All that is Violent Melts into the Thin Air of Politics in Bengal

Ranabir Samaddar

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Thinking of Bengal, I am yet to find an analysis of a possible correlation between violence in electoral time and electoral participation of common people. Also, there is hardly any statistical exercise on the correlation of violence in “normal” time and electoral time, or say correlation if any between violence around what is considered as social issues, such as caste violence, gender violence, or daily violence of the street, characteristically urban violence, and on the other hand political violence, that is violence in moments of dense politics that include the electoral time. And again, I have not seen any analysis of a correlation between urban insecurity and violence over claim makings.

To raise the possibility of such correlations is to invite raised eyebrows. Liberal pundits will caution, here is a typically crooked Bengali mind at work to justify violence. They will preach homilies that we should have peaceful politics and mass participation in elections at the same time. Yet interrogating the received understanding is an imperative, also the wisdom about order valued above all by the share market.

This time the first five phases of the seven-phase general elections in Bengal went peacefully as the Election Commission (ECI) noted with satisfaction. Newspapers, news agencies, and news portals concurred. Then two persons lost lives in the sixth phase. In the seventh, the last phase, there were a few incidents of stone pelting, demonstrations in front of police stations, skirmishes, a few injuries, and complaints by opposition parties of the passivity of central forces. This was intriguing as it was expected that the ruling party of Bengal, the Trinamool Congress (TMC), would complain of the high-handedness of central forces. Instead, complaints came thick and fast from the opposition–BJP, Congress, and Left. It is difficult to say if complaints of violence were false flag tactics of the opposition.

However, this much is clear that allegations of violence, incidences of actual violence, violent memories, and responses by judiciary and the Union Government–all become in no time part of the normal business of politics in the state. They formed along with others the chiaroscuro of quotidian politics.

If violence points to passion and the deep stake of politics in an extractive economy, that is resource extraction, control, and utilisation, consider these: The national average polling percentage in the sixth phase was 61.20 percent, in Bengal, from where some incidents of violence were reported, it was 79.47 percent, the highest polling percentage in the country. To further understand the intensity: Before the last phase, the corresponding figures–adding all the six phases were 70 percent (national) and 81 percent (West Bengal). The ECI declared that the electoral campaign was most intense in West Bengal. The total figure of meetings, processions, rallies, was around 95,000, and the total number of applications was 119,276. This figure was much higher than those in other states. In fact, the TMC started their poll campaign in all 42 seats before the elections were announced and the BJP did likewise in 20 seats. The 75 days beginning with 16 March when the elections were announced, then through extreme heat and the disaster of Cyclone Remal to 29 May, leaders and cadres campaigned involving millions in the whirlpool of political arguments. These all were arguments of power.

In this churning women involved themselves most noticeably. They faced the heat and dust, trod waterlogged roads and grounds, crossed small rivers and canals, to reach rallies and meetings. They suffered, two died, on several occasions they came forward to protest, sit down, and demonstrate. According to the Association of Democratic Reforms, female candidates constituted 9.6 percent of total Lok Sabha candidates in 2024, and of the total candidates of the BJP and the TMC in Bengal, the respective percentages of female candidates were 16 and 25. Out of the 42 candidates of TMC 12 were women. The proportion was higher than the case with other parties.

Women labour more in an extractive economy. They suffer more. Consider therefore these relevant figures for Bengal. News agencies reported on the basis of ECI data that female voter turnout was consistently higher than male counterpart across phases and constituencies. There was the remarkable ofTamluk seat which recorded 82.1 percent male voter turnout against female voter turnout of 87.6 percent. This was in the sixth phase, marked by some violence in Tamluk, when women voters voted more in massive numbers in the adjoining four seats of Tamluk, Contai, Ghatal and Medinipur. There were skirmishes, women’s protests, and girls to elderly women coming out on the dusty streets of rural Bengal in number. Overall, as in the previous election, female voters outnumbered male voters by 3 percent. The situation was same in the fifth phase, when more women had turned up at polling stations compared to men. Women, we must not be surprised, started mobilising in a militant mode – in Sandeshkhali or elsewhere, be they as TMC cadres and grassroots organisers or as BJP cadres. The picture in preceding panchayat elections, municipality elections, and state Assembly elections had been the same. In fact, participation in these elections and running of self-governance bodies laid the foundation for a state- wise mobilisation of women for votes. Add to this, the welfare programmes for women and girls, a woman in the figure of a Chief Minister, and the general tone of the government in the state, namely, we care for you, for your sons and daughters. We shall protect you. We are here for you. Now, you have to support and protect us. As the Chief Minister said repeatedly in mass meetings, tell me, mothers and sisters, will the play be on? Khela hobe to? Seemingly an ambiguous call, but a sure message to millions of followers.

