Indeed, on 22 January, she dismissed the grand spectacle of ‘Ram Lalla’s pran pratishtha’ in Ayodhya as a political stunt, and publicly declared that the event was not worthy of her thoughts or time. “Yesterday I was asked to comment on Ram mandir…as if I have nothing else to do. BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) is doing it as a gimmick before the Lok Sabha polls,” she thundered.
Even as states—those ruled by BJP as well as others such as Delhi—declared a holiday to allow people to partake in the celebration, Banerjee championed an alternative. That very day, she rolled out semi-government, semi-political sarva dharma (all-faith) rallies in Kolkata and around Bengal. The idea was as much to counter the Hindutva wave swirling around the Ram mandir inauguration as to showcase her view that Hinduism was an all-inclusive religion.
But that was in January. Three months down the line, she has softened her stance ever so slightly. With BJP’s Suvendu Adhikary, leader of the opposition in the state assembly, needling her for not declaring holidays on Hindu festivals such as Makar Sankranti and Ram Navami while doing so for Muslim commemorations such as Shab-e-Barat, Banerjee sprang a surprise by declaring a state holiday on Ram Navami (17 April).
Though the government’s notification clearly mentioned that the occasion for the public holiday was Ram Navami, Banerjee took pains to state that it was for the Maha Navami of the Chaitra Durga puja or Basanti Durga puja, steering clear of the fact that it happened to be the birthday of Ram.
Her party leaders, on the other hand, were vociferous in their Ram Navami celebrations. The party’s candidates fighting the Lok Sabha polls showed the most enthusiasm for the festival. Prasun Banerjee, the candidate from Howrah, took out a maha michil, a roadshow, with people clad in yellow and saffron and singing hymns in praise of Ram. He even chose to route it past the spot where a communal confrontation took place over Ram Navami last year.
Another candidate, Sayooni Ghosh, who became known throughout the country a few years back after a controversial social media post, was part of a Ram Navami procession at Belur, in Howrah district. She could be seen sashaying down the road with folded hands amid flags and festoons displaying images of Ram and Hanuman. Other TMC leaders also made it a point to be louder and more visible than their BJP counterparts in projecting themselves as Ram bhakts.
It isn’t just Ram Navami celebrations. In recent times TMC has quietly gone about shoring up its credentials among Hindus through measures such as stipends for priests, allowances for Durga Puja celebrations, and the construction and restoration of temples across the state. In sporting this lighter shade of saffron, the party hopes to blunt BJP’s ascendance in Bengal.
Saffron surge
BJP emerged as the principal opposition party in Bengal after the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2021 assembly elections. The saffron party, for long a minor also-ran in the state, built itself up by accusing TMC of minority appeasement, laying the ground for the rise of Hindutva.
The 2019 general election was a debacle for Banerjee as TMC lost 12 Lok Sabha seats and suffered a big decline in its Hindu vote share. As per a CSDS Lokniti poll survey, TMC got 32% of Hindu votes as against 57% for BJP.
In emerging from the fringe, BJP also wrote the epitaph of Indian National Congress and CPI-M, which failed to win a single seat in the 2021 assembly election and saw their vote shares dwindle to a speck (Congress had won two seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election while CPI-M drew a blank).
But, in a sense, the 2021 performance was a disappointment for BJP as well, as the leadership believed it had a genuine shot at coming to power in Bengal. The party rolled out its big guns in the campaign, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah leading the charge in a bitter fight for supremacy. However, despite a creditable performance that saw its seat count spike from three to 77 and its vote share surge by 28 percentage points to 38%, it was unable to dislodge TMC. Banerjee’s party increased its vote share to 48% and raised its tally in the 294-seat assembly by two seats to 213.
Today, the secular moorings of Bengal are being loosened as both parties pull out all the stops to consolidate and secure their Hindu vote banks.
More importantly, TMC wrested a 7% share in Hindu votes from BJP. Observers credit this to Banerjee’s deft use of soft Hinduism and Bengal’s reluctance to accept the high-pitched, only-Hindutva campaign by BJP. According to this viewpoint, many Hindus saw an imminent threat in BJP not only taking control of the state but over their lives and lifestyle as well, deciding everything from what to eat to what to wear to whom to worship. And so they reposed their faith in the secular fabric that has dominated the state’s history, traditions and culture.
Today, however, the secular moorings of Bengal are being loosened as both parties pull out all the stops to consolidate and secure their Hindu vote banks. As for the minority vote, the more strident BJP gets in promoting Hindutva, the greater the Muslim consolidation behind Banerjee. That certainly matters in the poll booth, because the community makes up 27% of the state’s population.
Behind the shift
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The 2019 general election was a wake up call for Banerjee. Trinamool and BJP cornered 43% and 40% of the vote share, respectively, with the TMC winning 22 seats (down from 34) to BJP’s 18 (up from 2). While TMC was assured of its minority vote bank, it was clear that the party could not afford a decimation of its Hindu vote share by BJP.
An alarmed Banerjee planned to strike a balance, giving allowances to Hindu priests and 8,000 members of the Sanatan Dharma in consonance with the allowances already being given to Muslim clerics—TMC had introduced an allowance of ₹2,500 and ₹1,000 for Imams and Muezzins in 2012.
Hindu priests started receiving an allowance from 2020 after Banerjee faced criticism from BJP and Sanatan Dharma loyalists. The allowance was initially ₹1,000 but even after a hike of ₹500 for religious clerics of both the communities in August 2023, announced by the chief minister at a press conference, the Hindu priests continue to receive ₹1,500 less than their Muslim counterparts.
We have been observing the need and desire for a Ram Navami holiday among a section of the people.
