“When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right” — Victor Hugo
In two heart-rending incidents, two women from Malda and Howrah were paraded naked in full public glare in West Bengal on July 8, 2023. Even more shameful is the manner in which Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of the state, chose to mock these horrific incidents, claiming that these gut-wrenching incidents were merely a figment of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) imagination. But coming from Banerjee, this is hardly surprising.
In 2012, after the tragic Park Street gang-rape case of Suzette Jordan, Mamata Banerjee victim-shamed Jordan, claiming she was an escort, a loose woman who enjoyed clubbing and drinking and hence she invited the said horror upon herself. Could it have gotten any more shameful than the fact that a woman, that too the sitting chief minister of a large state, showed this kind of insensitivity? Yes! It got even worse in 2022, post the Hansakhali gang-rape of a minor, a 14-year-old girl. Instead of condemning the rapists, including the key accused, the son of a senior TMC leader, Mamata mocked and shamed the minor, claiming this was just a love affair gone wrong. The limited point is this — accountability is an alien term for Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee and she lives in denial even when confronted with hard facts about how law and order has completely collapsed in West Bengal.
Why has political violence emerged as a recurring feature of West Bengal’s polity? Why was there unprecedented post-poll violence in Bengal after the Assembly elections in 2021, so much so that the Kolkata High Court had to finally allow a CBI probe into the matter, despite repeated attempts by the Mamata regime to stonewall a CBI investigation? Again, why did Kolkata HC and the Supreme Court repeatedly castigate the TMC government for failing to uphold law and order in the run-up to the Panchayat polls on July 8, 2023? Why was the Birbhum massacre case involving TMC perpetrators handed over to the CBI, despite CM Banerjee’s constant attempts to throttle a CBI probe into the matter? Why was the Hansakhali gang rape, where the prime accused was a TMC leader’s son, handed over to the CBI by the Kolkata High Court? There is just one answer to all the aforesaid questions; the fact remains that brutal violence and horrifying lawlessness have gone unpunished under the long and lethargic nose of Mamata Banerjee for the longest time and she no longer inspires confidence, either as the chief minister or the de-facto home minister of the state.
That is precisely the reason why the Kolkata HC has time and again asked the CBI to step in, showing complete distrust in the police machinery of Bengal which has been reduced to nothing more than a flaccid puppet under the Mamata regime. Violence has become so ingrained in the TMC’s DNA that even in the wake of the May 16 2023 blast, that occurred in an unauthorised factory in Egra town of Purba Medinipur district and claimed 12 lives, there was no remorse from the CM.
Experts say that bomb-making factories and “illegal firecracker factories” in every rural district of Bengal, have become like a “cottage industry” that operates with much impunity. Officials say that districts like Malda, Murshidabad, Birbhum, North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas and Burdwan have many illegal factories that make crude bombs and firearms. Apparently, rural Bengal does not have many employment opportunities; most of the youngsters are either into farming, or small-time work and many get themselves involved in such illegal businesses as this helps them earn a quick buck and patronage from the local TMC politicians. The making of illegal crude bombs and country pistols and bullets sees a huge demand during elections, political rallies and for settling scores by the TMC, as per locals involved in this illegal trade. In fact, illegal bomb-making factories are a flourishing trade and have now become a question of survival for many in rural Bengal, such is the sorry state of affairs under the corrupt TMC regime.
True, violence has a long political and cultural history in West Bengal. During the colonial period, the Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar movements, for example, saw this path as an important one towards gaining freedom, says Biswanath Chakraborty, prolific writer and professor of political science, Rabindra Bharati University. As India became independent, there was widespread communal conflict. Beyond the Great Calcutta killings, there was violence all over Bengal. People were killed and displaced mercilessly. Even after independence, the Communists always supported the capture of state power through arms.
For instance, on March 17, 1970, a day after the United Front government had been toppled, two brothers from the Sain family who were known to be Congress loyalists were attacked and murdered in front of their mother. After brutally killing the two, the mother was forced to eat rice soaked in their blood. The accused in the murder, Benoy Konar, Nirupam Sen and Anil Bose, were the top-most leaders of the CPI-M who went on to occupy ministerial positions in the state later. Since the 1970s, political murders and violence have been a norm in Bengal, particularly in rural and semi-rural areas. But what is happening today in 2023, under a depraved regime led by an autocratic CM, is even worse than what happened in the 1970s.
21-year-old Trilochan Mahato from Supurdi in Purulia and 30-year-old Dulal Kumar from Dava village had just one thing in common — both were supporters of the BJP. While both the murders were hushed up by the TMC-led authorities, political murders of this kind have taken place in Bengal over and over again, and they especially point to moments when a threat is seen to be born to the incumbent party — TMC in this case. So for all the false bravado by the Mamata Banerjee dispensation, the hard truth is that the magnificent rise of the BJP is now a clear danger to the ruling TMC.
