Source: The Conversation – UK
With a population of more than 100 million, West Bengal is the fourth largest state in India. It has always been an important target for the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), but despite the electoral success of Narendra Modi’s party across the whole country in recent years, West Bengal always bucked the trend.
Rather than buy into Modi’s Hindu nationalist vision, Bengali voters have traditionally been influenced by a strong sense of regional identity. Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) government deliberately cultivated this when in office between 2011 and 2026. It presented itself as the defender of the state’s language, culture and way of life.
Banerjee argued vociferously during debates over citizenship that Modi and the BJP were trying to smear Bengali speakers, particularly in border regions, as “illegal immigrants”.
The TMC also highlighted central government’s attempts to promote a Hindu model of vegetarianism as being at odds with Bengal’s pluralistic traditions, where fish, meat and eggs are staple foods consumed across religious communities.
As a result, the BJP was not just competing against an incumbent government. It was going up against a strong political identity that presented itself as the guardian of Bengal’s traditionally pluralistic culture and way of life.
So the BJP victory over TMC in May represented a significant electoral upset. More so, because West Bengal was the last major state where BJP had been unable to displace a powerful regional party, despite its national success.
Historical influences
This was not a routine change of government. To get a feel for why the BJP’s victory in West Bengal was so consequential, you have to understand its distinct culture. And to do that, you have to go back to before Indian independence, when the British partitioned India on religious grounds. This formed two new countries: India for the Hindus and Pakistan for the Muslims.
As part of the process, Punjab in the northwest of India, was divided with west Punjab going to Pakistan and the east to India. Similarly Bengal in eastern India was split with the Hindu majority west going to India and the east to Pakistan, before East Pakistan won its independence in 1971, becoming the new state of Bangladesh. Despite this, communal violence continued to spill over both sides of the newly declared borders along sectarian lines.
Nonetheless, even today, both Punjab and Bengal have remained true to their tradition of diversity. This is an embodiment of the principle of “syncretism”. Syncretism is about the peaceful amalgamation of different beliefs, culture and practices. It aims to strike a harmony among diverse traditions – in this case, specifically between Hindus and Muslims.
For years, Bengal’s uniqueness was based on the central idea of miśra saṃskṛti, literally “mixed culture” or “blended civilisation”. Hindu and Muslim traditions were allowed to flourish together. Various traditions served as cultural symbols that set Bengal apart from the communal strife affecting other regions of the subcontinent.
These include bauls – wandering mystic singers who blend elements of Hinduism and Islam. These singers are typified by Lalan Fakir, the 19th-century poet and spiritual leader whose estimated 10,000 songs, many of which mock and condemn religious and caste differences, earned him the devotion of millions across the region.
Bengal’s dargahs, meanwhile – sufi shrines built over the grave of revered holy figures – are used interchangeably by both Hindus and Muslims.
In contrast, the BJP aggressively promotes hindutva an ideology which defines India as a Hindu state. This, was widely thought, would be a disadvantage in winning votes in West Bengal. But the BJP’s electoral success in securing 207 out of 294 seats showed that this syncretism was always more delicate than its proponents acknowledged.
Bengali syncretism, its trust in amalgamation of traditions and beliefs, was expressed in poetry, music and folk devotion. But it never penetrated the structures of property, political economy or electoral arithmetic.
Hindus under threat
The BJP appears to have understood better than its political opponents the fear among many people in West Bengal of the Islamic influences coming in from Bangladesh. The BJP successfully harnessed and politicised this idea as a threat to Hindus in West Bengal. To do this, the BJP tactic was to revive memories of partition in 1947 as an exclusively Hindu tragedy.
BJP also coopted various elements of Bengal’s intellectual heritage. They successfully portrayed Bengali cultural heroes such as novelist Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and religious leader Swami Vivekananda primarily as champions of Hindu nationalism in speeches, articles and commemorations. It took pains to play down their role as representatives of Bengal’s pluralist humanism.
The BJP’s victory in West Bengal is in stark contrast with its failure to win in Punjab, another state where partition led to considerable upheaval. The major difference is demographic: whereas the contest in West Bengal was always between Hindus and Muslims, the majority of people in Punjab, nearly 58%, are Sikhs.
Punjab’s Sikh community has an identity that is assertive and politically independent with institutional manifestation in the centre-right Shiromani Akali Dal party. So, while in West Bengal the BJP was able to mobilise its Hindu community via the “Hindus under threat” narrative, this story is neither necessary nor effective in Punjab.
Many Sikhs perceive that hindutva diminishes their autonomy and subsumes their distinctive identity into a larger fold of Hinduism, a trade-off that a significant section of the Punjabis are unwilling to make.
But when the BJP in West Bengal promoted its narrative of Hinduism under threat, it discovered that a sizeable portion of the voters identified more readily with that than with the baul’s songs.
Amrita DasGupta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/23/how-the-bjp-finally-won-in-west-bengal-after-years-of-trying/