Detentions, protests & identity: Bengal’s poll battle heats up

Stobdo hobe, Jobdo hobe (They will be silenced, they will be taken to task). Mamata Banerjee’s war cry at TMC’s annual Martyrs’ Day rally was aimed squarely at the BJP. Her tone this year was far more combative than last year, when the central focus had been the looming shadow of ED investigations into her party leaders.

This time, the spotlight is on a far more emotive issue: Bengalis allegedly being targeted in BJP-ruled states. For a leader who thrives on street protests, who rose to power riding waves of popular agitation, Mamata seems to have found a powerful rallying point to recharge her cadre, counter anti-incumbency, blunt infighting, and deflect from stench of corruption now encircling the power echelons of the state. She launched 'Bhasha Andolan' from Tagore's land Bolpur on Monday against what she calls Bhasha Santras — linguistic terrorism.

The BJP, anticipating trouble, has quietly adjusted its tone in Bengal. Jai Shri Ram chants have gone to the backburner, while Jai Maa Durga and Jai Maa Kali have found prominence. Days after Abhishek Banerjee’s provocation, JP Nadda echoed Jai Bangla, while PM Modi tried to reassure sentiments in his Durgapur speech by giving his 'guarantee' to preserve 'Bangali Asmita'. The appointment of soft-spoken, bhadralok intellectual Samik Bhattacharya as state president is another strand of this new narrative.

Suddenly, Bengali sub-nationalism is at centre stage, just as linguistic identity battles are flaring up across the country, from Karnataka to Maharashtra. But in Bengal, the picture is more layered. Identity and language collide with questions of nationality, and the hot-button issue of alleged illegal migration from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Citizenship, culture, and the crackdown

From Donald Trump to Viktor Orban, populist right-wing leaders have often piggybacked on the wave of immigration issue to win elections. In India though NRC stumbled and stalled, many BJP-led states are now reportedly acting on an MHA directive issued in May to states and UTs to invoke their statutory powers to detect, identify and deport illegal immigrants.

Apart from the issue of security, the idea of preserving Bharatiya culture by protecting the demography of the nation has been a recurring theme in the words of leaders like Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma and West Bengal Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari. Sarma’s reply to a post by Mamata Banerjee, where he vowed to fight for existence, has gone viral.


His response to another lawyer in the same issue was even more eye-opening.


This, along with the Election Commission’s latest Special Intensive Revision (SIR) initiative, now announced for nationwide implementation after its controversial rollout in poll-bound Bihar, means citizenship,or the lack of it, has suddenly become a burning issue just months before the Bengal elections. TMC believes SIR isn’t a routine exercise, but an NRC in disguise. Some estimates say more than 50 lakh names may be struck out in Bihar itself!

TMC’s allegation: It's about language

TMC MP and chairman of West Bengal’s Migrant Workers’ Welfare Board, Samirul Islam told TOI that people are being targeted purely for speaking Bengali. An IIT Delhi alumnus, he claims to have seen documents of people with property deeds from as far back as 1922, yet branded as illegals and pushed back to Bangladesh. He alleges that not just Muslims, but Hindus too are being questioned and will face severe scrutiny in coming days. While 1.5 crore workers from other states operate freely in Bengal, some of the 21 lakh Bengalis working outside are being hounded, claims MP at the forefront of this protest.

Regarding detentions and pushbacks, BJP so far has firmly rejected the claim, saying law enforcement is only hauling up people bearing a needle of suspicion. But many believe this narrative may not go unchallenged. In Odisha, 403 out of 447 alleged Bangladeshis had to be released after verification. Similar cases have been reported in the NCR. This gives ammunition to TMC’s charge that innocents are being picked up randomly or with devious intentions. To make matters worse for BJP, Matua community members were reportedly detained in Maharashtra, and a Rajbanshi from Bengal received an NRC notice in Assam among others, adding fuel to Mamata’s political fire.