What a pity that the TMC, that stormed to power in Bengal, on the back of the state-sponsored Nandigram violence of 2007, under the Left regime in West Bengal, has today become a scarier version of the erstwhile Left regime. Violence is embedded in the DNA of the Communists, whether in power or out of it. Through the 1960s, the undivided CPI split — first into the CPI and CPM — and later, the Naxalites emerged from the latter. But the TMC that swore to never become like the marauding Leftist government that it overthrew in 2011 is today, in fact, worse than what the Left was when it was in power.
The moot point is that West Bengal has seen gore and bloodshed both before and after India’s independence, but the post-1947 history of violence was primarily used by both the Congress and the Left to usurp or retain power by hook or by crook. Ironically, today, both the Congress and the Left are reduced to nothing in Bengal. While the Congress won zero seats in the West Bengal Assembly polls in 2021, the Left was reduced to an embarrassing tally of just one seat. Even in Lok Sabha 2019, while the Congress won two seats from Bengal, the Left got a big zero.
Now contrast this with the meteoric rise of the BJP in West Bengal. From a 10 percent seat share and just three seats in the 2016 Assembly elections, the BJP raised its tally to a stellar 77 seats with a solid 38 percent vote share in the 2021 Assembly polls. Again, from Bengal, the TMC saw its seats reduced from 34 in Lok Sabha 2014 elections to 22 in Lok Sabha 2019 elections. The BJP, in sharp contrast, in Bengal, won a handsome 18 seats with a 41 percent vote share in Lok Sabha 2019. Note, in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP only got two seats from Bengal but that number rose to 18 in 2019, a fabulous rise of 800 percent. Add to all this the fact that Mamata Banerjee faced a humiliating defeat at the hands of Suvendu Adhikari in 2021 from Nandigram, and you don’t have to think hard to know why the TMC is completely rattled by the BJP’s phenomenal rise in political stature in West Bengal.
Bengal politics, from being a multi-party one, has now become a two-horse contest with only TMC and BJP in the race for the spoils. TMC’s Mamata Banerjee has been in power as the Chief Minister since 2011 but has nothing to show by way of development or social equity or law and order in the state. The Dalits and the tribals of Bengal are systematically being marginalised; the Ram Navami violence in June 2023, which is now being probed by the NIA, shows Mamata’s reported Hinduphobic antecedents. What is worse — appeasement politics, bomb-jihad in places like Murshidabad and unabated patronisation of illegal migrants and Rohingyas by the Mamata regime — have turned West Bengal’s political and social landscape into a ticking time bomb. No major industries have come up in Bengal since 2011 and those that were there have either shut down or chosen to flee from the state, given the deadly cocktail of lawlessness and corruption that the TMC regime is infamous for.
One scam after the other, be it the SSC recruitment scam involving former education minister of Bengal, Partha Chatterjee, the Cattle scam involving Anubrata Mondal or the jobs for cash scam involving Mamata’s nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, corruption rules the roost in Bengal under a defunct TMC. Don’t forget, the Supreme Court did not give any relief to Abhishek Banerjee and he continues to be on trial in the jobs for cash scam where thousands of crores were reportedly raised from hapless job aspirants, in lieu for jobs that were eventually never given.
Even Partha and Anubrata have been close confidantes of Mamata and for the longest time, she defended them and their ill-gotten wealth till the law caught up and she was forced to distance herself from her former, close associates. In fact, in a stinging setback for Abhishek Banerjee, the SC said that the Kolkata HC was correct in not halting an Enforcement Directorate (ED) probe into the Bengal teachers’ recruitment scam, thereby completely blowing to smithereens the wild allegations by the TMC top brass, that Abhishek Banerjee was being victimised by the Modi government.
Going back in time, the bloodthirsty Naxalites in West Bengal gave a call to kill “elites” — teachers, landlords, and others to capture political power and supposedly mobilise the poor masses. This violence persisted for a long time. Then, to suppress the Naxalite movement, other parties too resorted to violence. It was when Siddhartha Shankar Ray of Congress became the Chief Minister of West Bengal in 1972, amid allegations of mass rigging, that violence officially became a part of the election process in Bengal. So the Congress and the Left have been patronisers of violence in Bengal over the decades as much as the TMC today. But that said, the TMC has indeed legitimised violence and given it a whole new, nefarious and bloodcurdling dimension since 2011.
