Culture goes out of politics: Disintegration of bhadralok in Bengal

Voters standing in queue in West Bengal (Representative)

Bengal’s famed bhadralok have gone silent; they are now without a voice, if they haven’t disappeared altogether. This section of the urban gentry who moved to cities after selling off their land and became writers, artists, teachers, and lawyers, wielded disproportionate influence on civil society and politics for most of the last century. When they spoke, everyone lent an ear. More than in any other part of India, the floating intelligentsia wielded enormous clout in Bengal. But not anymore.

With roots in the old landed gentry, this section of the intelligentsia, drawn mostly from the educated upper castes, was synonymous with Bengal’s social reforms, and progressive politics. They dominated the leadership of both the Congress and the Left. They commanded respect and ordinary people deferred to them. But the political mobilisation of the poor and the rise of the subaltern classes, which they themselves aided, slowly pushed them into irrelevance.

Today, instead of writers and commentators, it is television hosts and sportspersons who are in the forefront. Behind the woman celebrities propped up by both the Trinamool and the BJP are muscle men with money power. Indeed, they form the organisational backbone of all parties.

“My feeling is that there is no homogenous bhadralok culture anymore,” says Neel Bhattacharya, a film critic. “The so called bhadralok samaj is divided not only politically, but also ideologically.”

The collapse of the Left and the rise of the Trinamool Congress hastened the disintegration of the bhadralok. “The policies of the Trinamool created a strong subaltern voter base, which has diluted, as it were, the rallying power of the bhadralok,” he says.

Populist and somewhat effective welfare schemes have contributed to Trinamool’s popularity and the party’s newly built voter base is strong enough to give it the upper hand against any influence the bhadralok might still have on ordinary people, whom they somewhat derisively describe as the chotolok.

Also, the bhadralok have not taken kindly to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s perceived minority appeasement and the allegations of corruption against her senior party colleagues. In the Assembly election of 2021, many in the intelligentsia made a trend of the hashtag #NoVoteToBJP sensing a threat to cultural freedoms from the party ruling at the Centre. Now, however, many of them voice their disappointment with the Trinamool, but don't think the CPM and the Congress are viable alternatives.

Many activist-artists, who used to be vocal about social issues and political freedoms, have stepped aside. Some of them apparently see politics as ‘dirty’. Those who speak up are partisan and don't rise above their affiliation to political parties.

Indeed, some commentators feel that many of the candidates will not be able to speak effectively in Parliament and are no more than easily recognisable faces on television. Mahua Moitra and Derek O'Brien are exceptions.

The bhadralok still have some cultural capital, but in politics they have been overrun by others. Ordinary people want to be represented by one of their own, and not by an urbane city-dweller wallowing in art and poetry.