Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday linked West Bengal’s Partition-era history to the current political landscape, saying the state is finally moving on a path of development that is in line with the cultural identity envisioned in 1947.
Addressing an event in Hooghly district on the occasion of West Bengal Day, Modi said that attempts were made during Partition to annex undivided Bengal entirely into Pakistan, and claimed that the state’s past had been “whitewashed” for political reasons.
“The youth of today should know how efforts were made to make the entire state a part of Pakistan. After independence, it was necessary to carry forward with the sentiments with which Bengal was saved. But efforts were made so that the people of Bengal would forget the history [June 20] “And the emotions associated with it,” he said.
On 20 June 1947, legislators from the Hindu-majority areas of undivided Bengal voted in favor of partition and accession to the Indian Union in the Bengal Legislative Council, a development that eventually paved the way for the creation of West Bengal.
Modi credited Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mukherjee for leading the movement opposing proposals to annex all of Bengal to Pakistan. He accused the Congress of bowing “before the conspiring forces” during the Partition and later trying to erase the history and importance of the “Pachimbanga Divas”.
“When efforts were made to make the entire Bengal a part of Pakistan, the Congress bowed down to the conspiring forces. It was then that Syama Prasad Mukherjee raised his voice against it…and when there was a conspiracy to separate the entire Bengal from India, the separate state of West Bengal was created to thwart those designs,” he said.
This was the first time that a state government in West Bengal celebrated this day. In 2023, the West Bengal Legislative Assembly passed a resolution to celebrate Bengali New Year Day, also known as Puela Baisakh, as the foundation day of the state on 15 April. In the same year, former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote to then Governor Ananda Bose urging him not to hold an event at the Governor’s House on June 20.
“We in West Bengal… witnessed Partition as a result of the unleashing of communal forces that were irresistible at that time. The state was not founded on any particular day, least of all on the 20th of June,” Banerjee wrote in the letter. Conversely, the state was shaped by the notorious Radcliffe Prize.”
However, current Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari hailed the decision to observe June 20 as West Bengal State Day. “After many long decades, for the first time, our national government, inspired by the great ideals of Bharat Kesari Dr Syama Prasad Mukherjee, is officially celebrating ‘West Bengal Day’…,” the BJP leader posted on X.
Seeking to link the BJP’s coming to power in the state with what he described as the original vision behind the creation of West Bengal, Modi said: “This time, ‘Paschimbanga Divas’ is even more special. The dream that was envisioned for a bright future for Bengal after independence, we are witnessing today turning into reality.”
The Congress and the TMC rejected Modi’s statements.
Congress leader Soumya Aich Roy said: “The Prime Minister is trying to fool the people of Bengal by presenting a distorted history. The BJP’s predecessors helped the British. His propaganda will not work in Bengal.”
TMC leader Kunal Ghosh also accused Modi of distorting the facts. “There is no fixed foundation day for West Bengal. Mamata Banerjee has consulted historians and educationists, who have suggested Poela Baisakh as the statehood day. The BJP is now politicizing the issue,” he said.
During his visit, Modi also laid foundation stones for several development projects and released the 23rd batch of PM-Kisan Scheme worth $18,880 Crores. He said the “dual-engine government” had begun working “at breakneck speed” to put West Bengal on the path to recovery and development.
“Decisions are made [by the BJP government] With lightning speed, work was resumed on the suspended projects. “In this direction, today the foundation stone was laid and projects worth thousands of crores of rupees were laid and inaugurated,” Modi said. Modi also wrote a letter to Adhikari on Saturday in which the Prime Minister stated that the Center will extend full support to the state. “I urge the West Bengal government to set short-term, medium-term and long-term goals as well, such as what will be achieved in the next few years, next decade and so on. “This way, we will get a realistic assessment of the ground covered and at the same time it will strengthen the collective efforts of 140 crore Indians to build Vixit Bharat by 2027,” Modi wrote in the four-page letter.
