Why is the BJP celebrating Bengal’s Partition?

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In 1940, Mohamed Ali Jinnah rose to deliver his infamous two-nation theory speech in Lahore.

It is a “dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality” since they “belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, and literatures”, the soon-to-be founder of Pakistan claimed.

Jinnah’s speech was likely one of the most consequential in history. Seven years later, British India was divided on communal lines in a partition so bloody that South Asians are still grappling with its consequences.

Lahore 1940 to Bengal 2026

Given this history, it is remarkable to see a minister from West Bengal – a state that is the outcome of Bengal’s Partition in 1947 – write a piece backing the two-nation theory. The idea of a “composite cultural community spanning religious fault lines” was a “myth”, Swapan Dasgupta held. He repeated a few paragraphs later that a “composite Bengali identity was a nice, serving myth”.

That Hindus and Muslim in Bengal spoke a common language “separated two distinct communities that were not in any meaningful conversion”.

Dasgupta, West Bengal’s finance minister, was all but paraphrasing Jinnah’s infamous Lahore thesis. Hindus and Muslim being “distinct” and any “composite identity” being a “myth” is not very different from saying that the two communities “belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, and literatures”.

Given the formal Indian rejection of the two-nation theory, this might seem surprising. But Hindutva’s endorsement of the two-nation theory is a position as old as the ideology itself. Vinayak Savarkar, who wrote the ideology’s foundation text, was quite clear on this. “I have no quarrel with Mr Jinnah’s two-nation theory,” he said in 1943. “We Hindus are a nation by ourselves and it is a historical fact that Hindus and Muslims are two nations.”

Savarkar, in fact, went a step further and made it clear that his version of two-nation theory would involve second-class citizenship for Indian Muslims. He told an American journalist that Muslims would be “a minority in the position of your Negroes” – at a time when the United States had racial segregation.

Theory to policy

The Bharatiya Janata Party has, in fact, gone quite some way in implementing Savarkar’s version of the two-nation theory. Muslims in BJP-ruled states now enjoy fewer rights and privileges than other citizens. The justice system is most impacted. Muslims accused of even minor crimes can expect harsh, often extra legal punishments.

Muslims in states such as Uttar Pradesh face the prospect of their homes being bulldozed if they are accused of crimes. In such states, Muslims form a disproportionate number of the victims killed by the police in extra-judicial “encounters”.

At the same time, people accused of crimes against Muslims are treated more leniently or often not punished by the justice system at all. This affords an incredible amount of impunity to Hindutva vigilantism to the extent where people carrying out anti-Muslim violence often post videos of the attacks themselves, secure in the knowledge that little action will follow.

The courts do little to stem this or, in some cases, join in themselves. In March, for example, Muslims were denied bail by a court for the “crime” of eating chicken on the Ganga – an act that would bring no censure if the identities of the people eating the chicken had been different.

In the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act, the two-nation theory has been enshrined in law, bringing religion for the first time into Indian citizenship law. At the time, BJP leaders threatened Indian Muslims that the Citizenship Amendment Act combined with a potential National Register of Citizens would impact their citizenship claims.

Eventually, even that was not required. In Bengal, the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision quite openly targeted the state’s Muslims and removed them from the roll. Since then, the new BJP government in the state has passed orders that bar people left out of the SIR from welfare benefits and even backward caste schemes.

A new outlook in 1947

So it is not surprising that, as part of the BJP’s espousal of the two-nation theory, the party is now openly celebrating Partition. One of the first acts of the new BJP government in West Bengal was to declare June 20 as “West Bengal day”. It was on that day in 1947 that the Bengal Assembly had met to decide on Partition.

The BJP has portrayed this vote as one that “saved” Bengal from becoming a part of Pakistan and credited SP Mookerjee, its founder, for the outcome. Both of these claims are less than accurate. The June 20 vote was a fait accompli.

The Mountbatten Plan, the scheme that decided upon Partition, had envisaged that the Bengal Assembly would divide into east and west sections and vote. Even if one section decided in favour of Partition and India, that would be enough.

The Congress had approved the Mountbatten plan and it had a comfortable majority in the western section of the Assembly. The June 20 vote was, therefore, a formality. Moreover, SP Mookerjee’s Hindu Mahasabha had exactly one seat. He had, at best, a minor role to play in the vote. In fact, it is on record that Mookerjee wanted Bengal to be partitioned on communal lines “even if India was not”. So the BJP’s argument that he supported Partition to prevent Bengal from entering Pakistan is not true.

Till now, India’s official position has always been that Partition was a necessary evil that the Congress had to agree to in 1947. Partition was only celebrated by one state in South Asia: Pakistan, which officially saw the act as the culmination of the two-nation theory. With the declaration of 20 June as “West Bengal day”, India now also joins that list.