Collapse Of TMC In Bengal Has Given A Big Opportunity For A Left Turn-Around

By Sobhanlal Datta Gupta

The Eighteenth West Bengal Legislative Assembly which was formed in the wake of the poll results in 2026 has catapulted the BJP into power on a scale which is unprecedented, but not totally unsurprising. It has been a verdict by default, a furious act of political revenge against years of misrule, violence, fear and corruption. A structure that was built up at the behest of the TMC supremo, completely devoid of transparency, and bolstered by a crude culture of sycophancy, led to an all-pervasive alienation of the party from the masses. This is manifest in the complete collapse and fragmentation of the TMC in a month’s time and the drama that is unfolding in West Bengal almost every day has made it an object of ridicule and disdain in the eyes of the common man.

While for the saffron brigade the West Bengal verdict is certainly a shot in the arm, what signal has it sent to the Left, which is its bête noire? For the Left the implications are three-fold. One: the ouster and the virtual evaporation of the TMC has opened up an unprecedented opportunity for the Left to create a space of its own. It goes without saying that in the preceding years the TMC supremo targeted the Left as its sworn enemy and was hell-bent to decimate it. Now that this hurdle is gone and the so-called opposition, following the split in the TMC, is virtually acting as the B-team of BJP, the Left now would be in a position to project itself as the only viable and meaningful alternative to the saffron brigade. Rallies are being staged, party offices are being unlocked and the presence of the Left in public life is being increasingly felt.

Two: while the erasure of a virtually lumpen outfit like the TMC has been a big relief, the coming to power of the BJP with such a thumping majority, however, does not at all augur well for the Left. It may be presumed that, while in the given conditions of constitutional democracy BJP will be constrained not to unleash open repression on the Left, the Left too must respond by adopting two rather different strategies. First, it has to play the role of a constructive opposition instead of simply castigating the new government as reactionary, fascist, etc, because it must remember that BJP has come to power with a massive popular mandate.

The Left should utilize this opportunity by placing before the Government alternative blueprints of development which would take into account the interests of the common man, the underprivileged and the downtrodden. It should tell the Government that the Left demands appropriate steps to be taken, cutting across party lines, against all those who were engaged in repression of those who opposed the TMC. This would immediately send the message that the Left does not believe in any sectarian understanding of the victims of repression.

The Left should also draw the attention of the Government to the ugly practice of publicly parading the persons implicated in corruption charges and throwing rotten eggs and tomatoes towards them and demand stern measures against the perpetrators of such acts. The other strategy refers to the condemnation of any step taken by the government which makes discriminatory treatment of the minorities, indulges in history writing by erasure of Islam from syllabus, unleashes bulldozer against hawkers without rehabilitation, promotes the agenda of Hindutva. To be more precise, any kind of assault on the democratic rights of the people, the poor, the underdogs, must be questioned.

Three: The Left has to understand that it has failed to arrest the BJP’s strategy of mobilization of Hindu votes, which the BJP could do by instilling in the psyche of the Bengali Hindus a sense of deep insecurity posed by the so-called growth of Muslim population in West Bengal , a threat across the Bangladesh border as a result of easy entry of infiltrators and TMC’s populist strategy of appeasement of minorities for the sake of conserving the Muslim vote bank. The most disturbing issue concerning the Left is that the verdict in favour of the BJP was a mix up of anti-TMC plus pro-Hindu vote. Since It is very difficult to segregate the two, it will remain a perennial problem for the Left to detect the extent of influence of the Hindutva factor on the electorate.

This being the scenario, it is high time that the Left in West Bengal has to reinvent itself by addressing issues which have been traditionally neglected by them. This refers to the challenge of cultural nationalism, espoused by the BJP. The West Bengal Left has for decades nurtured the feeling with complacence that the so-called Hindu Bengali is culturally oriented towards secularism, that the Hindu Bengali psyche is relatively free from the virus of communalism. This is an exercise in self-deception.

The great cultural legacy of Bengal notwithstanding, we Bengalis are not aware of the fact that there is a deep undercurrent of religious intolerance in our blood, which comes out in the open at specific historical moments. We have never been comfortable with the Muslims, have shown no interest in learning from the rich legacy of Islam and no effort was made during the three decades of Left Front regime to promote an appropriate cultural agenda which would foster the spirit of secularism among us. BJP has made full use of it by taking advantage of our own ignorance.

Consequently, the Left has to take up a two-fold challenge on the cultural front. First, it has to systematically undertake the campaign that the BJP’s strategy of misappropriation of the cultural icons of Bengal, i.e. Vivekananda, Bankimchandra, Aurobindo, Subhash Chandra, even Tagore by presenting their ideas in a fragmented manner, isolating them from their historical context and projecting them as proponents of Hindutva is an exercise in fabricated, and not real history. Second, it needs to be acknowledged that the Left has not given due importance to these figures, considering them as religious or literary figures who do not merit much attention.

This has led to colossal neglect of the religious syncretism of Rammohun Roy and Vivekananda, the ideal of human unity in Aurobindo, the predilection for western science in Bankimchandra, apart from his amazing literary creations, his critique of gender inequality, the uncompromising secularism of Subhash Chandra Bose. To be more exact, the Left has to remind and enlighten the public by projecting the iconic cultural figures of Bengal in the totality of their historical contexts and counter the standpoint of the BJP. Space has opened up. It is now time for the Left to enter this space, set the agenda and work it out. (IPA Service)

** The writer is a Kolkata based leading political Scientist. He retired as Sir Surendranath Banerjee Professor of Calcutta University.