Political Killings in Mamata's Bengal: A White Paper on Violence Against the Opposition

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The families of Rajesh Sarkar and Tapas Burman, instead of cremating their dead, have buried their bodies hoping for justice at some point in future. In Anup Kumar Roy case, the courts ordered a third post-mortem, which is yet to be carried out.Political violence in the State of West Bengal has been an unfortunate element of its public life. This has carried over from when the State was being ruled by the Left Front. Allegations of the State machinery being used against the political opposition by the ruling dispensation abound. The authors of this book take a detailed look at the violence during the current ruling dispensation of Mamata Banerjee TMC. They find that the criminal justice system has virtually been dismantled in the State in so far as political killings are concerned. The book enumerates a total of 126 cases, the information for which is available in public domain.

Shubham Tiwari is a 5th Year student at National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR), Hyderabad. He is also a regular columnist with newspapers, magazines and digital media portals, including Swarajya and Organiser. His research interests include Law & Religion, Culture and Politics. Shubham comes from Unnao District in the State of Uttar Pradesh. .

Shivam Raghuwanshi is a Student Activist. He hails from Shivpuri, Madhya Pradesh. He has completed his B.A.LL.B (Hons.) from Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law (RGNUL), Patiala and is currently pursuing L.L.M from Shiksha O' Anusandhan, Bhubaneswar. His area of interest includes Law and Public Policy..

political killings in West The Bengal are not a disease but merely symptoms of a deep-seated disease. The abysmal state of the Law and Order situation in West Bengal given official was recognition when the Election Commission decided to hold the election to the State Assembly in 2021 in as many as eight phases. The incumbent government immediately cried foul, though it is not apparent as to how exactly their political interests are compromised by this arrangement. The truth of the matter is that the Election Commission has no confidence in the political neutrality of the state police (though they do not and cannot say this out loud) and has to depend on central para-military forces to hold the semblance of a fair election. There has been a spate of political murders in the state over the last one year, and the number of phases had to be increased from seven to eight in order not to spread the forces too thin.

The question arises as to how this situation came about. To be quite fair, this is not the handiwork of the incumbent government in the state. They are merely following in the footsteps of the government that preceded it. That government, which ruled for 34 long years, was run by a Stalinist party who did not believe in the rationale of existence of any rival party. However, to work within the confines of our Constitution and at the same time to take advantage of it, they kept all the vestiges of democracy but imperceptibly hit at the core of it: they politicized the civil services and the police. Now it is an essential condition of any multi-party democracy that these instrumentalities of the government must be politically neutral; and politicizing them made the whole system into a joke. They even tried to do it to the judiciary, but achieved very little success. The present incumbent government has merely copied their methods to the last letter.

How does this corrupt system work? With the previous party in power, it worked with their well- regimented party doing the necessary murders, rapes or tortures with instructions from the top flowing smoothly down to the bottom to their cadres and the police looking the other way. This happened in the Sain Bari, Anandamargi, Bantala and other murders. The party now in power also makes the police look the other way or slap false cases on rival party workers, but their party is too disorganized to do it like their predecessors. In their cases local chieftains do the murders for local reasons. The police of course look the other way as before and the Supremo rubbishes all allegations.

I am happy to see that a team of legal scholars are bringing out a White Paper on the subject. Every little bit counts and is necessary to bring to an end the regrettable prostitution of our Constitutional processes. My best wishes to the venture.

Rule of Law and democracy constitute a basic feature of our Constitutional republic. It is encouraging for our democratic framework to initiate political activity. The framers of our Constitution intended to revere the popular mandate obtained through the electoral process. Any political mobilization which could result in transition of power reflects healthy state of affairs in Indian democracy. An independent Election Commission, vibrant electoral process and level playing field to all the contestants to appeal the voters without any fear or favour is what makes us a successful democracy.

In this entire process it's the ordinary political worker (karyakarta) who is the foot soldier of great Indian democracy. Any harm caused to a political activist just for exercising the right to political choice is a direct attack on the soul of our democracy. A peaceful political atmosphere without violence is a pre-requisite for any flourishing democracy. There cannot be any space for violence in a democratic setup governed by the Rule of Law. Media reports and political allegations & counter-allegations on political killings in West Bengal portray a very problematic picture of democratic freedom in the state. Bodies of political workers hanging by the neck is the hanging of our democratic values.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages