Pratap Bhanu Mehta on Bengal elections

Can Pratap Bhanu Mehta write a single sentence which is not fatuous or false? Consider his latest article in the Indian Express.  

The current election in West Bengal might be Bengal’s first full confrontation with its own reality.

Nonsense! The 1937 election has that distinction.  

Bengali politics has operated under ideological shadows and myth-making, carefully nurtured and controlled to avoid confronting its own social contradictions.

No. Bengali politics was about the Hindu Muslim schism. That is why the Province was split in two. Even now the question is Hindu vs. Muslim. Previous 'ideological shadows' have faded away.  

First, it was Bengal as the creator of a unique, enlightened urbanity and humanism, betrayed by the braying hordes of Indian nationalism.

What a load of shit! First the Hindu 'bhadralok'  demanded a reversal of the 1905 partition in the belief that they could dominate the entire Province. Then they discovered they couldn't. Anyway, Bengalis were shit at ruling themselves. Democracy meant famine and ethnic cleansing when it didn't mean corruption and economic stagnation. 

There were no 'braying hordes of Indian nationalism'. On the other hand, there is a powerful Indian Nation State which can defend its borders and put down sedition and separatism with an iron hand. 

This narrative was enough to provide a century’s worth of nostalgia and repetition.

Rubbish! There was a narrative about Communism dissolving divisions of caste and creed. But then Mamta's goons beat the goons of the Communists till they cried Uncle. So that narrative has disappeared. The question now is whether Bengal will remain in thrall to Mamta's goons or whether Modi's magic can provide Bengal with an alternative administration. 

Then came the progressive self-image: The revolutionary vanguard of a society dedicated to redistribution.

No. Not Redistribution. Communism. Property should be held in common, not redistributed. 

This redistribution could be allied with anti-communalism and a gesture at high humanism.

The modern nation state is 'anti-communal' in the sense that it affirms equality before the law- though, no doubt, certain minorities may get short shrift.  As for 'high humanism', where in the world do you find people clamoring for 'low anti-humanism'? 

When this progressive self-image ran out of steam, there was poriborton. In all other states, change is routine. In Bengal, it had to be made a task.

This is silly. In no other State had the Commies entrenched themselves with mindless violence.  'Poriborton' meant that the Reds were beaten and stabbed and made to weep bitter tears.

This self-image was quite charming.

No it wasn't. It was squalid.  

It did create and sustain a beguiling culture that converted us all to Bengalophilia.

Fuck off! Bengalis themselves were running away from the place.  

Land reform was a real achievement,

though it didn't vest ownership in the cultivator and thus did not create a free market for agricultural land such that industrialization could occur in a consensual manner. The Commies fell when they tried to push the thing through using strong arm tactics.  

but not as spectacular as some have claimed. But this sequence papered over the 4 Cs of politics — caste, communalism, corruption and coercion — hidden in plain sight by some spectacular self-images.

So, not hidden at all. 

In this election, these four Cs have come into the open, all at once.

This election is about whether there can be 'Hindu consolidation' or not.  

To the extent that this is the terrain on which Bengal politics is being conducted, the BJP has won, even if it loses the election.

No. The BJP loses if there is no 'Hindu consolidation'. Either Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was a true prophet- but one without honor in his own land during his own lifetime- or he wasn't a Messiah at all. He was a silly fellow and the party he founded just another bunch of tossers.  

The claim that caste was absent in Bengal politics was always problematic.

It was false. J.N Mandal was very successful in mobilizing the Namasudras. But allying with the Muslim League turned out to be a bad idea.  

The concentration of upper castes in urban Bengal and their secession from rural power structures allowed them to live the fiction of a casteless politics.

The truth is they embedded themselves in various bureaucracies or other Institutions.  

As Sekhar Bandyopadhyay long pointed out, Partition shifted the discourse of caste to a discourse of migration and rehabilitation which could be subsumed by a politics of social justice without eradicating it.

Why? Because Mandal found no takers after fleeing back to India. Anyway, 'discourse' in the Sixties took a Maoist turn. Killing Judges subsumed talk of 'rehabilitation'. 

But the power structures were always suffused with caste, something captured much earlier in literature than in social science. It is striking how the discussion of marginalised groups like the Matuas is so much more visible in this election.

Matuas are a Namasudra sect who fled East Pakistan repenting Mandal's leadership. But the question remains whether there can be 'Hindu consolidation'. That is what makes this election interesting. If the BJP fails, then its entire strategy begins to unravel. It is merely one party among many. On the other hand, if Modi prevails, then the Pratap Bhanu Mehtas of the world will be disintermediated. It will have been proved that they were living in a fantasy land. Caste and Class is a red herring. As in 1946, Religion is the determinant of National identity. Only within that matrix can there be caste and class competition. 

Both Dalit and Muslim politics in Bengal had been contained within an edifice that denied them independent political space and economic empowerment.

