MAMATA'S BIG HINDU PUSH

Drawn into competition with the BJP and ridden by internal crises, the Trinamool is pushing its own brand of Hindutva. It is buidling temples and initiating rituals-all with an eye on the majority Hindu vote in 2024

- ROMITA DATTA

The several thousand-strong audience that had come to attend the inauguration of the 28th edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) on December 15, 2022 was in for a surprise. During a song and dance recital, conceptualised by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, the huge background screen beamed a picture of Lord Ganesha, accompanied by Amitabh Bachchan chanting a shloka-Vakratunda Mahakaya Suryakoti Samaprabha-in his familiar baritone. To many who had been present at earlier KIFF inaugural ceremonies, the paean to a Hindu deity was a first. It seemed out of place at an event where the retrospectives of films of such global film luminaries as Pier Paolo Pasolini and Michael Cacoyannis were to be shown. But, then, it was just another sign of the change in political messaging that the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) is increasingly, and aggressively, pushing in the state.

The TMC has been at the receiving end of the main opposition party BJP's constant accusation of 'Muslim appeasement'. Then there was the electoral scare in the 2019 Lok Sabha election and charges of misgovernance and corruption-two of its heavyweights, Partha Chatterjee and Anubrata Mondal, are under arrest for their alleged complicity in scams. To counter the negative popular perception, the TMC had had to take refuge in its own brand of Hindutva. From Mamata chanting Chandi shlokas and proclaiming to have a "staunch Brahmin" background to the decision to build replicas of Jagannath and Vaishno Devi temples in Bengal and the organisation of Varanasi's Ganga aarti along the Hooghly, the TMC is leaving nothing to chance in its desperate effort to woo Hindus. The immediate goal is the impending panchayat polls; but looming ever closer is the big prize-the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

TRINAMOOL'S GRADUAL SHIFT