Latest news with #HinduBengalis
India Today
03-06-2025
- General
- India Today
Betrayal: BJP blasts Trinamool for demolition of Abanindranath Tagore's house
Calling it an attack on the "history, heritage and Hindu cultural identity", the BJP has slammed the ruling Trinamool Congress over the demolition of the residence of celebrated 20th century painter Abanindranath Tagore in Santiniketan by acting against a civic body order. Abanindranath was the nephew of legendary poet Rabindranath Tagore."The house of Abanindranath Thakur - Rabindranath's nephew and a towering figure in Indian art - is being demolished in Santiniketan. Let that sink in. Abanindranath, the second Acharya of Visva Bharati, the man who gave us the iconic painting of Bharat Mata, and helped define the visual identity of our national spirit - is being reduced to rubble in the name of so-called development," BJP IT cell chief and Bengal co-incharge Amit Malviya posted on both Hindus and their most revered cultural icon, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, find themselves under siege — not just in Bangladesh, but in West Bengal is a betrayal of the very purpose for which Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee ensured the creation of West Bengal Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) June 3, 2025advertisement"His son, Alokendranath Thakur, had purchased that house in Santiniketan, where the great artist himself lived. The area even came to be known as 'Abanpalli' in his honour. But today, his legacy is being erased - disrespected and destroyed. This is not just an attack on a structure. It is an attack on history, heritage, and Hindu cultural identity," he added. The Bolpur Municipal Corporation had issued an order not to demolish the historic structure, but the local administration still went ahead. The house was built by Alokendranath Tagore, son of Abanindranath, who stayed there for a few the property was sold by the Tagore family. The property to whom it was sold tried to demolish it a few months back. But the Bolpur administration stayed the demolition. However, turning a blind eye to the civic body's order, the house was demolished on receiving the information about the demolition, the municipal corporation tried to intervene, but the damage had been done by that the BJP is in an attacking mode, accusing the Mamata Banerjee government of disrespecting history and the state's cultural legacy."Today, both Hindus and their most revered cultural icon, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, find themselves under siege — not just in Bangladesh, but in West Bengal itself. This is a betrayal of the very purpose for which Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee ensured the creation of West Bengal - as a homeland for Hindu Bengalis, to preserve their identity, culture, and heritage. And yet, in Mamata Banerjee's West Bengal, we witness an unforgivable act," Malviya continued his tirade. IN THIS STORY#West Bengal
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Standard
The Undying Light: Gopalkrishna Gandhi's memoir on modern India's making
THE UNDYING LIGHT: A Personal History of Independent India Publisher: Aleph Pages: 624 Price: ₹999 The 1940s was a historically important decade for the Indian subcontinent because it set the foundations for independence from colonial rule. The generation that was born in that decade (or slightly earlier), therefore, can trace the history of independent India, or at least a version of it. Former diplomat and administrator Gopalkrishna Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and C Rajagopalachari, has decided to offer a deeply personal account of the struggle for Indian independence. Divided into eight chapters, each of them covering a decade or so from the 1940s, it begins with an amusing incident concerning Gopalkrishna's birth in 1945. Born to Gandhi's youngest son, the author was the fourth child to Devadas and Laxmi. After they had had three children, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur wrote to Gandhi saying his son was being irresponsible by having so many children, to which he suggested that she should talk to him about it. The author feels relieved that he was born seven years after the third child, so he wasn't grouped with the others whose birth was possibly deemed to be a result of 'blind lust'. The focus of this memoir is to present parallel but overlapping stories between the author's life and key historical events, allowing us to walk beside the author. The result is a perspective that is both interesting and instructive. As India came closer to attaining independence, communalism engulfed the region and his grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi rushed wherever he was called. The author describes how despite the personal danger, Gandhi visited Noakhali in East Bengal where a communal clash had led to the exodus and forced conversions of Hindu Bengalis. He went on to visit several villages and held prayer meetings every evening with both Hindus and Muslims. He aimed