West Bengal: Yesterday’s foes become today’s friends as Sanghis run amok

Durga Puja festivities in Kolkata this year were marred by two rare sights: a bulldozer demolishing a temporary bookstall and a purported bookstall turned into a temporary phuchka vend. As right-wing vandals, Left activists and citizens clashed, bookstalls became the most unlikely political flashpoints. It began with chief minister Suvendu Adhikari warning Left parties on the floor of the Assembly that bookstalls at Durga Puja pandals were henceforth forbidden. No minister dared contradict him.

Which is why the mealy-mouthed words of condemnation from a handful of RSS and BJP leaders, including finance minister Swapan Dasgupta, failed to ring true. Even as he wondered who the vandals might be, people pointed out that Dasgupta was sitting right next to Adhikari when the CM held out the threat. How could he claim surprise, let alone outrage?

The truth is that Adhikari and a section of BJP MLAs, mostly Hindi-speaking, have been belligerently uttering war cries against the Left. A BJP MLA’s ‘Baam Vadh’ banner blazoned death to the Left. Gangs claiming allegiance to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal went about smashing book stalls set up by the CPI(M), SUCI and other Left parties. Some of them openly said they were following instructions from Suvendu-da.

Clearly, small-time goons from Bihar and UP — claiming Sangh parentage and protection — are making the Bengali bhadralok queasy about endorsing the BJP.

Jishnu Basu, a scientist and prachar pramukh of the RSS’s east zonal unit piously asserted, “The RSS never supports [the] destruction of books. We condemn such acts of cowardice.”

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) brought in bulldozers, with police and central forces standing by. BJP, VHP and Bajrang Dal rowdies tore up books and destroyed makeshift stalls. Left workers and local residents formed human chains to prevent bulldozers from moving in. KMC deployed conservancy trucks to cart away the torn books along with other debris. Reports of attacks came in from across the city and different districts. RSS bookstalls were left untouched.

Videos of cocky BJP workers also went viral. A local BJP leader from north Kolkata said, “We will not allow distribution or sale of Left literature. What is the point of setting up bookishtores? You should distribute trishuls, swords and clothes; leave the books to us!”

Sangh-affiliated young men speaking in Hindi or heavily accented Bengali have introduced a new layer of cultural aggression. The semi-literate vandals were clearly engaged for the purpose. They failed to differentiate between literature and Left literature; between novels and political tomes; between Rabindranath and Vivekananda. Titles like Sarat Chandra’s Pother Dabi, a novel based on the real-life adventures of a freedom fighter and revolutionary, were meaningless for these ‘nationalist’ goons.

The faces of the vandals are clearly visible in the videos — none have been arrested. The CM has threatened to book those sharing such ‘fake videos’.

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Cornered in the battle to occupy Bengal’s mindscape, the stampede at Chorbagan puja pandal on 17 October, which killed 19 people, blew up in the government’s face, exposing its ineptness. Recovering lost ground will not be easy for Adhikari & Co.

On 18 October, the Trinamool Congress Mamata faction went to Girish Park police station to submit a memorandum in response to the stampede. Deputations from the CPI(M) and Congress also filed separate memorandums. Political parties staged protests as senior leaders demanded accountability and transparency regarding crowd management and alleged administrative negligence.

Bengal watchers did not miss the significance of the social media posts that followed. Seeing the TMC’s Kunal Ghosh, the CPI(M)’s Shatarup Ghosh and Congress spokesperson Suman Roy Chaudhuri helping each other under fluttering party flags is radically different from what the people are used to. The two Ghoshes are usually seen demolishing each other on TV debates!

The message of cross-party camaraderie did not end here. The same evening, Kunal Ghosh was welcomed by Shatarup and other CPI(M) leaders when he showed up at the CPI(M) bookstall at Jadavpur, also targeted for demolition.

“Our politics may be different,” Ghosh later told the media, “but we have known each other for a long time. I read Marxist literature, I keep publications from the SUCI, and the CPM. This stall offers not just Left literature but also good books from other genres.”

Events in Delhi recently brought leaders like Mamata Banerjee, M.A. Baby, Rahul Gandhi and Dipankar Bhattacharya together over the SIR and the crackdown on students, rekindling the buzz around the resurrection of INDIA bloc. Is this camaraderie percolating down to operational levels, creating conditions for a one-on-one contest against the BJP?

Yesterday’s foes becoming tomorrow’s bedfellows will be portentous for the BJP in Bengal.

Sourabh Sen is a Kolkata-based independent writer and commentator on politics, human rights and foreign affairs. More of his writing here