Change cannot be divorced from human agency. Only a very crude determinism attempts such a separation. The results of the elections to the West Bengal assembly are products of human thought and action. The Left Front has been voted out and Mamata Banerjee voted in because millions of people not only wanted it that way but also because they went to the polling booths to demonstrate their choice. The results are not the products of absentmindedness on the part of the voters, neither are they an accidental outcome of collective choice. The verdict is too overwhelming and comprehensive to be either. Quite apart from the victory of Mamata Banerjee, this historic election also represents a triumph of human will and agency. The point is important since for a better part of the past 34 years, a concerted attempt had been made by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to dominate human agency and to make human beings subservient to the diktats of the party and its cadre.

From the above generalizations two related questions follow. One, what made the people of West Bengal wait over three decades to assert their will and to overthrow the CPI(M)? And two, why did they choose Mamata Banerjee and her party, the Trinamul Congress, as their preferred instrument to show the Left the door? The second question is easier to answer than the first, so I will begin with that.

In spite of the overall dominance of the Left in West Bengal since 1977, voting figures show that a substantial body of electors in every election cast their ballots against the Left. This number hovered somewhere around 40 per cent of the total number of votes cast in each election. This suggests that over the years there existed in West Bengal a body of voters who were not happy with the way the Left ruled the state or were ideologically not inclined to support a political formation that was associated with some form of communism. The expectations of these voters could not get adequate representation because of the failures of the political party that since independence was the only force opposed to the rise of communist power and influence in West Bengal, that is, the Indian National Congress.

The Congress in West Bengal from the 1980s had no important leader who could appeal and reach out to the people. The Congress national leadership was not too concerned about the plight of the West Bengal unit of the party. The one important figure within the Congress who came from the state was Pranab Mukherjee who, till the other day, could not win a Lok Sabha seat from West Bengal and when he finally did, it was because he had the support of the Left. The Congress in West Bengal had little or no credibility, and the perception was that many of the local leaders had made their own deals with the Left. Under these circumstances, one figure and one voice stood out.

The figure was that of a woman and the voice was shrill. Through many vicissitudes of fortune Mamata Banerjee refused to compromise with the Left. She was relentless in her opposition to Left rule in West Bengal even when this meant that she was in a hopeless minority or even when many people suspected her motives and criticized her behaviour. Even her enemies and her critics were forced to recognize her as the sole spokesman of anti-Left opinion in West Bengal. The bhadralok, for reasons of class and gender, took their time to accept this, but they had no other option. This is one of the reasons for her growing popularity. But the significance of this factor should not lead to an underestimation of her skills as a politician, her uncanny ability to stay with the people and to feel their mood, her nerves as a negotiator and so on. She was not born with charisma but she acquired it through her hard work or, it could be said, she had charisma thrust upon her.

It is an old philosophical premise that no identity can be affirmed without its Other. Following from this, it could be said that Mamata Banerjee’s identity as the sole spokesman would not have been possible without the powerful existence of the Left. Last Sunday, a veteran and committed supporter of the CPI(M) told me, “The greatest achievement of the Left Front in West Bengal is the making of Mamata Banerjee.” There was irony and bitterness in the statement but it is difficult to imagine Mamata Banerjee and her present status without the existence of her arch adversary, the CPI(M).

The upsurge of popular discontent against the Left of which this election results are a manifestation must be seen for the purpose of analysis at two distinct but related levels. One is at the level of trends — something traceable over a period of time; and the other is, events — incidents that aggravated the trend of decline. The dominance of the Left, especially that of the CPI(M), was articulated through two instruments — control and terror. The CPI(M) tried to control every sphere of life in West Bengal by using the power of the State, by making every single institution (bureaucracy, educational establishments, hospitals, panchayats, municipal bodies, unions, the local clubs and so on) subservient to the party. Where the attempts failed or were resisted, the CPI(M) used terror through its cadre. This created discontent which was muted or even suppressed. This use of terror, not unexpected from a Stalinist party, was the hallmark of the Left’s tenure in West Bengal and this will be the remembrance mark of the Left despite its many much-flaunted achievements.

At the level of events, the most crucial episode was the violence in Nandigram in 2007 where the CPI(M), in an act of revenge and retaliation, unleashed a reign of terror. The party wanted to regain lost turf and it used armed cadre and the state police to achieve its ends. Many of the victims of this violence were poor peasants and farmers who had at one time supported the Left and had then felt threatened by the government’s policy of land acquisition. The violence produced shock and dismay, especially among the intelligentsia, most of whom had since 1977 been advocates of Left rule. The intelligentsia and members of civil society came out in protest against the government’s and the CPI(M)’s shameless use of force and terror. This was a turning point. The people of West Bengal began to realize that it was possible and necessary to stand up against the Left’s arrogance and misrule. It was the beginning of the end.

It was almost natural that this rising anger of the people would look for a political face and find it in Mamata Banerjee who had been fighting the CPI(M)’s arrogance and use of force for over a decade. There was a coming together of this popular anger and Mamata’s image as the sole spokesman of anti-Left opinion and politics in West Bengal. Mamata’s charisma is grounded in this merger. Mamata Banerjee’s particular purpose comprehended the substantial content of the people’s anger and desire for change. They flocked to her banner. She became the instrument of their agency.

Any change has embedded in it an element of uncertainty. Mamata Banerjee’s endeavour to refashion the present history of West Bengal cannot escape its historical context. She will inevitably feel the dead hand of the past. As the chief minister, she will be expected to exercise choice without fear or prejudice. Will she be able to do that? The cynics will say, the more things change, the more they remain the same. The optimists will respond with the words of the poet, “There is only the fight to recover what has been lost... there is only the trying.” West Bengal waits, caught in the cusp of history.