Bengal's degrees of separation

Losing the Plot: Political Isolation of West Bengal

Author: Sugato Hazra

Publisher: Niyogi Books

Pages: 428

Price: Rs 795

Even as Mamata Banerjee leads the Trinamool Congress to new pastures far beyond West Bengal, you ask yourself if the author’s somewhat gloomy assessment of the state’s place in Indian politics is justified. West Bengal will, willy-nilly, have a unique position of power in both federal and state politics in the coming days, becoming even more influential than it is at present. This is not to decry the well-researched and deeply thought-through analysis of the state’s position in India’s mind-space in the book — a comprehensive account of West Bengal’s political history tracing the changing leadership, ideologies, and discourse from the birth of modern ideas and nationalism in the state that eventually spread across the country.

The author presents a masterly account — though based largely on the work of historian R C Majumdar (though there has been extensive scholarship since) — of the early days of the independence movement, Gandhi’s differences not just with C R Das but also with Subhash Chandra Bose, the militant and ultra-militant streams in the independence movement and the role the division of Bengal had on politics. 

He describes what was, in a way, Bengal’s struggles with Gandhi’s steering of the freedom movement and the militant nationalists: The sharp differences on how Gopinath Saha, the man who attempted to assassinate notorious Calcutta police commissioner Charles Tegart and instead killed one Mr Day, an Englishman working in a merchant office, should be viewed. Saha was caught and after virtually no trial, was hanged in 1924. Endorsing militant nationalism for the first time, the Bengal Congress passed a resolution supporting Saha’s act, drawing a sharp and unambiguous riposte from Gandhi because “it was a travesty of non-violence”. It was murder, Gandhi argued. How could murder be conflated with patriotism? It was a tough question, but Gandhi was always throwing tough questions at everyone. What it did do, however, was put C R Das and the Swarajya-ists permanently in conflict with the Gandhi-leaning stream in the Congress.

There are other defining moments in Indian history when Bengal, well, just did it differently from the rest of India. In the election of 1946, during the regime of Huseyn Suhrawardy, the last chief minister of undivided Bengal, differences between Hindus and Muslims of Bengal were evident. The support for Congress, even in communally fraught times, was so strong that Syama Prasad Mukherjee lost the election from a suburban Calcutta constituency by a vast margin.

West Bengal, as it became after independence, lost more. In 1958, prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru transferred a part of Jalpaiguri district (only 4 km, but still) to Pakistan. A Congress government led by B C Roy was in power in the state. He overrode its objections, to the point where law minister Asoke Sen stayed away from cabinet meetings and Parliament that passed the agreement. Again, West Bengal was overruled.

Indira Gandhi’s signature action in West Bengal was military backing to the creation of Bangladesh. But politically, the state was in disarray. The 1972 election saw the Congress return to power for the last time in the state.

The book dwells at length on the Naxalbari agitation that put pressure on both the Congress and the Left, the debates in the Communist parties and also the apogee of the licence-quota raj that Congress leadership in the state reached, ultimately leading to its downfall. With both the Congress and the Left parties withering away, we’re now at a hybrid point of inflection: Where the Trinamool Congress has replaced both and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is knocking at the door. Analysing the 2021 Assembly election, Sugato Hazra says it was Ms Banerjee’s “Bangla tar nijer meyeke chay” (Bengal wants its own daughter) appeal that found profound resonance.

“In the final analysis, Mamata Banerjee’s personal popularity in heading the state was stronger than the visiting Modi-Shah duo who had a set narrative. The BJP could not sell its ambitious manifesto to the people who felt that the proverbial one bird in hand was better than the BJP’s promised two in the bush. And finally, the age-old antipathy of West Bengal towards the Hindi heartland narrative —an undercurrent that even Mahatma Gandhi had faced in his heydays —was too strong for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Politically West Bengal has opted for isolation from Hindi heartland politics, thereby holding aloft its distinct regional identity,” Mr Hazra writes.

Which brings us back to the original point: If it is regional identity Trinamool is selling (endorsed by West Bengal after the 2021 election) then how can it possibly gain a foothold in the rest of India?  Besides, the Trinamool is merely an aggregation of other political parties, mainly the Congress, replicating the same structures. What does it offer to a new-age politician?

Maybe the answer lies in the upcoming Lok Sabha election. Like last time, if the state votes for the BJP, the political isolation of the state — such as it is — might end. On the other hand, maybe, it is West Bengal that will lead the country’s search for a credible opposition. In which case, West Bengal is not isolated —not at all.