FOR
Swapan Dasgupta
Columnist, television commentator, member of the BJP National Executive, former Rajya Sabha MP
I missed out on the AI summit that is happening in Delhi to attend this debate. It is not that India is in the leadership role of AI, but one of the reasons why this summit is being held in Delhi is to familiarise people in India with the opportunities and threats being posed by this huge scientific disruption. Now I come to Bengal and I look at the headlines. The preoccupation here is whether someone was called Bankim babu or Bankim da... whether it should have been Thakur Ramakrishna or Swami Ramakrishna.
It suggests how much we have reduced our mental horizons. It has gone down exponentially from what we were. Status quo does not mean nothing has moved, but the pace of our movement is inadequate to keep up with the pace of change.
Let me give an example of what Bengal has deemed to be its priorities. We just heard in the budget that science and technology was given an outlay of ₹82.3 crore. Technical education and skill development was given ₹1,464 crore. But these were completely overwhelmed by what Bengal thinks is a priority. Minority affairs and madrasa education was given ₹5,713 crore. There is AI on one hand, there is madrasa education on the other hand.
Over the past 15 years, some 6,668 companies have moved out of the state because you refuse to move ahead with the times. You are still stuck in some distant and some elusive notion of progressivism, which is actually the epitome of everything that is reactionary.
FOR THE MOTION: Swapan Dasgupta, Jisnu Basu
AGAINST
Sugata Bose
Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs at Harvard University
The status quo, meaning status in the connotation of prestige. What has given Bengal prestige on the world stage was established by none other than Sri Ramakrishna in the late 19th century. Of course, he was preceded by Raja Rammohan Roy, who taught us the science of religion. But it was Sri Ramakrishna who taught us the art of god-realisation.
Through his experiences in the beliefs and practices of different religions, he came to the conclusion that every religion is true. He did not say there’s truth in every religion. And that is what struck a deep chord in the Bengali heart.
In 1929, when the Congress was adopting the resolution of Purna Swaraj, Subhas Chandra Bose put forth his stirring call of Purna Samyabad. Ten years later, the poet and the patriarch came together in this great metropolis. If you see the photographs of that wonderful occasion, you will see Rabindranath and Subhas Chandra sitting on two chairs, Sarat Chandra Bose in the middle seated on the floor, and behind them are Humayun Kabir, Ashrafuddin Ahmad Chowdhury.... We need to follow that status quo, an unswerving commitment to equality and unity.
We already figured out the motives of the proponent of this motion. They want you to acquiesce in a change for the worse. We cannot allow Bengal to be turned into a UP with its bulldozer injustice. We cannot allow Bengal to be turned into an Assam whose chief minister spouts venom every day. He engages in hate speech every day and even more hateful actions. Bengal must remain true to its own heritage.
You cannot support this motion on this sacred day: Ekushe February.
FOR
Jisnu Basu
Veteran RSS worker and faculty member at Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics
West Bengal was constituted to provide a safe place to Hindu Bengalis. In 1947, when the inclusion of Bengal in Pakistan was almost certain, Bengali stalwarts like Professor Meghnath Saha, Sir Jadunath Sarkar, under the leadership of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, they initiated the movement to have a safe place for Bengali Hindus. On June 20, 1947, West Bengal was constituted and Bengali Hindus got a safe place inside the dominion of India.
So, unmaking of West Bengal is actually erasing the last refuge of Bengali Hindus from the subcontinent.
This is not merely ethnic cleansing of Bengali Hindus, this is actually the unmaking of a complete civilisation.
We sent Atish Dipankar and his voice was heard by half of the literate people of the world in his time. We composed Charyacharya Vinishchay. That was Bengal. Unmaking West Bengal is actually erasing this civilisation from history.
Even after Partition, West Bengal was a wealthy, industrially developed and agriculturally rich land. We had a maximum number of artisan clusters.
We had a considerably good number of naturally grown rural industrial clusters. But, what is the present situation? Due to the populist dole politics, these industrial clusters are increasingly suffering from shortage of direct labourers, the skilled and unskilled labourers, leading to gradual extinction.
AGAINST
Abhirup Sarkar
Economist
In 1947, just after Independence, Bengal was an industrial leader, only second to Bombay, which included at that time both Maharashtra and Gujarat. At the same time, agriculture was very weak, stagnant. In 2024-25, West Bengal is lagging in industrial output behind six other states, including Maharashtra and Gujarat. I am quoting all my figures from the RBI website.
One report came out just yesterday or day before, handbook on Indian states. Bengal, in terms of industrial output, is seventh. This is a reversal, of course.
On the other hand, Bengal is the largest producer of agricultural goods. We are self sufficient. Our production is greater than the agriculture production of Punjab and Haryana, taken together.
By status quo, I will mostly mean political status quo. Of course, political power has not changed much in Bengal.
Since 1977, there has been one single change. But what about Gujarat? There has not been any change in Gujarat since 2002. So that is also a status quo. But there has not been much reversal.
On the other hand, if you look at Tamil Nadu or Rajasthan... In Rajasthan, during 2000 to 2025, in each election the incumbent was voted out. In Tamil Nadu, in just only one occasion the incumbent could retain its power. There has been a reversal in Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu has emerged as a major industrial state, but not much change in Rajasthan. So statistically there is no correlation between status quo and reversal.
