Pratim Ranjan Bose
Over the last half a century,
particularly since economic liberalization in 1991, India has changed a lot.
Chennai is now an auto-hub. Hyderabad
is an IT city. Odisha and Chhattisgarh are top destinations for industrial
investments. Sikkim is riding on the pharma boom. Extremism is replaced by
peace and prosperity in Guwahati, in the North-East.
Only one major Indian State, West Bengal, remained out of this loop. Kolkata - which was the headquarters of majority index stocks, at Bombay Stock Exchange, till 1980’s - now barely has quality corporate jobs.
While the age-mix is falling in other
Indian metroes; Kolkata is ageing. It has the largest pool of senior citizens
and the lowest share of 20 plus – a clear indication that the young and
aspiring are giving the city a miss.
A major and definite reason behind this stagnation is the politics of isolation and conflict, introduced by the Left (1977-2011) and pursued with greater vengeance by the ruling Trinamool Congress of Mamata Banerjee (since 2011).
Jyoti Basu (1977-2000) government
denied space to centrally-funded residential schools (Navodaya Vidyalaya) for
the meritorious. Mamata rejected access of the poor and farmers to central
welfare schemes.
Apologists argue that the regional
nature of both Left and Trinamool prompted them to guard their territories. But
that’s a half truth.
Regional politics was strong between
1977 and 2014 and still rules Odisha, Telengana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu
etc. None made it a religion to oppose the federal government at every single step.
This shouldn’t and didn’t benefit
Bengalis. But State governments survived decades through violent use of State
and/or party machinery to establish virtual one-party rule that limited
democratic options to voters.
Ideology has been a cover to
legitimize the illegitimate. There was a lame-duck opposition during
Left-rule. Mamata went one step ahead to make the State
‘Opposition-free’.
‘Political killing’ is commonplace.
Terms like ‘pre-poll violence’, ‘post-poll violence’ are Bengal’s gift to the
nation. Hundreds die before or after local body elections, where Opposition
fails to submit nomination in 30-40 percent seats.
"Mission Bengal"
The politics of territorial control
and conflict is now under threat from Narendra Modi’s nationalist BJP. For the
first time since the decline of Congress in 1977, a national party is knocking
the doors of power, in West Bengal.
From barely two Parliamentary seats
in the 2014 General Election; BJP upped their stake to 18 seats (out of 42) in
2019 and is now aspiring to overthrow Mamata from power, in the 2021 Assembly
election.
Considering the 34-year Left rule and
BJP’s past weakness in the State (got the first member in legislative assembly
in a 2014 by-election) since inception in 1980; this is a major development.
Journalist Snigdhendu Bhattacharya’s
“Mission Bengal: A Saffron experiment”, published by HarperCollins is an
attempt to chronicle this juncture of history. As the first such work on the
block, it deserves discussion.
The book is basically a diary of events,
offering blow-by-blow account of the moves and counter-moves by Trinamool and
BJP, in the run up of the dramatic change in political scenario, particularly
since Trinamool’s emphatic win in the 2016 Assembly election.
Among the negatives, it offers mundane
details of the local BJP leadership, none of whom are capable enough to
generate a swing that is essential to script a victory. It was Modi versus Didi
(as Mamata is known) in 2019 and would remain so in 2021.
Having said that the book offers
important details on the deep inroads of RSS – the mother organization of BJP –
in West Bengal and the opportunistic politics of Mamata who was a coalition
partner of BJP till 2007.
Oppressive and undemocratic practices
pursued by Trinamool, particularly to win the 2018 rural body election and;
rising religious divide, as evident in the series of communal riots that the
State had witnessed in the recent past – are identified as major fault lines.
Religious divide
The issue of communal divide is
important.
West Bengal has 28 percent Muslim
population, third largest after Jammu and Kashmir and Assam. In the past, these
votes didn’t follow any strategic pattern. But the trend started changing since
1990’s and ended up playing a crucial role behind the rise of Mamata Banerjee
to power.
Nationally, the communal divide has
been rising since the 1980's due to three primary reasons. (1) The wave of
Islamic brotherhood , coinciding Soviet-Afghan war (1979-89).
(2) Rajiv Gandhi government’s
ill-conceived decision to yield to the Islamic resistance to the Supreme Court
verdict against the practice of Triple Talaq, in 1985, leading to consolidation
of Hindu sentiments. (3) The demolition of Babri Mosque in 1992.
In West Bengal this period coincided
with rampant illegal immigration of Muslims from Bangladesh (formerly East
Pakistan), which was parallel to migration of Hindu refugees to India in the face of
religious-social oppression.
Unlike the Western border, where the
flow of refugees more or less stopped in two years from the Partition in 1947;
the flow of Hindus from East Pakistan and then Bangladesh never stopped.
The India government stopped keeping
count of refugees from East Pakistan beginning 1958 and didn't recognize any such
entry following the birth of Bangladesh in 1972. However, Hindus continued to
face discrimination in Bangladesh, particularly during the Army rule (1975-1990)
and the first BNP rule (1991-1996).
In the absence of any official
recognition, Hindu refugees from Bangladesh quietly slipped in India. In the
eyes of the law, their entry was as much illegal as that of the poor Muslims
entering the country for better work opportunities.
Snigdhendu proves that immigration of
Muslims was way larger than Hindus in the early 1990’s and the political
administration was active in making them voters of the country through the
backdoor.
This was also the time when Left’s
traditional support base was waning due to long stay in power. in 1984, Mamata
Banerjee won from Hindu refugee dominated Jadavpur Parliamentary constituency,
once considered a bastion of Left.
The communists focused their
attention on Muslims, who started showing signs of voting in a block,
creating ground for today’s trouble.
