Trinamool accuses BJP of ‘anti-Bengali mindset’ over remarks on Raja Ram Mohan Roy

Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership of insulting icons of West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress on Sunday cited the recent remarks by Madhya Pradesh Minister Inder Singh Parmar on Raja Ram Mohan Roy, saying they reflected a “Bangla Birodhi (anti-Bengali)” mindset.

Several Trinamool Congress Ministers and MPs took to social media to express their resentment over Mr. Parmar’s comments, in which he described the social reformer as an “agent of the British” who initiated a “vicious cycle of religious conversion”. Mr. Parmar later apologised, calling his remarks a “slip of the tongue”.

“Those whose forefathers served the British now dare to insult the great social reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy, calling him a ‘British agent’ and a ‘fake reformer’. What @BJP4India leader and Madhya Pradesh Higher Education Minister Inder Singh Parmar has said is nothing but a reflection of the BJP’s filthy mindset,” the party posted on social media.

State Women and Child Development Minister Shashi Panja said the women of the country know that it was due to Roy’s efforts that the practice of sati – in which women were immolated on the pyres of their deceased husbands – was abolished.

“Calling Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the man who abolished sati and ushered modernity, humanism and women’s rights, a ‘British agent’ is not a slip. It’s the BJP’s Bangla Birodhi mindset on full display. When you can’t match Bengal’s intellect, you try to defame it,” Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP Ritabrata Banerjee said.

West Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya said he would take up the issue with the party’s central leadership, but added that the Trinamool Congress was blowing it out of proportion.

Remarks by BJP leaders on West Bengal or on prominent intellectuals from the State have frequently triggered political controversy and given the Trinamool Congress a handle to brand the saffron party as “anti-Bengali”. The themes of Bengali identity and pride were central to the Trinamool’s campaign in the 2021 Assembly elections, helping the party counter the BJP’s challenge.

Recently, BJP MP Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri had claimed that the national anthem penned by Rabindranath Tagore was written “to welcome a British official”, prompting further criticism from the Trinamool Congress.