CPM’s student wing, SFI, has embarked on a country-wide march against the Narendra Modi government’s new education policy and in Bengal, the organisation is paying tributes to popular icons outside the Left ideological pantheon in a bid to connect with a wider section of the populace.

“The Students’ Federation of India has adopted the right approach to pay tributes to social reformers and local icons cutting across religious and caste lines. If we have to counter the Trinamul Congress and the BJP, there is no other option but to regain the people’s trust. We have been able to do so to quite some extent through many of our programmes. But we can no longer afford to be seen as disconnected from our cultural and social icons,” said a CPM state committee member.

SFI supporters from North 24-Parganas paid tribute to Matua ideologue P.R. Thakur at Thakurnagar in Bongaon on August 21. A day later, marchers in north Bengal, led by SFI’s state president Pratikur Rahaman, offered floral tributes to a statue of Rajbanshi icon Panchanan Burma in Siliguri.

Former students’ union chief of JNU, Aishe Ghosh, garlanded the statues of tribal heroes Sidhu and Kanho in Jhargram on August 23rd. On Thursday, she visited West Burdwan’s Churulia -- the ancestral place of poet Kazi Nazrul Islam--and garlanded his statue. SFI leaders also garlanded the bust of Sukumar Banerjee, who laid down his life at the age of 28 for India's freedom, in Asansol on Thursday.According to sources in the CPM, the initiative is one of the several steps taken to bridge the distance the party has been suffering since it was voted out of power in 2011.

The Left--along with the Congress--failed to secure a single seat in the Bengal Assembly polls last year.

“Our youth and students wing has been doing remarkable work. It is commendable that the SFI has taken this initiative,” the state committee member added that back in the first half of 2000 the then party secretary Anil Biswas had launched an initiative to induct local icons at party classes for CPM members.In 2021, the CPM hoisted the national tricolour at its party office across the nation on August 15. The party’s central committee had mandated Independence Day in a bid to counter BJP’s ultra-nationalist moves. Like the rest of India, in Bengal as well, the saffron camp has tried to induce polarisation using caste and religion. From Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to home minister Amit Shah and the party’s national chief J.P. Nadda, everyone has invoked social reformers and community heroes from Bengal ahead of the Assembly polls. In fact, Modi visited Thakurnagar--the headquarters of the Matua sect--in 2019.

However, the saffron camp’s efforts have been riddled with faux pas. Once Shah had allegedly garlanded a tribal warrior’s statue claiming it to be Birsa Munda, a tribal icon.

Another time BJP’s social media claimed that Nadda had described Viswa Bharati as the birthplace of Rabindranath Tagore.Appropriation of local icons has been part of the Trinamul’s politics as well. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has close ties with a section of Thakur clan and had one of the family members in her cabinet as well.

“The RSS is trying to use people as pawns in their game of identity politics. But we are trying to reach out to the people by remembering these progressive icons,” said SFI state secretary Srijan Bhattacharya.

Reacting to the allegation that the Left has had to learn the hard way to celebrate local icons, Bhattacharya said: “Leftists have always followed progressive ideals. Our respect for icons from Bengal as much as it is for Lenin and Marx. We are trying to make RSS learn that we have Sidho and Kanho. We don't need Savarkar."He said during the course of the march, SFI will pay respect to Gorkha poet Bhanu Bhakta in Darjeeling and Rabindranath Tagore at Jorasanko in Calcutta. The marchers have also paid tribute to freedom fighter Khudiram Bose and social reformer and educationist Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar.The eastern leg of the march for education will conclude in Calcutta on September 2 after covering over 2,500km and 22 districts in Bengal.