At the very core of democracy lies a seemingly simple mechanism: Periodically, voters choose between political actors and parties in a free and fair election, which is followed by a peaceful transition of power. The violence, intimidation and ransacking that have accompanied the panchayat polls in West Bengal last week fly in the face of this basic principle and underline a stark reality: The fairness of the election is under a cloud. At least 13 people — seven from the Trinamool Congress (TMC), two each from the CPM and BJP and one unaffiliated person — have been killed.
There are reports from several districts of booth capturing, damaged ballot boxes and attacks on presiding officers. This violence is not an aberration: It is entrenched in the state’s political culture, with parties in government — the TMC now, and the CPM and Congress before it — wielding it to control the street, and thereby, monopolise state power. This newspaper found that, in village after village, the TMC systematically used bombs, barricades and cadres to ensure that opposition candidates and supporters were unable to move about on polling day. Where they have the clout to do so, some opposition parties have acted in a similar manner. As a result of the violence in the run-up to filing nominations last month, the High Court had ordered that central forces be deployed in the state.
But the onus of ensuring a safe election is not on uniformed personnel alone — the political class in the state, especially the ruling party and State Election Commission, bears a lion’s share of that responsibility. From the 1960s until the ’90s, tactics such as booth capturing and intimidation of voters and polling officials defined electoral politics in many states, including Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Most of India has rejected that form of politics and moved on. However, West Bengal seems to be frozen in the past, with parties continuing to nurture a political economy of patronage and extortion. The TMC won office promising change. Mamata Banerjee has been chief minister for over a decade now, but she has not used her formidable political capital to effect a clean-up. This politics that empowers party cadres with seeming impunity has corroded the state’s institutions.
Sooner than later, it will dent the TMC as well. Getting the state’s demographic dividend to extort, flex muscle, run rackets, make bombs, threaten businesses, means keeping them away from a growing economy shaped by technology and knowledge. No wonder many of the young are forced to leave the state as unskilled labour if they don’t join the political underbelly.
The July 11 results, irrespective of who the winner is, will carry this taint of fear and intimidation. The violence, mostly affecting the poor and the under-privileged, has undermined the sanctity of the electoral process. It robs the Opposition coalition of any moral high ground it tries to seize on the issue of protecting due democratic process. CM Mamata Banerjee, the TMC and the State Election Commission must do more to ensure that the image of a broken ballot box, an Opposition candidate locked in her house, violence, vandalism and murder do not define politics in West Bengal. That will be a grave disservice to the state’s future.
