Failure of political astuteness in West Bengal and Manipur

Of course, the irony of the moment is lost on no one. These comments by the Trinamool Congress chief were live-streamed. And that was the precise issue over which the talks broke down before they could start.

The doctors — agitating for a month over the rape and murder of a young doctor at a government medical college and a series of missteps and attempted cover-ups that evidently followed — had made live-streaming the meeting with the CM a pre-condition. They have remained adamant on this demand, arguing that if the Supreme Court can live-stream the case, there is no reason for the West Bengal government to be diffident. The offer of recording the proceedings and releasing them with a Supreme Court go-ahead has not been accepted by the doctors so far.

In this zero-sum game, one has to see who blinks first. But one can’t help but wonder why Banerjee simply did not do what she did this week, right at the beginning of the protests. The folded hands, the mellow tone, the apology for not being able to break the stalemate, the emphasis on her waiting for over two hours for doctors — perhaps had this been the approach in the hours and days after the crime, there would have been no crisis to handle. For a politician born and shaped by agitations, it is surprising that the CM showed a remarkable lack of instinct. Even her revelation that the Kolkata police chief had offered to resign, but it was she who turned it down because of the impending festival season, was bewildering. As one young doctor said to me, “Who is thinking of festivities right now?”

While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may be on the front foot in the state in its criticism of the CM, similar questions about a perplexing lack of instinct should be redirected to the party leadership when it comes to Manipur.

Again, to be clear, I am not at all drawing any literal comparisons between a state where more than 200 people have been killed in violent ethnic clashes since May 2023 and the RG Kar case in West Bengal. The similarity is confined to how politicians respond in times of crisis, big and small. And how common sense seems to betray them when it is most needed.

In Manipur, the BJP’s stubborn refusal to remove N Biren Singh as CM is inexplicable. The situation in the state is so alarming that many have likened it to a civil war, where members of the Meitei and Kuki communities can no longer cross over into geographies dominated by the other. A former soldier of the Army was killed this week just because he accidentally crossed the “buffer zone” that separates the ethnic groups. Women are among 11 people killed since the beginning of this month. Thousands of weapons are in the hands of civilians in both communities, farmers and students.

Keyboard nationalists who otherwise run patriotism tests on everyone else and don’t hesitate to label people as anti-national for the slightest dissent seem entirely unmoved at the situation. When former soldier Havaldar Limkholal Mate’s wife said, as she did to me, that her husband “fought for India, but was killed like an animal,” where are all the self-appointed arbiters of nationalism? Political party lines have collapsed in Manipur. Of the ten legislators who have asked for the CM to be prosecuted for his role in the strife, seven are from the BJP. I can understand political continuity when the violence is external, for instance, during insurgencies or wartime. But this is a state at war with itself. This is a failure of law and order, yes, but it is, above all, a failure of politics. Removing Singh also affords a chance to bring the clashing parties to the dialogue table, besides being the obviously correct thing to do.

From West Bengal to Manipur, often, the most obvious response is the appropriate one. It is resistance to the obvious that muddies the waters — sometimes, beyond repair.

Barkha Dutt is an award-winning journalist and author. The views expressed are personal

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