Dear Editor,
It is curious that Narendra Modi’s tall talks of ‘India first’ and ‘nation first’ have vanished into thin air, and, as if playing the Hindutva card was not enough, he is now exploiting ‘Gujarati asmita’ in order to sweep all the failures and scandals involved with ‘achhe din’ under the parochial carpet.
Is this the real picture of nationalism?
It is also interesting to note how a person who is full of emotion about being a Gujarati – even criticizing him is also an ‘insult to Gujarat’ – does not hesitate to give a bad name to Bengal and the Bengalis in front of the whole country, describing Bengal as a ‘habitat of infiltrators, miscreants, cattle smugglers and human traffickers.’
The fact is that the Indo-Bangladesh border is not manned by the police of the TMC government but by central forces. Therefore, if there is infiltration, cattle smuggling and human trafficking, the finger should be pointed at the Centre.
As to miscreants, the murderers of Kalburgi, Pansare, Gouri, Akhlaque, Junaid, Pehlu Khan and Afrazool have no association with Bengal. All these miscreants are products of north, west or south India, where the BJP was in power or held immense strength. And how many miscreants who were involved in the 2002 Gujarat pogrom have been punished even after 17 years?
If the Gujaratis have Gujarati asmita, not all Bengalis have lost their Bengaliana. These true Bengalis will certainly protest against the insult to Bengal by leaders from Gujarat or UP – by means of democratic protest through the EVMs.
Sincerely,
Kajal Chatterjee,
Kolkata