PM Must Stop the Descent of Bengal

Apart from political, the economic isolation of West Bengal has helped creating an unruly fundamentalist state there.

- SUGATO HAZRA

The abysmal plunge of West Bengal from the intellectual leader in India to a fundamentalist region was never predicted even by the smartest soothsayers. Even Mamata Banerjee, when she finally captured the state, perhaps did not have it in her schemes that West Bengal would turn this bad. She was encouraged by vocal secular Marxists, who wanted to keep Narendra Modi's BJP out, and Muslims of the state.

Mamata, when she was a lone opposition Lok Sabha member from West Bengal after 2004 had confided to me several times that Muslims could not be trusted. But when in power on the back of strong Muslim disenchantment with the Left Front government, she maintained the rapport with the community. This dependency rose with the rise of Narendra Modi nationally. The inspired hatred of Muslims as well as "Liberal Bengali" voters was smartly used by Mamata to keep BJP out. In the process the historical hatred arising out of illogical superiority complex was paving way for a secular-communal political ideology. This separation from the national mainstream was widened due to the failure of the state on the economic front. On the whole, West Bengal turned a fertile ground of anti-national sentiment.