Waving a large cattail fish in his hands, Sharadwat Mukherjee went door to door to canvass votes ahead of Thursday’s elections for the state legislature in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal.
Mukherjee is a candidate from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules at the national level but has never come to power in the state, which has a population larger than Germany: more than 90 million people.
When he folds his hands to greet voters, Catla swings with a hook in his mouth. Big question: Can fish also change the outcome of elections?
Bengalis’ love for fish is legendary – on both sides of the border, in India and Bangladesh. So much so that when the student-led rebellion led to the ouster of the then Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina, some of the protesters who barged into her residence after she fled were seen attacking her refrigerator and carrying away fish.
But as West Bengal votes for its next government, the fish have now moved off the kitchen slab and onto the campaign trail, as leaders are approaching voters in a variety of ways – and in some cases trying to distance themselves from suspicions that their victory could adversely impact the Bengali diet.
What is happening in West Bengal elections?
Nearly 68 million people in West Bengal are expected to vote for the candidate of their choice on April 23 and 29 to elect 294 MLAs to the state assembly.
The results will be declared on May 4 in the crucial state vote, where the Hindu majority BJP has never ruled.
The revision of the electoral list, which controversially removed a total of 9.1 million names from the register before voting, and was criticized for disenfranchising minorities, was one of the major voting issues. About 2.7 million people have challenged their expulsion.
The second is identity politics.
On the campaign trail, at rallies, and in interviews, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, a flamboyant, centrist regional leader — sometimes seen as a contender for Modi’s job in New Delhi if the opposition wins — has doubled down on identity politics to corner the BJP, analysts say.
BJP-led governments in many states have imposed bans or restrictions on the sale of meat. Far-right mobs have lynched Muslims in BJP-ruled states on charges of carrying beef.
Banerjee, who is contesting the election for the fourth consecutive time, has repeatedly warned that if the BJP came to power, they would “ban fish, meat and even eggs” – effectively labeling them as outsiders ignorant of Bengali culture. BJP has rejected these allegations.
Biswanath Chakraborty, a West Bengal election analyst and political analyst who has written several books on voting behaviour, told Al Jazeera that the entire fish issue was “a creation of Mamata Banerjee.”
“For a long time she has been saying that there is a parallel to the fish in Bengali politics,” he said. “In the election campaign, every issue is manufactured, and Mamata is its champion.”
Chakraborty argued that by strongly opposing these allegations, the BJP has helped the ruling party in Bengal ensure that the fish debate remains the highlight of the campaign among voters.
“They (BJP) are entering into, or trapped in, the discourse set by Mamata,” the analyst said.
However, why fish?
“Fish is very important in Bengal, very important,” said Utsa Ray, an assistant professor at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal. He also wrote a book in 2015 on the culinary development of Bengal in colonial India, titled Culinary Culture in Colonial India: A Cosmopolitan Plate and the Middle Class.
“First of all, because of the geographical location of Bengal – along the Bay of Bengal – (and) being a place near rivers and streams, fish has been the most available commodity,” she told Al Jazeera.
Ray said, fish has been an integral part of many rituals on auspicious days for both Hindus and Muslims in Bengal, however, there is a group of people in Bengal who abstain from eating fish.
one 2024 Study It was found that about 65 percent of people in West Bengal consume fish weekly.
Against that backdrop, Ray told Al Jazeera that Banerjee’s party was looking to capitalize on “regional identity or Bengali identity”.
Banojyotsna Lahiri, a social activist and voter in West Bengal, described the BJP’s reaction to candidates like Mukherjee campaigning with fish as a “gimmick”.
“In Bengal, (the BJP) suddenly realized that they appear as aliens with their vegetarian posture because both fish and meat are integral to the culinary options of Bengal, irrespective of caste or religion,” he told Al Jazeera. “
What’s up with BJP and food choices?
Ahead of voting on Thursday, the BJP was looking for a senior leader who could eat fish in front of the cameras. They finally managed to do so on Tuesday to Anurag Thakur, Member of Parliament from Himachal Pradesh.
“The question of what food will people eat, especially non-vegetarian (food), is linked to the BJP’s politics of imposing restrictions and dictating food choices,” said Nilanjan Sarkar, senior visiting fellow at the Center for Policy Research, a think tank in Delhi.
Ray said the BJP, with its “hyper-masculinity, Hindutva and vegetarianism”, is dictating food preferences in the Hindi-speaking region of north India. “There have been cases of people being beaten to death for eating non-vegetarian food.”
However, it fails in Benga.
Still, both Sarkar and Ray agreed that the fish display on the campaign trail was a novelty – even in the often-bizarre world of Indian politics.
“It is important for the BJP to create these new images,” Sarkar said. “So, these bizarre demonstrations are carried out to create another image in the minds of voters.”