Matua and Rajbanshi factor

In Bengal, Matuas in the south and Rajbanshis in the north are two key Scheduled Caste communities. Rajbanshis number around 4 million; Matuas over 3 million as per different estimates. Both were wooed by BJP’s CAA promise and have largely supported the party in recent elections. Unsurprisingly, In 2021, BJP won 32 of 68 SC seats in the assembly elections.

If the saffron party has to harbour any chances of winning Bengal in 2026, it needs to significantly better its tally among the SC-ST seats. Thus, TMC is going to town saying even Hindus especially the marginalised are not safe from this exercise.

That narrative, say observers, could shift loyalties. Professor Subhamoy Maitra warns that even if only a few from these communities face harassment, the perception of being under scrutiny could hurt BJP. While SIR might have procedural merit, politically it may turn into quicksand, especially if Mamata succeeds in framing it as a witch-hunt. Also a lot will depend on the composition of people whose names get deleted after the SIR exercise is over, according to the social scientist.

However, Maitra also believes BJP may be walking into a trap. He opines that the saffron party needs to highlight acts of omission and commission by the TMC, such as the ruling party’s focus on doles, including Rs 10 lakh per booth as part of a community connect scheme. He argues that political discourse should return to development rather than swirl around identity politics and emotional appeals. The way TMC has resorted to blatant corruption needs to be effectively called out, Maitra concludes.

Rohingya bogey or reality?

Mamata recently has raised doubts about BJP’s claim that India has 17 lakh Rohingyas saying global figures put their total population at just 11 lakh. TOI spoke to Dr. Sucharita Sengupta, who completed her PhD on statelessness and the Rohingya crisis in South Asia. According to her, there are no reliable estimates for how many Rohingyas are currently in India, though the best guess pegged the figure at around 40,000 in 2018. She debunks the common claim that Bengalis and Rohingyas are linguistically similar. In fact, most Rohingya youth she interviewed preferred Hindi or English.

For many of them, India was never a destination, merely a transit. Yet, as fate would have it, they now find themselves stuck. Even if identified, Sengupta asks, where can they be sent? Neither Myanmar nor Bangladesh is likely to accept them. With no global framework for refugee repatriation, the situation remains a grey zone. The absence of an international charter for granting citizenship makes the issue even more precarious, she says.

Unease within BJP

Former Governor and erstwhile head of BJP in Bengal, Tathagata Roy, has claimed that Bengalis , both Hindus and Muslims are helping authorities and should actively participate in identifying Bangladeshi Muslims and Rohingyas. He reposes faith in Suvendu Adhikari's words that the party will protect the interests of Hindus who migrated from Bangladesh. However, not all in BJP are convinced.

Khagen Murmu, MP from Malda North, a border district, says he is hurt that Bengali workers are being embarrassed and forced to answer questions in other states. “Bangladeshi infiltrators are indeed in huge numbers. So I advise our state's workers to carry identity cards and avoid such embarrassment,” he said.

When asked about Murmu’s concerns, Roy told TOI that infiltration has been happening since the early 1980s. He acknowledged that with such extensive groundwork, some issues are bound to crop up, but added that TMC would try to blow them out of proportion. The BJP leadership and central government, he said, must handle this with political caution. The presence of riverine borders virtually makes effective patrolling extremely difficult, explained Roy when quizzed about why illegal immigration continues to remain a reality even after ten years of Modi government.

TMC senses an opportunity, BJP pushes back

For now, TMC is using the uncertainty as a potent election weapon. Sensing discomfort, BJP has stepped up its counter-offensive. The West Bengal unit has been posting videos of Bengalis living peacefully in Delhi and elsewhere.


Meanwhile, the NCR has become a hotspot for detentions which has brought greater mainstream attention to the issue. In Gurgaon alone, 237 individuals have been detained. The eviction drive in Delhi’s Jai Hind Colony in Vasant Kunj has been halted following a court order where light and electricity connection had been cut off by authorities. All of these incidents have been vehemently protested by TMC and the likes of Samirul have tried to help the affected families.


As Bengal heads toward another high-stakes election, BJP is doubling down on nationalism, identity and security. Whether that boosts its base or backfires with bureaucratic overreach will depend on perception as much as fact.