‘Lumpen living, High Thinking’

Bengal : Ominous Political Trends
Maidul Islam

There is nothing substantial to say about contemporary Bengal under Trinamool Congress led government. The daily commentary of daily newspapers and electronic media only bears testimony to the decaying political culture and mindless political violence in Bengal. However, in order to understand contemporary Bengal politics one needs to make an assessment about the political character of the Trinamool Congress (TMC). The TMC is certainly distinct from the national parties like the Congress and BJP and many regional parties on some counts. Although the TMC is an offshoot of the Congress, it has a distinctive lower middle-class character as far as its core electoral constituency and the class profile of many of its functionaries are concerned. The lumpen proletariat has been the most consistent supporter of the TMC since late 1990s, when the party came into existence. The volume and social weight of this class have since increased due to the growth of 'lumpen capitalism' as eloquently argued by a distinguished ecomonist. The boredom of the populace with the Communist Left in Bengal complemented by the failure of the Left to deliver created a restlessness that was captured by the Trinamool's call for 'change'.

Also, the poor could also identify with a significant section of Trinamool's top leadership that originally came from lower-middle class and suburban backgrounds. The TMC supremo has a cult status like many leaders in the Congress and regional parties like BSP, AIADMK, RJD, SP etc. Yet important differences can be seen between the TMC and the Congress on issues of FDI in retail, SEZ, federalism etc. which are patent Left issues. On the other hand, its staunch opposition to strike called by the organized sector working class, its intolerance towards any oppositional and critical voices, and its eagerness to delete Marx from the school syllabus only indicates that it is ideologically not close to the Left but has an authoritarian and anti-democratic tendency. Trinamool Congress is an anti-democratic party with core mobilization from the ever increasing informal sector labour force, which is not benefiting from the neoliberal policies of successive governments at the centre and the 7th Left Front government in the state of Bengal.

The lumpen and informal sector labour force does not have direct class contradiction with capital since it is not engaged in selling labour power under a common shed in a big factory like the organized working class. Rather its diverse occupations are scattered in distinct geographies in the state and as unorganized labour and petty producers, it has problems with FDI in retail, or a loss of one day of wages in the event of a strike.

For one thing, this lumpen and unorganized labour force for structural reasons is also antagonistic with a sense of hatred and contempt towards urban Bengali educated middle class (bhadrolok) and upper middle-classes that were both politically and culturally symbolized by the earlier Left Front leadership, which inherited the bhadrolok political culture from the Congress of 1950s and 1960s in Bengal. The unorganized sector labour is also antagonistic to the police, which have now been turned into a lame duck entity by the TMC giving a free hand to lumpens, and causing a worrying law and order situation in the state. Such a law and order breakdown in the state not only targets the opposition but also the police, as one can see in the recent murder of a sub-inspector in Garden Reach.

But in urban Bengal, does the TMC only represent the class interests of the lumpen proletariat and unorganized sector labour force? The answer to this is complex. The TMC definitely has its core mobilization from the lumpen and unorganized sector labour force but as it happens in the Nonadanga slum clearance or in the Dhapa murder case (for which TMC councilor Shambhunath Kau is in custody), it also acts against such constituencies as well whenever necessary. The massive urbanization of Kolkata is the will of the urban upper middle classes and urban rich, whose interests are sometimes contradictory to the informal sector labour force. Today, the TMC is caught between these classic paradoxes. In order to please these very contradictory class interests, in the long run, the TMC might end up losing everybody. TMC's favour to real estate lobby can be possibly explained by the opportunist character of the lumpen proletariat as a 'bribed tool' as pointed out by Marx long ago. This class has been used by the capital for rapid urbanization as people have seen in the nexus between real estate and the underworld in Mumbai.