—Purnendu Bose
The Durga puja allowance to local clubs was also increased manifold. Banerjee started giving the allowances in 2018 as a quick damage-control exercise to stem BJP criticism before the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Subsequently, she announced a special grant of ₹25,000 for each of the thousands of community Durga pujas. The grant is revised every year. Today it stands at ₹70,000 plus waiver of electricity bills and corporation taxes. According to Banerjee, her government spent ₹300 crore in 2023-24 on Durga puja allowances.
Despite such Hindu outreach initiatives, however, BJP kept portraying TMC as a party that had a soft corner for Muslims, goading it into the loud adulation of Ram during the 2024 Ram Navami festival.
TMC leader and former minister Purnendu Bose rationalised the move: “We have been observing the need and desire for a Ram Navami holiday among a section of the people. These people are religious and have a genuine demand, but they are being wrongly used by some to suit their Hindutva narrative.”
He added, “The state government is sensitive to the needs of all sections of people, and by recognizing the needs of a particular section, we have yet again proved that we believe in democratic secularism.”
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Banerjee had realized that a demand was growing among people, especially the one crore domiciled Hindi speakers, for due recognition of their culture, traditions and even festivals, gods and goddesses. Even Bengali Hindus appeared to be displeased with the narrow provincial walls growing between gods. Indeed, there was massive fervour for the Ayodhya Pran Pratistha ceremony across socio-economic demographics throughout the state. Even places where BJP hardly has a torchbearer were lit up with home-made diyas, and decked with marigold and flags. Daily-wage earners took a day off to stay at home and be part of the historic event.
“We celebrated on our own initiative. BJP leaders gave us ₹500- ₹1,000. But we put up giant screens and arranged for community lunches, cultural programmes and feasting,” said Rahul Parbat, a resident of Dhamua in South 24 Parganas district.
It was not about a Hindi heartland god, as was the initial political debate. As professor Prasanta Ray, professor emeritus of Presidency University, put it, “Mamata and Modi are in a copy-cat game. When Mamata came to power, she did not have to play the religion card. But now things are different. I would say Modi has succeeded in engaging her in the narrative on religion and she’s having to balance both. She cannot afford to simply ignore Hindus.”
Temple run
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Banerjee realized the Bengal government’s apparent apathy to the Ayodhya event could give BJP fresh ammunition to fire appeasement salvos against it. In a hurriedly called press conference at the state headquarters, Nabanna, she reeled out a list of temples that her government had constructed and renovated during her decade-long rule. “We have spent ₹700 crore for renovation, repair work and construction of various temples and Shakti peeths in our state. The Kalighat Kali temple and skywalk is a significant one. Though Reliance Group has been involved, we have sunk in ₹165 crore and they are investing ₹35 crore,” she said.
Though renovation of temples and construction of new ones had been undertaken after TMC’s electoral debacle in 2019, Banerjee had never announced it from the rooftops to avoid making the minority community nervous.
In 2020, as a damage-control exercise, the chief minister started promoting “religious tourism”, an initiative to develop and expand religious sites by upgrading infrastructure and having a corridor of preferred destinations. As part of the revamp, a skywalk connecting Dakshineswar Kali temple with railway and metro routes was designed. The government allocated ₹65 crore for the project. Similar revamps were laid out for the Tarapith (Birbhum district), Tarakeswar and Hanseswari (both in Hooghly district) temples.
In 2020, as a damage-control exercise, the chief minister started promoting “religious tourism”, an initiative to develop and expand religious sites by upgrading infrastructure.
In the 2022-23 budget, Banerjee announced an investment of ₹300 crore to restore the Kalighat Kali temple and another ₹400 crore for the construction of a Jagannath temple along the lines of the main temple in Puri, Odisha. According to Debasish Sen, former chairman of HIDCO, the nodal agency developing Rajarhat-New Town, a township on the north-eastern fringes of Kolkata, 20 acres in Digha in East Midnapore district have been transformed to give the entire area the look of the Puri temple. So far, ₹205 crore has been sunk in by the state government.
In addition, it has budgeted ₹25 crore for the Saint Loknath Baba temple, ₹31 crore for Jalpesh temple in Jalpaiguri district, as well as several crores for the Madan Mohan temple in Cooch Behar and the Debi Chaudhurani temples in Jalpaiguri, Kankalitala and Bakreswar in Birbhum district and Fullara temple, also in Birbhum.
The government is ready to loosen its purse strings even for a Kali temple in Varanasi and a temple in Deoghar, Jharkhand.
The TMC government has also been generous in allocating land for temple projects. The state’s budget documents for 2019-20 show that the Iskcon temple at Mayapur in Nadia was given 700 acres free of cost, while three bighas of abandoned land in Behala, a locality in Kolkata, are being transformed for a Vaishno Devi temple and eight temples for communities from Rajasthan and Gujarat.
It is perhaps not surprising then that Kirti Azad, TMC candidate from Bardhaman-Durgapur seat, goes about town saying he’s from Mithila (in neighbouring Bihar), the land of Sita, even though he may be an outsider in BJP’s eyes. And in Jadavpur constituency, big billboards proclaim that Sayooni Ghosh will hold the biggest Ganesh puja in the city in her constituency in times to come.
Asked if Banerjee’s approach to Hindutva stands a chance against BJP’s claim that Hindus are second-class citizens in Bengal, the TMC’s Jawhar Sircar, a Rajya Sabha MP, said: “Hinduism is a tolerant and inclusive religion, and what Mamata Banerjee is doing is not soft-pedalling any religion but reminding us of this essential tradition, to ward off predatory distortions.”