As soon as the Calcutta High Court ruled in favour of a CBI enquiry into the allegations of bribery against the ruling Trinamool Congress leaders, who were caught during a sting operation conducted by the Narada news, Mamata Banerjee suddenly retreated from her confrontationist position vis-a-vis the Modi government at the centre. The TMC supremo and the chief minister suddenly declared that she will support the presidential bid of Lal Krishna Advani, the mastermind and chief architect of Babri Masjid demolition of 1992 and the subsequent communal carnage, should the BJP propose his candidacy for the titular head of the state.

It was understood that the chief minister is trying to open a channel of communication with the very Modi government, against which she had plunged to build up a nationwide alliance of all opportunist, so-called secular parties with the ambition of wresting power in the 2019 general election. Mamata Banerjee saw the results of the Uttar Pradesh assembly election and she also saw how the BJP could successfully carry out horse trading in Goa and Manipur (in Manipur, the BJP even bought the lone TMC MLA) to form governments without winning the magic figures itself.

Though the corporate mainstream media in Calcutta and New Delhi may project Mamata Banerjee as a crusader against the Modi government and a harbinger of strength to the anti-communal movement in India, the facts show that the TMC has been an ally of the RSS and the BJP since its inception in 1998. The TMC was a partner of the NDA government led by the BJP in the centre from 1998 until 2004, despite some hiccups over the allotment of ministries and share in power. Mamata Banerjee remained a close fan of the ardent RSS kingpin, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and she worked extensively to build up the popular myth that Vajpayee was a liberal leader in the hardcore fascist RSS and its parliamentary outfit, BJP. It was then just six years since the Lal Krishna Advani led Babri Masjid demolition that Mamata Banerjee forged an alliance with the BJP and helped it to penetrate deep inside the terrain of West Bengal by riding on the back of the TMC organisation.

It was Mamata Banerjee and her TMC that supported Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government at the crucial hours of the Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002 and she also took it upon herself to greet Narendra Modi, the then Gujarat Chief Minister with flowers, upon the latter’s victory in the state assembly election of 2002, which was fought by carrying out extreme communal polarisation. Mamata Banerjee ensured a swift victory of three BJP candidates in the late 1990s from West Bengal by using her own vote bank and organisational strength and also provided breeding ground to the Hindutva outfits, which harped on opposing the “Muslim appeasement” policy of the erstwhile Left Front government. Her undying and unconditional support to the RSS in West Bengal was fuelled by her political compulsion to carve a niche for herself and the newly founded TMC after she quit the Congress. The RSS is still winning favours from the Brahminical Didi, though not so overtly. 

In many parts of West Bengal, RSS is thriving and prospering due to the patronage the Hindutva outfit is receiving from the TMC led state government. The TMC wants the RSS to create an atmosphere of extreme jingoism at the rural and semi-urban areas of West Bengal, so that the communal polarisation of Hindus and Muslims can help both the TMC and the BJP in the state, where the TMC is keen to have the BJP as its challenging partner and not the decadent parliamentary left bloc that has now lost it sheen due to years of divorce from power. Politically a non-existent parliamentary left, whom the mainstream media portrays as the sole representative of the Indian communist movement, will be beneficial for both the TMC and the BJP to project themselves ideologically stronger than the “foreign-influenced communists” and also will help them to dismantle the working class movements in the state with utmost brute force.


Since years, by forging a nefarious nexus with each other, the BJP and the TMC are inciting communal riots in West Bengal, which remained an oasis of harmony despite the extreme communal passion and Brahminical bigotry running down the feudal veins of the state. From the devastating riots kindled by the RSS and the Bajrang Dal in Haji Nagar, Chandan Nagar, Kharagpur, Nandigram and Dhulagarh to the communal tensions irked by the notorious Hindu Samhati, promoted jointly by the RSS and the TMC, West Bengal is witnessing something that the previous laboratories of Hindutva like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Assam witnessed in the past. 

