Trinamool Congress headed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has made Bengal Asmita, Bengal’s self-respect, a huge poll issue during the 2026 assembly election campaign because, among other things, of Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) assault on Bengali identity. In 2025, BJP leader Amit Malviya made scornful remarks that there was no language called “Bengali”.A Delhi Police communication then described Bengali as “Bangladeshi language”. Multiple incidents across the country of targeted violence, torture, detention and deportation of migrants from Bengal on alleged suspicion of being Bangladeshis precipitated the issue and so self-esteem became a genuine issue for voters in the state.Also read: An Eyewitness’s Account of the Exodus of Bengali Muslim Migrant Workers in GurugramRightly incensed by the calculated assaults against Bengalis, their language and sense of pride by BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Banerjee described them as “bahiragat,” “outsiders” who have not even a modicum of understanding of West Bengal’s ethos, history and culture.Nehru’s admissionIt is in this context that it is worthwhile to recall first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s admission on September 22, 1928 that he, being “a dweller from the colder and sometimes much hotter regions of the north”, and carrying with him “something of the coldness and hardness of that mountain climate”, was not in a position to fully fathom, “the warm-hearted eloquence and love of art and beauty and passionate emotionalism” of Bengal.Nehru said so candidly in 1928 while delivering the Presidential Address at the All-Bengal Students Conference, remembering the legendary leader of Bengal, C.R. Das, who had made the charge against him that he was cold-blooded. Nehru pleaded guilty.Every word Nehru uttered revealed his humility and modesty before the distinctive and refined Bengali identity and culture that Trinamool Congress leaders have been invoking when they charge the BJP and its leaders of disrespecting it. So, they claim that “bahiragat”, “outsiders”, those devoid of an understanding of Bengal, can never shape the destiny of Bengal and its people is rooted in composite culture, liberal values and the universal vision of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore.Nehru on Bengalis shaping Bengal’s destinyNehru, on July 14, 1949, while addressing a public meeting at Brigade Parade Grounds at Calcutta admitted that he visited Bengal to seek inspiration from the crucial role it had played in India’s political history and to broaden his outlook. More importantly, he said, solutions to the questions of Bengal could not come from Congress party or the Union government.It could be “anyone from Bengal but not from outside”, who would have to do this task. “You should,” he remarked, “have the right, and you have the right to shape your future”.Those utterances of Nehru resonate in the remarks of Trinamool Congress leaders that those who are “bahiragat,” “outsiders” have no role in deciding the destiny of Bengal.‘Intensely Bengali feeling’Nehru deeply understood the powerful sentiments of Bengalis whether they lived in West Bengal or the erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. On April 26, 1954 in a letter to chief ministers Nehru referred to East Pakistan, where some people charged Bengalis of West Bengal increasingly becoming “Hindiwalas”, to claim that those in East Pakistan were “real” Bengalis.Nehru said that they demanded that Rabindranath Tagore should be returned to them as they would appreciate him more than the people of west Bengal. “This was said in a spirit of banter. But it shows this intense Bengali feeling that pervades East Bengal,” Nehru added.That “intensely Bengali feeling” is now pervasive in all of West Bengal and the Trinamool Congress leadership has employed it effectively during the just concluded election campaign to mobilise people against the BJP.Joy Bangla vs Jai Shree RamThe slogans “Joy Bangla” (Victory to Bengal) and “Jotoi Koro Hamla, Abar Jitbe Bangla” (No matter how much you attack, Bengal will win again), rallied people around the Trinamool Congress’s secular narratives in contrast to the politico-religious slogan of Jai Shri Ram spread by the BJP.The Modi regime and its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) also sought to draw deeply communitarian lines in the state. Banerjee referred to SIR in her election speeches to drive home the point that eligible voters were being subjected to intense harassment and millions of them were disenfranchised for no fault of theirs.Also read: Amid Crackdown on Bengali-Speaking Migrants, Modi Invokes Bangla Pride, Vows Action Against Illegal ImmigrantsThe sensitivity displayed by Nehru in the context of Bengal, when he was fighting for India’s independence and discharging his responsibilities as prime minister, constitute a rich source of inspiration for future leaders keen to shape their statecraft. But that legacy of Nehru has been abandoned, and that is why the people of Bengal were made to face insurmountable odds simply to exercise their constitutional right to vote.Nehru on electoral rollsIn the context of the deletion of millions of names of voters from the electoral roll of Bengal under SIR conducted by ECI under the supervision of the Supreme Court of India, it is worthwhile to recall Nehru’s words on errors in electoral rolls. In an interview to the press on September 2, 1945 he, while dealing with a question if the electoral rolls were inaccurate and full of errors, remarked that a large number of people informed him of the partly bogus character of those rolls.He then said with anguish, “Where, on the face of it, there should be a large number of voters, only an insignificant few have been included in the list.” “I am told,” he said with sadness, “that only a handful of women in New Delhi are included in the voting registers.”“It is rather absurd to hold elections on electoral rolls which are full of errors, omissions and bogus entries … it is obviously necessary that if elections are held, they should be held on correct and up-to-date rolls, and the fullest civil liberty should prevail to enable people to be approached at the time of elections.”Those words of Nehru play out in the context of SIR in Bengal, resulting in preparation of electoral rolls by omitting millions of genuine voters, a large chunk of whom are Muslims and women. On the day when voting for the state assembly of West Bengal commenced, the Guardian published an article by Hannah Ellis Petersen and Akash Hassan, with the headline “Millions in India stripped of vote before critical state election, as government seeks to ‘purify’ electoral roll”. Such adverse comments in the international media on the exclusion of voters in Bengal reflects Nehru’s observation: “It is rather absurd to hold elections on electoral rolls which are full of errors, omissions and bogus entries.”The intense hurt caused to Bengal’s sense of pride and self-esteem has to be healed by defeating the forces that caused havoc by demolishing the electoral process meant to conduct free and fair elections, which form the basic structure of the Constitution of India.S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to the President of India K.R. Narayanan.