Record turnout leads to talks of change

Political circle wonders whether the historic 92.88 per cent turnout reflects anti-incumbency or stronger support for the ruling regime Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves during a roadshow amid the ongoing West Bengal Assembly elections in Dum Dum, North 24 Parganas district. New Delhi: West Bengal's political landscape appears to be scripting a new narrative this time, one written through numbers, but rich in deeper meaning. In the first phase of the assembly elections, 92.88 per cent voting...

min read

Political circle wonders whether the historic 92.88 per cent turnout reflects anti-incumbency or stronger support for the ruling regime Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves during a roadshow amid the ongoing West Bengal Assembly elections in Dum Dum, North 24 Parganas district. New Delhi: West Bengal's political landscape appears to be scripting a new narrative this time, one written through numbers, but rich in deeper meaning. In the first phase of the assembly elections, 92.88 per cent voting across 152 seats is not merely a statistic; it is a dense forest of political signals, where each path leads to a different conclusion. It marks the highest turnout in the state's electoral history, signaling a potentially decisive turning point. In 2011, with a turnout of 84.33 per cent, it led to a regime change, as Mamata Banerjee unseated the Left Front government. This reinforced a conventional belief that high voter turnout often signals a desire for change. However, in 2016 and 2021, turnout hovered around 82 per cent, suggesting a plateau in voter enthusiasm. This time, the nearly 10-percentage-point surge disrupts that pattern. The central question remains exist that does this spike indicate a push for regime change, or a consolidation in favor of the incumbent? The geography of voting in the first phase adds another layer of intrigue. Across 16 districts, Muslim-majority regions such as Murshidabad (66.27 per cent Muslim population, 93.61 per cent turnout), Malda (51.27 per cent, 94.46 per cent), Uttar Dinajpur (49.92 per cent, 94.16 per cent), and Birbhum (37.06 per cent, 94.51 per cent) recorded exceptionally high participation. Yet, this is not a one-sided story. Districts with lower Muslim populations also reported turnout above 90 per cent: Dakshin Dinajpur (24.63 per cent Muslim population, 94.46 per cent turnout), Cooch Behar (25.54 per cent, 96.04 per cent), Jalpaiguri (11.51 per cent, 94.65 per cent), Jhargram (1.66 per cent, 92.26 per cent), and Darjeeling (3.94 per cent, 88.80 per cent). Clear Surge This makes it clear that the surge in turnout is not confined to any single community; it reflects comprehensive civic engagement. Yet, political analysts also interpret this through the lens of polarization, arguing that both major communities have mobilized strongly behind their respective political choices. The fact that Hindu-majority districts like Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling also witnessed high turnout suggests heightened participation across the spectrum, reinforcing the perception of deep political polarisation. There may also be a technical explanation behind the record turnout: the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Reports indicate that around 5.1 million names were removed, potentially reducing the total voter base and thereby inflating the turnout percentage. In other words, the absolute number of voters may not have risen dramatically, but the percentage appears higher due to a smaller denominator. However, this argument does not fully capture the reality on the ground, where long queues at polling booths pointed to genuine enthusiasm. Women Voters Women voters have emerged as the most compelling story of this election. Female turnout stood at 92.69 per cent, compared to 90.92 per cent for men. Though the gap may seem modest, its political significance is substantial. All major parties have actively courted women voters. The Bharatiya Janata Party has promised a monthly allowance of Rs 3,000 for women and 33 per cent reservation in government jobs, while the All India Trinamool Congress continues to rely on its established welfare schemes targeting women. Interestingly, despite women accounting for the largest share of deletions in the electoral roll, their participation remained higher than that of men. This points to a growing political awareness and assertion among women voters. The failure to pass the Women's Reservation Bill and the delimitation amendment in Parliament, which opposed by parties like Congress and TMC, may also have contributed to this heightened engagement. Textbook Example In Indian politics, a well-established trend suggests that higher voter turnout often correlates with regime change, driven by anti-incumbency sentiment. Dissatisfied voters tend to turn out in larger numbers. There is, however, a