Students at the Satyajit Ray Films and Television Institute demanded that the institute authorities answer how a group of outsiders can beat up insider students and chase them on their own campus. That is the first question that arises from the recent incident.
After clashes over an event organised by an RSS-linked outfit, the Kolkata Police filed an FIR against students. Taking cognisance of the incident, the police registered three FIRs, two against unknown students and one against an unknown individual. Taking suo motu cognisance, Kolkata police filed another FIR, which was registered based on a complaint filed by the Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat, or ABGP, the RSS-linked organisation, and that FIR also named unknown students. The only FIR filed on the basis of a complaint lodged by the Institute Dean was against unknown persons.
But the larger question that has now emerged is this: Can West Bengal finally get rid of this culture of violence?
There was a similar situation at Jadavpur University, where clashes took place between external and internal students. The conflict between outsiders and students within the campus became an important part of the controversy.
But the larger concern in Bengal is much deeper. There appears to be a long history, a kind of political DNA, of violence, particularly political violence, in West Bengal that has continued for several decades.
Now, after 1947, for the first time, a BJP government has come to power in West Bengal. The Chief Minister is Suvendu Adhikari, and law and order is a state subject. Therefore, getting rid of this political culture of violence is a new challenge for the BJP leadership as well.
Suvendu Adhikari took charge in May, and only around four months have passed. The political honeymoon period is therefore still on. But the more serious question has already arrived: Why has Bengal never been able to get rid of political violence?
When the Congress was in power, and Siddhartha Shankar Ray was Chief Minister, the Naxalite movement emerged as a major force between 1971 and 1977.
The Naxalite movement brought a new form of political violence to the streets of Bengal. Statues of great figures of the nineteenth-century Bengal Renaissance were vandalised and destroyed by Naxalite activists. In response to the Naxalite movement, a Youth Congress force emerged from the Congress side and began engaging in counter-violence. It was not officially a Congress organisation. However, political analysts at the time argued that Siddhartha Shankar Ray had encouraged or organised this kind of group to combat the Naxalites. This group became popularly known as “Cong-Xal”—a combination of “Congress” and “Naxal”.
In 1977, the Left had come, prior to which a United Front Government was also there. And during the United Front Government, a major law-and-order problem could be seen. CM Ajay Mukherjee was attacked by the opposition over the state’s serious law-and-order situation and the continuing political clashes.
When the CPM eventually came to power, many of the lumpen elements and hooligans who had been associated with the Congress moved towards the CPM. Gradually, the lumpen proletariat found shelter under the CPI(M). The CPM also, in time, became associated with major episodes of political terror, violence and killings.
So, from the Congress regime to the Left Front period, political violence continued to evolve. From the famous Saibari incident in Burdwan during the Congress period to the large number of political clashes and murders in Midnapore during the CPM era, violence became deeply embedded in Bengal’s political culture.
Then came the Trinamool Congress. Mamata Banerjee fought this political violence and challenged the CPM’s organisational dominance. The clashes continued between TMC students, youths and workers on one side and the CPM on the other. Later, when the BJP emerged as the principal opposition force, another phase of political clashes began between the BJP and the CPM and subsequently between the BJP and the TMC.
So the pattern continued to change, but the violence itself did not disappear. When L.K. Advani was Home Minister, there was a DGP Conference in Vigyan Bhavan where all the state intelligence agencies submitted their reports to the Home Ministry. That conference was organised by IB (Intelligence Bureau). The reports highlighted the issue of political violence in West Bengal, which came up at the conference of Directors General of Police. At that time, the situation was different in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where communal or caste violence was more prominent. But in Bengal, political violence was considered particularly high.
Later, when Sushil Kumar Shinde became Home Minister during the Congress period, the DGP conference again took place, and the same assessment was discussed—that political violence was particularly high in West Bengal.
We used to describe Bengal as the first boy in the class on the subject of political violence. Unfortunately, that reputation remained. There is also an ideological debate behind this question.
The Marxist theorist Herbert Aptheker wrote extensively about revolution, force and violence. The Marxist argument has historically held that violence can, under certain circumstances, become part of a revolutionary struggle. If the ultimate objective is considered good, violence can be presented as a means towards that end.
For a revolution, therefore, there can be an argument for armed revolution in the interests of the common people. So violence is not always treated as negative within every ideological tradition. But Marxist thinking and Gandhian thinking are very different on this question.
The Gandhian philosophy says that if your means are bad, the end will also be bad. Means and ends cannot be separated. Both must be rooted in a good cause and in good values. Modern historians, however, also point out that war and peace have both existed within India’s traditional history.
