Nepal, May 8 -- In achieving its historic first foray in the last fortress of West Bengal, Bangladesh became the Bharatiya Janata Party's most potent political metaphor.

The collapse of Sheikh Hasina's government in August 2024 handed Narendra Modi's party precisely the external crisis it needed. Images of mobs attacking Hindu homes, vandalising temples and Islamist groups reoccupying public space in Bangladesh flooded Bengali television channels and WhatsApp networks.

West Bengal's media ecosystem, especially Bengali-language outlets sympathetic to the BJP, converted every episode of unrest across the border into a warning about Bengal's future.

The BJP understood something the Trinamool Congress probably did not. Bengal's politics ma...