The Bengali Bhadralok, i.e. the upper-caste Hindu men, who were known for being communally nonchalant and progressive across the nation, are now tearing up that mask they were wearing to hide the extreme level of Brahminical despotism beneath it. The Bengali Bhadralok community within West Bengal and those who are now based outside the state, are joining hands using the ferocious riot-monger platform of Hindu Samhati to replicate Yogi Adityanath-run Hindu Yuva Vahini model in West Bengal. By weaning away the politically backward and anti-ruling party vote bloc, the RSS trojan horses like the Hindu Samhati, VHP and other outfits are carrying out violent activities in the state using a huge amount of money they are getting from the US, the UK, and Zionist Israel to toxify the atmosphere of West Bengal.

The VHP, its youth fascist front Bajrang Dal, and the Hindu Samhati are using the context of minority repression done by the Bangladeshi Islamist fanatics to flare up communal carnage in West Bengal. They are using the persecution of Bengali Hindus in Bangladesh as a veil to cover their own anti-minority atrocities throughout India and are instigating the poor Hindus from backward castes and Dalit community (Namasudra) of West Bengal to indulge in violence against the Bengali and non-Bengali Muslim community of the state. The TMC organisation and its leaders are wholeheartedly supporting these endeavours of the Hindutva brigade to ensure that the communal polarisation in West Bengal there is a paradigm shift in the politics of the state and the hitherto despised fanatic and fascist ideologies gain the space that was vacated by an ailing parliamentary left bloc, now turned into a relic.

As a loosely-held and non-regimented organisation, the TMC allows its members to join other mass organisations, social organisations, or religious institutions that are not politically attached to any party. Hence, many of the TMC members are either members of the extremist Salafist organisations like Tablighi Jamaat, Jamaat-e-Islami or are members of the Hindutva militant organisations like Hindu Samhati, Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad. The reluctance of the TMC leadership to issue a whip to bar its members and activists from becoming a part of such extremist organisations has provided a golden opportunity to the BJP to infiltrate their own men within the ruling party and through their active support, ignite the flames of communal tension in different volatile parts of the state.

At present, the BJP has managed to win three seats in the 280 strong West Bengal assembly and the party has managed to wrest two crucial Lok Sabha seats during the 2014 general elections. Darjeeling district is now a stronghold of the BJP, thanks to the extreme popularity it enjoys due to its hobnobbing with the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha and other Gurkha organisations, who command fear and following in the hills due to their muscle-flexing tactics and militant way of functioning. The BJP is now the natural choice for the Marwari trader community of West Bengal, who owns the lion’s share of the state’s business’ and are key decision makers in most of the industries still existing in the state. Among the feudal landlords, the BJP is fast becoming the natural choice and its Hindutva ideology is promising these landlord classes with the restoration of the Brahminical practices in the state and keep their caste and class position in the sanctum sanctorum. 

The minority non-Bengali upper-caste Hindus and a section of backward caste and Dalits are also wooed by the BJP. The RSS is actively carrying out evangelist activities in the tribal belt of North Bengal, where the TMC is providing extreme patronage to the saffron unit so that the latter can keep the threat of Naxalite influence at bay from the tribal people. Throughout the tribal belts of North Bengal, several RSS run extremist schools mushroomed and conversion of tribal people into Hindutva is ongoing without much fanfare in places like Madarihat, Kalchini, and other parts of Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Cooch Behar, and Darjeeling district. The RSS shakhas in these areas are filled with tribal youth, who are lured with the promise of government jobs, money, and other baits. In the areas around Natabari of Cooch Behar, the BJP is using the influence of the Kamtapuri militants and other Hindutva outfits to wean popular support by intensifying the hatred against Muslim settlers in the banks of rivers, commonly called “Bhatia” in those areas. The BJP has increased its strength relying on the RSS machinery in these parts of the state and are creating enmity among the poor people using religion and tribal, non-tribal identity.

