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The Left has a certain ideology, the Trinamool none. Even at blood donation camps, during the Left’s time, we would do it out of a sense of social service. Today you are lured with gifts, a mixer here, a grinder there, to donate blood.
‘You think when everything else has been tainted, politics would have spared Tollywood? A director today will cast an actor according to her or his politics.
Mamata stands for nothing, the BJP knows sooner or later she will fall. It is more concerned about finishing off what remains of the Left.
It is not just politics, Indranil tells me, even police have entered Tollywood. He was questioned by Kolkata Police for tweeting that a film starring Dev Adhikari has been copied from a Pakistani film.
statistical anomaly: underreporting the number of coronavirus deaths.
breakdown of the healthcare system in the state.
‘Shob Kendra’r dosh (The Centre is to be blamed for everything)’ is an old adage in the politics of Bengal, right from the Left Front’s time, and even before.
I was not entirely surprised by the lack of national interest about a “regional” emergency.
From 28 February to 1 March 2020, I attend the sixth India Ideas Conclave 2020 organized by the think-tank India Foundation, in Narmada, Gujarat. I was invited as a speaker by Ram Madhav, who was a member of the national executive of the RSS before he came to the BJP.There, several old-timers of the Sangh told me that at no point in India’s post-Independence history was the RSS away from Bengal.
state. ‘The Left never played caste politics openly. It spoke of class enemies – the haves versus the have-nots. But now the Right Wing has, in a sense, identified the compulsion of the Dalit to be part of a larger social structure, because no matter what the Left would have you believe, caste exists in Bengal. The Right Wing has its focus on Dalits and OBCs, who are often on the receiving end of communal flare-ups in the villages.’
‘There is also renewed interest in Bengal’s political history,’ says Avik Sarkar, ‘and a crying need to change the discourse, both social and political.’ A graduate in political science from Kolkata’s St Xavier’s College, Sarkar has researched the history of Mathua leader Pramatha Ranjan Thakur, who successfully mobilized the Dalits of Bengal in favour of a Bengali Hindu homeland and talked about the betrayal of Gandhi and Nehru in resettling Scheduled Caste refugees in India.
One of the things that stuck out during my interviews for this chapter was Aroon Shah’s knowledge of the Marichjhapi massacre.
But, as Bibek Debroy, writer, economist, chairman of the prime minister’s economic council,
had said at the launch of my book Blood Island, Bhadralok Bengalis did not react to Marichjhapi because it happened to Dalit Bengalis. Despite their pretence to be otherwise, the Bhadralok is class biased and caste conscious and hides it all behind a secular, intellectual front – that was Debroy’s contention.
Bengal is not Kolkata and Kolkata is not Bengal. Which is perhaps why the rise of the Right comes as such a surprise to some sections of Bengalis.
Byapari knows Bengal downside up. His book Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit was the toast of the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2018.
Firstly, who are the Bhadralok? In Bengali society, one born to a higher caste doesn’t automatically get to be a Bhadralok. It is the books you have read, the films you have watched, the culture magazines you subscribe to, the cultural references you can drop in conversations, the universality of your moorings and much more that get you entry into the Bhadralok club.
Born a Banerjee (Brahmin), Mamata, whose appeal had traditionally been with the rural masses, tried hard to step into this club ever since she became chief minister in 2011. The Bhadralok Marxists, her arch rivals before the BJP entered the political fray in Bengal, had dubbed her a Chotolok, calling her everything from thike jhi (part-time house help) to prostitute.
Interestingly, her arch rival from the BJP, the saffron party’s Bengal chief Dilip Ghosh, has never bothered to ‘suck up to the Bhadralok’, in the words of a party member close to him. Call it political prudence that may pay off in the 2021 elections, Ghosh has never tried to shake off either his OBC caste or his rusticity.
Over mutton chelo kebabs at Park Street’s uppity joint Peter Cat, a senior journalist-friend who keeps a sharp eye on politics and culture in Bengal tells me that thanks to the BJP, the Bhadralok may finally be warming up to Banerjee.
Most of us feel we are Bengalis first, Indians later. In fact, in our cultural superiority, we are Indian only in passport. But now, the rest of India, rather north India, warts and all, is being thrust on us by the BJP.
And so strong is this fear that a scientist from Harvard University came back to Kolkata to save Bengal from non-Bengalis, making statements to the effect that all of India’s problems could be solved if people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and Marwaris and Gujaratis were restricted to their own states for their livelihood.
Bhaumik, who divides his time between New York City and Kolkata, tells me that Bengalis feel they are liberal and culturally superior to other Indians because they have not seen the world.
The average Bengali seems to be well read, celebrates Tagore and Satyajit Ray, publicly proclaims that he is open minded. But scratch the surface and you will find him to be a stubborn, parochial racist, suffering from a deep-rooted sense of inferiority.
Why do we have to fear dilution of our culture if it is so strong? How can identifying with the country be a bad thing? How does stereotyping people from other states and infantalizing other cultures make you culturally superior? In fact, I feel if Bengalis became more patriotic about the country they stay in, it will bring down their hypocrisy.
Legend has it that at one corner table of Chhota Bristol, filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak would drown his sorrows in whisky.
There are many Kolkatas in one Kolkata, many, many Bengals in one Bengal. So, when you talk about Bengali culture, let me ask you, which Bengal are you talking about?
Take our later party presidents in Bengal, from Rahul Sinha to Satyabrata Mukherjee to Tathagata Roy … all are Bangladeshi refugees.
Why then did an organization like Bangla Pokkho come up? There must be some fear on the ground. ‘Beating up poor migrant workers, tea stall owners and small shopkeepers who may speak Hindi but have been in Bengal for ages is a fight for Bengali pride? Are Bengalis so shallow that they have to attack economic migrants from other states to feel important? And when has Garga Chatterjee ever spoken up for what Bengal needs? When Sanjiv Goenka-owned CESC Ltd which supplies power to Kolkata and its neighbourhood started sending in exorbitant bills to its consumers, it was me and my party colleagues
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What he could gather was, the crowd was from the neighbouring Muslim shantytown led by a local Left toughie. They had got news that a political rival whom the toughie had a score to settle with was inside the hall, watching the movie that was running. The crowd had come to ‘take action’ in the cinema hall itself!
The point I am trying to make is the hierarchy in the Left was clearly established. There would be law and order issues from time to time, but the party knew how to handle it. For instance, we knew who we had to pay “hafta” to.
With Mamata Banerjee, what has happened, there are at least three leaders from a single area, all belonging to the same Trinamool Congress and one has to cater to the needs of all of them. We do not know who is more powerful than the other as equations within the party keep changing and we end up paying all of them.
‘Singur. Tata Nano factory was supposed to come up here. Instead, Mamata Banerjee came to power. Now there is a vast expanse of nothingness.’
Do you know West Bengal once had a higher GDP than Maharashtra during the 60s? Despite having adequate infrastructure from British time, socialism ruined us’
The Singur agitation was the last nail in the coffin for Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, a career Communist who was branded as a betrayer of the farmers and a friend of the capitalists. Bhattacharjee failed in his efforts to convince Bengal to accept Big Industry in the state and lost power less than two years later.
Farmers of Singur have put up their lands for sale, three years after the Mamata Banerjee government returned it to them.
However, it needs to be kept in mind that manufacturing cannot be West Bengal’s future. Rather, its growth potential lies in services. The previous dispensation has already punctured the potential for large-scale manufacturing to develop due to their land redistribution policies.
