The West Bengal Governor, Gopal Gandhi, has powerfully stated a widely perceived truth. Almost all the political forces in Bengal have significantly fomented serious political violence.

We are still a little bit complacent about just how precarious the political situation is in West Bengal. The state has, by its own admission, lost minimal governance capacities along several dimensions.

It has admitted to its own failure to rid Lalgarh of Maoists; indeed the CPM is now beginning to finally acknowledge the Maoist threat. There is anecdotal evidence that the CPM's capacity to take elementary decisions over development is now seriously in question. The party has wrecked the state.

There is mind-boggling casualness about killings in the countryside, with each side readily using a "revenge" narrative. The Trinamool's single point agenda is to continually embarrass the Government, and nothing embarrasses the Government more than violence.

One can understand the difficult circumstances in which Mamata Banerjee kept Opposition alive in Bengal. But the Trinamool in its political operations has acquired so many of the more unsavoury aspects of CPM's political culture.

Many of the system of institutionalised violence that had helped consolidate the CPM's power are now simply switching over to Trinamool. The ‘pada’ mastans are still ubiquitous in street mobilisations in West Bengal, and the resulting politics is a curiously macabre carnival of power, more interested in performative displays than in solving real problems.

Many of these displays are harmless, but their capacity to inflict economic disruption is enormous. The ubiquitous Friday bandhs --- well designed ploys to give people the long week end - are yet another sign of how the culture of politics will not change with the passing of CPM.

... contd.