counterview-that when voters perceive a threat to their preferred government, they too mobilise in large numbers, though such instances are less common. The 2011 West Bengal election remains a textbook example. High turnout ended 34 years of Left rule. Now, after 15 years in power, Mamata Banerjee faces a similar test. Does this 10 per cent surge signal an anti-incumbency wave? That question lies at the heart of the current political discourse. Security arrangements have also played a crucial role in boosting turnout. The deployment of nearly 250,000 security personnel ensured a largely peaceful election. In contrast to the previous election, which saw around 1,300 violent incidents and 17 deaths, violence this time was significantly curtailed. Reduced fears of booth capturing and bombings enabled voters to step out without hesitation. Such an environment activates the "silent voter." When voting is free from fear and coercion, citizens are more likely to express their true preferences. Often, this reveals underlying anti-incumbency currents. If Bengal's electorate is voting without inhibition, it may well indicate that the state's political trajectory is poised for a shift. Political Rhetoric Political rhetoric has only added to the intrigue. Amit Shah has declared that the "sun has set" on TMC's alleged misrule, while Narendra Modi interprets the high turnout as a sign of BJP's impending victory. In contrast, Mamata Banerjee views it as a mandate in her party's favor, framing the surge as a defense of democratic rights amid concerns over voter list revisions and potential future policies like NRC and delimitation. Attention now turns to April 29, when the remaining 142 seats go to the polls. Will the same pattern persist, or is this surge limited to the first phase? For now, Bengal's politics resembles a bowl of "jhalmuri" - sharp, layered, and unpredictable. Who feels the heat, and who savors victory, will only be clear on counting day. What is certain, however, is that this election is not merely about power, it is a deciding test of public sentiment and political direction. 'Gherao' of judicial officers: SC permits NIA to file chargesheet The Supreme Court on Friday permitted the NIA to file its charge sheet on completion of investigation in the sensational incident of April 1 in West Bengal in which seven judicial officers were illegally confined by a mob in Malda district. As many as 700 judicial officers from West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand are deployed in the ongoing SIR process to deal with over 60 lakh objections of those excluded from the voter list. The top court had taken suo motu cognisance of a letter from the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court detailing a harrowing incident of April 1 night, where seven judicial officers, including three women, and a five-year-old child were held captive by a mob for over nine hours without food or water. Later, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over the probe into the case on a complaint of the Election Commission at the instruction of the top court. On Friday, a bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi was informed by Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing for the NIA, that a fresh status report was filed by the probe agency giving details of the investigation carried so far. The bench took note of the submissions of the law officer and said, "The NIA will be at liberty to file chargesheet in a court of competent jurisdiction." “The first phase of voting has shown that the TMC may not even be able to open its account in several districts. Now you must ensure a decisive defeat for TMC and a clear victory for the BJP. You are enduring intense heat, but I assure you that your effort will not go in vain. I will repay your dedication with interest by ensuring the development of this region.” Narendra Modi, Prime Minister “Those sitting in Delhi, plotting to snatch Bengal's rights and impose their agenda, should understand it clearly that the people of Bengal are watching, and they will respond through their vote. This election is about resisting a systematic attempt to weaken Bengal and control it. Those who believe they can run Bengal from Delhi, dictate its politics, divide its people, and distort its culture are deeply mistaken. This land has a long memory and a stronger spine.” Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister

The Curators of Conquest

Shoumojit Banerjee
Jul 23, 2025
6 min read

Inconvenient Truths – the NCERT Textbook Row

India’s schoolbooks are finally lifting the veil on a past too long buried in euphemism and ideological amnesia. Our four-part series examines the roots of India’s textbook wars and the historiographical battles that have resulted in this distortion.

Part 3

Mocked by Marxists and disdained by nationalists, colonial-era historians still matter in India’s history wars.

