“I don’t have to answer any questions from you!” The confident shout came from Derek O’Brien. It was aimed at Prasenjit Bose, a former leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) from Delhi. O’Brien and Bose were representing their respective
parties at the Town Hall debate a few days before voting began for the 2011 state elections in West Bengal. The debate, organised by this newspaper and a national TV channel, had been occasionally illuminating but raucous throughout. Moderated by Rajdeep Sardesai, the format included the arguments between Bose and O’Brien as well as questions to both sides by a few journalists and participants from the public. Alluding to all the acrimony and shouting, Manini Chatterjee, a senior journalist, had made a telling point: it was high time both the CPI(M) and the Trinamool Congress began to develop a more civil, less vicious, culture of political competition for the sake
of the people of West Bengal — it was what democracy desperately needed. My own report of the debate concluded by saying that O’Brien had probably
a few weeks left before he found himself in government, a position in which
he would no longer be able to refuse questions from the CPI(M), others in the Opposition, and the public in general.

Fifteen years later, we can see that the mounting pile of questions unanswered by the TMC added weight and weaponry to the multi-pronged assault carried out by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the course of the elections in West Bengal. In 2011, far from reducing the viciousness or creating an atmosphere of civility, the first actions taken by the TMC were towards completely uprooting the CPI(M) and trying to make Bengal a Baamfront-mukta state. Soon after Mamata Banerjee and her former lieutenants like Suvendu Adhikari came to power, CPI(M) party offices were systematically destroyed in small towns and villages, with local communist leaders driven out of their homes.

Shortly after the TMC took office, we in Bengal understood that we
had entered an era of what the Greek politician, Yanis Varoufakis, calls “incompetent authoritarianism”. To be clear, the incompetence lies not in the ceaseless efforts towards establishing authoritarian control but in the pretended, sensationalist or flailing attempts at governance conducted by wannabe despots. Even as we watched the mini-monster of quasi-fascism establish itself in this state, the real horror of our time rose from behind and towered over our local bonsai-dictatorship: almost exactly three years after Ms Banerjee came to power, the Narendra Modi regime took oath in New Delhi, giving us the mother of all incompetent authoritarianisms.

When historians look back at this period, they will no doubt note that 13 of the 15 years of TMC rule saw parallel competitions between Banerjee’s personality cult and Modi’s and between the TMC’s metronomic incompetence and the BJP’s monumental, nation-wide ineptitude. No doubt this will be recognised as the double-whammy, the double-engine, one steaming in one direction, the other in the opposite direction, that tore apart the Bengal train in a way perhaps unmatched by any other state in India.

In 2011, after 34 years of Left rule, what the state desperately needed was a clean, democratic environment, a revamp of education and health services on a war-footing, an administration that was corruption-free at every level, from village and zilla to the Writers’ Building; what the people of Bengal needed was employment and a radical, indigenous approach to economic well-being that went hand in hand with stemming the environmental collapse. Instead, what we got was CPI(M) reprise, except stronger and nastier. Instead of the poriborton promised by Banerjee, what the TMC did was to continue the CPI(M)’s policies and attitudes under different colours: if the CPI(M) took 15%, TMC goons would take 25%-30% or, as sting videos showed, sometimes even more; if the CPI(M) had a brusque and muscular way with dissent, the TMC was even more brutally violent.

Yes, the cash transfer schemes aimed at women with low income were successful to some degree; there was some work done on rural infrastructure; in Calcutta, there were some cosmetic improvements and the traffic undeniably flowed better than earlier. Aside from this, what does the TMC have to show for its 15 years of rule? In whichever states it has come to power, the BJP is notorious for dismantling quality schemes previous governments might have established even as it renames
some others and takes credit for them. Here, in Bengal, the Banerjee government leaves behind very little the BJP can dismantle; the only good thing Hindutva Inc. can destroy is the absence of communal division and religion-triggered strife.

‘Bangla’r kopal kharap’ (Bengal’s luck is bad). It’s an old phrase that you hear from time to time. Recently, one has heard it being used a lot. The fact is there is a tragic and ugly genealogy that runs through politics in West Bengal and it shows no sign of disappearing: 50-odd years ago, the former chief minister, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, had thought it was a good idea to counter Naxalism and the mainstream Left parties with thugs embedded in the Congress Party; post-Emergency, this thuggery and violence found a reaction when the Left Front came to power in 1977, leading to the long years of Left rule backed by the ‘Boys Club’ network across Bengal; the CPI(M) and its allies lost power when the harmad gangs went over to the TMC in 2011. We are now witnessing another change of regime, and it remains to be seen whether the shape-shifting fourth generation of political thugs — can one call it ‘The Bengal Model?’ — survive and thrive under this new government.

As I heard someone on the street say the other day: “Tumi chhoto goonda chhiley. Boro goondara eshe, thappor merey tomakey shoriye diyechhey. Ebaar kaandtey thhako” (You were a small-time goon, bigger gangsters have come in, slapped you and thrown you out. Now keep crying). Whether it’s the same goondas becoming turncoats or bigger thugs ousting smaller ones or, indeed, some other phenomenon, Bengal’s larger needs remain the same as they were in May 2011: freedom from violence and corruption, maintenance of communal harmony, and peace, employment and economic growth without further cost to the already fragile environment, a different, happier culture as a base for a society trying to tackle these extremely challenging times.

Even as it reaches for its limited and well-thumbed playbooks, the BJP power network should remember that resentment against a long-incumbent party is a booster rocket, crucial for lift-off but only that — having delivered the replacing government to power, it falls off pretty quickly. This new Bengal may no longer match the stereotype of a robustly secular, free-thinking, fair-minded, justice-loving, culture-immersed society but from time to time, this soil has a tendency of injecting its people with
intelligent impatience and sudden abreaction to political sleight of hand and false promises.