Backward Economy Needs Medieval Politics

Mamata Banerjee understands how to maintain political hegemony by keeping people in poverty. No wonder the state does mere lip service to godlike technology but never makes any effort to promote new-age industry.

- SUGATO HAZRA

Evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson said that we exist with a bizarre combination of "Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology." The Stone Age emotion, he pointed out, gave rise to a very fundamental characteristic of human nature, the capacity to cooperate within groups and an attendant hostility towards out groups. The success of regional political parties in India originates in this in-group cooperative feeling or "eusociality" as Wilson called it. Like the "homo sapiens" living in the Middle Paleolithic Age, the ruling political ideology of Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress of West Bengal is eusociality and often enough open hostility towards the rest of India. Clearly, the Stone Age emotion is used effectively.

Medieval institutions fundamentally were created to support unhindered rule of the medieval rulers. Any opposition to the order of the ruler was punished. The courtiers were paid to praise the ruler; the army was maintained to threaten anyone who dared to oppose. Take a look at West Bengal today. Here, police impose the law (whims) of the ruling authority and execute those orders. So deep is the success of this medieval feeling that even the nation's legal framework finds itself at wit's end to enforce its orders. There are always options of delaying, stalling, or effectively ignoring the judgments of constitutional benches while the lower judiciary has already been subjugated by threat. The present-day courtiers—local media persons—sing hymns of the ruling class, lured by the financial support that the administration provides and also to escape the wrath that might fall on them in case of dissension.