Sub-nationalism stems from the growing 'insider-outsider' debate in Bengal polls

From TMC's principal poll slogan of 'Bangla Nijer Meye Ke Chaay' (Bengal Wants its own Daughter) to Saffron Brigade's manifesto promises like instituting Tagore Smriti Puraskar on the lines of the Nobel prize, Satyajit Ray Award on the lines of the Oscar award, setting up of a Gurudev Centre for Cultural Excellence and a film city named after matinee idol Uttam Kumar - Bengali sub-nationalism seems to be going increasingly stronger by the day, on the eve of the eight-phase (longest-ever) crucial Bengal legislative assembly polls. And this sub-nationalism stems from the growing 'insider-outsider' debate, which the two warring camps are fuelling. The ruling TMC has embraced it as its main poll plank to counter the rise of the BJP's Hindutva narrative in the State. TMC supremo and other party leaders are carefully trying to portray BJP as a party of 'outsiders'.

While Mamata has, time and again, been reiterating that she would not let the State be 'ruled by those from Gujarat', TMC MP Derek O' Brien went to the extent of saying that the BJP leaders campaigning in Bengal are part of a 'tourist gang' who come to the State only ahead of the polls. Things reached such a pass that none less than the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to rise to the occasion at a recent poll rally and recite the lines 'Punjab, Sindh,Gujarat, Maratha, Dravida, Utkala, Banga' from the national anthem to convey to TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee that no Indian is an 'outsider' in Bengal.

Significantly, those who are somewhat gone in years and have been following State's politics for years together, would remember that way back in January, 1998, when Mamata Banerjee had come out of Congress to float her own political outfit- Trinamul Congress, one of the founding members of the party, former Union and State minister, late Ajit Panja, while explaining the symbol of the party, had recited the same lines of the national anthem and said that the branches and petals of flowers in the symbol reflect this unity in diversity - the idea of India.

Those who know or have been seeing Mamata from close corner would never believe that she is averse to this idea of India, even today. But the desecration of the bust of social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar during a BJP procession in the last phase of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, followed by the publication of the final NRC list in Assam in August that year gave TMC a golden opportunity to brand BJP as an 'anti-Bengali' party. The way the BJP topbrass has been going overboard in suddenly celebrating birth anniversaries of Bengali icons like Rabindra Nath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay et al, has also prompted TMC to stick to this new-found political strategy and brand BJP's move as nothing but 'Show-off".

Mamata and her party also lapped up the fact that the Saffron Brigade, despite all its bravado, did not have any homegrown face to be the party's crowd-puller or the main face in the campaign trail. Even the strongest critic of Bengal, who often like to describe Kolkata and Bengal as the 'worst place to work in', would admit that it is the 'best and the safest place to live in' for any person from any corner of the country and the world. And it still remains so. It will possibly be difficult to make people buy the idea that Bengal is no longer a place for so-called outsiders. Mamata's 'political message' has been loud and clear and has been sent across to right constituencies.