Face of Nation : When the going gets tough, play the parochial card. This seems to be the motto of our cynical politicians. The latest to jump on the bandwagon is West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress boss Mamata Banerjee.
Blindsided by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) stupendous success in West Bengal in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Mamata Banerjee is now pandering to the latent Bengali sub-nationalism.
On June 14, addressing a rally in Kanchrapara in North 24 Parganas warned non-Bengalis that to live in West Bengal they would have to speak in Bengali. “We have to bring Bangla [Bengali language] forward,” she thundered.
There are better ways to promote a language than to shove it down the throat of non-native speakers. People learn a language when there is an economic benefit accruing from it (and in rare cases because of the love of the language).
But Mamata Banerjee is not alone in stoking the son-of-the-soil vs outsider debate.
At his first press conference after taking over as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh in December 2018, Kamal Nath said: “Our schemes of providing incentives of investment will only be imposed after 70 per cent people from Madhya Pradesh get employment. People from other states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh come here and local people don’t get jobs.”
Incidentally, Kamal Nath is from Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
In September 2018, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani promised to reserve jobs for locals. “We are going to make legal provisions that companies entering the industrial and service sector will have to give 80 per cent of the jobs to Gujaratis,” The Times of India quoted Rupani as saying.
A few years back there was a proposal from Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navanirman Sena to give licences only to those autorickshaw drivers who could speak Marathi. Beating up Hindi-speaking auto drivers in Mumbai is an annual affair.
In the present day Jharkhand the fight against “dikus” (outsiders) dates back a few decades. In the 1970s and ’80s this became more pronounced — the chhota (Sikh transporters), sota (UP goons) and lota (Marwari traders) had to be banished from the cherished land of tribals.
In Assam the “Bongal kheda” (throw out the Bengalis) agitation later morphed into a movement against “Ali, coolie, Bongali / Naak sepeta Nepali”. Ali = Muslims, Coolie = Biharis, Bongali = Bengali and naak-sepeta Nepali = flat-nosed Nepalis.
The fear of outsiders and how they can be used to stoke nativism among local population has been used time and again to hide failures of governments. It is easy for Mamata Banerjee to threaten the imposition of Bengali on non-Bengali. Far difficult would be to make Bengali a sought-after language for new learners.
Narendra Modi has rewritten the rules of how politics is now been played. He has done away with all the sub-national identities that for so long played a key role in Indian politics. Caste, class, language…every identity has been subsumed by his promise of a strong nation and development.
Mamata should know better. Equating Hindi speakers with BJP supporters cannot explain the 18 seats that BJP won in West Bengal. Lakhs of Rabindrasangeet-singing, fish-eating Bengalis were sold on the Modi dream and voted for him.
She, along with other satraps who are trying to stay politically relevant in the Age of Modi, has to discover another narrative. The easy binaryism of mandal/kamandal, Bengali/non-Bengali, Yadav/non-Yadav is over.
Most leaders (Modi excepted) are missing the tune they need to play to lure the voters. They seem to miss the fact that India’s youth population (15-29 year age bracket) will be close to 50 crore by 2031. That’s according to a World Bank projection.
These young people would demand jobs and empowerment and an end to discrimination. Erecting barriers, either mental or real, will not help reach out to them. Young people need chances to blossom, to move, to choose. In the UK most young voters had opted to stay when the Brexit vote happened in 2016.
Mamata Banerjee, Kamal Nath, Vijay Rupani and their ilk should remember that shutting out non-locals will not help in economic growth. Businesses grow when there is competition, the right environment and a pool of talented human capital.
According to Census 2011 there are 139 million internal migrants in the country. These people are a captive source of labour. They work, earn, spend and add to the state GDP.
If Mamata Banerjee has to fight the BJP and win, she should look at improving the state’s economy. As a democratically elected leader it’s her job to protect all citizens, not to threaten non-Bengali ones. After all she should remember that the Constitution does not allow citizens to be discriminated against on the ground of language.