Even within Hindu heritage, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata contain wars. But these are presented as wars for a cause, wars that are justified within the particular moral framework of those epics. The Mahabharata, in particular, contains a great deal of violence.
Historian Manmohan Singh’s elder daughter, Ms Upinder Singh, has also written about this subject, pointing to the fact that violence was present during the Mahabharata period. Therefore, it is not accurate to say that violence never existed in our earlier history and has suddenly appeared in modern times.
There is another cultural dimension to this debate. Bengalis have historically contained strong radical elements within their social and cultural character. One can even find a reflection of this in the Shakta religious tradition.
Gandhi, on the other hand, represented a Vaishnavite tradition of non-violence. This is why, in the conflict between Netaji and Subhas Chandra Bose, NC Chowdhary has written that there is a conflict between ‘Vaishnavism’ and ‘Shaktaism’.
But Bengalis worship Maa Kali and Maa Chandi. Bengalis also eat fish, meat and other non-vegetarian food. Maa Kali is worshipped in some traditions with meat as an offering. So, culturally, can one really say that Bengalis have always belonged to one particular tradition of non-violence?
Perhaps not. Bengal has always been a mixture, a combination of different traditions, influences and communities. It is a peculiar and deeply heterogeneous society. This mixture is an important part of Bengal’s cultural character.
As per today’s situation, Suvendu Adhikari now has to confront this entire situation. The immediate challenge is political violence. Even the egg therapy against the TMP workers is not justified, as it was also a sign of violence.
Recently, BJP workers have also been killed. That itself becomes a troubling indication. If violence continues, it becomes a sign that even after coming to power, a government cannot provide protection to its own party workers.
But the BJP Central leadership thinks that in the old culture no RSS movement was violent. The style of RSS movement is non violent and there is no such angle of political violence. Even though the left highlighted Hindu terror as an angle of violence by mentioning the demolition of Babri Masjid. The typical leftist version says that RSS also circulated Hindu terror among commoners, which RSS and BJP completely denied by saying that maintaining peace and encouraging dialogue is the only formula followed by RSS. Therefore, the BJP’s central leadership is not entirely happy with the situation in West Bengal. The BJP state government must take care of this situation immediately.
Suvendu Adhikari has already tried to bring in an anti-Goonda bill aimed at giving the police greater powers to deal with criminal and anti-social activities. The legislation has also faced criticism from the Opposition, which has raised concerns about the possibility of those powers being misused. The Bill is currently under consideration at the Centre.
But there is another dimension to Bengal’s political culture. Dilip Ghosh, when he was the BJP state president, was known for making extremely aggressive political statements. He once said, in effect, that if BJP workers’ hands or legs were attacked, they would respond by cutting the hands and legs of those who attacked them.
At one point, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat reportedly questioned Dilip Ghosh about why he was speaking in such a violent manner. Amit Shah also wanted to know. Ghosh’s explanation was that this kind of rhetoric was intended to give BJP workers inspiration, enthusiasm, a sense of immunity and psychological strength. His argument was that if such language helped workers feel confident and prepared to face political confrontation, then he saw a purpose in using it. In his view, this was also part of Bengali political culture.
There is another example from Rahul Sinha’s period as BJP state president. During a political agitation, a bus was set on fire. The incident generated enormous publicity. Newspapers carried the story prominently, and it received extensive coverage across the media.
L.K. Advani was reportedly unhappy about the incident and called Rahul Sinha, who was then the state BJP president, to question him about it. Sinha’s response, according to this recollection, was essentially: “We only set a tyre on fire, but because of that we received so much publicity and support.”
This is what makes Bengal’s political culture distinctive. It is not necessarily communal violence. It is not necessarily caste violence either. Rather, there has historically been a tendency towards political confrontation, combative behaviour and aggressive political adventure. The question now is whether the BJP, with Suvendu Adhikari at the helm of the state government, wants to change this political DNA.
Suvendu is presenting himself differently from the traditional image of Bengal politics. His emphasis is on industry, development and industrialisation of the State, which cannot be done based on violence. His interventions around Jadavpur University and the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, among other institutions, are part of a larger attempt to reshape the political and cultural environment of the state.
The larger question, therefore, is whether Bengal can move away from a political culture in which confrontation, aggression and violence have historically been treated as instruments of political mobilisation, and towards a politics centred more on development, administration and institutional functioning. Through his actions, Suvendu Adhikari just wants to preach a single agenda: “No Violence, No Violence, No Violence!”
