Bengal violence: The BJP faces an id disaster much like that of Congress in 2011

On the 2nd of May, the media reported on democracy, lastly triumphing over ‘tyranny’ and ‘fascism’. Mamata Banerjee had summarily and decisively defeated BJP. A tough-fought battle, certainly. Through all of it, I saved pondering again to the time I used to be interrogated within the police headquarters at Lal Bazaar, by an officer of the ‘Rowdy Department’. While TMC and BJP celebrated their victories, TMC for sweeping the state in a landslide and BJP for bettering their rating, I battled with my very own ideas.
As the precise wins continued to trickle in, we had nearly wrapped up our election protection at 10:00 PM, after reporting the victory of Suvendu Adhikari over Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram and the tendencies, that had stabilized someplace about 77 seats for BJP and 210 for TMC. I used to be exhausted and I hardly spoke to my household. Fought with an expensive pal even. As I may hear sounds of celebration out on the roads, part of me knew that these celebratory sounds would quickly flip into struggle bugles by the profitable get together and cries of despair by the losers. And so it did.
Soon after TMC swept the state, information of startling violence started to trickle in, a few of it, not too removed from my residence. Avijit Sarkar was brutally lynched to loss of life by alleged TMC cadres and simply earlier than his loss of life, he had uploaded two movies on Facebook the place he had narrated his harrowing ordeal. He had spoken about how TMC goons had even tortured and killed his adopted pet. While BJP karyakartas have been being murdered, lynched and their houses being burnt to ashes and looted, information of a girl being gang-raped by alleged TMC goons as political retribution surfaced.
India Today reported that one of many victims of gang rape had been lacking because the incident. The two feminine election brokers have been working for the Nanoor BJP candidate Tarakeswar Saha. At the identical time, a number of feminine BJP employees have been molested in 12 villages that fall below the Nanoor Vidhan Sabha constituency.
While the BJP has circulated the picture of a mangled girl, her saree pushed as much as her thighs, face coated and her physique soaked in blood, and India Today has reported on the gang-rape of BJP polling agent, the Kolkata police, with none additional clarification, has branded this information as “fake news”.
In one other incident, alleged TMC goons have been seen thrashing feminine BJP employees in broad daylight in Kendamari village in Nandigram. BJP National General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya tweeted in regards to the incident, together with a disturbing video. It could possibly be seen that the 2 BJP employees have been thrashed to the bottom by two males. They pulled the victims by the hair whereas the onlookers stood as mute spectators.
The man behind the digital camera could possibly be heard encouraging the accused males to proceed with their assault. The ladies fought again and tried to defend themselves after being assaulted in full public glare. One of the boys intervened and the 2 victims may later be seen strolling away.
With the honour and lives of girls being trampled upon and males being killed, one other disturbing information got here to the fore. Swapan Dasgupta, the BJP candidate from Tarakeshwar tweeted about 1,000 Hindus households in Birbhum, able to flee the realm due to the carnage by TMC marauders.
Through all of it, via the a number of photos of carnage and bloodshed, via the a number of movies the place you may hear the determined pleas for assist, I saved my head down and labored, intermittently speaking to my family and friends about simply how distressing and dire the scenario actually was. Disillusioned. Resigned. Defeated. Broken. The factor about violence is that it all the time occurs to “other people” till it begins knocking in your door. The distance that journalists can construct between them and the macabre incident they report is quite staggering. Unphased by the carnage, we find yourself reporting 1000’s of circumstances the place males are murdered, ladies are raped and killed and humanity dies in darkness.
But for me, this felt totally different. Perhaps as a result of I’m a hypocrite. Perhaps as a result of I felt the ache of others much more once I may virtually odor the blood from my workplace. Perhaps as a result of all the opposite circumstances I reported felt to have occurred to ‘others’, distant from my very own circle of safety. This felt too shut. And because it did, I felt unbridled rage taking on.
The historical past of politics in Bengal has all the time been violence. Every regime that ruled Bengal got here to energy stepping on the lifeless our bodies of Hindus laying on the bottom soaked with their blood. Mamata Banerjee got here to energy after the Nandigram carnage, the place 1000’s have been killed by the Communist regime. The communists dominated with an iron fist, killing 1000’s of their regime’s wake. In 1972, when the Congress received, it had unleashed huge violence on polling day.
There have been a number of allegations of rigging. There was gunfire, unbridled violence to both cease folks from voting or pressure them to vote the Congress method. 
In a Telegraph article, it’s famous: 
“There was gunfire and bombing. The Congress had taken complete control of the election set-up and was freely rigging the polls,” stated Gopal Banerjee, 56, a CPM chief from Baranagar who had accompanied Basu on a spherical of the constituency as an 18-year-old that day. “Jyotibabu visited a few polling stations and decided to withdraw his candidature. ‘This cannot be tolerated,’ he told us,” Banerjee stated.