In South Bengal, where the RSS and the Hindutva units had good presence since the 1940s, the campaigns against Muslims have intensified. Taking refuge in social media vitriol, the RSS and the BJP are enticing the susceptible Bengali Bhadralok community to swing to their side in South Bengal districts, where the penetration of the RSS controlled schools and institutions are still very less. The BJP’s recruitment drive in Birbhum is based on former CPM supporters who are keen to fight against the TMC rule and are switching to the BJP. A major part of the BJP supporters and activists in Birbhum are tribals and Muslims, who have defected from the camps of the CPM and the Congress to the saffron party. It’s the only district in West Bengal where the BJP is thriving on Muslim support base.

Since the first assembly election of 1952, when the erstwhile BJS (the predecessor of the BJP) and the Hindu Mahasabha won 13 seats together, the best performance of the saffron brigade in the state is happening under the nose of Mamata Banerjee. It’s imperative for Mamata Banerjee to ensure that the right-wing Hindutva threat continues to thrive so that she can package the threat and consolidate the Muslim vote-bank and prevent the encroachment of the left and the Congress on that vote-bank. It’s the reason why her police force, her bureaucracy and her party men are reluctant to act against the menace of Hindutva jihad, which is now gripping the whole state slowly and carrying out bush telegraph to seduce the politically semi-conscious or backward masses.

Though Mamata Banerjee and the TMC will occasionally amplify their so-called opposition to the Modi government and its policies, the TMC will maintain the best cordial relationship with the BJP in West Bengal and New Delhi to ensure that the party can continue to have a larger share of power in the state and in the national politics. By concealing the utmost corrupt, bullish and irredeemable opportunist characteristic of the TMC, Mamata Banerjee will continue to seek a chance to hijack the national anti-BJP leadership to ensure that the party of Hindutva zealots like Vajpayee and Advani, can reap benefits of communal polarisation by projecting her as an “anti-Hindu” and “pro-Muslim” figure on a national scale.

The RSS, BJP and other such Hindutva outfits have built up a huge army of cyber trolls, who are spreading the venom of communal hatred throughout the country using West Bengal as a context. Most of these trolls are situated outside West Bengal and are non-Bengalis. The major part of Bengalis joining the bandwagon of the RSS are situated outside West Bengal, especially in cities like Bangalore, Bombay, and New Delhi. There are very few Bengalis from West Bengal who are actively working for the RSS led cyber brigade in the state and most of the cyber and on-ground army of the Hindutva camp in the state is manned by upper-caste North Indian Hindus who are either living in the urban areas of the state since generations, or those who are specially deputed to the state to execute  the RSS master plan of 2021.


These Hindutva outfits and the cyber troll army, working under the direction of the RSS, are carrying out a vitriol against the 27 per cent Muslim population of the state by calling them active Jihadis who are attempting to establish Sharia in West Bengal and merge it with the Muslim-majority Bangladesh. The RSS propaganda is also claiming that Mamata Banerjee has converted to Islam and rechristened herself as Mumtaz Begum and she is now an integral part of the so-called “Jihadi conspiracy” and to support their claim and save public ignominy, the RSS is using the testimonies of the Hindutva supporters and cyber bullies like Tarek Fatah and the exiled Bangladeshi author cum Islam basher, Taslima Nasreen. 

Morphed images of “gory atrocities against Hindus by Muslims” are spurring to create enmity between communities. Consumption of beef by Muslims and their legal cow slaughter are now been made issues to infuriate the common Bengali Hindus, who remained aloof from the cow-worshipping and vegan practices of the North Indian Hindus that the RSS is now trying to impose on the whole country. The RSS propaganda mills stories about the majority Hindu community of West Bengal reeling under a purported Islamic threat and living without their religious rights when actually the Hindus are freer to observe their religious festivals and ceremonies than the various sects of Muslims, who need special permissions and police authorisation to organise any religious festival or ceremony. 

