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Politically talking, West Bengal incorporates a number of Bengals inside itself. But the one Bengal inside West Bengal about which I’m going to write down right here is initially Hindi-speaking. This Hindi-speaking West Bengal emerged by way of the migrants from north India. The migration from north India to Bengal began lengthy again.
During colonial occasions, a big inhabitants of labourers, retailers, and so forth, moved to Bengal. The stream of north Indians to Bengal remained swift until about 1960. As the decline of industries in Bengal began across the 60s, the speed of migration too began declining regularly. Still, West Bengal continues to draw a major variety of migrants largely from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, and so forth. Many ‘migrants’ have been settled in Bengal since three or 4 generations. Most of them have been residing in and across the industrial belt comprising Howrah, Hooghly, 24 Parganas, and so forth, and the coal belt of Asansol-Raniganj.
Some of the migrants additionally settled within the cities and kasbas of Bengal and opened retailers promoting tea, paan, groceries, and so forth. They are initially Hindi audio system however slowly developed as multilingual communities who’re additionally fluent in Bengali. It is attention-grabbing to look at that about half the migrants in West Bengal have moved from Bihar through the years.
These migrant communities normally haven’t been politically inclined besides those that had been mobilised as a part of commerce union actions by the leftist political events. In latest years, it’s being noticed {that a} part of them who’re influenced by the political tradition of their residence states have emerged as a vote base for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in West Bengal.
One might hear praises of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP from the mouths of those north Indian migrants in recent times. Small Ram and Hanuman temples have been constructed or are being constructed round their paras (neighbourhoods) and bastis. The Hindutva politics for defending their north Indian model of Hindu tradition works as a mobilising pressure in favour of the BJP in elections. The language and slogans of the BJP’s politics evoke recollections of their homeland tradition. It is the inspiration for their comfy affiliation with the BJP.
Eminent scholar of Bengali tradition and politics Prof Partha Chatterjee just lately identified in an interview that the migrants from Rajasthan, who’re comparatively richer and largely merchants are investing part of their revenue in developing these temples in Bengal. So, the cultural setting for the rise and development of BJP politics is being created by a bit of the north Indian migrant communities. While interviewing these north Indian migrants and their households over the cellphone, one can simply observe that a big slice of those communities appears sympathetic in direction of BJP politics. However, the largely marginalised labour sections of this inhabitants nonetheless have affinity in direction of the politics of the Trinamool Congress and Left. Some of them additionally take the center path whereas commenting on politics and opine that the BJP could also be higher for the politics of Delhi(because the ruling social gathering of the nation) however Didi (Mamata Banerjee) is sweet for them in Bengal.
So it’s true that these north Indian migrants might not emerge as a homogenous vote base for the BJP however most of them appear inclined in direction of its politics. The TMC seemingly has not been very profitable in offering illustration to those migrants in energy and governance of the state. Since most of them are settled right here for years, their political aspirations are additionally rising regularly. The BJP is making an attempt laborious to cater to those north Indian Hindi-speaking migrants to attain success within the 2021 West Bengal meeting elections.
(The writer is professor and director of GB Pant Social Science Institute, Prayagraj. Views are private)
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