M A Hossain,
There is something deeply unsettling about a society that begins to anticipate violence as naturally as it anticipates election results. In West Bengal, elections are too often followed not by political reconciliation, but by the familiar choreography of intimidation: crude bombs exploding in narrow lanes, shuttered marketplaces, frightened families hiding indoors, and local party workers patrolling neighbourhoods like victorious militias. The latest cycle of post-poll violence in districts such as Sandeshkhali, Murshidabad, Birbhum, and North 24 Parganas once again revealed an uncomfortable truth about Bengal’s democratic culture: electoral victory in the state is rarely treated as a constitutional mandate alone. It is often interpreted as territorial conquest.
That distinction matters. In mature democracies, elections settle disputes temporarily through ballots. In Bengal, elections frequently intensify disputes through demonstrations of street power. Political parties do not merely seek legitimacy at the polling booth; they seek dominance over local geography, economic access, and psychological space. The aftermath of voting becomes a struggle to establish who controls neighbourhoods, unions, welfare networks, educational institutions, and local patronage systems. Violence, therefore, is not accidental to the system. It has become embedded within the political logic of the state.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect is how ordinary this has begun to feel. Post-poll violence in Bengal no longer generates the national shock it deserves. Citizens discuss “sensitive booths” and “party areas” with exhausted familiarity. Political clashes are treated almost like seasonal storms—dangerous, regrettable, yet somehow expected. That normalisation represents a deeper democratic decay than the violence itself. When fear becomes routine, democracy slowly loses its moral meaning.
Yet Bengal’s crisis did not emerge in isolation. Its roots run deep through the state’s modern political history. The ideological turbulence of the late 1960s and 1970s, particularly during the rise of the Naxalite movement, transformed Bengal into a battlefield of revolutionary radicalism and state repression. Political assassinations, violent street confrontations, police crackdowns, and partisan revenge entered the bloodstream of public life. The infamous Sainbari Murders became one of the defining symbols of that era’s brutality, demonstrating how political rivalry could descend into horrifying personal violence.
The decades of Left Front rule that followed undoubtedly brought administrative continuity and electoral durability, but they did not eliminate the deeper culture of political coercion. Instead, allegations of cadre dominance and local intimidation became persistent features of rural governance. The crises surrounding Nandigram Violence and Singur Movement revealed how quickly political mobilisation in Bengal could mutate into violent confrontation.
When the All India Trinamool Congress displaced the Left Front in 2011, many hoped Bengal would finally move beyond its violent political inheritance. Instead, the architecture of confrontation survived the transfer of power. The colours on party flags changed, but the political culture underneath remained strikingly familiar. Now, with the rise of Bharatiya Janata Party as a formidable challenger, the state’s political landscape has become even more polarised. Elections increasingly resemble emotional wars of identity rather than democratic competitions over governance.
The persistence of this violence reveals a structural reality about Bengal’s politics that outsiders often misunderstand. In many parts of the state, politics is not simply ideological. It is economic, social, and existential. Access to local jobs, welfare schemes, government contracts, educational opportunities, land influence, and even informal security frequently flows through political networks. Power is therefore intensely localised. To control a neighbourhood politically is often to control its opportunities, resources, and social hierarchy.
Under such conditions, electoral defeat carries consequences far beyond embarrassment. Losing power can mean losing access to livelihoods, influence, and protection. This transforms political rivalry into something deeply personal and psychologically charged. Violence becomes a tool not merely to punish opponents, but to communicate ownership. A vandalised party office, a bomb blast near a rival stronghold, or a threatening slogan painted on a wall all function as signals: this territory belongs to us.
Fear itself becomes political language.
The psychological dimensions of Bengal’s crisis deserve far greater attention than they usually receive. Over decades, political identity in the state has acquired an almost tribal intensity. Supporters increasingly view rival parties not as democratic adversaries, but as existential threats to their community and social standing. Once politics reaches that stage, empathy begins to erode. Moral restraint weakens under collective passion.
This explains why ordinary individuals can become participants in extraordinary acts of aggression. A young political worker throwing crude bombs or intimidating voters may not perceive himself as a criminal. He often imagines himself as defending his political community, protecting local honour, or proving loyalty to a larger collective struggle. Violence becomes morally rationalised through belonging. Group identity overwhelms individual conscience.
Fear then reproduces itself across generations. Children raised in politically volatile regions grow up internalising aggression as a natural feature of democratic life. They witness armed processions, hear stories of revenge attacks, and learn early that political affiliation can shape personal safety. Over time, society adapts psychologically to permanent hostility. Citizens stop expecting peaceful coexistence because they no longer believe it is realistic.
The media ecosystem has frequently deepened this desensitisation. Political killings are often transformed into spectacles of partisan theatre where victims are selectively mourned depending on ideological preference. Television debates reduce human tragedy into electoral arithmetic. Outrage erupts briefly, burns intensely, and then disappears into the next cycle of confrontation. The dead become political symbols before they are remembered as human beings.
The tragedy is particularly painful because Bengal once represented one of the intellectual centres of the Indian subcontinent. Bengal Renaissance produced reformers, poets, philosophers, economists, scientists, and political thinkers who profoundly shaped modern Indian consciousness. Bengal’s public culture once valued argument, literature, rational debate, and ideological sophistication. Political disagreement was historically expressed through intellectual confrontation rather than brute intimidation.
Today, however, that tradition risks being overshadowed by a harsher political ethos where physical assertion increasingly substitutes democratic persuasion. The decline is not merely administrative. It is civilisational in character. A society celebrated for intellectual depth now struggles against the normalisation of political aggression.
The solution therefore cannot be limited to temporary deployments of security forces during elections. More police may suppress immediate clashes, but they cannot dismantle the ecosystem that sustains political violence. Bengal requires institutions capable of acting with visible neutrality. Law enforcement must operate independently rather than through partisan calculations. Political crimes must invite swift and impartial punishment irrespective of party affiliation. Selective justice only reinforces the perception that violence remains politically useful.
The Election Commission of India must also rethink its approach. Reactive policing after violence erupts is insufficient. The deeper challenge lies in dismantling entrenched networks of intimidation operating long before voting begins. Monitoring campaign financing, protecting vulnerable communities, ensuring administrative neutrality, and preventing localised coercion are equally essential to restoring democratic credibility.
But institutional reform alone will not rescue Bengal’s political culture. The state requires a broader moral reset. Political parties must abandon the dangerous culture of cadre supremacy that rewards aggression as evidence of loyalty. Educational institutions, civil society organisations, and the media must revive democratic ethics rooted in debate rather than domination. Citizens, too, must reject the temptation to excuse violence simply because it benefits their preferred political side.
Democracy is not merely the mechanical counting of votes. It is the assurance that disagreement will not invite intimidation, exclusion, or death. A society where citizens fear expressing political choices may continue holding elections, but its democratic spirit gradually hollows from within.
West Bengal now stands between two futures. One is a future where every election becomes another rehearsal of revenge, intimidation, and territorial warfare. The other is a future where Bengal rediscovers its older traditions of coexistence, intellectual dissent, and democratic dialogue.
For democracies rarely collapse overnight. More often, they erode quietly—until fear itself begins to feel normal, and violence starts masquerading as common sense.
M A Hossain is a senior journalist and international affairs analyst, based in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: writetomahossain@gmail.com
This article published at :
1. The Naton, Pak : 11 May, 26
No comments:
Post a Comment