The Curious Trajectory of Caste in West Bengal Politics

Although many commentators believed that caste did not matter in West Bengal, in recent years it has emerged as a significant factor in electoral politics. The decline of the Left and the rise of the centrist-incumbent have fanned identity politics and the resurgence of caste-based political mobilisation. In this conversation, Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, a well-known expert in the history and politics of caste in Bengal, illuminates the complexities, uniqueness and dynamics of caste politics in colonial Bengal and contemporary West Bengal. The interview explores the evolution of the caste-system in colonial Bengal, its differences with the rest of India and the multiple manifestations of caste-based politics in contemporary West Bengal. Bandyopadhyay reflects on the intersection of caste with other categories of class and religion, the lower-castes’ involvement, appropriation and neglect in the political spectrum, and the future of caste and politics in West Bengal.

Nath, Suman (2022); Democracy and Social Cleavage in India: Ethnography of Riots, Everyday Politics and Communalism in West Bengal c. 2012-2021, Oxon and New York: Routledge; pp xv + 149, Rs 1295.

Party politics in West Bengal is a complex and ever-evolving phenomenon deeply rooted in the state's socio-cultural history. This overview explores the dynamic landscape of party politics in West Bengal, tracing its historical evolution and examining the key players, ideological underpinnings, electoral strategies, and socio-economic factors that have influenced voter preferences over the years. From the pre-independence era's freedom struggle to the contemporary political dynamics dominated by the All-India Trinamool Congress (AITC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), West Bengal's political journey reflects its vibrant cultural mosaic and socio-political complexities. This paper also discusses the current scenario in West Bengal, highlighting the role of various political parties in recent local and assembly elections. The methodology involves a comprehensive review of academic papers and journals on various aspects of West Bengal's politics, governance, and societal dynamics. While existing literature touches on governance-related aspects like healthcare policies, decentralisation, and power sector reforms, there is a research gap in integrating these elements to provide a holistic assessment of West Bengal's governance model. The paper identifies this research gap and calls for a more comprehensive study that explores the interplay of political decisions, decentralisation efforts, and policy reforms in shaping the state's development and governance outcomes.

The electoral decline of the organised Left in West Bengal politics has given rise to intellectual speculation about the increasing possibility of caste politics. In this context, this article investigates whether there is any merit in the claim that the electoral decline of the Left Front has paved the way for the rise of caste at the centre stage of mainstream electoral politics in West Bengal. It asks whether lower castes have started to mobilise politically in West Bengal in the same way as in many other states. The article argues against the claim of ‘a new politics of caste’ in West Bengal by showing that the electoral decline of the Left Front has not been accompanied by any rise in lower caste representation. In this context, the article also attempts to understand the reasons for the continuing non-politicisation of caste in West Bengal, revealing many factors relating to demography and political economy which don’t augur well for caste politics in West Bengal.

This book explores the emergence of identity politics and violence at the forefront of political life in an Indian state. Through a close reading of everyday politics in West Bengal, India, which until recently boasted of the longest-serving elected communist government in the world, the volume presents unique observations on Indian politics and its trajectories. One of the first ethnographic studies of religious polarisation and its interface with politics in West Bengal, this book: Offers a fresh perspective, both theoretically and empirically, by using longitudinal, multi-site ethnography, to explain the mechanisms by which identity issues have re-emerged; Studies key policy changes, political practices and series of invented traditions during periods of political transition; Examines intricate details of the micro-dynamics of the formulation and expansion of Hindu and Islamic fundamentalism and their political counterparts, which carry a capacity to push away secular, democratic forces from the existing political spectrum; Sheds light on the mechanisms of riots, its design, organisational bases and mechanisms of spread; Includes key observations from the 2021 elections in the state. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of political science, social and cultural anthropology, sociology and South Asian studies.

In contrast to the party political turmoil that plagued New Delhi during the 1990s, West Bengal is an Indian state that has demonstrated remarkable stability. Atul Kohli has made much of this contrast, arguing that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has held power in West Bengal since 1977 through the combination of its organisational and ideological coherence. His wider conclusion is that the institutionalisation of political parties is essential in staving off the 'crises of governability' faced by many democracies in developing countries. At a time when 'good governance' is a major theme within development studies, Kohli's thesis deserves close attention. This paper critically examines his work in two ways. Empirically, it questions elements of his portrayal of the CPI(M), and West Bengal's politics more generally, as 'exceptional'. In theoretical terms, it questions Kohli's treatment of political institutions, arguing that more attention should be given to institutional culture and political discourses.

