The wheels of Indian politics have started turning, and they are gaining momentum quickly. The electoral battle of 2026 in West Bengal is being treated as a “do or die” mission by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). But what would normally be a state election is, according to the BJP itself, a “civilizational battle”.

Here’s what that means. For the BJP and its affiliates, elections are not contests of governance, development, or ideas. Elections are about majoritarian identity politics, demographic change, and what it means to be Indian.

Last week, BJP General Secretary (Organization) B. L. Santhosh made headlines when he told party workers: “To save India, we have to win Bengal.” Bengal is Hindutva’s last liberal bastion. It is majority Muslim, politically resistant to BJP advances for nearly two decades, and brimming with cultural self-confidence.

Capture Bengal, and the BJP can claim to have politically Hinduized India. Stop them there, and you push back against the project to make India a Hindu republic. And that is why Bengal is suddenly heating up. Strip away the sabha and election speech bombast, and what we’re seeing is truly terrifying.

Weaponizing the electoral roll
The specter haunting Bengal today is the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Don’t be fooled by technocratic jargon. SIR is a concerted effort to delete as many voters as possible from the electoral rolls across Bengal.

Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari has already threatened that if SIR is not done “to the satisfaction of the Election Commission”, there will be no elections at all. In any democracy that respects the electoral process, sedition charges would fly at such an admission. But in India today, Adhikari said it matter-of-factly on TV.

SIR is important because it ties directly to Hindutva’s favorite Hinduboosting issue in Bengal today: illegal infiltration from Bangladesh. Make no mistake about what Suvendu is saying: he is openly suggesting that Bengali-speaking Muslims are illegal infiltrators, and if the electoral rolls aren’t “corrected”, India will have no choice but to allow them and their votes to remain. It’s worse than the National Register of Citizens.

Weaponizing Muslims
Which brings us to Suvendu Adhikari himself. He has been among the leading voices weaponising the anti-Muslim, anti-Bangladesh rhetoric over the coming Bengal elections.

Here’s how that works: convinced that they can no longer win Muslim votes in Bengal, the BJP has decided that the best way to isolate Muslims is to convince Hindus that Muslims will decide the next election.

If Hindus believe that Muslims are foreigners, demographic invaders, and terrorists, every Muslim vote cast will be seen as unfair. Problem solved. Citizenship? Facts? The human cost of this terrible politics? None of that matters.

Winning votes by undermining democracy
Last time around, the BJP tried this and shot itself in the foot. Mamata Banerjee was able to consolidate Bengal against a party that vilified her at every turn.

So this time, the BJP has taken a smarter, more tactical approach: stay away from attacks on Mamata, but weaponize the voters' list itself. Question who “deserves” to be there, and who doesn’t. Hence, Amit Shah’s grand tours of Bengal. He knows this election is about him, and him alone. Hence, his campaign speeches promise voters that “illegal infiltration” from Bangladesh will be his number one issue if he is voted to power.

The BJP isn’t “attacking” Muslims or migrants: it is promising Hindus that it will draw a bright red line between “insiders” and “outsiders” come election day. Lost in this toxic blame game is Mamata Banerjee herself, who has started invoking Shah by calling him Dushashan and Modi Shakuni, demon characters from the Hindu epic Mahabharata.

Now back we go: Shah has retaliated by saying she’s suddenly found religion and rushing to temples before elections. Imagine that. Except behind this theatrical war of words is a terrifying battle over who is and isn’t a citizen of India, and who gets to vote.

Muslim vote split?
Signs of cracks in the solidarity of the Bengal Muslim voter are showing. While Muslims have voted in overwhelming numbers for Mamata and the TMC in the past, seeing TMC as their only defense against BJP-style Hindutva, cracks are showing. The decision by suspended TMC MLA Humayun Kabir to float his own party, Janata Unnayan Party, and announce the laying of the foundation stone for a Babri Masjid in Murshidabad should concern everyone. Ambition? Ideology? Frustration?

Take your pick. But there’s no doubt it signals fracturing of the Muslim vote at a time when the BJP can least afford it. As for temple visiting, mudslinging, and who’s worshipping whom…the BJP knows that stuff only plays well with the cultural Hinduist queue. By letting a TMC leader play that game, Shah is keeping the focus on infiltration, illegality, and exclusion: a much sharper pitch for Hinduist voters.

Declining Bengal = Jobs for booing
But what about Bengal’s development narrative? There’s an interesting point Amit Shah made at a rally: that under Mamata Banerjee, Bengal had gone from being “above average” Indian state to “below average”.

It’s hard to fact-check without data, but this speaks to a broader political reality: if Bengal has declined economically, it must be politically “corrected”.

Fear =Vote for me
In other words, demonize Muslims, Bangladesh, migrants, and paint every Indian problem as someone else’s fault.

There is a human tragedy playing out among Bengali Hindus who migrated to India decades ago and are now the proud citizens of the Matua community: afraid that the SIR will “delete” them from electoral rolls because they don’t have the paperwork the BJP promised they’d never need once CAA was passed. “The BJP has brought the Matuas,” the TMC lamented in an editorial, “into the tightening noose of its corrosive politics”. Fearful Matuas have been holding hunger strikes. This is what political monopolies do to marginalized communities. Turn them into vote banks. Then throw away the cards and watch them die.

Weaponizing India
If Bengal can have its voters' lists weaponized, what’s to stop Uttar Pradesh from doing the same? And if Muslims can be questioned about their citizenship in Bengal, where will the Gujarat model stop? At present, the BJP is weaponizing India. Against itself.

The battle for Bengal is a dress rehearsal for battles to come. If Bengal can be majoritised, manipulated, and threatened into submission, what hope do the minorities of Assam, Kashmir, Manipur, or Arunachal have? The BJP’s civilizational battle cry should scare every non-Hindu in India. And every Hindu who believes in democracy. Because if the BJP can bend Bengal to its will, it will bend India. And we all know what happens to those who don’t bend India to the BJP's will.