Bangla Pride, Urdu Prejudice

The language wars have primed West Bengal for the RSS

- ISMAIL SALAHUDDIN AND MOHAMMAD AAQUIB

In West Bengal today, nationalism wears saffron robes. What once carried the voices of Rabindranath Tagore's humanism and Kazi Nazrul Islam's defiance, has been refashioned into a weapon that strikes at Muslims, especially those who speak Urdu. Nativist ethno-linguistic groups like Bangla Pokkho— which loosely translates to “Bengali Front”—have set off language wars that marginalise Bengali Urdu speakers, but are celebrated in the Bengali intelligentsia as defenders of their culture. This reveals a dangerous paradox: in resisting Delhi's Hindi-Hindu supremacy, they reproduce its very logic. The BJP's idea of a Hindu India that speaks Hindi is conveniently repackaged in Kolkata as the idea of one Bengal, with one tongue, and one identity.

This shift is not accidental. It is the careful handiwork of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which knows that it does not need the Bharatiya Janata Party's political victories to spread its worldview. Whether under saffron banners or the slogans of “Joy Bangla”—Hail Bangla—the ground is being prepared for a future where the plural heart of Bengal is silenced. Here, the erasure of Muslims is not sudden or spectacular; it is quiet, bureaucratic and relentless. The question is no longer whether Bengali nationalism can defend pluralism, but whether it has already become another mask for Hindutva.