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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.

The Strategist of Kodambakkam

Combative and relentlessly organised, Vijay’s chief aide is reshaping Tamil Nadu’s political grammar


When actor-politician Vijay delivered a stunning performance in Tamil Nadu’s recent assembly elections, much of the public fascination centred on the star himself, who became Chief Minister by unseating the DMK’s M.K. Stalin.


Yet, in the smoke-filled backrooms of Chennai’s political class, attention quickly shifted to a less theatrical but arguably more consequential figure: Aadhav Arjuna, Vijay’s closest lieutenant and the organisational architect of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK).


Arjuna, who won the Villivakkam assembly constituency by defeating the DMK’s Karthik Mohan with a margin of 16,517 votes, represents a new species in Tamil Nadu politics. He is not a hereditary satrap, nor a film idol elevated by fan clubs. Instead, he is a political technocrat - a strategist who combines corporate polish, sports-administration discipline and ideological flexibility in a state long dominated by towering personalities and emotional rhetoric.


At 44, Arjuna’s rise mirrors the transformation of Tamil politics itself. For decades, the state’s political theatre revolved around cinema charisma and Dravidian symbolism. But TVK’s emergence suggests an appetite for something more managerial, data-driven and modernised. Arjuna has positioned himself as the embodiment of that shift.


Born in 1982 into a struggling agricultural family in Trichy, his early life was far removed from the corridors of power he now inhabits. He studied at YWCA School and later at Ramakrishna Mission School before moving to Chennai for higher studies at Madras Christian College, where he read political science. But it was basketball, not politics, that first shaped him.


Living at the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu hostel, Arjuna spent years practising at Chennai’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. He played as a national-level basketball player until 2016. Friends describe him as someone more interested in systems and preparation than individual glory.


That instinct would define his later career. After a stint in the corporate sector, where he founded Arise Capital, Arjuna entered sports administration with unusual speed. He rose through the ranks to become president of the Basketball Federation of India and general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Olympic Association. Those positions expanded his networks across Tamil Nadu’s districts and introduced him to the mechanics of influence, coalition-building and institutional management.


Before becoming Vijay’s chief strategist, Arjuna operated behind the scenes for parties such as the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) and reportedly advised elements within the DMK ecosystem. His brief stint as VCK deputy general secretary demonstrated both ambition and impatience. He appeared less interested in ideological purity than in political engineering, making him invaluable to Vijay.


Tamil Nadu has witnessed film stars entering politics before, often with spectacular openings and disappointing endings. M.G. Ramachandran and J. Jayalalithaa succeeded because they fused charisma with organisational discipline. Others failed because they mistook fan adoration for political structure. TVK’s leadership appears determined not to repeat that mistake.


Arjuna became the party’s institutional spine. He built booth-level networks, coordinated outreach campaigns and crafted a narrative that presented TVK not merely as another celebrity vehicle but as an alternative to the ageing Dravidian duopoly. On the campaign trail, he frequently framed the election as a battle between “data-driven governance” and outdated political structures.


It was a language unusual in Tamil Nadu politics, where appeals to identity, welfare and symbolism usually dominate. Yet Arjuna sensed a generational shift among urban voters, particularly in constituencies such as Villivakkam, one of Chennai’s most densely populated and politically competitive seats.


His own victory carried symbolic weight. Villivakkam has long been considered difficult terrain for newcomers because of the DMK’s entrenched urban machinery.


More recently, Arjuna has attempted to position himself as a moderate voice amid Tamil Nadu’s perpetual ideological battles over religion and caste. Distancing himself from Udhayanidhi Stalin’s inflammatory remarks calling for the “eradication” of Sanatan Dharma, Arjuna carefully differentiated between opposing inequality and opposing religion itself.


Unlike older Dravidian leaders, whose rhetoric often revelled in ideological absolutism, Arjuna prefers ambiguity and strategic positioning.


Yet, there is another contradiction. Arjuna’s election affidavit declared his assets exceeding a staggering Rs. 534 crore, making him one of Tamil Nadu’s wealthiest politicians. The son of a farmer who once lived in a sports hostel now owns extensive real-estate holdings and stakes in consulting and construction firms. Opponents see the emergence of another affluent power broker cloaked in reformist language.


For now, such contradictions appear secondary. In the aftermath of TVK’s breakthrough, Aadhav Arjuna has become something rare in Tamil Nadu politics: a backroom strategist who commands as much intrigue as the star he serves. 


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