North Bengal: BJP faces fissures in bastion built by ethnic outreach

Rows of saffron flags bearing images of Rama and 'Jai Shri Ram' inscription in Hindi atop houses and shops across North Bengal appear consistent with the socio-political shift the region has undergone in the recent past.

The saffronisation of north Bengal first came to the fore when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won seven of the eight Lok Sabha seats here in 2019.

The party retained its domination of the region even when its Hindutva plank was blunted elsewhere in the state by TMC’s strong Bengali sub-nationalism push in the 2021 Assembly elections. The BJP had then managed to pocket 37 of the region’s 54 assembly seats. The TMC got only 13 seats.

Upbeat on north Bengal

The BJP says it will once again sweep the region to outnumber or equal its 2019 tally in the state.

“This Lok Sabha elections can pave the way for the ouster of the TMC from the state. For that to happen, we need all the eight seats in north Bengal. The lotus should bloom at every polling booth here,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently told a rally at Kawakhali on the outskirts of Siliguri, the region’s commercial hub and biggest city.

Such a performance by the BJP does not appear a difficult proposition on the face of it going by the sign of Hindu revivalism the region is seemingly witnessing.

Saffron surge

It was shrouded in saffron hues on January 22, the day an idol of Hindu deity Ram was consecrated at a new temple at his perceived birthplace in Ayodhya. The saffron flags still flutter almost across Darjeeling, Siliguri, Jalpaiguri, Alipurdar, Cooch Behar, Raiganj, Balurghat and Malda.

“This saffron surge is more to do with the BJP’s pandering to identity aspirations of the region’s diverse ethnic and caste groups rather than organic growth of Hindutva, the core ideology of the party,” explained Saman Pathak, a former MP and trade union leader from Darjeeling.

The region has been the hotbed of several fruitless identity uprising starting from Uttar Khanda Movement of 1970s, the Gorkhaland movement and caste movement of Uttar Bango Tapsili Jati O Adivasi Sangathan (Northern Bengal Backward Caste and Adivasi Organisation) of 1980s to Kamtapuri movement of 1990s.

Identity politics

“These identity issues have been influencing the construction and deconstruction of political narratives here for years and the BJP simply took advantage of it,” said Probir Pramanik, a Siliguri-based political commentator.

To understand the complex politics of the area, it is imperative to study its ever-evolving demographic profile that has been constantly churning the region, socio-politically, Pramanik added.

Separated from rest of West Bengal by the Ganga in the south, the region comprises the hilly districts of Darjeeling and Kalimpong, the sub-Himalayan districts of Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar, and the plains districts of North Dinajpur, South Dinajpur and Malda.

Varied population

Around 22 per cent of the state’s population lives in the region spread over roughly 24 per cent of West Bengal’s total area.

Demographically, it is the state’s most diverse region, populated by all four linguistic families – Indo-European, Austric, Tibeto-Chinese and Dravidian. Apart from Bengalis and Rajbanshis, the two dominant ethnic groups of the area, it is also home to Nepalis, Adivasis, Bhutanese, Tibetans, Tamang, Lepcha, Limboo, Mech, Rabha, and Totos, among others. 

The demographic composition of the area to a great extent is influenced by waves of migration. Adivasis were coaxed by the Britishers to migrate to the Dooars and Terai areas of North Bengal from the Chotanagpur region of central India to work in newly set up tea gardens in the second half of the 19th century.

Sikkim’s gift

Similarly, Darjeeling was almost entirely populated through migrations after the East India Company acquired the hill station and its adjoining area as a gift from the Chogyal dynasty of Sikkim in 1835. The total population of Darjeeling hills in 1829 was just 100. It increased to about 10,000 within 10 years of the company's acquisition.

After India’s partition, the region witnessed a large-scale influx of Bengali Hindu migrants from erstwhile East Pakistan.

Thousands of Tibetans moved to the hilly areas of the region after Tibet was annexed by China in 1950.

Population growth

The most recent wave of infiltration was in the 1990s, when the royal Bhutanese government launched a crackdown on “outsiders”, alleging large-scale illegal migration of Nepalese (called Bhupalis in common parlance) into the southern Bhutan plains.

