Why does Bengal remain against the power of Delhi? Know how deep the roots of this tradition are

Dipankar Gupta The Trinamool Congress has won a landslide victory in the recently held Lok Sabha elections and assembly by-elections in Bengal. This is a formal story, but behind it is the hidden hand of Bengali sentiment which instinctively rejects the party ruling at the Centre.

Rejecting the party sitting at the center

Since 1967, apart from a brief period between 1972 and 1977 (even then the Congress needed the CPI to rule), Bengal has rejected the party at the Centre. It is a kind of situation where two people there have different opinions about the same event. No matter who rules from Delhi, Bengal will remain a determined opposition. Earlier, when the Congress was the popular choice everywhere in India, Bengal chose the CPM. Similarly, today, the BJP is doing well north of the Vindhyas, but falls short in Bengal before even reaching the last rung. It seems that to win Bengal, the party at the Centre will have to give up Delhi. It is indeed a conundrum.

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Shadows of past centuries

Unlike Tamil Nadu, Bengal never had a separatist moment. Also, unlike some Tamils, Ravana is still a demon king here. Hindu prayers in Bengal are the same as everywhere else. But there are some important differences. Bengal is different from much of the country because it has no medieval heroes. No Rajendra Chola, no Maharana Pratap, no Chhatrapati Shivaji, no Maharaja Ranjit Singh. There is not a single sword-wielding statue of a medieval warrior king in the whole of Bengal.

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Instead, the contemporary Bengali heroic icon begins with Raja Ram Mohan Roy holding a book. Then there is Swami Vivekananda, remembered for his/her stirring speech at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago and for reviving spirituality in Hinduism. Then, there is Tagore. Liberated from the medieval past, Bengal is more accepting of classes and strata that are free of pre-modern sentiments. Vivekananda attacked caste, preached Vedanta, wore saffron, but, like Tagore, also spoke enthusiastically about other religions.

200 years of historical depth

Again, the Bengali language, despite its much-vaunted status, has no ancient tradition like Tamil or Sanskritised Hindi. Contemporary Bengali has a historical depth of about 200 years. This cultural freshness is a boon, because Bengal politics has no reason to be medieval any more. Another unusual feature is that Bengal has never had an anti-Brahmin caste movement. This is probably because Bengal has three upper castes, Brahmin, Kayastha and Baidya (traditional Ayurveda), rather than just Brahmins. This makes it difficult to target any one, because instead of one you may see three.

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Nor are these three upper castes at the top for ritualistic reasons. Their elevation is because they statistically represent the category of ‘bhadralok’ or civilized people. Yet, caste does not prevent anyone from being ‘bhadralok’, as long as that person is cultured and can recite Tagore.

20th-century hostility

The fundamental reason for Bengal’s political paradox today is the sidelining of Subhas Bose by Gandhi and Nehru, but that is not all. Along with this, there are some peculiar circumstances, not related to ‘bhadralok’ intellectual arrogance. This allowed the communists to gradually gain momentum in this state. During Partition, like the trains coming from Pakistan, the Chittagong Mail brought Hindu corpses to India. About 70% of the surviving refugees were herded into overcrowded Kolkata. Punjabi refugees fared better. In the north, vacant government land was easily available. Also, the fleeing Muslims had vacated 45 lakh acres of land.

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Unlike Punjab, Bengali refugees continued to arrive even after 1947. The 1950 riots in Dhaka, Sylhet, Noakhali and Barisal prompted a new wave of refugees. By 1981, the number of refugees rose to nearly 8 million. This was close to the total number of refugees from West Pakistan, but still it could not excite Delhi. In fact, Nehru had earlier asked Chief Minister BC Roy to send Bengali-Hindu refugees back to East Pakistan. This shocked Bengali-Hindus in every party. The Left expressed this anti-Delhi resentment most strongly. Even though this stance had nothing to do with Marxism, it helped elevate the Left above the rest.

The Bose connection to the Delhi protests

If anything has fuelled Bengal’s anti-Delhi sentiment, it is the marginalisation of Subhas Bose, the Congress’ insensitivity towards refugees from East Pakistan. Remember, many prominent Bengali scholars, poets and militants had deep roots in East Pakistan. It was difficult for Bengalis then to ignore the throngs of refugees at Kolkata’s Sealdah station. Nor the injustice of sending thousands of refugees to Dandakaranya, a place where Lord Rama was exiled because it was extremely inaccessible. Factors like these fuelled the Left more than just ideology.

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When there was a grain shortage in Bengal in 1959, the Communists under Jyoti Basu set up the Price Rise and Famine Resistance Committee. Once again, during this crisis Bengal felt abandoned by Delhi. But by now the Communists had enough net practice as they had also done relief work in the Bengal famine of 1943.

The current sentiment of protest

Trinamool was quickly accepted in Bengal because of its anti-Delhi stance. When the BJP won in 2014, it got some Bengali support because it was the new party to set foot in Delhi. But when the BJP came to power in Delhi, Bengal backed away. Irrational? Unreasonable? Maybe, but who is deciding? Remember, the Bengal Sultanate was the first of all the sultanates to break away from Delhi in 1342.
(The author is a sociologist.)