West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026: A Storm Is Coming

 FROM THE AIR EVERY RIVER LOOKS LAZY. FROM THE ground, some remain lazy. The Hooghly, pseudonym of the Ganga as she enters the last stretch of a sacred vein that began at Gangotri in the Himalayas, sparkles with energy, nourishing agriculture and industry on either bank before it joins the open world at Sagar island in the Sundarbans, site of the Kapil Muni temple and a famous fair at Makar Sankranti which celebrates the winter harvest and transition of the sun from Sagittarius to Capricorn.

Bengal is not lazy, merely misunderstood. Its languorous repu­tation, perhaps born during the decades of trade union-Marxist rule, can be deceptive. The peasant of this fertile rice granary perspires as profusely as any tiller of land. But Bengalis prefer a multi-dimensional attitude to life, creating time for aesthetics, conversation and leisure. A recent survey in India discovered that if you eat fruit, vegetables and fish in your forties, your brain will function longer in old age. Bengalis have known this since they started speaking Bengali. Bengalis value intelligence and their cohesive culture over wealth. Economic compulsion might force them out of their comfort zone but emigration is the footfall of economic anxiety, not the stride of ambition, whether they leave Bengal for Mumbai or Mauritius.

Mauritius is not as far as distance might suggest, for Bengalis take Bengal with them. Young men and women from aspirational towns had found jobs at the beach hotel which was the venue of a conference on the Indian Ocean in early April. They were hired for three irrefutable reasons: the will to work hard; equanimity under pressure; and communication skills. No one goes home for a holiday; but no one wants to be lost in a language maze either.

Ranjit was from Konnagar and was delighted to learn that my roots lay in Telinipara, a jute mill settlement about fifteen miles north on the western bank of the Hooghly. We spoke, but inevitably, in Bengali. My question was obvious, his answer was a surprise. The communist candidate, he had heard, was doing well in the current election campaign. Well enough to win? Not quite. What about Mamata Banerjee’s candidate? The feisty Bengal chief minister had demolished the Marxists in May 2011 and ruled the land since with near-imperial aplomb. His tone rose a few quavers. Trinamool was history.

His logic was inarguable. “Ekta matro Messi holey team choley na… Ja CPM-er shaathey hoyechhilo sheta Mamatar shaathey hobey (A team does not win because of one star, even if it is Messi. Mamata Banerjee has no one else in her side. What happened to the Marxists in 2011 will happen to her).” The football anal­ogy was natural to a young Bengali. He had thought it through. BJP would make gains in this election; in the next, the contest in Bengal would be between BJP and the Marxists.

In the last days of March, we found support for Mamata Banerjee in rural Palashi, site of the famous battle in 1757 where the Brit­ish buccaneer Robert Clive destroyed the indolent army of a fat Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah and stole the next two centuries away from Indians. I was travelling, with two friends from Bengaluru, by car from Kolkata to Murshidabad, capital of the 18th-century nawabs, once rich and famous for its handwoven textiles. In 2021, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress won 86 out of the 98 seats in Malda, Murshidabad, North and South 24 Parganas. These Muslim-majority districts of Bengal were her fortress.

The memorial pillar at Palashi is an eyesore stuck in the middle of a rural road, a stunted replica of the Ochterlony Monument on the Kolkata Maidan, built by the British in honour of their hero, Major General David Ochterlony, who had reversed fortunes in the Anglo-Gurkha wars of 1815 and 1816, and forced Nepal to cede Sikkim, Darjeeling, Kumaon and Garhwal to the East India Com­pany. (If India had not inherited those borders in 1947 Dehradun would have been in Nepal.) It is difficult to tell whether this silly Palashi pillar projects Clive’s victory or laments Bengal’s defeat. Maybe ambiguity is the shield of Kolkata, which was capital of the British Empire for 165 years.

A young man, back home for Eid from his police post, intro­duced himself to my friends. They were astonished to discover that he had a “Hindu” name, Tapash, and a “Muslim” surname, Sheikh. He laughed at their bewilderment. He nodded, beam­ing, when I explained that in Bengal names were ethnic rather than religious. Culture and language do not erase religious identity but they do create shared space. He was confident that Mamata Banerjee would return to power.

The Muslim vote is holding up for Mamata but anti-incum­bency has put even this core constituency under strain. Fatigue with the same faces, and anger at corruption, has weakened support. The political air is thick with talk of Mir Jafars, particu­larly appropriate at Palashi, where Mir Jafar, the principal com­mander of the Bengal forces, kept his troops out of battle because he wanted the throne with British help. His name has become synonymous with betrayal. The British made him pay heavily for his treachery, but that is a later story.

