Mamata Banerjee’s Plans Of Setting Up ‘Jai Hind Vahini’ In Bengal’s Schools Is A Dangerous Move; Union Govt Must Step In To Nip This Mischief

Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has announced the setting up of ‘Jai Hind Vahini’, modelled after the National Cadet Corps (NCC), in all schools of Bengal. The state cabinet approved the proposal to set up this ‘force’.

The chief minister said that the ‘Vahini’ would draw its inspiration from the ‘Azad Hind Fauj’ raised by Subhas Chandra Bose. The idea, said the chief minister, is to ‘involve young boys and girls from across the state in social development works, uplift them mentally’ and develop them into ‘better citizens of tomorrow’.

The members of this ‘Vahini’ will also carry out social work. This force will initially be raised in schools in Jangalmahal (comprising Purulia, Jhargram and parts of West Midnapore and Bankura districts), North Bengal, Kolkata and Barrackpore.

The members of this force will have the same uniform as that of the Azad Hind Fauj and the chief minister will frame the pledge they will take and design the logo of the force as well.

Senior officers of the Bengal Police will oversee the training of the cadets of this ‘Vahini’ and according to some media reports, even training in use of firearms will be imparted to the cadets by the police.

The aims of this proposed ‘Vahini’ reflect that of the NCC, and top government officials say that it will also be modelled on the lines of the NCC.

This idea is not a sudden brainchild of Mamata Banerjee. She had proposed the raising of a force exactly by this name immediately after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Unsettled by the large number of seats that the BJP bagged in that election (18 of the state’s 42 Lok Sabha seats), Mamata Banerjee announced the formation of ‘Jai Hind Vahini’ for men and ‘Banga Janani Vahini’ for women to take on the RSS and the BJP.

According to this report in the official website of the Trinamool, the ‘Jai Hind Vahini’ and ‘Banga Janani Vahini’ forces were being raised to “fight the atrocities of the BJP”, “keep a close watch on all signs of violence and nip them in the bud” and even “fight those who commit violence”.

The Trinamool took baby steps in setting up these two militias, in the first week of June 2019. About 200 young men (all Trinamool activists) gathered at South Kolkata’s Harish Park, close to Mamata Banerjee’s residence, in what was the first public event of the ‘Jai Hind Vahini’.

Banerjee had named her brothers--Kartik and Ganesh--as president and convenor of the Vahini respectively, and education minister Bratya Basu as its chairman. The members of the Vahini, clad in yellow kurtas and caps bearing the name of the force, cheered as the Trinamool chief’s siblings and some senior party leaders got on stage and delivered short speeches underlining the need to fight back the BJP’s inroads into Bengal.

But like many of Mamata Banerjee’s projects, this too fizzled out. Nothing much has been heard of the ‘Azad Hind Vahini’ and the ‘Banga Janani Vahini’ since then. In fact, Mamata Banerjee’s grand project to counter the growing influence of the ‘Sangh parivar’ turned out to be a stillborn.

Trinamool insiders told Swarajya that Mamata Banerjee’s brothers took no interest in their tasks and the two vahinis never took off. “After the first meeting at Harish Park that anyway drew a tepid response, the whole project fizzled out,” said a senior Trinamool leader.

The Trinamool chief, it is learnt, had been planning to revive the ‘Jai Hind Vahini’ for quite sometime, but realised that making it another frontal wing of her party would not work. Hence, she decided to make it into a formal and disciplined organisation comprising high school and college-going students who would be properly trained and would also be loyal to the ruling party.

“The idea is to catch them young and indoctrinate them, make them into supporters and loyalists of Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool in a subtle and formal way. Making it part of the formal education setup in the state would also ensure a steady flow of government funds for it,” said a senior bureaucrat who has been in the know of this project.

The Dangers Inherent In This

On the face of it, the whole idea may seem innocuous. But it is a dangerous project that will encourage fissiparous tendencies and can even be termed seditious.

Mamata Banerjee wants members of this ‘vahini’ to be steeped in ‘Bengali culture and heritage’ and foster a deep pride in everything about Bengal, its history and heritage and its present status.

The danger in this is that Banerjee herself will prescribe all that is to be ‘taught’ to the members of this force. And past experience has shown that in the name of promoting ‘Bengaliness’, she encourages parochialism and fosters an antipathy towards people from other parts of the country.

Mamata Banerjee’s politics has been centred around projecting other parties, especially the BJP, as ‘outsiders’ in Bengal and promoting Bengali parochialism and chauvinism. Seeding a deep antipathy towards the Centre (the Union Government) allows her to blame New Delhi for all ills afflicting Bengal.

This also provides her a convenient shield to hide the many flaws in her policies, programmes and governance. This practice was started by the Left which managed to convince generations of Bengalis that successive governments at the Centre were responsible for everything ranging from poverty, unemployment and flight of capital to backwardness, squalor and stagnation that Bengal suffered from. Mamata Banerjee has only perfected this policy to serve her narrow political ends.

The ‘Jai Hind Vahini’ will thus become another platform to foster anti-Centre sentiments and that will only encourage centrifugal feelings and even, ultimately, separatist tendencies. Raising such a ‘vahini’ will be an impediment in the nation-building process.

Also, Mamata Banerjee’s plans to get police officers to impart training in firearms to the cadets of the ‘vahini’ is downright dangerous. The Union Government cannot, and should not, allow the raising of such a force.

This ‘vahini’, loyal to Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool and funded with taxpayers’ money, can also be misused by Bengal’s ruling party for its political ends and to target political adversaries in future.

More so since the nomenclature of this 'vahini' is exactly the same as the earlier one that Mamata Banerjee had tried to raise to fight the RSS and BJP in Bengal.

If Mamata Banerjee is keen on involving young boys and girls in social development works and making them into better citizens of tomorrow, she should encourage them to join the NCC. The NCC provides the perfect platform to achieve these objectives.

It makes no sense to raise a ‘vahini’ that will, ostensibly, duplicate the NCC. The ‘Azad Hind Vahini’ will also be a drain on the exchequer of revenue deficit Bengal that is deeply in debt.

Instead of raising this ‘vahini’, Mamata Banerjee should be told to meet Bengal’s obligations to the NCC. The ‘running expenses’ of the NCC are to be met jointly by the state and the Centre, but Bengal has not been meeting its obligations on head this for decades.

The Bengal chief minister should be told in no uncertain terms that there is no provision for any state to raise such a ‘vahini’ and it would be illegal and unconstitutional to do so.

The NCC already exists and is doing a good job of making school and college-going boys and girls into fine citizens. There is no need to have a poorer version of the NCC in Bengal. Mamata Banerjee should encourage students of Bengal to join the NCC and step up financial and logistical support to the NCC, as she is obligated to do.

New Delhi must immediately step in to veto her dangerous plans.