at shaming the guilty and offering forgiveness to those who had committed violence. This surely underlines the difficult conversations that Gandhi readily posited to the people, an element that is missing in today's political discourse where simplistic narratives trump complex realities. The author's proximity to those who shaped the formative years of independent India also offers an up close and personal view of the making of the modern nation-state. Mr Gandhi refers to several familiar landmark events that set the benchmark for the kind of country to which we aspire. The resignation of Lal Bahadur Shastri as Union Minister of Railways after the tragic Mahbubnagar and Ariyalur rail accidents in 1956 is one example. Then Congress President U N Dhebar described Shastri's action 'a landmark in the annals of democracy'. It didn't just indicate ownership of responsibility by a Union minister of a newly formed country but also underlined his commitment to the South. The author's experience in different fields is visible in his writing, setting out in the process a blueprint of a modern constitutional democracy. In recent months, as constitutional issues between the governor of Tamil Nadu and the elected government were being played out in the Supreme Court, the author talks about a period in the 1980s when he was the secretary to S L Khurana, then governor of Tamil Nadu. His verdict on the governor-chief minister relationship is that it should neither be too close nor too formal, which would indicate distrust. Perhaps his experience as governor of West Bengal (2004-2009) came in handy in making these judgements. For all the careful prose, Mr Gandhi minces no words in some of his judgements either. He discusses how his maternal grandfather C Rajagopalachari was distraught with the way the Congress, which was trusted to be the first to form a government in the country, had turned into a one-man party, an emotion echoed by Rajkumari Amrit Kaur in a letter written to him. He unequivocally states that Congress politicians were directly involved in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 and says newly elected Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's comment about it ('When a big tree falls…') was awful in every sense of the word. He goes on to candidly express how he was approached to contest elections against Narendra Modi in 2014 and while this action touched him, he refused, describing himself as 'timid' when it comes to participating in political action. From a cursory glance, one might imagine this book to be just another elite rendition of someone's superficial understanding of Indian history. But Gopalkrishna Gandhi in this 600-plus page monolith isn't trying to establish himself as a historian; instead, he is presenting a personal view of history and openly sharing it for the readers to dissect. He admits, for instance, that his upbringing limited his worldview in his formative years but reality struck hard as soon as he became a civil servant. As a personal glimpse of a significant period in history, The Undying Light must go down as an important read.
The Print
30-04-2025
- Politics
- The Print
BJP isn't getting Bengal. Mamata keeps beating Modi-Shah in her Ludo game
The party of bohiragotos (outsiders), as Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress (TMC) colleagues love to call the BJP, is reading Bengal wrong. From the Delhi CR Park fish market row to the Murshidabad violence that displaced Hindu families within the state—examples are fresh. In the run-up to the 2026 assembly elections in West Bengal, the BJP, from the highest echelons of the party down to the state level, is making moves that don't make much political sense. Banerjee, despite the odds stacked up against her, has been evading one crisis after another. If Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have been practicing 4D chess moves on the checkerboard of West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been beating them in the simple game of Ludo. Fish first, religiosity later Hindu Bengalis are not so much divided by caste as they are along class lines. But for both the Bhadralok and the non-Bhadralok, the river fish remains the raison d'être, even as the debate over secularism muddies the waters between them. Show me a Bengali who doesn't like fish and I will show you an impostor. Fish is indeed religion for Bengal because an incident far away from home, in south Delhi's posh, largely Bengali neighbourhood of CR Park, got them both squirming. A video that went viral showed a group of men objecting to the sale of fish next to a temple, saying that it hurts their sentiments. 'This is wrong. Sanatan says we cannot harm anyone,' a man was heard saying. He also said serving meat to the Goddess is 'fictional' and there is no proof of this in Hindu religious scriptures. TMC MP Mahua Moitra promptly shared the video and accused 'BJP goons' of threatening fish-eating Bengalis. 