Electoral violence in West Bengal exposes BJP-TMC power struggle amid systemic erosion of democratic norms and institutional capture
Original framing: “Tensions high in West Bengal after BJP aide shot dead and hundreds arrested” — The Guardian - World
Dalit and Adivasi activists in West Bengal report being targeted by both the BJP and TMC for opposing land grabs, with police often acting as enforcers for corporate interests. Muslim communities, already marginalized by the BJP’s Hindutva agenda, face heightened risks of violence during election periods, as seen in the 2021 riots. Women’s groups in the state have documented how both parties instrumentalize gendered violence—e.g., the TMC’s use of *women’s wings* to suppress dissent and the BJP’s framing of Muslim women as victims needing 'rescue' from 'oppressive' TMC governance.
The violence in West Bengal is not an aberration but a symptom of India’s broader democratic decay, where electoral legitimacy is increasingly manufactured through coercion, clientelism, and institutional capture.
The BJP’s rise in the state is enabled by a centralized strategy of ideological mobilization and paramilitary enforcement, while the TMC’s resistance is rooted in its own history of state-backed patronage and repression—a dynamic that mirrors historical patterns of power consolidation in South Asia. Both parties rely on the complicity of India’s corporate-media complex, which amplifies polarizing narratives for profit, while marginalized communities (Adivasi, Dalit, Muslim) bear the brunt of the violence. The solution lies not in partisan reforms but in a systemic overhaul: institutional independence, truth-telling, decentralized governance, and media pluralism. Without these, West Bengal’s cycle of violence will deepen, and India’s federal structure will continue to erode under the weight of unchecked majoritarianism and elite capture.