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Deccan Herald
21 minutes ago
- Deccan Herald
Mamata sets stage for 'Bangaliyana vs Hindutva', asks TMC workers to launch stir against BJP's linguistic terror
Kolkata: Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of unleashing 'linguistic terrorism' on Bengalis across the country and called for a movement to protect the language and cultural identity of the state against such onslaughts by the saffron party. With the assembly elections in West Bengal less than a year away, Mamata not only blew the poll bugle with a no-holds-barred offensive against the BJP but also set the TMC's strategy to counter the saffron party's aggressive Hindutva with an assertive Bangaliyana. As she addressed a mammoth congregation of the TMC workers at the party's annual Martyrs' Day event in Kolkata to pay homage to the 13 people killed in police firing on July 21, 1993, while demanding fair polls, the TMC supremo also warned the BJP against using the Election Commission to manipulate the electoral rolls..'Being born Bengali has become crime in BJP states': CM Mamata Banerjee amid migrant party's general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee, said that he and other parliamentarians of the TMC would now speak only in Bengali in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. 'We will not kowtow before any attempt by the BJP to erase Bengali.' 'We must win more seats in the 2026 assembly polls (in West Bengal) and then march to Delhi to oust the BJP from power at the Centre,' the TMC supremo said, coining the 'Jabda Habe, Stabdha Habe' (we will trounce them, silence them) as her party's new war cry for the 2026 assembly polls, moving on from the 'khela habe (game is on)'. The TMC over the past few weeks stepped up its attacks on the governments of the BJP-ruled states for the detention of migrant workers from West Bengal by police and, in some cases, even deportation to Bangladesh, often allegedly disregarding their claim of being genuine citizens of India. Mamata, the chief minister of West Bengal since 2011, on Monday accused the BJP-led governments in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat and Delhi of harassing migrant workers from her state only because they spoke in their mother language to witness 'artificial fight' between Modi and Mamata as polls nearing: Adhir.'The BJP wants to erase our identity, language, culture and pride. But I promise you, till the time we oust them from the Centre, our fight will continue,' she said. 'In 2019, they vandalised the statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. They saw the results of that audacious act of insulting Bengali icons (in the 2021 assembly polls). Now, they have issued notifications to delete Bengali names from voter lists. In BJP-ruled states, Bengalis are being harassed and put in detention camps,' alleged the TMC supremo. 'If needed, there will be a second Bhasha Andolan (language movement) against the BJP's terrorism on the Bengali language... From July 27, a movement will start in Bengal to protest the attack on Bengalis, Bengali language and 'Bhasha Santras' (linguistic terrorism) of the BJP,' she said, adding: 'This language movement will continue till the end of the assembly polls.' The first 'Bhasha Andolan' had taken place in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1952 to protest the imposition of Urdu and sidelining of Bengali in the eastern part of Pakistan. A police crackdown had resulted in the death of at least 29 protesting students on February 21, 1952. The United Nations later declared February 21 as International Mother Language Day..'BJP is watching': Suvendu cautions police officers 'siding' with TMC.'(West) Bengal is home to nearly 1.5 crore migrants from other states. We welcome people from all over India. But look at what the BJP is doing to Bengalis (in the states ruled by it),' said Mamata. She called upon the TMC workers to be very cautious to resist attempts by the BJP and the EC to erase names of legitimate voters of West Bengal from the electoral rolls of the state and instead enroll people from other BJP-ruled states. 'The BJP and the EC are conspiring against (West) Bengal. They want to do in Bengal what they did in Bihar through SIR (Special Intensive Revision). In Bihar, they have deleted the names of 40 lakh voters. If they try it here, we will gherao them. We will never allow it,' she said.


India Today
2 hours ago
- India Today
Bill being drafted for unified higher education regulator: Education ministry
The Ministry of Education (MoE) is in the process of drafting legislation to establish the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI), which is proposed as a unified regulatory body for the country's higher education development was confirmed by Minister of State for Education Sukanta Majumdar in a written reply to the Lok Sabha on July HECI, as envisioned by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, will serve as an umbrella authority with four distinct verticals to independently handle regulation, accreditation, funding, and academic UNDER NEP 2020 In his reply, Majumdar stated, "The National Education Policy 2020 envisions a 'light but tight' regulatory framework to ensure integrity, transparency, and resource efficiency of the educational system through audit and public disclosure, while encouraging innovation and out-of-the-box ideas through autonomy, good governance and empowerment."He further added that in alignment with this vision, the ministry is actively drafting a bill to set up the Higher Education Commission of creation of HECI would lead to the phasing out of existing regulators, namely the University Grants Commission (UGC), which oversees general higher education, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), responsible for technical education, and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), which governs teacher ATTEMPTS TO FORM HECIThe idea of a unified regulator is not new. The first draft of the HECI Bill was introduced in 2018, when the government published it for public feedback and stakeholder consultation. However, the proposal did not move forward at the time.A renewed push for the HECI was seen after Dharmendra Pradhan took over as the Union Education Minister in July then, the need for a consolidated regulatory system has been highlighted as essential for overhauling India's fragmented higher education A UNIFIED BODY MATTERSThe NEP 2020 underscores that the current regulatory landscape is in need of a 'complete overhaul' to energise and streamline the higher education sector.A single authority like the HECI is seen as critical to removing duplication of roles and ensuring better coordination across disciplines, including arts, science, technology, and teacher consolidating functions currently managed by three separate bodies, the proposed commission aims to reduce bureaucracy, simplify decision-making, and ensure more efficient allocation of details, including the final draft of the HECI Bill, are expected to be released by the Ministry of Education once the internal drafting process is complete.- EndsMust Watch


