, as Vivekananda understood. The government is also organising year-long events for all great men of the Bengal renaissance.
The biggest surprise, however, comes from the CPI(M), which doesn't want to lag behind in the exercise of glorifying great men. In some pockets of the state, the Left wanted to celebrate Vivekananda's birth anniversary along with the Trinamool.
All went fine and perhaps would have, but problems arose over having to walk in a rally where placards of Vivekananda were rubbing shoulders with posters of Mamata Banerjee. The Left had no option but to back out.And now the Left is planning to celebrate Netaji's birthday with great aplomb. As it is, the Left's partner - Forward Bloc - considers Netaji as the party's asset.
And given the Bengali romanticism over Netaji, who revolutionised the entire way of Bengali thinking by sneaking out of the country in disguise, building INA and creating a mystery around his death, the move will surely strike the right chord with Bengal's heart.
(Courtesy of Mail Today)