If you look at the overall GDP, Bengal is not doing that bad. There is always a trade-off between growth and development. The previous government as well as the present government has prioritised distribution over growth.
So if you could forget about distribution, we could increase growth. But that is a conscious policy choice which has been constantly supported by the people of Bengal, and I think that has earned a lot of legitimacy.
FOR
Sambit Patra
BJP MP from Puri
The Supreme Court on Friday pronounced that February 28 has to be the date when the Election Commission of India has to come out with the final electoral rolls.
The Election Commission said it was 95% ready, and 5% will come as supplementary rolls.
The Supreme Court said, ‘go ahead’. Mamata Banerjee objected. Kapil Sibal, on behalf of the government, said ‘on the streets, there will be a law-and-order situation’. Why? Release of electoral rolls will lead to a law-and-order situation on the streets. If this is not the unmaking of Bengal, what is?
Let me come to demographic unmaking. Why all this is happening... All this is happening because of one reason. They want to change the demography of Bengal. We may debate, we may discuss. But remember, either way, we are bound to be doomed if the demography changes. What has not been done for that?
The Border Security Forces, multiple letters were written to the West Bengal government, ‘please provide us with land. We want to fence and protect Bengal’. But the Bengal government refuses to give land. Finally, the court has to step in.
Remember, surrender has suddenly been given a new name in the dictionary. That is secularism. Secularism can never be a one-way street.
Against
Saira Shah Halim
Social and peace activist, educator, theatre artiste
Let’s go to the meat of the matter. What is the next alternative? The thought police or you want lynchings outside the door, or probably someone to come and check in the fridge what you are eating for dinner.
I think that is not the alternative we are looking at. Would you want somebody to come and morally police you if you are celebrating Valentine’s Day? Or would you want someone to come and check what meat you are eating? Let me just audityour kitchen, let me just audit your fridge, maybe. No, sorry. That is not the Bengal we want.
The Bengal that I have seen and that I am proud of is an exemplar of unity, strength, brotherhood, peace and secularism. We did not invite rioters to West Bengal, whether it was the 1984 anti-Sikh riots or whether it was the 2002 pogrom of Gujarat. The factories we were trying to build here in Bengal were gifted by Mr Narendra Modi to Gujarat.
The Left did its best, whatever it could, to invite industries, to build the skyscrapers that you see, the land reforms, we ensured that every child is given an education. So what if he doesn’t own a start-up? At least he can be a think tank for tomorrow’s future. West Bengal has equally been the land of Tagore and Nazrul, and today we have that emblem of secularism,peace and amity.
For
Samik Bhattacharya
Bengal BJP president and Rajya Sabha MP
We are used to hearing a slogan: Chai na Modi’r bullet car/Mamata di ar ekbar (We do not need bullet train/we want Mamata once again).
The bullet train is a vehicle of progress and prosperity, and Mamata di of stagnation.
So much debate is raging in Bengal on what people will wear, what they will eat. What is the present scenario? We are importing a huge amount of fish from outside. We are not self-sufficient in paddy or fish.
We procure from Bihar, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh to meet our demand for fish.
The moment the government came to power in 2011, they declared they will not acquire a single square foot of land. Without a comprehensive land policy, it is impossible to lure investors.
Flight of capital is everywhere... exodus of labour. Entire West Bengal is an old-age home. In Bangalore, Bengali is the second-most spoken language. We have been facing a silent demographic invasion since the mid-80s. It is an international conspiracy. There isno enmity with Indian Muslims.
Unfortunately, the so-called secular and progressive people do not remember that even liberal Muslims are being killed in Bangladesh now. The question is radicalisation.
Bengali Muslims have to decide who they want to associate with, S. Wajid Ali, Syed Mustafa Siraj, Syed Mujtaba Ali, APJ Abdul Kalam, Kazi Nazrul Islam or Afzal Guru?
Against
Jaideep Gupta
Senior advocate, Supreme Court
Under our law, it is the Election Commission that is the final authority in deciding the electoral rolls. And because of what the Supreme Court has stated to be a trust deficit between the state of West Bengal and the Election Commission, he (the court) is compelled to use an extraordinary power which deprives the Election Commission the power to decide what will be the electoral roll. It is an unfortunate situation on both sides, no doubt, but it is not something which can be put at the doorstep of one of the sides.
The issue in question is not the present condition of Bengal. The issue in question is whether status quo is responsible for the present condition.
Has there been a status quo as long as the political movements of the state is concerned? The answer is no. The mother of all Indian political movements, the Independence struggle, was germinated here. It ended only with the departureof the British from India. It was a pioneering change which led to the collapse of the colonial order across the world. The next change was the Congress era of 1947-1977... Communist era (1977 to 2011)... Then, in 2011, the very word is ‘pariborton’, change. The overthrow of communism in West Bengal. Consequences? We are too close to that event to be able to judge.
Of course, my learned friends across the floor have judged it. You may judge it. Because you have to decide who to elect next time.
But you are now being asked to go for another pariborton. Now, a pariborton which will take Bengal back 1,000 years to a civilisation somewhat different to what Bengalis are used to. But you may decide to do it. Because you believe in change. You are not status quoists.