ET Elections NEWS
Powered by
Agony of the bhadralok: Amidst Bengal’s pitched political battles, this group finds itself on the sidelines
SECTIONS
Agony of the bhadralok: Amidst Bengal’s pitched political battles, this group finds itself on the sidelinesBy Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr., TOI Contributor
Last Updated: Mar 10, 2021, 10:05 AM IST
Share
Synopsis
The agonising dilemma of the gentle bhadralok now is this: The need to support Mamata Banerjee and TMC because it’s clear as daylight that the Left Front doesn’t have the strength to keep the Hindutva raiders from the Hindi heartland at bay. There’s reason to believe that the bhadralok harbours conservative tendencies which may draw them to BJP’s toxic cultural politics.
The rush to appropriate icons
Updated:
Updated:
Political parties are trivialising Vivekananda, Tagore and Bose to win the West Bengal elections
Share Article
Political parties are trivialising Vivekananda, Tagore and Bose to win the West Bengal elections
When mainstream politics becomes recklessly instrumental, nothing is spared; even great idols and cultural symbols are trivialised through a process of appropriation in order to manipulate people’s emotions. In the campaign to the Assembly elections in West Bengal, we have been witnessing the competitive game of demonstrating one’s affinity with the icons of Bengal, such as Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore. The Bharatiya Janata Party is at pains to demonstrate that it is not a north Indian party; and even if it loves to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’, it understands what the average Bengali bhadralok regards as his ‘cultural capital’. No wonder the leaders of the party, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Ho