Independence Day Celebrations: Bengal Is An Aberration, Yet Again

Lakhs of school children across India would have sung the National Anthem, listened to lectures on the freedom movement and on the sacrifices of the stalwarts of the movement, and taken a pledge to rid the country of the five threats of poverty, corruption, terrorism, communalism and casteism by 2022 (when the nation will celebrate 75 years of its existence) today. But not so in Bengal, where school children have been prevented by the mercurial state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from benefiting from such programmes.

The Union Human Resources Development Ministry issued a circular on 25 July to all states prescribing a set of programmes to celebrate Independence Day this year. Among them were holding quiz contests on the Independence movement, and lectures and debates on the vital topic. The objective was to make school kids aware of the freedom movement and the contribution of various leaders of the movement in ushering in Independence. And the vow, to be administered after the singing of the National Anthem on 15 August to all teachers and students, was meant to be a serious attempt at nation- and character-building.

Banerjee, however, saw the circular as “yet another infringement on the rights of a state by the Union government” and “an assault on the spirit of federalism”. And so she asked the state school education department to issue a counter-circular asking all schools in Bengal to shun the format of the Independence Day celebrations suggested by the Union HRD Ministry. Her education minister went so far as to make the obnoxious statement that “Bengal does not need lessons in patriotism from the BJP”.

As a result, school children in Bengal largely kept away from school on Tuesday. The ones that went, thanks to stricter school managements and principals, sung the National Anthem perfunctorily after the tricolour was raised rather apathetically. And they went back home to enjoy their holiday! They were thus denied the opportunity of learning some valuable lessons on the freedom struggle and the role of leaders of the Independence movement. While their counterparts in the rest of the country – even in states ruled by non-BJP parties – took part in quiz competitions and debates on the freedom movement, school children in Bengal only sang the National Anthem, mostly off-key, and went home.

Such lessons and activities would have been doubly valuable for school children of Bengal. Because history textbooks in Bengal’s schools deal with the freedom movement very casually. During the 34 years of Left misrule, history textbooks in the state were rewritten to undermine the contributions of most stalwarts of the freedom movement, including Bal Gangadhar Tilak, C Rajagopalachari, Shyama Prasad Mookherjee and Lala Lajpat Rai, who the communists considered ‘bourgeois’. Instead, the (questionable and highly controversial) roles of some communist leaders were highlighted. And more was devoted to the October Revolution and the communist takeover of China than the Indian freedom struggle.

After Banerjee came to power in 2011, the textbooks were partially amended to cut out the role of the communist leaders, but the contributions of many stalwarts whose roles the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty had suppressed still did not find their due place in the amended textbooks. Instead, the role of Banerjee in the Singur and Nandigram (anti-land acquisition) movements and the ouster of the Left Front regime after 34 years found pride of place in school texts under the new dispensation!

Thus, school children in Bengal continue to remain blissfully unaware of the role of many nationalist leaders. Tuesday would have provided them a good opportunity to learn more about a crucial part of modern Indian history, but Banerjee, driven by her whims and hatred for the BJP, denied them that opportunity.

There is, however, a much larger issue at stake here. And that is of Bengal’s ties with the Union government. Over the past 40 years, ever since the Left front assumed power in the state in the summer of 1977, ties between Calcutta (now Kolkata) and New Delhi have never been good. While the Congress under Indira Gandhi had a covert understanding with Jyoti Basu, relations between Bengal and the Union government was marked by acrimony and charges of New Delhi’s “step motherly treatment” that became an alibi for non-performance by the Left Front regime and its failure on all fronts.

Bengal’s Left politicians made railing and ranting against the Centre headed by the Congress into a fine art. In fact, they sustained themselves politically by their angry but meaningless posturing against the Union government. The Centre’s alleged step-motherly treatment was used by the Left to hide their dismal failure in doing anything good for the state. And thanks to this never-ending acrimony with New Delhi, Bengal and its people continued to be denied many benefits that would have come the state’s way had Bengal’s rulers kept their political differences with the ruling regimes in New Delhi aside and struck a working relationship with the rulers in New Delhi.

Banerjee, after coming to power, has taken this acrimony to an altogether new and ridiculous level. Never have ties between Bengal and New Delhi deteriorated to such an extent, and Banerjee is solely responsible for it. But it is not that she is driven by her opposition to the BJP alone. Even during the term of the UPA II when she was the chief minister, she used to continually taunt and ridicule the Union government and prime minister Manmohan Singh (even when she was part of the UPA), oppose the Centre’s policies on various issues and throw tantrums that marked her out as a mercurial, whimsical and irresponsible leader full of fire and fury but totally lacking in substance.

But ties with New Delhi hit rock bottom when the NDA government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power. Her empty threats against Modi, her puerile rhetoric and her pointless posturings have done Bengal a lot of harm. Banerjee has failed to learn from other opposition-ruled states, which keep political differences aside to cooperate with the Union government for the development of their respective states.

Banerjee is, of course, driven by her immediate political interests. Posturing against the BJP and pitting herself as a trenchant critic of Modi is part of her minority-appeasement politics. She wants to position herself as a messiah of Muslims who, she ardently believes, are all anti-BJP. So she continues to oppose all that Modi and the NDA government at the Centre proposes. While that may ensure continued Muslim support for her, the interests of Bengal are being irrevocably harmed. But Banerjee, obsessed as she is with remaining in power at all costs, couldn’t care less. The Chief Minister’s chair is, to her, more important than the interests of Bengal and its long-suffering masses.

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