Why BJP is pursuing 'tried-and-failed' Hindutva strategy in Bengal

The BJP's efforts to use the Hindutva plank in West Bengal have consistently failed to derive electoral dividends in the past. And yet, the party is upping the agenda. It has penned ‘Hindu Hindu bhai bhai, 2026 e BJP ke chai’ ('All Hindus are brothers, we want the BJP in 2026') as its catchphrase for next year's Assembly elections, sharpening its tirade against minorities.

This is not because the BJP has failed to learn from past experiences, as its detractors would like to believe.

On the other hand, the gambit is a well-thought-out electoral strategy that could debunk the perception that Hindutva, as an electoral agenda, is a non-starter in the state. Fuelling the idea are the recent alleged atrocities against Hindus in Bangladesh, which the BJP is leveraging to advance its Hindutva plank in Bengal.

Bengali card vs Hindutva

Muslims constitute nearly 30 per cent of the state's electors. It means any party that corners the lion’s share of Muslim votes could romp home with just around 20 per cent of Hindu votes. This has been the argument against the Hindutva plank in Bengal.

The theory got further traction after the BJP was humbled in the 2021 Assembly elections despite garnering slightly more Hindu votes than the victorious Trinamool Congress.

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It is also widely believed that the TMC's ethnic Bengali identity card reigned supreme over the BJP's religious card in the 2021 Assembly as well as 2024 parliamentary elections. Hence, the BJP's insistence on a Hindutva push would appear strange, if not for the recent Bangladesh developments.

Reviving Hindu sentiments

Graffities and posters proclaiming the Hindu brotherhood have been put up in various parts of the state. To emphasize on the “Hindu unity”, the party recently took out a “Sanatani solidarity” rally.

To further amplify the Hindutva pitch, the BJP and its saffron sister organisations such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal are preparing for an “unprecedented” Ramnavami celebration on April 6.

BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari said the participation in this year’s Ram Navami procession would be more than one crore. This, he claimed, would be twice the size of last year’s figure.

Show of strength

The Hindutva outfits have lined up around 2,000 processions across the state to mark the occasion, putting the police on high alert. In the past years, such processions led to social unrest and violence in the state.

Already, there was a minor flare-up in Malda district on March 27 when firecrackers were allegedly thrown near a mosque from a preparatory procession for the Ramnavami.

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Claiming that plans are afoot to spread hatred between different communities, Additional Director General (Law and Order) Javed Shamim told media persons late last week that the police are on high alert. “I urge everyone to stay cautious," he said.

Ram temple in Nandigram

Adhikari will also lay the foundation stone for the construction of a Ram temple in his constituency Nandigram that day.

The BJP leaders say this year the festival has assumed an added significance because of the alleged atrocities against Hindus in Bangladesh.

BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar said there will be overwhelming participation in Ramnavami rallies this year because attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh were an eye opener for the Sanatanis on this side of the border.

Bangladesh shadow

Claiming that Hindus in West Bengal are already facing atrocities from “jehadi” forces “patronised” by the TMC, Mazumdar said: “Our fate will be similar if we don’t resist now.”

Advocating the need to carry weapons during the processions, another BJP leader, Dilip Ghosh, called upon Hindus to “take charge of their own protection".

The question is — what is the BJP's larger gameplan behind the polarisation attempts?

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Hindu votes matter

The difference between the vote shares of the TMC and the BJP, as per the last parliamentary election results, is just about 7 per cent.

The party has reasons to believe that it could gain additional 7 to 8 per cent votes to offset the gap if a Hindu-victimhood narrative is built around the developments in Bangladesh. The belief stems from the outcome of the BJP’s membership drive that ended in January this year.

The drive, coming just months after it got a drubbing in the parliamentary elections in the state, failed to draw much response initially. The drive was started in October last year with a target to enrol one crore new members.

BJP’s soaring membership

The response was lacklustre till the last week of November. Then came the arrest of Vaishnavite monk Chinmoy Krishna Das in Dhaka on November 25. The development gave momentum to the drive in Hindu dominated pockets of districts bordering Bangladesh.

Eventually, the party could enlist 40 lakh new primary members, giving the theoretical underpinning for it to whip up communal sentiment over the developments in Bangladesh.

The model it is trying to replicate here is that of Assam, a state where Muslims constitute over 30 per cent of the state’s electors, the second highest after Kashmir.

Assam and Bengal

It was widely believed that winning elections without the support of minorities was not possible in Assam. Devakanta Barua, who served as the Congress president during the Emergency of 1975-77, once infamously said the party would not require the support of anyone so long ‘Alis’ and ‘Coolies’ vote for it. Alis meant Muslims. The tea tribe community was referred to as Coolies.

The myth was busted when the BJP won the Assembly elections in 2016 promising to implement the National Register of Citizens to rid the state of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

The ploy was simple. Create extreme polarisation for a larger Hindu consolidation to corner almost the entire bulk of their votes.

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Muslim voters in Bengal

An analysis of demographic profile of West Bengal Assembly constituencies can give a better perspective to the strategy.

Muslim voters play a decisive role in at least 120 of the state’s 294 Assembly seats. This is over 40 per cent of the total seats. But only in 87 of these seats, Muslims make up for more than 30 per cent votes.

Muslims are in absolute majority only in 45 constituencies, that is only in around 15 per cent seats. In 77 seats, Muslims are less than 10 per cent of the electorate.

Will BJP make it?

Muslim population in West Bengal is mainly concentrated in the five districts of Murshidabad, Malda, North Dinajpur, Birbhum and South 24 Parganas.

This explains the BJP’s Hindutva drive as it has switched into the election mode in the state.

“The Bengali ethno-nationalism of the TMC has so far succeeded in countering the religious nationalism of the BJP. But the recent rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh can reshape the socio-political construct in West Bengal,” said political commentator and author Nirmalya Banerjee.

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Hindutva in Bengal history

Not to forget that Hindu nationalism has a long historical connection in Bengal that precedes Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the founder of Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), the BJP’s previous avatar.

The term Hindutva itself was first coined in Bengali long before Savarkar popularised it.

Hindu revivalist Chandranath Basu used the word in his magnum-opus “Hindutva -- Hindur Prakrita Itihas” (Hindutva, the real history of Hindus) in 1892. There he argued that India should not be a homeland for foreign religions like Islam and Christianity.