BJP’s plans trigger slugfest in Bengal
NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government’s plans to organise a grand, year-long celebration of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s 125th birth anniversary, starting on January 23, isn’t the first time the party is going all out to honour the legacy of a leader whose roots are in a poll-bound state.
Predictably, the plans have triggered a slugfest between the BJP and West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress, which has accused the BJP of using Bose’s birth anniversary to make political gains in the upcoming polls.
The BJP has justified the celebration as the recognition of a national icon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a tweet last month, referred to Bose as a “scholar, soldier and statesman par excellence,” and outlined the Centre’s plan for a “grand” celebration. On Saturday, a commemoration committee headed by PM Modi, that also has on board historians, opposition party leaders and eminent personalities, was announced.
For her part, West Bengal chief minister Mamamta Banerjee — also in the central panel headed by the PM—announced the setting up of a national university and a monument and a state planning commission to mark the occasion.
The stress on celebrating an icon or the legacy of a cultural or political personality in a state headed for polls is an election strategy not new to the BJP. In the past, the party has honoured leaders that it alleged had been sidelined by successive governments like Sardar Patel and BR Ambedkar. A senior party leader who spoke on condition of anonymity said the issue of regional leaders who had not been “given their due” should not be linked to elections. “It is not done for electoral gains, but it does become a rallying point for addressing the aspirations of the people of a particular state. It is a matter of pride for people to see icons from the state or linguistic community being nationally feted,” the leader said.
In 2019, the BJP sought a Bharat Ratna for Veer Savarkar and social reformers Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule ahead of the Maharashtra assembly elections.
The opposition perceives a political motive in the celebrations of Bose’s 12th birth anniversary. TMC’s Rajya Sabha MP, Sukhendu Shekhar Ray, said the celebration panel was “ornamental” and does not include individuals who “are an authority on Bose such as former MP Saugata Bose”. “They are using Bose for electoral gains. Had they been serious about his legacy, then they would have ensured that a volume on Bose prepared by the history division of the ministry of defence in 1949 is released,” he said.
Rajya Sabha MP Rakesh Sinha described the allegation that the BJP and its ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), appropriate local icons at election time as specious.
Aditya Mukherjee, a professor of history at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, said, “They selectively pick icons and history of others and extend the fault lines.
For instance, in West Bengal there is a feeling among a section of people that Gandhi was not fair to Bose, so they tend to exploit this,” he said.