The roots of the killings during the just concluded Panchayat polls on July 8, 2023, go back in time. In 1977, when the Left first came to power in the state, it introduced the panchayat system. The CPM also used violence very strategically in some pockets to suppress its opponents. The violence grew as the Left’s popularity waned, says Professor Biswanath Chakraborty. When the Trinamool Congress came to power, it had no organisation to speak of. Every leader was desperately trying to retain control of their area of influence to appropriate and use local resources, including at the panchayat level. If the Naxals engaged in ideologically-motivated violence and the CPM in political violence, the TMC is engaged in both ideological violence driven by hatred for right-wing ideology and political violence driven by visceral animosity for the BJP. Last but not least, violence for financial gratification and violence abetted by rising Hinduphobia under Mamata Banerjee, have only worsened the decay and the insufferable rot that has permeated every aspect of Bengal’s political economy.
Biswanath Chakraborty, in a brilliant article, recently said that the TMC’s politics is also the politics of lawlessness. It is only when the police and law and order machinery choose to be mute spectators that such widespread killings can take place. Don’t forget, over 54 people were brutally killed in the recently held Panchayat polls in July 2023 in West Bengal but forget regret, remorse or any action against the TMC goons, there was not even a mild condemnation by Mamata Banerjee against the TMC vandals who indulged in blatant rigging of polls, threw ballot boxes into rivers and ponds, mercilessly beat up BJP workers and shamed democracy in more ways than one.
The TMC is also engaged in the politics of uncertainty and insecurity. Uncertain of her future and insecure about safety, a woman voter, very often, for instance, will not go against the ruling party (TMC). Finally, the TMC’s politics is also one of denial. It denies the number of dead, even when confronted with the bodies. It engages in whataboutery. The TMC knows that some people will believe this, some will forget and many may not even bother. That is how, through a cunning mix of subterfuge, deception and repeating a lie a thousand times, Mamata Banerjee’s draconian regime has managed to create a perception that things are not that bad in Bengal. The harsh reality though is, things could not have been worse.
Before the 2021 Assembly elections in Bengal, many incidents took place like the Sitalkuchi violence or other cases where there was a drastic misuse of human rights. After May 2, 2021, when results were declared, post-poll violence in West Bengal shook the whole nation with mass rapes, murders, molestations, burning of offices and homes and kidnappings of BJP workers which became the order of the day. Amidst all this, Banerjee refused to even acknowledge the horrific lawlessness. First, it was the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and then the Kolkata High Court which condemned the post-poll violence of 2021 and handed over the probe to CBI. The police force which reports to Mamata Banerjee is so politically motivated that it refuses to even register FIRs, much less arrest the culprits. This was the case in the post-poll violence in 2021 and has been the case even in the Panchayat poll violence in 2023. Despite some BJP women workers being disrobed and paraded naked in Bengal only because they follow a different ideology from the TMC, there has been no outrage or “award wapasi” or any condemnation from the Khan market gang. No outrage even from Rahul Gandhi or Priyanka Vadra, who otherwise, have an opinion on everything under the sun. The compulsions of coalition politics have led to moral bankruptcy within the Opposition rank and file.
Crores worth of public property is being destroyed every other day in West Bengal but everybody, right from the chief minister and her acolytes, to the police constabulary working under Mamata Banerjee is shamefully silent. Large swathes of media do not cover atrocities in West Bengal like they covered Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, because the media is also politically divided and polarised. That the chief minister, being a woman herself, is still silent on the brazen acts of crimes against women, makes it even more shameful. The West Bengal Governor is being abused because he speaks for the people. Many times, different governors of Bengal, be it KN Tripathi in 2018, Jagdeep Dhankar in 2021 or CV Ananda Bose in 2023, asked for a report on the failing law and order machinery from the Chief Secretary (CS) but the CS who owes allegiance to the CM, refused to give it. Such is the brazen defiance of democratic norms under the fascist Mamata Banerjee.
A mass exodus of people happened in 2021 after the Assembly polls in Bengal and yet again, after the Panchayat polls in 2023, the hapless took shelter in Assam. They were kicked out from their own state only because they dared to vote for the Opposition, the BJP in this case. Is the TMC government not responsible for the exodus of people from Bengal? Many people have repeatedly asked why the Modi government doesn’t declare Article 356 or President’s Rule in West Bengal. The simple answer to that is, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has barely and very sparingly used Article 356, as he does not believe in scuttling duly elected governments. Indira Gandhi on the other hand, had imposed Article 356 at least 48 times.
“Holding elections cannot be a license for violence and the Kolkata High Court has seen earlier instances of violence. Elections cannot be accompanied by violence. If persons are not able to file their nominations and if they are finished off while they are going to file it, then where is the free and fair election?” — Justice BV Nagarathna of the Supreme Court, in June 2023, in a stinging castigation of the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC regime said this in the run-up to the Panchayat polls on July 8, 2023.
“Dictators ride to and fro on tigers from which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry,” said Winston Churchill. And indeed, the people of Bengal are now hungry for change, as enough is enough. It is time for Mamata Banerjee to walk out through the exit door.
The author is an Economist, National Spokesperson for BJP and Bestselling Author of “The Modi Gambit”. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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