RSS controlled websites like The Frustrated India, Swarajya Magazine, etc. and social media users, who are using Hindu Bengali pseudonyms, are constantly peddling lies and slanders through all possible social media channels, including WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter, to ensure that the majority Hindu community is incited with a purported threat of Islamic invasion. In this article the author, who seems like a rabid Hindutva fan, used the popular stereotypes to narrate an imaginary tale of a Salafi Islamic invasion in rural West Bengal to ensure that the Hindu community of the state can be put back to the track of communal fratricide, which West Bengal did not experience in decades despite severe bigotry of its majority Hindu community and their prejudices against Muslims. The constant propaganda and the huge cyber army deployed by the Hindutva camp certainly point to the gigantic enterprise under construction and the huge amount of money that is piped from offshore locations like the US, the UK, and the Zionist Israel.

There are several Salafi organisations in West Bengal that are hand-in-glove with the RSS led Hindutva brigade and are spreading bigotry and communal hatred among the Muslim people of the state. Acting as the decoy tools of the Hindutva brigade, the Salafis of the Tablighi Jamaat are also trying to incite a feral mob of Islamic fanatics, especially in the South Bengal districts like Burdwan, Hooghly, Howrah, Nadia, North and South 24 Paraganas. These Islamic fanatics are trying to sneak into popular anti-government movements and turn them into a “Muslim movement” to ensure that the unity of the people gets wrecked and the Hindutva units can gain ground at places that were earlier known as the citadel of land movement by using Islamophobia as their weapon. 

Nandigram, the village that brought the erstwhile CPM-led Left Front government to its knees through a militant anti-land acquisition struggle, is now becoming a hub of Tapan Ghosh led Hindu Samhati and the Islamic fanatics led by people close to the ruling TMC. In other parts of the state too, the Hindutva outfits are multiplying their organisational presence and by hiding their agenda of promoting North Indian Hindu principles, including vegetarianism among the Bengali Hindus along with the imposition of the Hindi language and culture, these groups are wooing the Bengali Hindus and a section of Dalits with a promise to end the so-called “Muslim appeasement” in the state, where the Muslims, according to the Sachar Committee report, lives in utmost poverty and in a semi-pauperised state.

The Hindutva campaign has intensified so much in areas like North and South 24 Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly and East Midnapore that many North Indian Hindutva practices crept into the mainstream Bengali Hindu culture in these regions. The RSS, along with the VHP is going to organise Ram Navami, a North Indian festival in West Bengal to uniformise the Hindu religion according to the North Indian standards and to colonise the minds and souls of Bengali Hindus by projecting North Indians as superior beings in comparison to the Bengalis. Vegetarianism is promoted with too much zeal in these regions by the RSS workers and the common Bengali cuisines like fish, mutton and chicken are also under the lens of the Hindutva outfits like Bajrang Dal and Hindu Samhati. Using the sermons of non-Bengali Hindutva evangelists as their propelling power, the saffron stormtroopers have attacked Muslim meat and fish sellers at different parts of South Bengal and they are carrying out extensive campaign against cow slaughter by uniting the non-Bengali upper-caste Hindus and Jains under the saffron banner. The TMC is reluctant to act up and the prejudices of the upper-caste Brahminical Bengali led ruling party is helping the saffron units to run their show without any hindrance.


The TMC led West Bengal government keeps mum and continues with a total media silence when such Goebellian propaganda of the RSS continues to rage the susceptible minds of the politically unconscious Bengali people, who will not be able to verify the information that they are receiving through multiple channels, especially social media. Every day the Zionist Israel and US funded Hindu Samhati and other less known Hindutva organisations are opening the gateways to communal violence in new places and even in those areas that had a history of extreme communal harmony and fraternity. The invoking of the Hindu identity of the common Bengali people by these saffron organisations is actually reviving the barbaric bigotry of the upper-caste Hindus of West Bengal, which went for a slumber, at least in public, for few decades in the state. 