In the ideological crossfire between India’s Marxist historians and the defenders of Hindu civilisational memory, the British Raj remains a common enemy – a bogey reviled on both sides, though for starkly contrasting reasons.

As the recent NCERT textbook revisions reignite debates over ideological distortion in Indian historiography, they also underscored a deeper truth that history must embrace complexity rather than serve as a cudgel to suppress inconvenient truths.

Yet, long before this curricular churn, it was a band of intensely inquisitive colonial British ‘amateurs’ from the much-reviled East India Company - soldiers, scholars, adventurers, civil servants, judges - who took the first real steps toward such complexity in Indian historiography.

By painstakingly translating and collating Persian chronicles, they preserved with surprising honesty the grandeur, the literature, the Islamic arts, as well as the brutality, the resistance and eventual unravelling of medieval Muslim rule. It is their work that remains the closest India has ever come to facing its past honestly. At a time when the very word ‘Empire’ is treated as an expletive, these redoubtable Company men alongside brilliant European scholars did more than just chronicle the rise and fall of Islamic dynasties and their splendour. They unearthed, translated and preserved vast swathes of India’s pre-Islamic past: from Hindu mythology and ancient epics to Sanskrit philology and Vedic rituals. In doing so, they laid the scholarly groundwork for future generations to rediscover a civilisational history long buried under neglect and distortion.

Thomas Babington Macaulay - the man many Indians love to hate - boasted that “a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India.” His infamous 1835 Minute on Indian Education has today become a byword for colonial disdain, ushering in an era where English replaced Sanskrit and Persian in formal instruction.

Detractors have long dismissed colonial historians as apologists for empire who wrote history merely to justify British dominion, while dividing Hindus and Muslims and portraying British rule as a civilising balm for India’s ‘benighted’ Hindu masses.

That is true. James Mill’s History of British India (1817), penned without setting foot in the subcontinent, crudely caricatured Indian civilisation as stagnant and irrational. In 1842, Lord Ellenborough’s vainglorious decision to ship the so-called ‘Gates of Somnath’ from Ghazni to Agra was an early, clumsy attempt to fashion the British as avengers of ‘Hindu humiliation.’

Yet to reduce the vast corpus of colonial-era historical writing to ideological propaganda is an act of bad faith. For every Macaulay and Mill dismissive of India’s civilisational wealth, there were others like William Jones, Horace Hayman Wilson, Georg Bühler and Aurel Stein who had a genuine love for India’s literary and religious traditions. Many Company officials and European scholars - fluent in Sanskrit, Persian or Prakrit - were far more interested in chronicling India’s past than in merely justifying its present subjugation. Their work, grounded in texts and inscriptions, laid the scholarly foundations upon which later Indian historians like Jadunath Sarkar, K.A. Nilakantha Sastri, R.C. Majumdar among others would build.

A great starting point is William Muir. His magisterial Life of Mahomet (1858-61), an erudite work steeped in Arabic and orthodox Islamic sources, remains one of the most detailed 19th-century accounts of Islam’s founder and an exemplar of how to rise above one’s prejudices, no matter what one’s religion or creed. It is essential reading for any thinking person today.

His four-volume masterwork drew not only on traditional Islamic sources like Ibn Ishaq and al-Tabari but also presented a sophisticated chronological and theological analysis. While Muir was certainly shaped by his evangelical background, his reading of Arabic sources was serious and his admiration for many of Islam’s reforms clear, as was his condemnations of the religion which he scrupulously based on sources that spoke for themselves.

In a 2021 essay in the London Review of Books, the Oxford-educated, Pakistani-British Marxist Tariq Ali lavished praise on fellow Marxist Maxime Rodinson’s biography of Muhammad while contrasting it with Muir’s “prejudiced” depiction.

