The Calcutta of this book was plural in the way that daily life is plural, messily, in the way that a grandmother bakes a Christmas cake for her Muslim neighbour's grandchildren because they are downstairs and they love cake.
56 previous conferences have produced 56 joint records. The 57th record will be written in New Delhi over four days beginning June 8. It will either mark the beginning of a different kind of diplomacy, one in which Bangladesh’s written commitments mean something and India’s violations carry consequences, or it will confirm that the pattern has been accepted as permanent.
Mamata Banerjee governed Bengal through emotional familiarity. She spoke the language of neighbourhood grievances, middle class anxieties, and Bengali insecurity about national marginalization. For years, that intimacy protected her from anti-incumbency.
Does it mark the end of an era, or return to a bygone era in which Hindu-Muslim clash was a celebrated theme? The Muslim-majority Bangladesh next door, which has just survived a massive political upheaval, adds urgency to our query.
For Bangladesh, diplomacy has now become more important than ever before. It will require a sophisticated neighbourhood policy that combines realism with prudence. Emotional reactions or reactive nationalism unlikely to serve Bangladesh’s long-term interests well.
An already weakened Bengali Nationalism is going to be almost moribund. At the core of Bengali Nationalism is a common social and cultural heritage of the Bengali speaking people in both sides of the border.
In 150 seats, more than half of West Bengal’s 294, total deletions were greater than victory margins, and BJP won 99. In 2021, it had won just 19 of these.
The BJP’s victory was structurally broad, its final scale may have been amplified by UA deletions in specific close contests, but TMC’s losses in Muslim-majority constituencies also point to a genuine political swing. A warning sign that may matter well beyond this election.
A double-engine BJP government could no longer blame West Bengal’s opposition for delays. If New Delhi and Kolkata are aligned, Bangladesh will expect results on both the Ganges and Teesta. The Teesta dispute, long blocked by Mamata Banerjee, is especially symbolic. With the Trinamool Congress out of power, Dhaka would expect movement.
The BJP campaign, like the one in 2021, was conducted in a manner reminiscent of an invasion rather than an election. Television channels and newspapers, many of which are openly and enthusiastically aligned with Modi’s party, framed the elections as a conquest of Bengal by him and Shah and the Hindutva party they lead.
Bangladesh functioned as a mirror in which West Bengal was invited to view itself: Hindu or Muslim, refugee or infiltrator, borderland or nation, Bengali or anti-national.
West Bengal's voters may not have articulated this distinction in theoretical terms. But they felt its weight. The images from Dhaka showed them what the far end of one trajectory looks like.
India’s political field has bent under pressure but has not collapsed. Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s political field is far more fragile.
