BJP’s Bengal leadership has bartered away whatever little spine it once possessed. They now sit snugly in Modi’s pocket. And the price paid is not just political dignity, but cultural self-respect. So complete is this surrender that they have abandoned even their mother tongue. Consider the absurdity. BJP’s Bengal State President, Samik Bhattacharya, was allotted 17 minutes in the House to speak on Vande Mataram, a hymn born of Bengal, written in Bengali, rooted in Bengali thought. Yet he chose not to utter a single word in Bengali. He spoke in Hindi. That choice was a public declaration that pleasing Delhi matters more than honouring one’s own language, history, and people. And it only gets worse. These leaders, who posture as custodians of nationalism, cannot even get history right. Samik Bhattacharya misidentified Barrister Ashutosh Chowdhury as “Ashutosh Lahiri”, exposing the intellectual bankruptcy of a party whose historical knowledge comes from WhatsApp forwards. This is how you descend from reverence to ridicule. You end up calling Rishi Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay “Bankim da” or “Bankim Das.” You confuse Vande Mataram with Vande Bharat. You trivialise icons you neither understand nor respect. And then, with a straight face, you sermonise Bengal on patriotism. What BJP has on display is total cultural capitulation. And Bengal sees it for exactly what it is.
