Bloodshed in Bengal

Violence has become a tragic fixture of state politics

Political violence in West Bengal is not new. It has been a feature of public life in the state since the 1970s, when Naxalite extremism and the security forces’ merciless response hardened sensitivities in the state. Since then, successive ruling parties — not just the Trinamool, but also the Congress and particularly the Left Front — have made political violence central to their control of the state. “Poriborton” 10 years ago, in which the Left was voted out decisively in favour of the Trinamool, was accompanied by a wave of blood-letting that lasts months if not years. In much of the rest of the country, elections are far more peaceful than they were three or four decades ago. In West Bengal, only marginally so. This election is no exception; its fourth phase saw half a dozen or so deaths, including four people by central armed police in the Sitalkuchi Assembly constituency.

The Sitalkuchi deaths have been seized upon by the two competing parties, the Trinamool and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to further deepen polarisation in the state. The four dead were poor Muslims, reportedly labourers. The BJP, in the person of the local party chief, has thus chosen to use their fate as an example, warning that other “naughty boys” would receive a similar fate. Any police firing in which a citizen dies is a tragedy; no responsible political party should be threatening anyone with a repetition of such an incident. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, meanwhile, her back against the wall, has doubled down on her criticism of central forces, which feeds not so subtly into the Trinamool’s broader attempt to paint this election campaign as being one in which West Bengal must reject “outsiders”. Reports that the Sitalkuchi violence was sparked by the central forces beating up a teenager who did not understand their questions in Hindi will only have amplified the reach of Ms Banerjee’s argument.

By stretching out the polls over so very many phases, the authorities no doubt hoped to minimise election-related violence. And, certainly, it is possible that this assembly election will wind up with fewer deaths than in many previous ones in West Bengal. But the problem of political violence in the state will not be solved so easily. The transfer of power between the Left and the Trinamool did not end it, and there is no reason to suppose — given that the BJP has picked up cadre from the Left and Trinamool wholesale — that it will be any different if the BJP comes to power. Political violence is the consequence of a hollowed-out state — in which party power and partisan affiliation determine access to entitlements and authority, and not constitutional frameworks. For the past decades, the hierarchy of whichever party is ruling West Bengal has effectively superseded the institutional framework of the state. Everything — from police to local officials to teachers — is expected to be beholden to the ruling party — an expectation that can be enforced brutally.

It is this mindset that must change. But which party can be expected to come to power in West Bengal and, as its first act, choose to moderate its own control over the state’s administration, economy and society? Certainly neither of the two aspirants on offer in this assembly election is likely to do so. It will be sad if in the absence of clear political will, violence remains a tragic fixture of West Bengal politics.