The animosity towards the Muslims that existed within the upper-caste Hindu Bhadralok community for decades though remained sub-layered, but never ceased despite the tall talks of communal harmony by the rulers of the state. The atmosphere of suspicion and hatred against the Muslim community, whose socio-economic condition has been the most pathetic in the state according to the Sachar Committee report, continued unabated even during the progressive “left rule” and the situation worsened under Mamata Banerjee.

As the subsequent Uttar Pradesh governments led by Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, unapologetically nurtured the hate-monger fascists like Yogi Adityanath for years, provided the Hindutva extremists immunity from law and helped them to earn popularity among the frenzied Hindutva mob that rampaged the state since years, so is Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government caressing the US and Zionist Israel sponsored Hindutva mobsters like Tapan Ghosh and others, who can be serious contenders for the position of the state Chief Minister should the BJP win majority in 2021. 


The West Bengal Police and the Calcutta Police are working overtime to shadow, arrest and lock-up the progressive and democratic activists throughout the state, who are working among the poor and downtrodden masses and helping them to fight for their legitimate rights over the land, water and mineral resources. But at the same time, aloof from the law, the Hindutva mobs are organising riots and arson throughout the state with utmost impunity, which raises the doubt about the patronage they are receiving from the state machinery. No police action is taken against the communal hatred mongers of the RSS led Hindutva camp in West Bengal, which seriously indicates towards an evil nexus between Mamata Banerjee and Narendra Modi-Amit Shah clique.

A few months ago, a prototype of the incident of Ramjas College violence against Umar Khalid and others took place in Calcutta when the JNU student activist came to Bharat Sabha Hall to participate in an event organised by some progressive organisations against the state repression on the Tribals in Bastar. The hooligans of Hindu Samhati and the RSS, stormed the venue and started beating up protesters, molested women, threatened activists with rape and murder, and rampaged the area under the full protection of Mamata Banerjee’s police force. They also repeated the same exercise last year in Jadavpur University, where these paid agents of the RSS launched attacks on the students who protested against the Hindutva mob and their xenophobic propaganda. The TMC ruled government and its police remained indifferent during these heinous crimes. Mamata Banerjee probably thought that an enemy of the enemy (left-wing students) is the best buddy!  

Whenever the police had detained few of the ruffians hired by Hindu Samhati and ABVP, they were released after few minutes from the police stations and no charges were ever applied to them, despite these hooligans resorting to violence and rioting in full public view throughout the state. The hypocrisy of Mamata Banerjee’s government was visible in January 2017, when the peasants in Bhangar rose in rebellion against her regime and its strongman, Arabul Islam. Mamata Banerjee unleashed state terror on the poor peasants of Bhangar and the neighbouring areas to subjugate the rebellious people. The police arrested the activists of the Bhangar land movement under UAPA and locked them up. She never thought about cracking the whip when the Hindutva agents were instigating trouble at Kharagpur, Dhulagarh, Haji Nagar, etc. It is only her hatred against the progressive and democratic forces that makes her use state terror against legitimate political movements in West Bengal.

The lessons of Uttar Pradesh and Assam warns us that the Modi government will certainly use its brute force to encroach upon the political terrain of West Bengal and through the systematic vitriol against the Muslim and Christian community in the state, the saffron bloc will be successful in driving a wedge between the poor workers and peasants, who are now loosely held by a fragile bond formed during the heydays of their struggle against feudal and capitalist exploitation. The lack of any political entity that can resist the Hindutva bandwagon in West Bengal by arousing the people with the politics of democracy and secularism, is strengthening the arms of the Hindutva menace. TMC and Mamata Banerjee are of course not going to be with the people during the hour of crisis, hence, it becomes imperative for the democratic and progressive forces of the state to keep aside their contradictions and ego, to forge an iron-strong united front against the ongoing Hindutva fascist onslaught.