The population growth rate of north Bengal has been higher than the state average since Independence. This high growth has created tremendous pressure on the region’s land and other resources, creating social insecurity and a sense of neglect against the parties that ruled the states.

The sense of neglect further deepened by the fact that barring two former Congress stalwarts, the late ABA Ghani Khan Choudhury and Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, no leader from the region got much prominence in the state politics.

BJP politics

The BJP sought to change the trend making Sukanta Majumdar, who is from north Bengal, its state president. Two of the four ministers from Bengal in the outgoing Modi government are from the region.

North Bengal has been on the BJP radar for long. The party has been winning the Darjeeling parliamentary seat since 2009, wooing Nepali communities with the promise of a permanent solution to the long-pending Gorkhaland issue.

It widened its social engineering net ahead of 2019 parliamentary elections by allying with Rajbongshi outfits such as the Greater Cooch Behar Peoples’ Association of Ananta Maharaj. It further roped in a prominent Adivasi leader from the region, John Barla of the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad (ABAVP). Matuas, a Hindu Scheduled Caste group, was wooed with the promise of citizenship under a new citizenship act.

Promoting local leaders

The party also briefly flirted with the idea of carving out the region from Bengal to create a separate state or union territory.

These factors, more than communal mobilisation vilifying Muslim infiltrators, largely contributed to the BJP’s growth in the region.

Last year it made Ananta Maharaj its first ever Rajya Sabha MP from West Bengal. Maharaj is a strong proponent of a separate state or UT status for Bengal’s Cooch Behar region.

Changing equations

This time around the situation turns a bit tricky for the BJP as it finds some of its allies have either deserted or are sulking largely because of the Modi government’s failure to solve the issues it had promised to resolve.

“The Gorkhas will not vote for the BJP this time because it has hoodwinked us for 15 years. The Gorkhas did not get anything by voting for the BJP since 2009,” Hamro Party president Ajoy Edwards told The Federal. Until recently he was a BJP ally.

The Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM) too has urged the Gorkhas to give a befitting reply to the BJP for failing to keep its promise.

Growing resentment

To add to the BJP’s misery in the hills, its Kurseong MLA Bishnu Prasad Sharma has filed nomination as an independent candidate in protest against the selection of the party candidate for the Darjeeling seat. The party’s top leadership are frantically trying to persuade him to withdraw the nomination. Darjeeling will vote on April 26 along with two other constituencies of the region – Raiganj and Balurghat.

The BJP faces similar discontentment over its failure to deliver the promises made to Rajbanshis and Adivasis. Moreover, the party’s two MPs, John Barla and Ananta Maharaj, are also sulking over denial of ticket.

The Union Home Ministry recently notified rules to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019, fulfilling the long-pending demands of the Matuas. But the conditions laid down in the rules for acquiring Indian citizenship have left the community disappointed.

Fear grips BJP

These factors can affect the BJP’s prospects in Cooch Behar, Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri which will go to the polls in the first phase on April 19.

The All-India Mech Samaj, an association of Mech community, the Nagesia Kishan Adivasi Samaj (NKAS), an association of adivasi people, and Kamta Rajbanshi Parishad, an organisation of Kamptapuri people earlier this month pledged their support to the TMC. The groups had earlier backed the BJP.

“The BJP did not honour its commitment to develop our community. We supported the BJP thrice in Lok Sabha elections but this time we will back the TMC candidates,” said Sunil Nagesia, advisor of the NKAS.

The Kamtapur Progressive Party (KPP), another Rajbanshi outfit, has started a “no-vote-for-BJP” campaign.

Modi offensive

To offset the damage, Prime Minister Modi has launched a campaign blitzkrieg in the region. He has addressed three meetings in Siliguri, Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri. Modi is expected to make a few more sorties in the region in the run up to the voting, BJP sources said.

The silver lining for the BJP is that his rallies have so far drawn huge crowds. It’s now to be seen whether Modi can help BJP defend its citadel.