In another decade, Islamists will riot on
the streets of Kolkata demanding the scalp of the exiled Bangladeshi writer
Taslima Nasrin, who was then staying in the city. In a few more years, this vote would move to Trinamool inviting the fall of the Left.
In 2013, when Dhaka was witnessing a
popular protest demanding capital punishment to prominent pro-Pakistani
Liberation War criminals; Islamists in Kolkata were demanding the scalp of the
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The anguish of the majority was
rising. But there was no redressal to it in the absence of political resistance
by the existing players - Left and Congress. It was at this juncture BJP
entered the scene and got a record 17 percent votes – nearly three-fold rise
from the previous average - in 2014.
It was time Mamata should have
realized her mistakes. But she didn’t (as was epitomized by her 2019 statement
- “the cow that gives milk, must not be wronged for throwing a few kicks” -
with regard to allegations of appeasement politics) Riots followed in greater
numbers. Snigdhendu did a great job in chronicling such incidents.
BJP didn’t miss this opportunity. The
Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (CAA) proposed to grant automatic citizenship
to Hindu (and other minorities) who entered India till 2014. This has also
mitigated the concerns of Hindus over the anticipated updation of the
citizenship roll.
End of ‘Banglar Gorbo’?
Will BJP win the 2021 election in
Bengal?
The book remained tentative. This is
partly due to BJP’s organizational weaknesses in the State, and the Muslim vote
riddle. The loss of BJP in three assembly by-elections in 2019, added to the
lack of confidence.
The entry of high-profile election
strategist Prashant Kishore or PK in the scene to support Trinamool’s cause
further rattled the confidence of the author.
None of these, however, indicate
recovery in Mamata’s popularity. By-elections are never the right indicator of
the overall political mood. BJP lost important byelections in UP before
sweeping the Parliamentary election in 2019.
In all fairness, Mamata and her
strategist probably wants to create a perception of popularity to check the
slide. But they themselves are not confident about the outcome as was evident
in the postponement of urban body elections even before the COVID struck in
March 2020.
Social media campaigns to project
Mamata as the numero uno of Bengal politics fell flat on their face. The
‘Banglar Gorbo’ (pride of Bengal) campaign, launched during the pandemic,
became a butt of the joke on the internet and was evidently discontinued.
So what will happen to Mamata?
In my opinion, she is standing on a
very weak wicket and the situation is steadily slipping out of her hand.
Communal divide is just a part of the whole development. She is losing ground
before smart politics by BJP and governance failures.
Mamata knows it too well. At a
recent administrative meeting she complained that perhaps she did a bit too much for
North Bengal, so people took her granted. This was a clear admission of her
party’s weak fundamentals in the region.
BJP swept all seven Parliamentary
seats in North Bengal in 2019. The region has over 50 Assembly segments and as
things stand now, Trinamool’s seat-share may not reach double digit in North
Bengal in 2021.
The tribal and forested parts of West
Bengal bordering Jharkhand voted for BJP in 2019. Leave alone salvaging the
situation, Trinamool’s organization in the area is now collapsing. The party
strongman is on a collision course with Mamata.
Singur, in Hooghly district, in the
outskirts of Kolkata, played a crucial role in creating Mamata myth. BJP was
ahead in this assembly segment in 2019 Lok Sabha election and no one expected a
reversal of fortune in 2021.
So, what went wrong for her? Many
things. First and foremost, the all-pervasive corruption, and rent seeking by
the political administration even in the face of worst calamities did hurt
people.
During the pandemic, there have been
sporadic protests even in areas where BJP barely exists, against alleged
diversion of PDS foodgrain. The story was repeated over distribution of relief,
after cyclone Amphan that ravaged the Muslim dominated districts of North and
South 24 Parganas.
Add to this the high-handed attitude
that suppresses every dissent. During the ruthlessly one-sided rural body
election, BJP could put up some resistance in Purulia district. After the
election, BJP activists were found hanging dead in public places. Probably they
were celebrating success by committing suicide!
People are angry and they are taking BJP as an avenue to vent their frustration. Even a section of Muslims are participating in this trend. The CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey in 2019 indicated doubling of BJP’s minuscule Muslim vote share in Bengal since 2014.
The third point is political.
Mamata introduced identity politics in West Bengal, by garnering community
specific support. Some of them - like lower caste Hindu refugees and Muslims –
had traditional differences.
The gap was explored by Modi’s BJP
which excelled in consolidating Hindu votes, breaching all caste barriers
beginning 2014. If V P Singh was credited for disintegrating Hindu votes,
through the famed Mandal Commission report. Modi would be known for breaking those barriers open to
take BJP's popularity to historic high.
The expertise is now coming to use in
West Bengal. BJP garnered substantial support of Hindu refugees in 2019. With
CAA in place, the trend may consolidate in 2021.
A major attraction of BJP is its
freshness and unique positioning in Bengal politics vis-à-vis Trinamool, Left
and Congress. All three had a stay in power, have stake on the Muslim vote bank
and all cast aspersions on BJP as a Hindutva party.
This gives rise to the perception
that Left and/or Congress can join hands with Trinamool, if need be, to keep
BJP out of power. BJP uses this to cement its position as the only option for
every disgruntled voice that wants to replace Mamata.
And, there are too many such voices.
If some want an end to appeasement politics, some others want to take revenge
for the political atrocities or rent seeking and, then there are young voters,
who can no longer be fooled by this politics of isolation and jobs of civic
volunteers.
Young voters were Modi’s biggest bet
to come to power in Delhi in 2014 and they would be the prime movers of change,
in Bengal, in the 2021 Assembly election.
***
No comments:
Post a Comment