And proper earlier than the 1972 election, the place Congress received, there was the Sainbari bloodbath. Where a household of Congress supporters have been brutalised in essentially the most ghastly method. A mom was fed rice, soaked in her murdered son’s blood. Nirupam Sen, a identified determine of the CPI(M) get together, subsequently inducted as a member of the get together’s central committee, was alleged to have led this bloodbath.
Soon after the incident, the then Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi visited the Sain home to console the household. To share their grief. To inform them that they weren’t alone and the get together management that the household gave their life for, was going to face by them, toe to toe. Did it matter that she was the Prime Minister of India? Not actually. She was additionally the chief of a celebration that was in energy and as a pacesetter, it was her obligation to ensure that her troopers knew she wouldn’t abandon them.
The conspicuous absence of BJP leaders
Today, when BJP leaders are being killed, the get together response has been abysmal, to say the least. For hours after the killings began, the get together management was conspicuous in its absence. While the official handles of BJP Bengal and so forth have been tweeting, there was not one chief who was seen. On the bottom and even on the much more protected house of social media. One may argue that regional strife must be dealt with by regional leaders. Perhaps somebody like Babul Supriyo. A younger, dynamic chief who rose from the ashes (not a lot) and led his get together to victory (properly, not a lot both) and has braved the violence to face by those that look as much as him (don’t suppose anybody does, and no he didn’t). He as a substitute, tweeted a helpless tweet, yelping for assist himself.
We r all doing all the things that’s attainable•Plz perceive 1 factor that sadly I wil not b in a position to reqch a karyakarta’s place cuz my Car wil b attacked instantly•TMChhi goons R out within the open rioting & police hv tucked themselves inside safely•But making an attempt all the things sincerely https://t.co/ptcFnNMP1L— Babul Supriyo (@SuPriyoBabul) May 3, 2021
Babul tweeted helplessly, inspiring little religion in his management or the management of the native unit of BJP. His message was quite clear.. I’ll tweet. But “I won’t stand by my own people because I am out of the cojones I showed while asking for votes and asking karyakartas to put their lives on the line to get me and my party elected”.
In reality, there are audio clips doing the spherical the place BJP karyakartas on the bottom are principally admitting that the management is absent. There is not any get together. No sangathan. No management. They have been left alone to fend for themselves and defend themselves from the marauders after the management promised them that they won’t be deserted.
Amidst all of this, BJP has declared that it could do a “nation wide dharna” and that JP Nadda would go to the households of the karyakartas below siege from TMC.
Let us take a second right here to judge the response by BJP. While even leaders like Suvendu Adhikari, who’s controversial essentially the most highly effective chief at present in Bengal after Mamata Banerjee, is being attacked, BJP has chosen to take the trail of Gandhi, which primarily means sitting quietly and doing completely nothing. What else is a Dharna, actually? Just sit and hope that the general public shaming helps disgrace the murderers? The marauders? The absolute shameless?
Optics matter greater than the lives of get together employees?
The grand situation with BJP is that whereas it sits in authorities with a brute majority, it has not the faintest clue how one can wield that energy for its personal folks. The opposition, nonetheless, is way much less idealistic. They don’t care about what individuals who oppose them would suppose. They care about what their allies, their voters would suppose. BJP, then again, seems to care much more about what the worldwide media would write about them, what the Lutyens journalists would tweet, and the way Congress would use it to leverage their very own political fortunes. Their supporters can scream hoarse however statesman-itis that appears to afflict the BJP management is way extra involved in regards to the optics for those that quite see them lifeless and gone than those who put their lives on the road for them, pondering that the get together itself would maintain working for his or her ideological, political and civilisational existence.
With Bengal, the get together knew precisely how the election would finish. If they received, TMC would unleash their wrath on their cadre out of frustration. If they lose, which they now have, TMC would unleash their wrath on their cadres for pure retribution. Having identified that, the native management made up of butterflies like Babul Supriyo have gone “underground” and expressed their incapability to assist their cadre.
The BJP management instructed the native cadre to go forth and battle. To make this final stand for them. Because they’d be protected. They can be sorted. But the white-collar-bhadroloks of BJP-Delhi doesn’t appear to have the slightest clue in regards to the avenue politics of Bengal. Perhaps if they’re too involved in regards to the optics and are unable to guard their very own employees, they need to simply inform their employees to guard themselves, in so many phrases. Self-defence, in spite of everything, is a divine proper. Self-defense is as a lot a way of thinking as it’s in regards to the weapons used and strategies employed. Let the BJP employees suppose that they’re value defending. And the method begins with the Delhi-white-collar politicians making method for native leaders who know the way avenue politics works in Bengal. What it takes to defend their employees. It is time to make method for somebody like Suvendu Adhikari and provides him the facility to do as he deems match.
It is time to face up straight. It is time to be heard. It is time to fulfil the Dharma BJP was elected for. The BJP wants to understand that apathy is the self-defence of the powerless, and they’re now powerless sufficient to be nonchalant. The BJP faces an id disaster much like that of Congress in 2011. It is time to be counted for many who stood by them and trusted them, with out worrying about those that will burn this nation to see them gone.