Mamata Banerjee’s Mir Jafar is her erstwhile colleague, Humayun Kabir, who broke away from her fold and on December 6 last year tried to woo the more excitable Muslim voters by laying the foundations of a replica Babri mosque in Murshidabad. On De­cember 22 he announced the formation of his new party; in March came the news that he had fashioned an alliance with other fringe elements. His political complaint is that Mamata Banerjee has given Muslims histrionics and denied them substance. Muslim parties outside the ruling circle accuse the Bengal government of denying the simplest of requirements, like a modern bus station near a popular shrine, or a better hospital. Trinamool candidates believe that in the final crunch Muslims will stay with the party because they fear the alternative. What seems beyond doubt is that if the Left had been the main opposition in Bengal, the Mus­lim vote would have switched en masse.

The rumble of an undercurrent is audible across Bengal.

HOARDINGS ON THE highway out of Kolkata are a running commentary on Bengal’s changing self-image. Pan­els advertise the fashionable clothing line called Bumchums, pro­duced by a well-known brand seeking to erase the line between underwear and overwear. Towns like Barrackpore or Berhampur, scratching their heads over where to go next on the mobility lad­der, pride themselves with versions of iconic Kolkata restaurants, like Jimmy’s Kitchen or Keventers. There is space for local loy­alties, such as the exquisitely specific ‘Dada-Boudi Hotel. Since 1963’, an eatery started by a brother and his wife in the year adver­tised. The English language is not nuanced enough for the emo­tions of a Bengali joint family or a cuisine created from domestic inspiration. Families are waiting at the door as we pass. In a bow to modernity the Dui Kanya (Two Daughters) restaurant in Barasat has placed a giant replica of a blue mobile phone behind the glass pane; maybe it works for today’s daughters.

Barrackpore entered the history books when in 1857 an Indian sepoy named Mangal Pandey rebelled against the application of beef grease on Company cartridges, sparking a mutiny. Today’s highway hoardings proclaim that St Augustine School for Girls and its accompanying day school for boys want students. You can call their mobile number for admission. One assumes that the promoters are referring to St Augustine of Hippo, the 4th-century philosopher from Algeria, then under Roman rule, but we did not check. A saint lends prestige to middle-class education. A viceroy is no longer quite so prestigious.

If Lord George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston and Viceroy of India between 1899 and 1904, had seen the Curzon Bridge over a culvert outside Murshidabad he would have had every right to withdraw his nominal association. It is a zigzag journey through different eras of development. The Karbala Road in Berhampur has not been repaired since the Battle of Karbala, 1,340 years ago. Other roads are more fortunate. They merely wander between the 19th and 20th centuries. The high­light of Murshidabad is Hazarduari, palace of a thousand gates, built by Nawab Nazim Humayun Jah, of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa between 1824 and 1838. Its architect, Colonel Duncan McLeod of the East India Company, turned the design into a pastiche which tried to mesh nostalgia for the past with homage to the British future. The confusion is embarrassing.

Kolkata’s elite still enjoys islands of British privilege like Ben­gal Club and Tollygunge Club, which live in a world very different from the rolling squalor of inner-city slums, where the most use­ful signboards show you the way to a Pay & Use Toilet and playing cards is the most useful companion for unemployed youth. A derelict haveli in Ultadanga as we exit Kolkata is a metaphor of decay: walls suffering from age, shut windows congealed by dust, the courtyard a parking space for someone’s unwashed truck.

Every Bengali has an editorial on the tip of their tongue, and a question mark poised on an eyebrow. The volcanic issue making a difference is corruption. Even those who will vote for Mamata Banerjee cannot hide their anger at viral venality. The peasant is not a moralist. He asks: Why doesn’t she steal from the rich? When a local goon extracts `40 for every sack of potatoes sold, it is theft from the poor. The police station is useless. What has hurt the government most is fraud in the education depart­ment, where teachers were hired by the size of the bribe. Bribery in teacher recruitment was theft of a child’s future.

No party accepts defeat until results are declared, and there is no reason to. Predictions should be devalued by 50 per cent, for they are wrong half the time. But the state has seen the crowds flocking to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rallies. Irrespective of how the numbers pan out on counting day, the decline in Mamata Banerjee’s vote is evident. The young have turned away. As another electoral festival arrives in the religion of Indian de­mocracy, there is a growing feeling that change, the leitmotif of democracy, might be in the air. The betting market, which makes money out of a gamble rather than a guarantee, gave Mamata Banerjee around 180 seats in March. It has changed the odds. It estimates that the advantage is now with BJP. Bengal is gripped with the excitement of uncertainty.

April is the season of Kal Baishakhi in Bengal, pre-monsoon Nor’westers which appear suddenly, electrify the darkened eve­ning skies with horizon-wide lightning and water the earth with in­tense downpour. Kal Baishakhi signifies both destruction and relief. Bengal seems to be waiting for a thunderstorm out of clear skies.