Ali quoted some of Muir’s controversial lines while dismissing him (as had Edward Said) as an imperialist, Islamophobic crank. Ali totally failed to acknowledge the Muir careful, source-based nature of Muir’s work - compiled meticulously from Islamic chronicles in Arabic, Persian and Urdu and collected from a variety of places long before the rise of archival history in British universities.

Indeed, it was British East India Company officials and scholar-administrators and not academic dons who first introduced rigorous methods to Indian history.

Sir William Jones, a judge in Calcutta, founded the Asiatic Society in 1784 and helped lay the foundations of Indology. The amateur but meticulous soldier-scholars of the Raj form another crucial pillar. As a political agent in Rajputana, Colonel James Tod fell deeply in love with the people he administered. His exhilarating Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (1829–32), though criticised by many scholars for ‘romanticising’ Rajput valour and chivalry, was much more than a hagiography. Tod immersed himself in bardic tales, genealogies and oral traditions, giving the Rajputs not only a history but also a cultural identity. His empathy for his subjects was genuine as he saw them as kindred spirits to the Scottish Highlanders. His affectionate tone and painstaking documentation gave future historians a sense of Rajasthan’s epic continuity.

One can accuse Tod of ‘Social Darwinism’ or hit him with any other politically correct label, but his compilation of the Rajput clans and dynasties remains unsurpassed.

This blend of scholarship and sentiment extended to Joseph Davey Cunningham, whose A History of the Sikhs (1849) was the first comprehensive account of Sikh polity and the Punjab. Far from imperial flattery, Cunningham offered a nuanced view of Sikh governance, and his criticisms of British annexation of the Punjab led to his professional disgrace. Even ‘inadequate’ (though highly readable) histories like Grant Duff’s ‘History of the Mahrattas’ (1826) were the plinth on which future and far superior improvements would be made. Similarly, J.D.B. Gribble’s History of the Deccan (1896), while reflecting some colonial biases, was filled with exhaustive detail and admiration for Deccan polities. Then there was W. R. Pogson, whose 1824 account of the Bundelas chronicled the martial defiance of a little-studied dynasty in Central India. Like Cunningham, Pogson’s empathy for his subjects undermined the narrative of British benevolence and placed agency back in native hands.

Even a writer like G.B. Malleson, whose Decisive Battles of India (1883) reads like Kipling with footnotes, did not shy away from exposing deceit. He lambasted Robert Clive’s use of forgeries and manipulation at Plassey, undermining the heroic myths taught in British schools.

Aurel Stein, a Hungarian-born Orientalist, translated Kalhaṇa’s Rājataraṅgiṇī, the 11th-century Sanskrit chronicle of Kashmir’s kings. His translation, published in 1900, was a triumph of linguistic and archaeological scholarship. It offered early evidence of Kashmir’s deeply interwoven cultural history with the rest of India, offering the best literary rebuke to the shrill and smug assertions of celebrity activists and so-called ‘liberal’ academics that “Kashmir was never an integral part of India.”

One cannot forget Georg Bühler and Lorenz Kielhorn, two German Indologists who made significant strides in deciphering Indian inscriptions. It was Kielhorn who recovered and edited the prashasti of Vigraharāja IV, providing a rare Sanskrit royal eulogy that bolstered knowledge of early Rajput polity.

John Keay’s India Discovered (1981) is perhaps the best tribute to these men in pith helmets, as he recounts how these scholars – from William Jones to James Prinsep, Colin Mackenzie to Alexander Cunningham, laboured across a fractious land to uncover the glories of India’s civilization.

Their motives may have been mixed, but their contributions were real. Keay, hardly a cheerleader for Empire, admits that the Raj often did more to preserve India’s heritage than destroy it.

That both Marxists and nationalists now drink from the wells dug by those they revile is perhaps the greatest historical irony of all. Whatever their flaws and attitudes, they formed the intellectual scaffolding on which India’s national history was later constructed. Their rigour and relative impartiality deserve acknowledgement or teaching future Indian historians not just what sources to use, but how to use them.