A Review of Ayan Guha's The Curious Trajectory of Caste in West Bengal Politics: Chronicling the Continuity and Change

Ayan Guha, The Curious Trajectory of Caste in West Bengal Politics: Chronicling Continuity and Change (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022), x + 309 pp.

The impressive performance of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal is seen as a turning point in state politics—a saffron surge and the red retreat. While trying to understand and explain the rise of the BJP, this article analyzes Hindutva politics in West Bengal in a historical perspective, highlighting the ideological and organizational legacies of the Hindu Mahasabha, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and the Sangh Parivar. Hindutva’s political ambition always remained frustrated as the objective ideological and political milieu in a hostile Communist bastion had never been congenial to its brand of politics. Yet, the BJP continued to struggle for its existence, adopted pragmatic political strategies at the local and regional level, entered into smart political alliance with the Trinamool Congress at a crucial time, grabbed the opportunity to expand its base rapidly when the Left lost its credibility and political control and, finally, when Mamata started messing up with her support base. Buoyed by the BJP’s rise in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Hindutva forces have unleashed an ambitious and aggressive campaign to wrest West Bengal from Mamata’s Trinamool Congress in the 2016 assembly elections; thus, West Bengal is likely to witness a fierce political battle in the coming days!

The politics in West Bengal has always had an ideological orientation to it. The nagging issue has been the Naxalbari agitation which flared up and spread its tentacles to ensnare West Bengal's revolutionary politics. The agitation which emerged from the frustration of the bengali ‘bhadralok’ youth out to destroy elitism opened the floodgates of state repression with violence and counter-violence. The article vividly describes the uncertain times in the political map of West Bengal, the human rights violations against the backdrop of the Emergency period in India and how violence has become structural to threaten democratic values and structures in West Bengal.

The State of West Bengal in India is the home of a monotheistic, salvationist religion known as Vaishnavism. It has also been governed for 30 years by the democratically elected Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M). Vaishnavism has expanded globally, largely via the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON or the Hare Krishna movement). ISKCON has developed an intentional community in West Bengal as its world headquarters, and this community is becoming one of the state’s major tourist attractions and income-earners. The research that follows in this article was conducted to assess tensions between the West Bengal government and ISKCON, particularly in relation to land acquisition and workers’ rights policies. Perceptions of a contemporary alliance between ISKCON and a Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is a rival to the government and has historical ties to ISKCON, are found to be aggravating politics at the local level. The research highlights sensitivities at the intersection of religion, politics and culture, and the complexities of state–religion relationships in West Bengal.

By winning 230 of 294 assembly seats in the 1987 election, the Left Front (LF) coalition led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI [M]) once again managed to retain the reins of power in West Bengal. This article deals with that election and the situation that followed it. The first section discusses the major contenders-the LF and the Congress (I), their campaigns, and the major issues raised by them; the second examines electoral performances in terms of seats and popular votes; and the concluding section reflects upon the postelection situation in the state. The 1987 election was not held under extraordinary circumstances. There was no dissolution of ministry, nor was West Bengal under president's rule. The electorate went to the polls simply because the LF's second term of office (1982-87) had come to an end. Some 5.6 million new voters, 18% of the total electorate, exercised their franchise. Fourteen constituencies had a straight choice between the LF and the Congress (I), and four-cornered contests took place in 72 and five-cornered contests in 70 constituencies. 1 Before discussing the campaign, a few things about the selection of candidates by the parties should be noted. A tendency to select young candicates by both the LF and the Congress (I) had been evident since the early 1970s, and leaders of the central Congress organization were said to have again considered the age factor very seriously when selecting candidates in 1987. A significant number of the CPI (M) candidates were in their twenties and thirties, nearly a dozen of them drawn from the party's student wing while a few others belonged to the youth organizations. The other LF component parties, paticularly the Forward Bloc (FB) and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) were also

This article appraises the role of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) in West Bengal, where the CPM-led Left Front formed government uninterruptedly between 1977 and 2011. It identifies four phases of Left politics in West Bengal: the period during which communists built support for a programme of radical transformation; the post-1977 years when the Left Front introduced land reform and effective local government that produced a ‘party society’ in rural areas; a third stage when popular support was subverted through clientelism tinged with coercion and petty corruption; and the 1990s, when growth in agricultural output petered out, the proportion of landless labourers increased and employment in manufacturing stagnated. The Left had also not delivered significant progress in social policy. The CPM turned to corporate investments and special economic zones. This trajectory points to problems of party ideology and the imperative of renewal to devise an anti-capitalist strategy.