No. Muslim politics prevailed in East Bengal. Mandal was foolish enough to ally with them but then his people had to flee. The question is whether Muslim majority areas in West Bengal will assert themselves under Mamta's patronage or whether the BJP will come to power and check that tendency. That is what makes this an interesting election. However, even if Mamta is displaced by some coalition, she will soon be back on the war-path. Her charisma is such, so indomitable is her spirit, that it is difficult to believe any grand narrative- Communist or Nationalist- will prevail against her. Sadly, her Administration is thuggish and incompetent. But then are there really any other type of Bengali politician?  

Dalits are seeking more assertive political space through the BJP; and Muslim politics is looking to experiment with different possibilities.

Why this obsession with 'assertive political spaces'? Mehta has one but he is shit. Assertion doesn't matter. Getting value for money for what you pay in taxes is what politics should be about. Dalits have always been perfectly rational in that respect. 

As Rahul Varma pointed out, the BJP used Dalit politics for Hindutva consolidation in Bengal.

No. It appealed to Dalits in Bengal as it does everywhere else. Why? Hindutva- the essence of Hinduism- denies that caste or gender can be the basis of any type of hierarchy or discrimination. 

But this does not mean Mamta- who is Hindu herself- believes in such discrimination. If she makes Dalit voters a better offer than she may prevail. 

This is ideal terrain for the BJP. It could use Dalits as a wedge to throw open the caste character of the dominant Bengali order.

Marxists cunts talked in those vacuous terms. Mehta is not a Marxist. He is merely a blathershite.  

It could play on a terrain where it is strong: The tapping of repressed memories. It has positioned Hindutva as the vehicle of Dalit empowerment.

This is silly. Everybody with any sense wants a productive class to have more power to rise up because that means more cool stuff for everybody.  The big question is whether Dalits, as a matter of lived reality, find Muslims are helping or hindering them. The answer, of course, will be mixed. Still, the decision must be made as to whether the State will do better under Mamta or the BJP. 

The undercurrent of a communalised politics, charges of minority appeasement, were always lurking under the surface.

In Mehta's circle these are 'undercurrents'. But for people trying to come up a little these are bread and butter issues. 

The BJP forced Mamata Banerjee to play on their terrain.

Can any party get elected without at least a portion of the Muslim vote? Surely only if the Muslim vote is split can the BJP get in? But can the Muslim vote be split? Surely both the Left and Congress are a mere shadow of themselves. Mamta has gone the extra mile to secure the Muslim vote. But, at the end of the day, she is a Hindu who seems to incarnate the 'Shakti' of the Goddess beloved of Bengal. This is real Hinduism. Hindutva is a rather bloodless, albeit anti-casteist, type of an essentially secular ideology. Modi is popular because he represents a rational program for reform and, 'catch-up' growth. But, all over the world, people are ceasing to believe growth is possible. There is always some unexpected global crisis around the corner to knock us back down.

Like the Congress of old she has to now try to run a Muslim consolidation of votes, along with Hindu nationalism.

It is enough to project 'Bengali Pride' for Mamta to retain power. 

Her granting of allowances and housing for sanatan Brahmin priests was that kind of symbolic act. But the very fact that she had to declare her Hindu allegiances as a political performance is an indication of the communalisation of politics.

Granting stipends for Muslim Imams did not turn her Muslim. In any case, it was already obvious that she was Hindu.

It has exposed her to the charge the BJP has always made, that all secularism is electoral secularism, a façade that can crack quite easily.

There is no secularism where Religion determines which law you are subject to and what your entitlements are.  India has never been secular. 

The third confrontation with reality is over corruption. The CPM ran a party state, in which corruption is knit into a hierarchical organisational order, and therefore was not called corruption.

It was called nepotistic corruption backed up muscle power. 

Mamata’s governance model is different. She relies, in line with the national trend, on the deepening of private individualised transfers through a variety of social schemes, from Kanyashree to Swasthya Sathi. Some of these are done quite well. But this delivery is done through empowered bureaucrats more than party structures or community coalitions.

Mamta did this in imitation of the BJP's 'last mile delivery'. However, this meant her goons had to find other ways to extort money and so criminality rose. 

The second shift is displacing older structures of party corruption which were embedded in the community with an alternative network of brokers and rent extractors; this is a system at once both centralised and more extractive. There is the potential of both popular worry about corruption, and potentially more competition and dissatisfaction if the spoils are not distributed well. Taken together, centralised corruption and bureaucratic empowerment weaken party organisational structures.

But Mamta wants to hand over power to her nephew. It is in her interest to keep her party's 'organisational structure' weak. Why should she not rule for ever like Naveen Patnaik in Orissa?  

Finally there is coercion. Bengal is not unusually high on crime, but it has been high on political violence and intimidation. Violence was baked into the party state of the CPM. It took a form of counter-violence to shake it off. In some ways, elections in Bengal are about memories of victimisation by political violence. Even parts of the left turned to the BJP precisely to counteract victimisation by TMC cadres. The BJP has tapped into this theme of victimisation of violence.

