The Trinamool’s emphatic win and the surging support for the Bharatiya Janata Party during the recently concluded West Bengal elections wil...
The Trinamool’s emphatic win and the surging support for the Bharatiya Janata Party during the recently concluded West Bengal elections will be analysed for days to come. Some commentators will highlight the role of welfare transfers. Others will lament the introduction of identity politics. Commentaries have already proliferated on the crisis in the state’s “party society”, the changing contours of bhadralok politics and the emergence of “subaltern Hindutva”.
However, the most important takeaway from the election results is that political commentators should really think hard about one key component of poor people’s politics: the role of political ideas.
Political ideas of the poor
Poor people, like everyone else, harbour political ideas about what kind of society they want to live in and how to get there. In West Bengal, conversations with the poor – in both rural and urban areas – inevitably turn to themes such as shoshan (exploitation), anyay (injustice) and atyachar (oppression). These themes cut across caste, gender and religious divisions.
They identify themselves as gorib manush (poor people) who are poor not because of past karma or kismet but because the boro lok (big people) have cornered resources and refuse to share it with others.
As one Adivasi Santhal woman in Maldah’s Tudtudiya hamlet...
