Editor,
It is nice to see a mighty political heavyweight sparing his precious time in this hectic electioneering season to pay homage to Sarada Debi Ramakrishna Paramhansa Swami Vivekananda by visiting the places associated with them in north Kolkata.
Also, he did not forget Subhas Chandra Bose, so homage was paid to Netaji below his lofty statue nearby.
But all true-blue Bengalis will definitely ask whether he is aware that while Ramakrishna Paramhansa had professed and believed in the concept of ‘Joto mot toto poth’ (as many opinions, so many ways), or that Vivekananda had introduced Kumari Puja by worshipping a little girl of a Kashmiri Muslim boatman in Kheer Bhavani.
Is he aware that the impeccably secular Bose had united soldiers of Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian vintage to form a united whole while leading the Indian National Army, and that unity was not forged through promotion of a particular religion, but solely through patriotism towards the common motherland India?
Yet how could he afford to display so much ‘respect’ towards these great Bengalis despite dividing the nation in the most crude fashion possible through fomenting hatred in terms of religion region, caste and race? What a lip service to those supreme humanitarians indeed!
Respect towards any community or individual doesn’t depend upon mere words only but through deeds. So no self-respecting Bengali would forget which camp was associated with the barbaric destruction of the Vidyasagar bust in 2019 Kolkata. Every true Bengali would ask what the take is on the particular ecosystem on Raja Rammohan Roy. Doesn’t this camp regularly belittle one of the leading lights of Bengal renaissance through the terminology of ‘chamcha’ of British? What hatred towards Roy for his great effort towards banning the regressive Sati!
No wonder that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has rightly asserted that the wavelength of the particular ecosystem and Bengal would never match.
So the 2021 West Bengal assembly verdict spoke of the victory of secularism, humanity, sanity, religious brotherhood, and liberal Bengali ethos with utmost respect towards the diversity of India and constitutional values.
Last but not least, no self-respecting Bengali will forget that despite such rich electoral harvest from Bengal in 2019 (18 Lok Sabha seats), not a single Bengali had been awarded an entry in the union cabinet in last five years, along with deprivation of due economic share of the state for more than two years.
How can Bengalis forget how the who’s who of the outfit are denigrating West Bengal continuously for several years with the terminologies of ‘land of terrorists, bomb makers, traffickers, and mafia’, with the latest description of the state being ‘Mullah madrasa mafia? How can true Bengalis pardon that party whose mandarins belittle the most liberal state of India as ‘racist’, where ‘outsiders’ are regularly ‘tortured’ and ‘humiliated’ and thereby fomenting anti-Bengali poison in rest of the country?
So, no deluge of crocodile tears and display of emotion towards Bengal and its illustrious greats at the fag end of the tenure will enable the hypocrite camp to penetrate the hearts of the true Bhadraloks who are possessed of immense self-respect and pride for their culture, roots and legacy.
Kajal Chatterjee,
D-2/403,
Peerless Nagar,
Kolkata