Herald View: Political violence in WB and the question of President’s Rule

The Ministry of Home Affairs recently came out with an advisory on political violence in West Bengal. It noted that the “unabated violence over the past weeks appears to be a failure on the part of the law enforcement machinery of the state to maintain the rule of law and inspire confidence among people.” West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee immediately latched on to it, claiming there was a conspiracy to derail her elected government and the Centre was preparing the road to impose President’s Rule on the state.

None other than Governor and former BJP leader Keshari Nath Tripathi buttressed her point when he went on to say that if the law and order situation further deteriorated, the Centre might need to invoke Article 356 of the Constitution. Not just that, the Governor has also held parleys with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on political violence in West Bengal. When these developments are seen in the light of the comment of the BJP’s West Bengal in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya that the state government will not last its full term, Mamata Banerjee can hardly be faulted for voicing her fears. The desertions of All India Trinamool Congress leaders in favour of the BJP that started before the General Election and continued well after the poll results were declared cannot possibly bring the West Bengal Chief Minister any relief as well.

While it is undeniable that political violence in West Bengal cannot be condoned in any manner, it must be noted that this is nothing new in West Bengal. Ever since the late 1960’s, violence has been a part and parcel of the political culture of Bengal, often on a much bigger scale. None of that saw imposition of President’s Rule. This is not something Mamata Banerjee or her Trinamool supporters brought new to the political turf of Bengal. Also, it is myopic when the Ministry of Home Affairs sees the West Bengal government unable to inspire confidence in the people and can’t see the abject breakdown of the law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh, just a stone’s throw from New Delhi.

After all, in West Bengal, elected Bar Council members are not gunned down in the court premises yet like Darvesh Yadav, UP’s newly elected Bar Council president, was shot dead earlier in the week in Agra. While the brutal murder of the three year old in Aligarh’s Tappal village is still fresh in people’s memory, crimes against minor girls have shown no signs of abatement. A 12-year-old Dalit girl was reportedly raped by six men in Kushinagar district, a 15-year-old girl by a teacher inside a seminary in Kanpur and the body of a 7-year-old girl was found in the bushes outside Bijbaha village of Jalaun last week. UP is also India’s deadliest state in terms of cow-related violence, accounting for almost 70 per cent of such cases recorded across the country. The state’s notoriety for instituting a system of encounter raj is also well known. The West Bengal Governor has called for an all party meeting in Kolkata to discuss the matter of political violence. This is the right way. The point is to control, to end the cycle of violence and not to use that as an alibi for imposition of President’s Rule.