Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday invoked one of the most iconic lines in Indian cinema – Ritwik Ghatak’s ‘dada ami bachte chai” (Dada, I want to live) from Meghe Dhaka Tara – to frame his political narrative in West Bengal. The line, delivered by the tragic character Neeta in the 1960 classic, has long symbolized the pain and survival struggles of Partition refugees.
Modi used the phrase in his speech to suggest that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) represents the survival instinct of Bengal itself. “ami bachte chai BJP tai” (I want to live so I want BJP) he declared, echoing Neeta’s desperate cry, and linked it to the plight of those who fled East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, during Partition.
Political commentators immediately noted the weight of the choice. Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara is not just a film but a social document of uprooted lives, particularly refugees who lost everything in the division of Bengal. Neeta, played by Supriya Devi, sacrifices herself for her family only to collapse under the unbearable weight of exploitation and despair. Her final cry, “Dada, I want to live!” spoken to her brother Shankar, continues to resonate across generations as a universal expression of human suffering and resistance.
By placing himself in that emotional lineage, Modi signaled two things: his party’s identification with displaced Hindus who crossed into Bengal for survival, and his resolve to prevent a repeat of that displacement. In the same breath, however, he reaffirmed his hard line against what he termed “illegal infiltrators,” vowing to “drive them out of Bengal.”
The BJP’s opponents accused Modi of emotional manipulation. West Bengal Pradesh Congress spokesperson Soumya Aich Roy said the prime minister was “stealing the emotional history of Bengalis to capture power in the state.” He argued that while BJP tries to appropriate Ghatak’s imagery for political gain, the party simultaneously fuels hostility against Bengalis in other parts of India.
“Partition was not just a Hindu-Muslim divide; it was the trauma of millions,” Roy said. “To use Ghatak’s words in a campaign against so-called infiltrators is not only cynical, it is an insult to Bengal’s history.”
For the BJP, however, cultural symbols are proving to be powerful tools in the run-up to the 2026 state elections. Party sources suggest that Modi’s reference is part of a wider attempt to anchor its campaign in Bengal’s collective memory of displacement, survival, and identity.
The symbolism also arrives in a heated cultural moment. Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, known for The Kashmir Files, has announced his new film The Bengal Files, which he says will document Bengal’s political violence. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has signaled she may block its release in the state. Against that backdrop, Modi’s borrowing of Ghatak – one of Bengal’s most revered filmmakers, born in Rajshahi in undivided East Bengal – is being seen as a deliberate attempt to outmaneuver the Trinamool Congress by seizing the cultural high ground.
“Ghatak’s cinema is the greatest testament to the wounds of Partition,” said one political analyst in Kolkata. “By invoking him, Modi is telling Bengal: we, the BJP, are the true inheritors of your pain, and the guardians of your survival.”
For Bengal, however, the question remains: can a line that once captured the existential cry of refugees now be transformed into a political slogan? And will voters see it as empathy, or exploitation?
