Bengal is not a normal election

In most states, here is how it goes. The election comes every five years. The politicians go nuts. The people sometimes pay attention, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes people are enthused and there is a wave. Like Rajasthan 2013 or Delhi 2020. Sometimes not, such as Karnataka 2018. Sometimes people change the government just because they are bored, like in Madhya Pradesh in 2018. Sometimes they vote in the same government because they are bored but don’t want to take risks, as in Bihar 2020.

But Bengal is not most states. In most states, people don’t take 28,000 political murders in their stride. In most states, the story of how a mother was forced to drink the blood of her sons is not told with a sense of romance, almost pride. In most states, it is not common to see 18 year old boys hanged from trees and poles, with political threats written on their shirt.

In Bengal elections, the stakes are not just high for politicians. The stakes here are extremely high for even common people.

Let me give only a tame example. A theater actor named Kaushik Kar recently joined the BJP. Immediately, he was dropped from his role in a play. Even if this happened somewhere else, the powers that be would have the decency to deny it. They would have insisted the decision has nothing to do with politics. Even lying shows a certain sense of insecurity : log kya kahenge?

But in Bengal, there is no such sense of shame. Here, the director openly said that the actor is being dropped because of his political affiliation.

Get it? There are no filters. Intolerance is open and in your face. There is no attempt to sugarcoat anything. Did Stalin make up all sorts of sweet stuff about Soviet rule? No, his police would break down the front door and take dissidents away.

Don’t think there is going to be a whole lot of sympathy either for what this actor faced. I bet you most people will say: so what? One guy had power, so he used it to oppress someone who did not. Isn’t that the whole point of power?

In Bengal, the politics of victimhood does not go very far. Why? Because Communist rule is a horrible thing. Once you have experienced Communist rule, something dies inside you. You grow up in an atmosphere where inhumanity is the norm. You stop feeling for victims of cruelty. This does not mean you have become a bad person. Rather, this is a defense mechanism. With so much cruelty around, your capacity for empathy is exhausted. If one guy beats up another, it is easy to feel bad for the one who got beaten up. When 28,000 political murders happen, your mind stops processing the evil or reacting to it.

In this election, those who are openly supporting BJP are putting a lot at risk. And they know it well. If you are in a slightly privileged urban setting, you only lose your career. And maybe you get beaten up occasionally. Do you remember the 70 year old woman whose face was all broken up? Her son told the media what the goons said: BJP korchis, bhalo. Tahole maar kheye thaakte hobe.

That translates to : you wanna be with BJP, no problem. Just accept your fate that you will get beaten up every other day.

That’s open power projection. No apologies, no shame.

For those in villages of the interior, the situation is even more grim. Those who support BJP openly are directly risking their lives. Just in case TMC wins, the reprisals will be bloody. They know it. Before the Lok Sabha election, there were places where BJP supporters based themselves in neighboring Jharkhand. They would surface every now and then, like a guerrilla army, cross the border into Bengal and campaign, before being chased out again. This is not normal. This does not happen anywhere else.

Bear in mind that I did not point fingers at the TMC here. They are just continuing a legacy they inherited. The real culprit here is the Communists — and always will be.

I keep saying this. Despite everything, TMC rule has made Bengal a lot better. There are many people with dictatorial instincts and mercurial tempers. But not everyone can think like a Communist. A Communist lives for sheer brutality. Not everyone can be a Communist.

I have seen the opinion polls predicting a TMC win. I don’t trust them even a little. Right now, there is an exodus in TMC ranks, even in areas such as Malda. A candidate with a TMC ticket crossed over to BJP. These people know what is going to happen if they lose their bet. Unlike media and opinion pollsters, these people are not playing with nothing at stake. This is not a normal election. There are people who have risked literally everything by joining BJP. They are certain they are going to be on the winning side.