‘India’s soul at stake’: West Bengalis vote in divisive election

In the sleepy, swampy surroundings of Nandigram, West Bengal, where mango and coconut trees grow in abundance, bicycles meander down dusty lanes and ponds fester with green algae, a vicious political showdown has been brewing.

West Bengal, one of India’s most populous states, will begin voting in its elections on Saturday to elect its state government. The significance of the poll, however, spreads far beyond the state’s borders. “The soul of not just Bengal but India is at stake,” said Malay Tewari, a Bengali social activist.

For the past decade the state, which is known for resisting the politics of Delhi, has been ruled by the Trinamool Congress (TMC), a regional party led by one of India’s toughest and most famous female leaders, Mamata Banerjee. She was at the forefront of toppling more than three decades of communist rule in the state, and is still known as a fierce street-fighting politician with an outspoken approach, particularly against India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. The TMC has implemented a progressive development agenda, but it has also been mired in accusations of corruption and thuggery.

Now, in a first for West Bengal, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) has made deep inroads and stands a legitimate chance of forming the state government in May. Winning the state would be a huge coup for the party, giving Modi a powerful advantage in the parliamentary upper house and going into the next general election in 2024.

For those who have seen Bengal as one of the last bastions against the BJP’s polarising politics, however, the prospect of the party controlling the state government has prompted fierce opposition.

“If the BJP comes to power, they will destroy the legacy of Bengal, they will destroy the unique composite culture of Bengal. They will destroy it all and Muslims will take the first blow,” said Tewari, who is one of the co-founders of a new cross-party citizens movement in West Bengal with the single objective of “no votes for BJP”.

The Hindu nationalist BJP, which has been in power since 2014, has been accused of bringing communal politics to Bengal, polarising communities down Hindu-Muslim lines.

“The BJP are desperate to win Bengal because it will give them great power,” said Javed Ahmed Khan, one of the TMC’s most senior ministers, speaking from his Kolkata office where a large photo of Banerjee hung above his desk. “Mamata Banerjee is one of the only political leaders left who is standing up the BJP. They want her gone.”

Modi has held at least four rallies across the state over the past week and was in neighbouring Bangladesh on Friday, a trip seen in part as motivated by the West Bengal elections. The prime minister was, however, met with violent clashes involving Bangladesh protesters angry at his treatment of Muslims in India. Police killed four demonstrators in the capital of Dhaka.

The BJP’s rising popularity in Bengal was evident in the 2019 general election, when it took 40% of the vote. But without a legacy at state level, Khan said the BJP “don’t have anything to fight on here, except religion and money power, so they are stirring up communal divides in the electorate”.

Nowhere has this been more stark than in Nandigram. This southern district of Bengal became ground zero for the election battle between the two parties when Banerjee’s protege and closest ally, Suvendu Adhikari, switched sides from TMC to the BJP in December. Banerjee subsequently changed her constituency to Nandigram and the two will now go head to head for the seat.

The defection became symbolic of how much of a political challenge the BJP represents in Bengal. Not long after, the political rhetoric of Adhikari, who as a TMC politician was popular among both Hindus and Muslims, began to change markedly.

He has addressed only majority Hindu voters at rallies, while referring to Banerjee – an upper caste Hindu known for her vehement secularism – as theaunt or “phuphu of infiltrators”. This is a reference to illegal Muslim immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. He has also accused her of favouring Muslims and working against the interests of Hindus. “We will win with the support of those for whom Jai Sri Ram is the clarion call,” he has said, referring to a Hindu religious slogan.

“Suvendu was always known for his secular approach, he was like an eyeball for both Hindus and Muslims in Nandigram,” said Rokeya Bibi, 50, as she pushed her husband’s fruit cart. “It is a great betrayal of all the Muslims who supported him for years to hear him say these religious slogans. He has divided our community down religious lines when it was never this way before.”

Abu Taher, a Muslim TMC leader in Nandigram, said he had been close friends with Adhikari since they were students and “he was never communal. He used to come to my house every Eid and used to say that Muslims and Hindus are brothers. But now he is using these divisions to win votes.”

SK Sufian, the TMC coordinator in Nandigram, was even more vehement that BJP rhetoric was pushing Bengal to the brink of religious turmoil. “If the BJP comes to power then Hindus will be pitted against Muslims and rivers of blood will flow,” he said.

Bata Krishna Das, the BJP coordinator for Nandigram, insisted his party was more secular than the TMC because Banerjee “went all out for Muslim appeasement”.

“She has given grants to imams and said Islamic greetings in speeches while Hindus have been stopped from celebrating Durga Puja,” said Das in reference to a Hindu festival. “There are Muslims who support the BJP, but they cannot do so publicly because they are afraid of other Muslims who are very violent and terrorists by nature.”

Not all who said they planned to vote for the BJP in Bengal intended to do so for communal reasons. But Shib Prasad Shee, 41, a mechanical engineer from Gopalpur, Nandigram, was among several BJP supporters and said he feared that “with the help of Mamata, Muslims are going to make West Bengal a second Bangladesh. But if the BJP comes to power then West Bengal is protected”.

Gautam Shee, another BJP supporter from Gopalpur, agreed. “Lots of Hindu voters have moved to the BJP because we are under threat from the rapidly increasing Muslim population.”

Many Muslims across West Bengal spoke of their terror at the prospect of BJP rule. The party’s manifesto for the state promises to make it the first to introduce the Citizenship Amendment Act, one of the most controversial pieces of legislation passed by Modi’s government which offers citizenship to refugees from all religions except Islam and is widely seen as discriminatory against Muslims.

In Telinipara, a small town in West Bengal, the fear was palpable. It was here, in May, that BJP supporters led a riot againstMuslim residents, throwing petrol bombs and setting homes alight. Dozens of houses were destroyed in what was one of the worst religious riots in Bengal for years. Thousands of Muslim workers in the area have fled.

“The BJP have triggered terrible violence here when they weren’t even in power, so think what will happen if they are the government,” said Shahnaz Khatun, 22, a political science undergraduate whose house was firebombed in the riots.

Many Hindus in Bengal expressed distaste at the tone of the campaigning. “They are trying to use religion to stir up votes in a Hindu majority society but it will not work here,” said Arvind Sharma, 24. “We do not support what the BJP is doing in Bengal, religion should not come into politics.”