Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress on Monday called PM Narendra Modi "culturally illiterate" and the BJP "grotesquely alien to Bengal's culture" after the PM referred to Vande Mataram writer Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay as "Bankim-da" during the Lok Sabha debate.
"No, Modi-ji, Bengal does not casually slap the suffix ‘da' onto figures it venerates," the Trinamool posted on X immediately after veteran party MP Saugata Roy intervened 23 minutes into the PM's speech, telling him that it should have been "not da (but) babu". The X message called the PM's comments "insulting (and) patronising" and added: "Only a cultural illiterate would think that da sounds respectful."
"It is a textbook fish-out-of-water moment for the BJP. For years, they have tried to dishonestly appropriate Bengal's cultural icons, hoping that borrowed reverence might compensate for their utter political bankruptcy in the state. Each attempt has only exposed how grotesquely alien they are to Bengal's cultural consciousness, history and vocabulary," the X post said.
"The manner in which he (PM Modi) said ‘Bankim-da' suggested that he was having a friendly banter with Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in a neighbourhood tea stall. Bengal will not take this lightly; Bengalis will not take this lightly," warned Trinamool MP Trinamool MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar.
Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, who spoke to reporters in Coochbehar before the controversy erupted, said: "Let him do whatever he wants. We have no problem. But I want to say that Vande Mataram originates in Bengal, just like our National Anthem. The Rajya Sabha earlier issued a notification stating that Jai Hind and Vande Mataram would not be allowed there. I have heard some individuals in the BJP do not like Netaji. So they do not like Netaji, Gandhiji or Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Who exactly do they like? How have such people gained so much prominence when they do not even know India's history? Are they aware of Bengal's contribution?"
The Trinamool later stressed that Chattopadhyay, the author of the novel Anandamath (the song Vande Mataram appeared in this novel), belonged to "Bengal's moral and intellectual spine, not to the BJP's damage-control toolkit". "You are not inheritors, you are impostors. You are not admirers, you are appropriators who cannot even fake sincerity properly," it added.
Party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh blamed the BJP's "lack of basic common sense" for the PM's ‘da' reference and called it "an insult, an affront to a venerated figure in Bengal".
State industries minister Shashi Panja called the BJP's "lack of knowledge amazing". "They tried to appropriate Kabiguru (Rabindranath Tagore) but then J P Nadda (BJP president), through his breathtaking ignorance, wrongly called Santiniketan Tagore's birthplace. They tried to appropriate Swamiji, only for Sukanta Majumdar to call him an ‘ignorant leftist product'. They tried to appropriate Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar but only vandalised his bust," she said.
State finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya said it was "unbelieavable" that the country's PM actually addressed Chattopadhyay "like a friend". "We do not address our scholars like this in Bengal. They (the BJP) have no connection with Bengal's culture, they are outsiders," she said, adding that it explained "why the false attempts to establish connections" were always failing.