The distinct trajectory of left politics and the unusual stability of the erstwhile Communist regime in West Bengal was disrupted more than a decade ago by the firebrand politician Mamata Banerjee and her party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC). Building on discontent generated by forced land dispossession and general disillusionment with the left, while also building new identity and community linkages, the TMC managed to dislodge the political-organizational machinery of the Left in 2011. Since then, the TMC regime has ushered in a new form of populist politics that builds on pro-poor rhetoric and policies. Massive welfare schemes marked by large universal direct benefit transfers and governmental intervention through community-based development boards have been important strategies of development. At the same time, the regime has also been mired is massive corruption allegations. These regime qualities have led the emerging literature on contemporary West Bengal politics to conceptualize the TMC regime as populist (Das and Goswami 2022), rent-seeking and clientelist (Jha, Ghatak and Maiti 2022), and welfarist and identarian (Nath 2020). While illuminating, this literature has not adequately analyzed the class basis of the TMC. In pursing this agenda, this seminar offers a detailed analysis of the caste, social, and economic capital of elected TMC representatives to the state legislative assembly. Doing so allows us to understand significant changes to the structure of political elites in West Bengal since 2011.
This seminar is in-person only. Online participation is not possible.
Zaad Mahmoud is an Associate Professor at Presidency University, Kolkata.