Who are behind TMC? It is evident that small, medium and wannabe big capital are behind the TMC, particularly the chit fund managers (in practice, many are 'cheat funds' or 'sham funds' having murky dealings like Saradha Group), some local regional capital and the real estate businessmen. Ponzi players like Saradha usually invest their money collected from the people into real estate, media and film industry. It was a classic business model of chit funds that made Eennadu TV owner, Ramoji Rao in Andhra Pradesh and Sahara group owner, Subrata Roy to back regional political parties and in return, get political patronage for their business deals. In the case of West Bengal ponzi schemes, it is evident that the TMC is involved in mainstreaming the mushrooming chit funds that are investing in real estate, tourism, films, media etc. This is also clear how some journalists and film stars, working closely with certain chit fund players, are not only vocal supporters of the TMC but some have even become MPs and MLAs of the party. Since, such 'lumpen capitalism' has increased over the years in several regions, now it also nurtures national ambitions and wants to see its political representatives to increase its influence in other regional pockets and capture political power at the centre. Therefore, the TMC often clamours that it is willing to make a third front government (minus the Left) with other regional parties, many of whom have been backed by such chit funds.

But, TMC is culturally conservative and is thus opposed to the liberal permissiveness of urban upper-middle classes as is evident from the reactions of the Bengal government to close down several night-out joints after the Park Street rape case, its insensitive statements on rape victims and its conservative utterances on the dress code of women as the reasons for rape.

The point at issue is a political force that has its genealogical roots in urban and suburban (muffasil) areas, the TMC lacks understanding of the issues of the peasantry. It does not have a peasant organization and only recently, it is thinking about forming a peasant organization. In the rural sector, particularly in South Bengal, the erstwhile support base of the Congress, namely the rural rich and the erstwhile landlords have joined the TMC. Since the farmers, whose class interests are antagonistic to the core support base of the TMC in rural Bengal are not the main strength of the TMC, the party would not be sensitive to the issue of farmer suicides in the state. The Trinamool leadership actually comes from Kolkata and its adjacent suburban areas, which, while on one hand is aware of the problems of the urban poor but hardly has a sense of the world of the peasants. This is one reason why the TMC government has been a failure in the 100 days work under MGNREGA scheme according to the latest central government report. For the first time, the TMC got the support of a significant section of the peasantry in post 2007 because of land acquisition issue in different elections from 2008-2011.

A crude populist politics of the subalterns that is currently represented by the TMC is also hostile to many constitutional norms, which are generally identified with elite politics. Such hostility to constitutional norms is evidently reflected in the unceremonious removal of TMC's Dinesh Trivedi as Railway minister besides withdrawing the publicly stated proposals in the rail budget or the Bengal government's recent confrontation with the State Election Commission instead of cooperating with the poll panel.

What is more Trinamool does not have a long term strategic plan for Bengal's development. It came to power more as a negative vote against the Left than a positive approval of its often stated empty slogans of 'London, Switzerland and Goa dreams' by the people. It was the mere availability of the Trinamool as the only option to dislodge the Left that the people chose to vote TMC. Trinamool is a party without any coherent political ideology while having a peculiar party structure that is unable to manage its several factions at the grassroots level. Recently, Bengal has seen open factional fights of the TMC in the villages. One possible reason to postpone the Panchyat elections by the TMC led state government without agreeing to the proposals of State Election Commission is to buy some time for managing TMC's internal factionalism in the countryside.

Doubtless, the TMC in its political orientation is violent and anti-democratic. This can be often revealed by the venomous hate speeches of Trinamool leaders against the opposition. The TMC in its election manifesto and in several election meetings had given the slogan: badla noy bodol chai (not revenge, want change). It is ironical that even with much publicized promises of avoiding any politics of revenge and hatred made by the TMC, post-poll violence against the opposition in Bengal is gaining new heights.