This is nothing new. It was true in the Sixties and has remained true to this day. 

The bhadralok intellectuals will protest that Bengal is undergoing Nirad Chaudhuri’s nightmare: Bengal being overrun by UP-style politics.

This is silly. What the BJP is promising is Gujarat-style politics. It is only recently that the BJP won U.P and it is too early to tell if they will keep it.  

But in truth these contradictions are homegrown and long in the making. After all, it is this same intellectual class that stood idly by when the CPM perfected the model the BJP wants to emulate: The creation of a party state.

This is foolish. Nobody wanted to emulate the CPM because Bengal fell further and further behind under their rule. Which party wants a 'politburo' stuffed with crazy ideologues? Don't forget, Jyoti Basu could have been P.M in the Nineties if his politburo hadn't stopped him for some crazy ideological reason.  

For instance, Bengal systematically dismantled its advantage in higher education on the altar of ideological conformity, and licensing of state penetration and capture of civil society institutions.

To be fair, there was a time when Leftists tended to be brighter and better read than the usual type of academic. It is foolish to speak of Indian universities- which were diploma mills merely- as being 'civil society institutions'.  Like the Trade Unions, Campuses too were politicized. They became a training ground in thuggery and  politics. 

These fundamental dynamics are obscured by the persona of Mamata Banerjee, one of the last leaders left with some spunk, and a degree of popular identification.

Every province has such leaders. Capt. Amarinder isn't exactly a push-over. Nor is Patnaik. Nitish Kumar's current weakness has nothing to do with his 'persona'. It remains to be seen whether he will find a way to assert himself.  

That the four Cs have changed the terrain of politics is beyond doubt.

There is only one C. Communism. It's appeal has disappeared and there is nothing to replace it with. The question is whether Bengal will be ruled by a purely Regional party- in which case it will be neglected by the Center- or whether it will give a National party a chance to form a government.  

But will communal polarisation be enough for the BJP to surpass its 2019 performance? Will some votes gravitate back to the Left enough to create a three-cornered contest with its own peculiar mathematics?

Can the Left split the Muslim vote? Or are initiatives in that direction part of some BJP conspiracy? 

Has the BJP’s “we will take anybody” neutralised its anti-incumbency advantage over corruption? How much of a difference will the campaign make?

The commentariat believes that 'Social Media' influences voting behavior more than the actual campaign. Consider Mamta's recent 'accident'. Hearing about it from her, we are easily convinced this was an orchestrated attack probably with police connivance. But the eyewitness accounts we see on our smartphone cause us to doubt Mamta's word. Yet, we all know that Mamta was brutally attacked on many occasions. We are reminded of her extraordinary courage and fighting spirit. But, that was before she was Chief Minister when the police had orders to make things difficult for her. Indeed, she alleges that one senior IPS officer bit her! But that was then, this is now. The police are completely under her thumb. How is it she was travelling in a sensitive area without police protection? This is the question which must be answered. The TMC has demanded a CBI probe into what they call a deep-rooted conspiracy to assassinate their leader. It appears this allegation may feature in their manifesto and thus become a major plank in their campaign.

One thing is clear. Bengal does not provide a progressive alternative,

It never has. Communism was a God that had already failed everywhere before the Bengalis gave it a try. I suppose you could say that the British provided a progressive alternative. But they were chased away.  

unless all one means by progressive is non-BJP. If Mamata, against odds, wins, it will at least keep alive a distribution of power in the Indian system that could be a site of resistance.

To what? Progress. 

But we shall see what Bengal’s first brush with reality yields.

Bengal's first brush with reality was the 1937 election after which the Hindu bhadralok began to understand their own impotence. Then came the 1946 election and Partition. What followed was things like the freight equalization policy which removed Bengal's comparative and acquired advantage in manufacturing. Its economic decline continued decade after decade. Sections of the bhadralok rallied behind the Communists- but that was an ideology in terminal decline. Now, Bangladesh has overtaken West Bengal- indeed, it may overtake India. Mamta can't deliver in the same way that Sheikh Hasina has delivered and is continuing to deliver. This is the reality which the Bengali voter has to face. Clearly, voting for the right party can bring about 'poriborton'. But the right party is the party which does smart things, not the one which claims to have right on its side. Mamta's attempts to paint herself as the victim of an assassination attempt when, it appears, she merely suffered an accident of an avoidable kind, gives us the impression that she is out of touch with reality. She does not understand that it was up to her own Home Minister to ensure proper 'bundobast' of police security, etc, for her visit to a sensitive region like Nandigram.  She is like the Bengali origin Professor who writes books about the Bengal Famine while ignoring the fact that it was Bengalis, holding elected offices, whose duty it was to deal with that problem. Bangladesh has taken responsibility for its own rise. West Bengal must do the same. Mankind- even Bengalikind- can bear as much Reality as they have a will to better themselves. If that will is lacking, Reality won't go away. It will get worse.