BJP is utterly alien to Bengal’s way of life. In Bengal, our literary, cultural, and spiritual icons are sacred pillars of our civilisational consciousness. We revere Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. We venerate Vande Mataram as a timeless anthem of resistance and national awakening. But BJP understands none of this. None.
Which is precisely why Narendra Modi had the audacity to refer to Rishi Bankim as “Bankim da”, as though he were a college senior, a chai-stall acquaintance, or a campaign prop to be casually name-dropped. This is cultural illiteracy wrapped in performative familiarity.
This is what happens when outsiders who have no organic connection to Bengal’s intellectual tradition try to mimic reverence they have never learned to practice. They mispronounce, they trivialise, they reduce giants to gimmicks, and in the process, expose their utter contempt for what Bengal truly stands for.
