Over the last few decades, however, Bengal has sadly settled down to a narrower and more pessimistic world view. The easy slogans of ‘third worldism’, so assiduously promoted by the central leadership of the CPM, have separated Bengal from its sophisticated thinking on Asia and the world.

As his comrades in New Delhi prepare to pull down the UPA government in the name of anti-imperialism, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee might have a few moments on Thursday, when he serenades Abe in Kolkata, to wonder why Bengal’s rich past matters so much to Japan and the rest of Asia. That might, hopefully, encourage him to think more boldly about Bengal’s own future and salvage its rich internationalist legacy from the limiting sectarianism of its central leadership.

The writer is a professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University