top of page

By:

Kiran D. Tare

21 August 2024 at 11:23:13 am

Bengal’s Ludwig Erhard

For decades, Swapan Dasgupta made a career of diagnosing India’s political ailments. As a columnist, editor, author and public intellectual, the erudite and scintillating Dasgupta dissected challenged orthodoxies and defended the intellectual traditions of the Indian Right. However, following his new appointment as the new Finance Minister of a West Bengal in economic doldrums, he perhaps faces the most demanding assignment of his career. His supporters however are confident that if there is...

Bengal’s Ludwig Erhard

For decades, Swapan Dasgupta made a career of diagnosing India’s political ailments. As a columnist, editor, author and public intellectual, the erudite and scintillating Dasgupta dissected challenged orthodoxies and defended the intellectual traditions of the Indian Right. However, following his new appointment as the new Finance Minister of a West Bengal in economic doldrums, he perhaps faces the most demanding assignment of his career. His supporters however are confident that if there is anyone most suited to sort out Bengal’s messy economy, it is Dasgupta. His appointment following the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ascent to power in Bengal after overthrowing Mamata Banerjee’s TMC regime is among the more intriguing political transitions in recent Indian political memory. India has seen journalists cross into politics before. M.J. Akbar moved from the newsroom to the Ministry of External Affairs. Arun Shourie, one of India’s most formidable investigative journalists, became a reform-minded minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government. Others, from Manish Sisodia to Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi and Chandan Mitra, have made similar journeys. Yet Dasgupta’s case is distinctive. Unlike many journalists-turned-politicians, he was never merely a ‘reporter.’ Whether in debate or through his prolific and trenchant writings, he has always been an intellectual combatant, a scholar of political ideas with a sweeping knowledge of world history by which he leavens those ideas. Dasgupta has always been one of the most articulate exponents of modern Indian conservatism. Educated at La Martiniere College in Kolkata, St Stephen’s College in Delhi and later the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he earned a doctorate, Dasgupta cultivated a reputation for formidable scholarship. His books, including Awakening Bharat Mata: The Political Beliefs of the Indian Right and The Ayodhya Reference, revealed an uncommon ability to place contemporary political disputes within a broader historical and ideological framework. For his supporters, he was among the few intellectuals capable of articulating conservative ideas in a language usually dominated by the Left. To critics, he was a sophisticated polemicist. Yet, even his opponents seldom questioned the breadth of his reading or the sharpness of his arguments. However, the challenge facing Dasgupta now is no longer intellectual but administrative. The Bengal he inherits bears little resemblance to the state that once led India in industry, commerce and scientific innovation. As he himself quipped in trademark fashion with a sharp historical analogy, the state’s economy resembled postwar Germany. The figures are sobering. West Bengal’s state debt has ballooned to around Rs. 8 lakh crore during the TMC regime. Thousands of companies have relocated or curtailed operations over the years amid a hostile investment climate. The new BJP government has inherited not merely a fiscal challenge but a crisis of confidence. “We are left with a near-bankrupt treasury,” Dasgupta said. Equally troubling, in his view, is the erosion of trust among investors and entrepreneurs. Bengal’s relationship with business has been uneasy to say the least. First the long night of the Left, followed by the TMC’s anti-business, appeasement brand of politics has ensured that the scars of industrial disputes and land controversies remain fresh. In this dire situation, reviving private investment will require convincing businesses that Bengal has changed. In this respect, Dasgupta’s strengths may prove unexpectedly useful. Throughout his career he displayed an ability to engage with ideas, institutions and stakeholders across ideological divides. His early moves hint at a broader vision. Rather than confining pre-budget consultations to Kolkata, Dasgupta shifted the Finance Department’s attention to Siliguri in a moved suffused with deliberate symbolism. North Bengal has long complained of neglect by governments centred on the state’s southern districts. By engaging tea producers, agricultural interests, tourism operators and local business groups, the newly-minted finance minister appears eager to demonstrate that economic revival will not just be a Kolkata-centric project. That said, debt servicing consumes a substantial portion of state revenues. Welfare commitments are politically difficult to unwind and infrastructure deficits remain significant. While public intellectuals excel at identifying problems, governing demands compromises and the acceptance of imperfect solutions. Still, Bengal’s new finance minister possesses as fine an appreciation of history than any Indian politician around. He knows that states decline not just because economic mistakes but because they lose faith in their future. Restoring that confidence may be the central task of his tenure. For years Swapan Dasgupta chronicled India’s political story from the sidelines. Now he finds himself at the centre of one of its most consequential state-level experiments. Whatever the outcome of his tenure, few would deny that Bengal’s finances have acquired perhaps their most learned custodian in decades.

Calculated Reform

The Women’s Reservation Bill, proposing 33 percent quotas in Parliament, ran aground on the shoals of a missing two-thirds majority. Yet, its failure may prove less a setback for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) than a carefully staged gambit, especially ahead of key Assembly elections in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.


On the face of it, the government’s push appeared quixotic. Without the requisite numbers, legislative success was improbable. But politics is about shaping narratives. By pressing ahead regardless, the BJP has positioned itself to reap dividends even in defeat. If the bill fails, the blame can be deftly shifted onto a fragmented opposition, cast as obstructing women’s rightful political representation.


In Bengal, the All India Trinamool Congress has long cultivated a formidable base among women voters, bolstered by targeted welfare schemes. Its leader, Mamata Banerjee, has relied on this constituency as a bulwark against BJP advances. A national women’s quota risks unsettling that equilibrium, offering the BJP a potent symbolic appeal to female voters.


The broader electoral calculus is clear. Over the past decade, the BJP has refined a form of social engineering that places women at its centre. Schemes such as Ladli Behna and Ladki Bahin have combined direct financial benefits with political messaging, helping the party stitch together a loyal and expanding voter base. In state after state, women have emerged as decisive swing voters, often tilting the balance in favour of the ruling party.


Against this backdrop, the Women’s Reservation Bill is an extension of this strategy. It elevates the BJP’s pro-women credentials from welfare provision to institutional empowerment. On the campaign trail, the Opposition may find itself cornered in trying to explain away the procedural objections or political reservations, which usually is a harder sell than endorsing a measure framed as gender justice.


But there is a tension at the heart of the approach taken by Prime Minister Modi and his party. Welfare politics and political participation do not necessarily move in tandem. While millions may queue up to access state benefits, far fewer are inclined or able to navigate the adversarial terrain of electoral politics. Representation requires not just opportunity, but also social capital, party backing and personal ambition. A quota, by itself, does not guarantee a surge of willing or viable candidates.


This raises an uncomfortable question. Is the bill a genuine attempt to reshape India’s political landscape, or primarily a device to harvest electoral goodwill? If political parties invest in nurturing female leadership, reforming internal hierarchies and creating pathways for women beyond tokenism, the bill could mark a structural shift. If not, it risks becoming another emblematic gesture in a polity fond of symbolism.


For now, the BJP appears content to play a longer game. In legislative terms, it may have lost a vote. In political terms, it may have already reframed the contest in the poll run up.

Comments

bottom of page