'Please watch saffron brigade BJP goons threaten fish-eating Bengalis of Chittaranjan Park, Delhi. Never in 60 years has this happened, residents say,' she tweeted. BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya quickly clarified the video is 'false and fabricated' and 'appears to have been shot with the intent to promote ill will among communities.' But Moitra had managed to hit the BJP where it hurts the most when it comes to West Bengal: the idea that the party does not get Bengali sensibility. The CR Park fish market controversy reminded Bengalis of the trolling they face every year by non-Bengalis who think consuming non-vegetarian meals during Durga Puja is an aberration. The puja days are celebrated as Navratri in North India, where most non-vegetarians give up eating meat for nine days. This clash of divergent gastronomical cultures may seem trivial, but it's not. It helps Mamata Banerjee and her party in branding the BJP as a party of outsiders that do not even get Bengali Hinduism, forget other aspects of their cultural identity. To learn a thing or two about the Bengalis, there's a video of a man speaking to a reporter after the row in CR Park. He said if there's a problem, the temple should be shifted. Why target the fish? In the 2021 assembly elections, the BJP had mounted a spirited campaign against the Mamata Banerjee government. It accused the government of large-scale corruption, Covid-19 mismanagement, syphoning of Amphan relief funds, and political violence against its party cadre, among others. Banerjee won by a landslide. Among the BJP's many strategic blunders was its inability to grasp Bengali sub-nationalism. Also read: Jogendranath Mandal could've been Bengal's Ambedkar. Backing Jinnah made him history's footnote Horror in the hinterland A no less serious concern is the BJP's inability to stand by its party cadre, supporters, and the Hindu population in West Bengal's hinterlands during times of trouble. Take the recent violence in Murshidabad. Nishant Azad, reporting for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) mouthpiece Organiser on the fallout over the Waqf law, wrote on X: 'Earlier under pretext of #CAA, and now using #Waqf as tool, Islamists have consistently targeted Hindus—their places of worship & their properties. The underlying agenda appears to be a systematic effort to weaken Hindus socially, economically, spiritually, and in terms of physical safety.' On the other hand, not just Mamata Banerjee, but other political voices have blamed the BJP for the violence in Murshidabad. Announcing his open support for Banerjee, Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav has said: 'The saffron brigade always seeks to take advantage of riots by playing the Hindu-Muslim card.' Whether you believe in the BJP-RSS version of events or demand a more nuanced perspective on the communal political violence in Bengal, one fact remains undisputed: BJP's inability to stand by the non-Bhadralok Hindu in their time of need. Bengal BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar has made provocative statements in the past. 'I will not attack anybody overtly, but if I have to resort to violence to save my religion, I believe it is justified and is a pious task,' he had said. As hundreds of Hindu families from Murshidabad fled across the Bhagirathi River to neighbouring Malda, the non-Bhadralok Bengali Hindus had no one to turn to. 'The BJP is into lazy politics against an astute politician like Mamata Banerjee who knows how to win narrative wars,' Deba Pratim Ghatak, author of The Original Lynch Mob: The Untold Stories of Political Violence in West Bengal, told ThePrint. 'The party should be seen as doing for the Bengali Hindu in her time of distress and not just offer platitudes after the violence is over.' BJP supporters, led by Sukanta Majumdar, clashed with the police in Dakshin Dinajpur during a protest over the Murshidabad violence. A cadre from the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the party's youth wing, told ThePrint on condition of anonymity that both the BJP workers and supporters in Bengal feel let down. 'Imagine if Mamata Banerjee were in Opposition and the Murshidabad violence had happened. She would have made sure the matter reaches the UN, and here our leaders are venting their anger on X,' said a party worker. Not ordering a National Investigation Agency (NIA) investigation into the incident, deploying BSF only after a court order, and not imposing section 355 are blunders of the state government that BJP's senior leaders are failing to understand, he added. And it is not just Murshidabad that has left the non-Bhadralok Bengali Hindu disappointed. Having covered the 2021 assembly elections and the violence before, during, and after the polls, I heard many voices of protest—from within the party cadre and its supporters—about the party's perceived inaction. As West Bengal gears up for the next assembly polls in 2026, it is high time the BJP made a serious effort to understand the state it hopes to win. Because unlike in 4D chess, in real politics, today's blunders rarely turn into tomorrow's victories. Deep Halder is an author and a contributing editor at ThePrint. He tweets @deepscribble. Views are personal. (Edited by Ratan Priya)