Yet it is not only a case of women’s enthusiastic response to affirmative schemes. As earlier indicated, in an extractive economy women bear the brunt of agrarian distress, including the labour of looking after the families of migrant workers. West Bengal accounts for 15.2 percent of countrywide illegal marriages, meaning mostly child marriages. A government survey shows that 49.9 percent of girls in West Bengal between the ages of 15 to 24 stay at home and do not attend school, the national figure being 43.8 percent. Even the much appreciated Kanyashree scheme to encourage education of young girls has failed in this respect. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report of 2022, about 51,000 women and girls went missing that year. Some were recovered later. Nonetheless, it was one of the highest numbers among the states in the country.

Hence, we should not be surprised when we see that while in phase I male turnout in the country was 66.22 percent and female turnout was 66.07 percent, in Bengal corresponding figures were 81.25 and 82.59. Greater female turnout remained all through the elections. Thus, in phase III, male turnout in the country was 66.89 percent and female turnout was 64.41 percent, while in Bengal corresponding figures were 72.21 and 83.01. In phase IV national figures were 69.58 percent and 68.73 percent, and in Bengal figures were 79 and 81.49. In phase VI, national figures were 61.95 percent and 64.95 percent, in Bengal these were 81.62 and 83.83.

At the same time we must not forget, total voter turnout in West Bengal remained consistently higher than the national average. As if, the entire population was immersed in politics of the time. Thus, Bengal percentage figures (national figures in brackets) for the seven phases were: for phase I, 81.91 (66.14); phase II, 76.58 (66.71); phase III 77.53 (65.68); phase IV, 80.22 (69.16); phase V, 78.45 (62.2); phase VI, 82.71 (63.37); and for phase VII these percentage figures were 73.36 (61.63). Was it a schizophrenic response of the poorer classes who thought that their bread and lives were at stake and took politics bit more seriously than reality warrants? Or, they were fools and not cynics as the chattering classes are? Was it a delirious response, or all this was what in official language is called celebration of democracy?

Incidentally, if you compare the situation with that of UP, these are the figures of electoral participation of voters for the first six phases: 61.11, 55.19, 57.55, 58.09, 57.98, 58.05, and 55.59. In Gujarat where the elections were held in one phase only, it was 63.71 percent.

One thing is clear, high popular participation in elections has meant physical involvement, embroiled mass of bodies in millions, the political process extracting some physical cost. The higher the turn out, possibly greater is the violence. Because in absolute numbers or magnitude, violence was really low. The embers though will glow for some time causing post-poll violence, mostly clashes. All these do not mean however that politics cannot be conducted in a different way–desirable but less violent or what we all prefer, without any violence. Also we must not think that greater is the social violence, less will be political violence and vice versa. These are pure categories. In reality they influence each other and intermesh.

Still considering that this time the ruling forces at the Centre unsuccessfully put exceptional emphasis on capturing Bengal, where even a mendicant started making open political remarks about “minority appeasement”, where in meetings the top leader of the country spoke incessantly about the opposition being enemy agent, and Muslims were given undue preference by local government, wealth redistribution towards social justice and equality was actually an idea of “urban Naxals”, the stakes became unusually high. Our memory is proverbially short. But what would you think of the time when the Prime Minister in course of seeking votes referred to Muslims as infiltrators, people who produce more children and would take away the resources of the Hindu population, and his deputy, India’s home minister, said that if returned to power he would hang upside down cow traders and smugglers who slaughter cows. In such time, politics is bound to be carried in war mode.

This is what is happening in Bengal. Politics in war mode is being fought in cities, towns, and villages. Surprising that it is not that violent. Yet, Bengal must strive that politics returns to civil mode, even though it may remain contentious.

This time Bengal could resist authoritarian and communal politics. The verdict thas made clear that it does not want a repeat of the infamous killings of the riots of 1946. It needs more education and health provisions in particular for women and girls, more social support for the families of migrant workers, more social security for precarious labour, and greater encouragement to care workers, who have proved time and again the backbone of the society of Bengal.

All these call for dialogues and not more violence.

[Ranabir Samaddar is Distinguished Chair, Calcutta Research Group]

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Vol 57, No. 15 - 18, Oct 5 - Nov 2, 2024