And then there was one. As the clock ticks down to election day in West Bengal, even a heavy unseasonal downpour last week appeared to resonate with the only flavour of the season. It was a case of ‘Special Intensive Rainfall’, leaving everyone trying to get out of Calcutta airport, including myself, dripping wet.
The question remains — why is the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls much more of a story in West Bengal than the actual state of West Bengal itself? Why does watching the election coverage feel like being subjected to an episode of a long-running Bengali television series where so much seems to happen in every shot — extreme close-ups, shocked expressions, deafening background clangs — without anything actually happening at all?
It is trite that no one can be allowed to cheat their way to an election victory. It is for psephologists to determine whether the SIR actually does legitimise cheating at scale. That there is traction for such a view ought to lead to serious introspection at the Election Commission of India. This dim view of the Commission has taken root primarily because it has not conducted an SIR since 2002, raising everyone’s suspicions now that it is actually being done. To do so after two decades, and that too a few months before an election, is, in its most generous reading, an administrative miscalculation. What should have been a routine matter has now become ‘special’ in more ways than one. Irrespective of the fact that it has gone smoothly
in some other states, the EC ought to have anticipated that in Bengal, given its demography and its politics, the SIR was always going to be different. It, unfortunately, deserves the criticism that is now coming from the Supreme Court, including the prospect of large-scale repolls
if margins of victory are smaller than the population barred by the SIR from voting.
But logistical maintenance of electoral rolls could hardly have become the main poll plank if neither electoral bloc also saw value in it. And this is key — focusing on the SIR alone suits the ruling Trinamool Congress well. The Mamata Banerjee government’s key achievement over the last 15 years has been maintaining peace and harmony — in North Bengal, the border districts, and the tribal belt. These are not insignificant achievements. But beyond that, the facts are incontrovertible that the government has presided over Bengal missing the prosperity bus.
West Bengal’s share of national GDP has nearly halved, from over 10% in 1960 to its lowest ebb today. Total industrial output relative to other states in India has also halved. Manufacturing is yet to recover from three decades of Left-sponsored, officially sanctioned laziness. Any shoots of revival were stymied with Banerjee’s dharna against the Tata Nano factory in Singur. The result — no factory, no farm, just the ghostly framework of an unfinished and unused plant surrounded by lush, uncultivated paddy. This is a stark visual metaphor for a state that has somehow managed to get the worst of both worlds. Insufficient private capital and inadequate state capacity make for a wretched combination.
Sector by sector, the same story repeats itself. Jute production is in terminal decline, with thousands of workers facing unemployment. Without investment in advanced technologies, rice yield per hectare is lower than in other states. A majority of the income of farmers is from non-farm sources. At the urban end of the spectrum, Bengali IT professionals remain sought after, but very few of them reside in the state. Its share in the IT-BPM sector is negligible nationally. The Bengali film industry has shrunk in size over the last decade. There has also been a sharp drop in the number of Bengali films to have won the national award in the best-film category. High culture can no longer justifiably remain the last vestige of a waning state. Anyone who has watched Satyajit Ray’s Jalsaghar knows how miserably that plays out.
Given this governance record, the SIR is a convenient distraction that fundamentally changes the nature of the election. It allows the government to play victim, something that governments in Bengal have been adept at doing (sometimes, with justification) from the 1960s. Critically, it forecloses a referendum on the actual state of the economy of West Bengal.
But for the Bharatiya Janata Party to also see West Bengal primarily through the lens of illegal infiltration and the SIR as a way to resolve it, as noted by the political scientist,
Professor Maidul Islam, reveals a peculiarly alien outlook towards the state. The BJP has long been seen in Bengal as a party of the Hindi heartland. It has tried to offset that through its counter-narrative of Hindu unification, keeping out the illegal Muslim infiltrator from Bangladesh. This may make intuitive sense, but it has never really worked electorally in this state so far.
When the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh grew massively as a national organisation during the time before and after the Partition of India, its numbers swelled in Punjab amongst Hindu migrants but not equally in Bengal despite being in a similar situation. The Hindu Mahasabha grew briefly when it was power in undivided Bengal in the
1940s, only to fade away. Bonds between Bengali Hindus and Muslims, irrespective of where they lived, had been strong for generations. If Partition, large-scale displacement and loss of life did not
lead to consolidation of the Hindu vote, continuing to primarily focus on Hindu unification may be ideologically on point for the BJP but it is electorally questionable.
But in our us-versus-them universe, every issue must make for a compelling reel, every speech a viral video. A viral video on policy measures that need to be taken to revive manufacturing in Bengal? A reel on tax breaks for the IT sector?
A feel-good story about Muslim craftsmen who, for generations, have been making Durga’s hair for her idols? Not a patch in comparison to how Muslim infiltrators are altering the demographic of the state permanently by rapaciously grabbing jobs, welfare doles and innocent Hindu women. An enemy, an existential threat, and refuge in a unified Hindu identity is an election campaign built on top of a social media strategy. Likewise for the TMC — a bully, an outsider and a hapless Bengali victim who needs saving is a ready response. This is a perfect one-two act that makes for a tabloid-worthy, social media-friendly election, full of SIR sound and fury, but signifying very little.
In this frenzy, who wins and who loses? The answer became apparent as I went from the airport to the high court area for some work. I was met by a new excuse for why the work had not been done by the relevant department. Official, state-sponsored apathy is the way things are in the state. Talking primarily about the SIR and illegal infiltration papers over this effectively.
Outside the high court, I was met
by a well-dressed and well-spoken young man. “Do you want to buy a gift for poila boisakh?” he asked me politely. I asked what he had to offer. He took out
what looked like some cheap watches and offered them to me for 150 rupees a piece. He would make 15 rupees off each, he said. While political heavyweights fight about the SIR, unemployed graduates wander the streets of Calcutta selling Chinese watches in a desperate attempt to make ends meet. What Bengal does today, may no one else have to do
tomorrow.
Arghya Sengupta is Research Director, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. Views are personal