India Today
4 hours ago
- India Today
In Modi's ‘Kali-Durga' stage-cry, a new BJP vocabulary for Bengal?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on July 18, walked onto the stage in West Bengal's Durgapur with the ease of a seasoned performer. Yet, what followed stunned many: no chants of Jai Shri Ram from the crowd or BJP leaders. Instead, from the stage thundered two phrases steeped in Bengal's own religious vocabulary: 'Jai Ma Kali' and 'Jai Ma Durga'.This was no oversight. It was a calculated message, part of the BJP's ongoing attempt to rebrand itself according to Bengal's political and sociocultural ethos. For a party that has invested heavily in Ram-centric Hindutva across the Hindi belt, this pivot was Durgapur rally was a cocktail of cultural cues. The dcor mimicked a Durga Puja pandal rather than a political dais, with motifs more in tune with Bengal's autumnal festivities than, say, northern India's Ram Navami celebrations. The BJP MLA from Durgapur Purba, Lakshman Chandra Ghorui, had even sent out printed invites that conspicuously mentioned only Kali and Durga, leaving out Ram wasn't a one-off deviation. Over the past year, the BJP has been soft-launching a more 'Bengali' version of itself. The shift is a response to the party's consistent failure—despite aggressive campaigns—to crack the Bengali vote in numbers big enough to unseat the Trinamool Congress (TMC). To understand the change, one must first understand the terrain. The culturally Hindu Bengali is politically resistant to Hindi belt-style majoritarianism. The state's long legacy of left-wing politics, bhadralok secularism and intellectual cosmopolitanism makes Ayodhya-style saffron appeals fall flat among wide sections of BJP's early strategy had been simple: replicate its Uttar Pradesh model. It ratcheted up Ram Navami processions, highlighted alleged Muslim appeasement by the Mamata Banerjee government and portrayed itself as the defender of Sanatan Dharma. But this approach ran into a wall—Bengalis do not see Lord Ram as their primary 2021, the Ram card had clearly begun to fail. The BJP's muscular Hindutva, including Jai Shri Ram sloganeering in rallies—Mamata herself being subjected to some—and episodes of confrontation with Muslims—galvanised its base but simultaneously consolidated the minorities behind the TMC. The BJP won 77 of the total 294 seats in assembly polls that year, an impressive surge from the previous election, but still way short of its own Durgapur moment, then, was not impulsive—it was surgical. The decision to foreground Goddess Durga and Goddess Kali at this stage of the BJP's campaign cycle is about localising Hindutva. In doing so, Modi may have sought to break Mamata's narrative of the BJP as a 'Hindi heartland' party imposing Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan on in particular, is politically potent. She is not just a religious figure in Bengal but also a cultural archetype—fierce, maternal, revolutionary. From Rani Rashmoni to Ramakrishna Paramahansa to even Rabindranath Tagore's writings, Kali holds a mystic grip on Bengal's imagination. Durga represents order, civilisation and the annual moment of communal watchers feel the Modi camp appears to be repositioning Durga as the moral centre of Bengali Hindutva, rather than Ram as the ultimate warrior. In doing so, it hopes to de-communalise the pitch just enough to woo softer Hindu voters who are uncomfortable with North-style Ram Janmabhoomi BJP high command clearly believes it is worth the risk. The 2024 Lok Sabha polls gave the BJP 12 out of 42 seats in Bengal, a sharp drop from 18 in 2019. The decline spooked the leadership, especially given the aggressive Muslim mobilisation and Mamata's success in projecting the BJP as a party of 'bohiragato' (outsiders).As the 2026 assembly elections loom large, Modi's shift suggests a full-throated bid to reclaim cultural space on Bengal's terms. That includes talking about Lord Jagannath in Digha, chanting mantras in Bangla and, yes, invoking Ma Durga instead of Lord the BJP's 2021 campaign was high on noise and provocation, the new messaging is more coded and less confrontational. That's not to say the communal dog-whistles are gone—but these are layered beneath a more 'cultured' Hindutva, cloaked in Tagorean gravitas and Bengali the Durgapur rally, Modi praised Bengal's contribution to India's spiritual and nationalist traditions. He invoked Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's Vande Mataram, highlighted Swami Vivekananda and talked about how Kali and Durga represented the soul of Bharat. Unspoken, but politically loud, was Ram not finding a mention. It was almost as if the BJP had decided to bench its biggest star—for duality—between North Indian assertive Hindutva and Bengali cultural Hindutva—is now being played out in real time. On the ground, BJP workers still organise Ram Navami rallies, often clashing with police or rival groups. In the tribal and border districts, party leaders continue to pitch the Muslim migrant threat narrative. But at the top tier, a new messaging is evolving. The saffron flag remains but the winds that make it flutter now carry a distinctly Bengali out at Modi, Abhishek Banerjee, the TMC's national general secretary, mocked that he will make the BJP say 'Joi Bangla' after the assembly polls next year. 'First they insult Bengal and Bengalis. Now they come to Bengal, exclude Ram and chant Kali and Durga. I promise that after 2026, I will make them say 'Joi Bangla',' Abhishek said at his party's flagship Martyrs' Day event in Kolkata on July 21. 'Joi Bangla' has been the TMC's slogan since the 2021 is clear that the BJP's challenge is greater than it may imagine. In Bengal, religion is not a binary. Durga Puja organisers often include Muslim craftsmen. Muharram and Durga idol immersion processions, if falling on the same day, can happen simultaneously and without BJP's narrative that the TMC is anti-Hindu hasn't fully taken root. So now, instead of fighting Mamata on Ram, the BJP wants to 'out-Durga' her. A risky but creative to India Today Magazine- EndsTune InMust Watch