Why BJP will dent Mamata’s citadel
Trinamool’s secular politics may not be enough. To think Bengalis are tolerant by birth is a myth
With the rise of a power determined to expand its control throughout India, other powers based on local apparatuses of rule now face the Shakespearean dilemma: To resist or not to resist. With this will be linked the destiny of the all-important issue, namely, how to survive and live on, that is to be or not to be.
This dilemma is not new. Consider the trajectory of imperial power from the middle ages. The empire ruled from Delhi or Agra, and demanded submission from the rulers of the fur-flung regions. Either these kingdoms would be eaten up by the empire, or they would become fiefs. At times these kingdoms would form alliances and set up new emperors, who they thought would be obedient to them. But the pattern would return. This pattern supposedly ended with the introduction of constitutional rule in India.
However during Indira Gandhi’s rule this pattern re-emerged, and now has revived with a vengeance. Once again, West Bengal, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Karnataka, and Kerala, are worried: How to face this aggres- sive power? How to form once more an alliance and confront the new empire? Is the way out one of playing with this new power, avoiding, evading, humouring, coaxing or cajoling? The choice is not clear. Most prefer to bypass or lie low, only at times resisting when they think that the core interests are being hurt.
One reason for this vacillation is that the social basis on which local power rests is now weak. Aggression has unsettled the hitherto settled caste, class, and other alliances on which the local power rested. Globalisation has produced new middle classes. There is an urban turn in political mobilisations. And these two factors now find reflections in new Hindu mobilisations. New capital, religious bigotry, conservatism, a State bent upon coming down on any protest forgetting that compassion is an essential part of governing, now happily co-exist. Market liberalism in economy and orthodoxy in politics and administration can now operate together. This had happened in other countries. There is no reason to think that it can’t happen here.
Soft communalism is on the rise here, particularly in parts where we still do not witness the depredations of the vigilante squads. New money is its basis. Rent and extraction of resources are the roots of this new wealth. States do not want to tackle the so-called soft menace firmly lest it should antagonise Delhi. In West Bengal, the old syncretic culture is under attack and all that made a region based on the interface of particular languages, religions, castes, and other com- munities are now asked to be standardised into a Hindi-Hindu polity. To create a riot and polarise the populace along a single divide it will require only a deliberately engineered breakdown of administrative power supported by a determined push by the bigots.
The Muzaffarnagar riot of 2013 is a model for the aggressive general power today. In this case soft communalism and passivity of the state took only days to develop into a riot. Such riot-like situations have recurred in West Bengal in the last few years. While the TMC has reacted with alacrity in several of these cases, these incidents show that the powder is being readied dry for later.
Kolkata had seen one of the worst communal massacres in the country in the 20th century. The middle classes had witnessed silently the Great Calcutta Riots of 1946, the riot of 1964 and killings of youth in early 1970s. Hence to think that Bengalis are syncretic and tolerant by birth is a myth that the liberal educated Bengalis love to hold as true. The upper caste educated Bengalis are mostly anti-Dalit and think reservation is the root cause of decline of education in Bengal, and that the disorderly conduct of the lower classes is the cause of the nemesis of the state.
Many TMC followers joined the recent Ram Navami processions and Hanuman Jayanti with gusto, thinking they were taking the wind out of the sail of the religious Right. On the other hand those brandishing weapons in festivals have got scot free, and are now emboldened.
The Congress also used to justify such conduct as a means to stem communalism. But they could not protect secularism. The Congress rule over India in 1992 in this way facilitated the demolition of the Babri Masjid. There is no reason to think that such fate will not overtake the regional parties.
The writing is on the wall is clear: Whatever tactics the local powers may adopt, they have their tasks clearly cut out. The administration must be geared up to prevent any attack on secularism and the syncretic or tolerant culture of the state/s they rule, and mobilise the masses for this political task.
For both these tasks the popular governments in the states have to pull their acts together. Otherwise they will be swamped by a conservative Right. Their pro-people policies will be of no avail.