Since the middle of the 20th century, politics in West Bengal has been driven by the ekla cholo re phenomenon. Bengali exceptionalism or the inclination to be contrarian has often drawn appreciation from the habitually discordant. At the same time, it has baffled those who prefer politics to run a predictable course.
Writing to a party colleague on the eve of Mahatma Gandhi’s Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930, Jawaharlal Nehru expressed his amazement at how things were shaping up in Bengal: “When everyone is thinking and talking of civil disobedience, in Calcutta people quarrel over the Municipal election.”
Some 96 years later, nothing appears to have changed. While the rest of India agonises over the disruptive consequences of Artificial Intelligence and even the war in West Asia, political life in West Bengal is pursuing its unique course. It is to the credit of the West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, that she has kept alive the hoary tradition of keeping the state’s attention firmly focused on doorstep issues — what used to be pejoratively described as parish pump concerns. While her admirers have viewed this assertion of regional distinctiveness as evidence of political savvy, her detractors fear that this separateness — often terribly contrived— is another way of triggering Bengali xenophobia.
How politics in the coming years will evolve in West Bengal is a subject best left to astrologers. What is clear, however, is that a combination of circumstances and Mamata Banerjee’s personality has made the forthcoming assembly election much more than a local exercise. That the chief minister’s flamboyance has added to the interest is undeniable. If she prevails for the fourth time, she will seek to establish her primacy in anti-Narendra Modi circles. If, on the other hand, anti-incumbency grips the popular imagination, she will most certainly attribute her loss to election fraud organised by the Centre in junction with the Election Commission of India. Either way, she has positioned herself to remain in the limelight.
The opinion polls — admittedly of uneven quality and authenticity — have so far suggested that the assembly poll will be a closely-contested affair between the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party. There are certain imponderables that could also influence the outcome: the extent to which Bengali-speaking Muslims support small sectarian outfits and the ability of the Left parties to retain their shrinking appeal among Hindu Bengalis. Additionally, the extent to which the extraordinary steps planned by the ECI succeeds in lessening the quantum of fraud and intimidation — quaintly called ‘election management’ in political circles — will be monitored with keen interest. If the rectification of the electoral rolls through the Special Intensive Revision does indeed erase dead, duplicate, non-resident and non-eligible voters from the rolls and establishes a level playing field, the dominance of the Trinamool Congress could well be challenged, even punctured.
There is, of course, an alternative scenario of voters choosing silently and without any outward show of preference. This happened in West Bengal in the Lok Sabha election of 1977, which led to the unexpected defeat of an overbearing Congress, and in the assembly election of 2011, which led to the Bengal equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall. If history is repeated, a new chapter in West Bengal politics will be initiated.
As of today, the script of Bengali exceptionalism that began with the end of Congress dominance in 1967 is still playing out. Under Jyoti Basu and the Left Front, a determination to pursue a horribly flawed economic strategy led to the complete collapse of West Bengal’s industrial and manufacturing sector. The inhospitable climate of militant trade unionism in urban areas subsequently led to the state missing out on the boom in the services sector. The Singur fiasco was the final nail on the coffin.
After Mamata Banerjee assumed charge in 2011, the script was tweaked. The rural sector was left to rot and the focus shifted to political control. Militant trade unionism was replaced by rampant corruption and extortion, the benefits of which were distributed to the grassroots. Mamata Banerjee’s political economy was based on creating multiple stakeholders who benefit from the so-called tola economy. These groups are alarmed at the prospect of a return to administrative rectitude and are the fiercest guardians of the status quo. The invocation of Bengali nationalism is a cover for the perpetuation of a quasi-criminal raj that doesn’t even stop at compromising national security. The much-acclaimed festival economy celebrated by non-resident Bengalis yearning for a few days of biryani and kebab rolls — witness the lofty international recognition accorded to the Durga Puja carnival — is akin to the gold fillings in a mouth of decay.
To this unconcern for anything that smells of wealth and employment creation, Mamata Banerjee has added crafty politics. The BJP bogey has successfully ensured that Muslims who make for nearly one-third of the population vote en masse for the Trinamool Congress. To this have been added the beneficiaries of handouts — the Rs 1,500 per month for women and a similar amount proposed for unemployed youth, all enrolled without a semblance of verification of their actual status. An intellectual gloss is provided by Mamata Banerjee’s conscious cultivation of patronage-hungry intellectuals and celebrities from the Bangla film and music world who attract crowds at election time. Like much else, the Bengali film industry has been strangled by a long spell of mafia control.
Unsettling this coalition of the frivolous and the corrupt and reverting to a culture of purposeful governance are undeniably daunting challenges. That the Trinamool Congress whiffs vulnerability is mainly due to a widespread recognition that exceptionalism has led to the truncation of opportunities and made Bengalis irrelevant in national life. To this is added the understated but real fear of demographic transformation and the blurring of lines between West Bengal and Bangladesh. This has prompted a large section of Hindu beneficiaries of the handout economy to repose their faith in the BJP.
Mamata Banerjee’s positing of Bengali pride against Hindu pride stems from a desire to persuade a sufficient minority of Hindus to vote against the BJP and supplement her core Muslim vote. It also explains the political rationale behind the vilification of outsiders.
For nearly 20 years after Independence, particularly during the tenure of Dr B.C. Roy as chief minister, West Bengal briefly overcame its desire to be contrarian and became central to the national project. The benefits of this association still resonate in the public imagination. Whether voters will seize another opportunity to emulate that legacy or find comfort in a diasporic future is the fundamental question of this election.