Last Sunday, inside Parliament, MPs were singing Vande Mataram to celebrate its 150th birthday. The mood was emotional, almost filmy. PM Modi stood up, spoke beautifully about Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (the man who wrote the anthem), and in the flow of affection called him “Bankim da”.
In Bengal, people call everyone “da” (Tagore da, Netaji da, the fish-seller da). It’s warmth, not disrespect. But one Trinamool MP took it as an insult. “He is Bankim Babu!” he protested. Modi smiled, said “Fine, Bankim Babu it is,” teased the MP by calling him “dada,” and the entire House laughed. Light moment, cameras off, everyone moved on.
Or so Delhi thought.
Next afternoon, Cooch Behar. Mamata Banerjee walked onto the stage looking like she had personally been slapped.
“Who is this man to reduce the creator of Vande Mataram to just ‘da’? He wasn’t even born when Bengal was throwing out the British! He owes an apology to every Indian!” she roared.
The crowd went berserk. Tears, slogans, fists in the air. By evening, black badges were out, Vande Mataram was blasting from every TMC office, and #BankimBabuNotDa was the number one trend in the country.
In Kolkata’s para addas and housing-society WhatsApp groups, the debate is still raging:
Half say “da” is love, stop overreacting.
The other half say only a Bengali earns the right to drop the “Babu”; from an outsider it feels like casual disrespect.
BJP leaders are pulling their hair out. They keep sharing old clips of Mamata’s own allies, Left leaders, and Congress veterans happily saying “Bankim da” for the last fifty years. Bengalis scroll past and reply with a single word: timing.
Because four months before the 2026 assembly election, Mamata has found the perfect weapon: a two-letter word that proves “Delhi will never understand Bengal’s soul.”
Modi won’t apologise; he never does for things like this. Mamata won’t let it die; she’s already booked the next fifty rallies around it. So here we are. One warm, harmless “da” from the Prime Minister has become the battle cry of an entire state. Only in India can a suffix start a civil war and boost rosogolla sales at the same time.
Pass the mishti, this show is just getting started.
Sources:
- The Hindu
- The Economic Times
- Times of India (Kolkata)
- NDTV
- India Today
- Rediff News
- Press Trust of India (PTI)
- Business Standard
- Deccan Chronicle
