Religion, inveterate Marxists insist, is the opium of the masses. The comrades have their own fix — fixation— as well. Class, the myth goes, has been central in shaping Bengal’s politics. There is now data to suggest that caste — “a state of mind” in the Indian context, according to B.R. Ambedkar — has been as, if not more, influential in directing the political winds in the former fief of the Left Front. Consider the following facts. At around 24 per cent of Bengal’s population, scheduled castes hold a disproportionate sway over a significant number of assembly seats. According to one estimate, around 60 recognized SC communities make up more than 25 per cent of the population in nine districts, which, in turn, decide the fate of as many as 127 assembly seats. Seventy-eight constituencies in six other districts are at the mercy of SCs. Little wonder then that the Trinamul Congress and its principal rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party, have profited electorally by creating support bases among these subsets. In 2011, the year that the Marxists were shown the door from power by Mamata Banerjee, the TMC had won 37 of the total reserved seats; it increased its kitty to 50 in 2016. On both occasions, the TMC’s grip on the SC community was instrumental in its overall electoral dominance. This year, Bengal’s ruling party has fielded as many as 79 SC candidates, 11 more than the total number of reserved seats in the state. That may be because the momentum has shifted in favour of the BJP in more recent times and the party’s ambitions of conquering Bengal are undoubtedly fuelled by its phenomenal rise in assembly segments that have a notable presence of not just citizens from SC groups but also members of scheduled tribes. Indeed, the Union home minister has been on record, saying that the BJP has performed very well in the first phase of the Bengal polls that covered the districts that constitute south Bengal’s tribal belt.

This only goes to show that unlike the claims of the foggy-eyed bhadralok, Bengal, like other parts of India, has been equally accommodating of the pulls and pressures of identitarian politics. The comrades may have only muddled up on one dimension of identity-based aspirations, putting the cart of class before the horse of caste. In fact, the capitulation of the Left may be attributed to its failure to meet the changing demands and aspirations of Bengal’s caste groups. This myopia catapulted its rivals who have now sapped the formidable sickle and hammer of their political potency in Bengal.