IT TEST BENGAL is one of two states in the Indian Union where India's Communist parties have gained a predominant share of the decisionmaking power of the ministries. From March 2, i967, when the Congress party of West Bengal failed for the first time since Independence to gain a majority in the state Legislative Assembly, until November 2i, i967, when the Governor of the state appointed a successor ministry, West Bengal was governed by a coalition of fourteen parties, including both the Communist party of India (CPI) and the Communist party of India-Marxist (CPM). Again, after a period of President's Rule in i968, the same coalition of parties was returned in the elections of February i969, this time with a much larger number of seats in the Legislative Assembly and a much larger role for the two Communist parties. The growth of communism in West Bengal is only one aspect of the complicated political situation obtaining in this small, truncated state. Politicization of Bengalis into modern forms of organization began almost from the inception of British rule in India, and was quickly accentuated in this century by the first partition of the Province of Bengal in I905 and the shifting of the capital of British India from the Bengali-speaking city of Calcutta to the traditional center of imperial power in New Delhi in i9i2. In response to these two events Bengal's political leadership launched a number of political movements, some directed against the British, some directed against the Gandhians in the Indian National Congress, almost all seeking to reclaim the dominant position in India's political life that Bengal had attained in the late nineteenth century. Political activity reached a peak of intensity in the early i94os, when Calcutta and its surrounding areas were being occupied by more than 200,000 Allied troops, the Muslim League was agitating for partition, and the Congress and Marxist-left parties were engaged in a Quit India movement that drew heavily on the terrorist tradition of Bengali political life. No sooner had this peak of political activity been reached than Bengal witnessed in rapid succession a major famine in I943, the second partition of the province in I947, and large-scale communal riots that began in August i946 and culminated in the influx of more than five million refugees during the following twenty years. In the midst of the great economic hardship that resulted

Part 1 Poor people love to eat fish. Part 2 Beyond enumeration - the construction of poverty in 19th-century Britain and 20th-century India: introduction the construction of poverty in 19th-century Britain measurement and morality - Charles Booth and Joseph Rowntree solutions to poverty and regulation of the poor poverty measurement in India contemporary poverty measurement and poverty-line language the construction of the poor in contemporary political science the story so far. Part 3 dimension of human agency: introduction entitlement and capability theory as an alternative to poverty measurement people's history and agency E.P. Thompson, agency and experience the concept of agency the concept of experience Thompson and moral economy theory understanding poor people's priorities and knowledge the perspective of the poor from contemporary South Asia the saga continues.... Part 4 West Bengal - the case study area: introduction geography, agriculture and population in Bengal and West Bengal historical and political background to Bengal and West Bengal the agrarian structure in West Bengal politics and agrarian reform in West Bengal conclusions. Part 5 villages and the study: how the study came to be done and how it was carried out background to the case study villages land operation and employment in the three villages economic categorization conclusions. Part 6 There may have been some benefits from the new farming, but I haven't seen any - agricultural development and land reform in the study villages: the in South Asia the green revolution comes to Fonogram land type and land use in the Fonogram area cropping patterns and adoption rates in the boro crop seasons, 1986-7 to 1988-9 who gained most from the green revolution? absentee landlordism land sales and land mortgaging there may have been some benefits from the new farming... - benefits to the landless and perceptions of the poor social change and the green revolution land reform in the Midnapore case study villages conclusions. Part 7 Surviving against the odds in the case study villages - everyday strategies and priorities: introduction who are the poorest? access to the natural resource base and common property resources poorest people and food sharerearing of livestock poorest people and assets conclusions. Part 8 The rich don't help the poor and they never did - power and the poorest. Part 9 Death comes to poorest households. Part 10 Rich people like to eat fish and throw poor people the bones.