Political violence actually threatens democratic politics, with increasing levels of political antagonism and enmity getting priority over democratic ways of political articulation. When there is lack of democratic political struggles then the legitimate political opponent is not perceived as an adversary to contend with, but only as an enemy to be destroyed. Any politics of violence is essentially the crisis of a political hegemony. A politics which cannot democratically mobilize people behind its project, resorts to violence. Politics as an art of transforming the impossible into possible is thus connected to the art of building a popular hegemony through democratic participation of the people. The politics of hatred resulting into vindictive assaults can be currently seen in Bengal, albeit along the lines of 'party identity'. This is fundamentally different from say a politics of hatred along the lines of 'communal identity' that one sees during communal riots. However, a 'politics of hatred' in both these cases is a reflection of deep seated depoliticisation, which resorts to violent elimination of political opponents, rather than politically and ideologically combating their adversaries. But what led to the emergence of an antidemocratic and violent political force like Trinamool? One major political reason that can answer this question is the decline of the Left.

In the backdrop of declining Left and an anti-democratic TMC, there are signs of the emergence of identity politics as a new political trend in West Bengal. The Jangipur by-election results confirmed such a trend of identity based politics with core community centric mobilization in West Bengal. Identity politics have witnessed a recent re-emergence with the ethno-nationalist mobilization behind the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha and tribal mobilization behind the Adivasi Vikas Parishad in North Bengal. In the Jangipur by-election, the sharp rise in the pro-hindutva BJP's vote share along with the impressive debut of two Muslim minority parties-the moderate Jamaat-e-Islami Hind backed Welfare Party of India (WPI) launched in April 2011 and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) that was established in 2009 by Islamists in Kerala attached to the erstwhile Popular Front-as new political players in the Muslim-majority district of Murshidabad signals a possible danger of a surge in identity politics of various shades in the near future in West Bengal. Secularists are well aware of the threats of communal-fascism and the majoritarian politics of the BJP. The entry of Muslim minority parties like WPI and SDPI into the electoral fray could create possible conditions where both majoritarian communalism and minority sectarianism would feed into each other, threatening the very secular democratic legacy of Bengal's political experience. The rise of Left politics was a major factor in maintaining the progressive secular character of Bengal's post-colonial politics. It is not surprising that communal-identitarian politics is re-appearing at a time when the Left is on a decline.

The presence of communal-identitarian parties like the BJP, on the one hand, and the WPI and SDPI on the other would surely be felt in the forthcoming Panchayat elections. Into whose vote base they make a relatively larger dent remains to be seen; but the mass base of the Left will not remain unaffected, as has happened in the case of the Gorkhas and tribals in North Bengal. Mamata Banerjee's tokenistic steps taken post-elections, appealing to the Muslim mass, has also failed to prevent the rise of Muslim minority parties. TMC's tokenistic tactical moves will soon encounter the larger question of social justice that is linked with the actual implementation of the Misra Commission recommendations for reservation in education and government jobs for socio-economically backward sections of the minorities in Bengal as envisioned by the Left Front. In such a context, it is the BJP which might gain by playing up communal sentiments.

On the other hand, the Congress' ability to attract the Muslims has dwindled fast as evident from the fall of its vote share of four by-election results in minority concentrated constituencies in the last six months. Apart from pointing to the threat posed by the BJP at the national level, it has vety little to offer. The implementation of the recommendations of the Sachar Committee Report has been tardy and the Ranganath Misra Commission recommendations have been mothballed. With the UPA government at the centre getting discredited, the Muslims in Bengal are also turning away from the Congress. When TMC's initiatives for Muslims are seen to be tokenistic at best, significant sections are therefore looking for options beyond the mainstream parties, and rallying behind assertive identitarian politics represented by parties like the WPI and the SDPI. These parties may gain more traction in the near future in minority concentrated districts of Murshidabad, Malda and Dinajpur in a political context where BJP is aggressively playing its card of'Muslim infiltration' from neighbouring Bangladesh. The dangers posed by such communal-identitarian politics were recently seen in the outbreak of violent conflicts in neighbouring Assam and in the recent protest demonstrations by several reactionary Muslim groups in Kolkata against the punishment of Bangladesh war criminals.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 49, June 16 -22, 2013

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