Indian Express
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Tipra Motha youth wing protests against construction of embankment by Bangladesh on River Muhuri, spies role of China and Pakistan
Youth Tipra Federation (YTF) – the youth wing of the Tipra Motha – held a protest rally opposing the construction of an embankment by Bangladesh near the international border in South Tripura district on Monday. The rally started from Belonia township and went up to the Bankarbazar area close to the border, where it was stopped by Border Security Force (BSF) personnel. The protesters claimed that Bangladesh has constructed an embankment on the River Muhuri within 150 yards of the international border in violation of the 1974 Indira-Mujib pact. They also claimed that another embankment had been illegally built by Bangladesh and added that all this was being done at the behest of Pakistan and China. The protesters raised slogans against Muhammad Yunus, Chief Advisor of the interim government in Bangladesh, for claiming that Northeast India was landlocked and projecting Bangladesh as 'the only guardians of the ocean' in the Bay of Bengal. Speaking to reporters, YTF leader David Murasingh said, 'We gave Bangladesh its independence. Tripura's demography has changed due to that as well. Lots of lands belonging to Hindu Bengalis are still lying there (Bangladesh)… While terrorist attacks are being launched on Indians (at Pahalgam) in Kashmir on the western frontier, Bangladesh is creating an embankment by violating international border agreements right along the border on the eastern frontier. This is a threat to us.' The protesters raised slogans against Muhammad Yunus, Chief Advisor of the interim government in Bangladesh (Express Photo) Citing the alleged attack on actor Saif Ali Khan by a Bangladeshi infiltrator in Mumbai last year, Murasingh said, 'They (a Bangladeshi national) stabbed him (Saif Ali Khan), trying to kill him… they are becoming terrorists. They come to Tripura, Kolkata, Assam, etc. After attacking, they try to return to Bangladesh. We want to warn that this wouldn't continue for long.' Murasingh also claimed YTF activists alone will be enough to reclaim land in Bangladesh that belonged to the erstwhile royal kingdom of Tripura. '… Tripura's land like Chittagong, where the Indian Tricolour was flown for three days after Independence, will be reclaimed. This land was given to the then East Pakistan by forgery. Indigenous and Hindu people are being tortured, raped there. There are no human rights,' he said. Later in the day, Tipra Motha founder Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debbarma took to social media and wrote, 'Today at Belonia, Tripura thousands of our Warriors were stopped by the BSF otherwise the illegal construction by Bangladesh would have been demolished. These are the youth of our Tiprasa all we need is a green signal, rest we will handle!'
Hans India
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Hans India
Pahalgam attack: BJP legislators in Bengal stage protest, burn Pakistan flags in front of Assembly
Kolkata: BJP legislators in Bengal, led by the Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, on Thursday staged protests against the Pahalgam terror attack by burning Pakistan flags in front of the House. "The widows of both Bitan Adhikari and Sameer Guha, the two killed tourists from West Bengal at Pahalgam on Wednesday, described how the Hindus were selectively killed there. Bengalis, in general, are travel-loving people. I will request them that from henceforth the Hindu Bengalis should make their tour plans after considering the demography of their destination," Adhikari told the media. "Be it the recent riot-hit Murshidabad or be it Kashmir, the only aim is to selectively target the Hindus," the Leader of the Opposition said. He also said that just like Israeli actions at Gaza, Pakistan will also be taught a lesson by India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership. "As long as Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister, everything is possible. Like Gaza, Pakistan will also be reduced to ashes," Adhikari said. Earlier, Adhikari also criticised actor-turned-politician and Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member from Asansol, Shatrughan Sinha, for the latter's comments that there is an attempt to create a narrative that only Hindus are being targeted. Citing his comments, Adhikari said that the problem is that while terrorists come from outside, their supporters and sympathisers continue to roam around within the country. "Their first task is to figure out how to trivialise brutality. I pray to God that they never have to stand in front of the barrel of a gun and be asked to recite the Kalma because I don't want them to realise, even for a minute, the fool's paradise they were living in, or get the slightest chance to feel remorse. They are not worthy of correction, repentance, or regret," Adhikari said.
