For centuries, Bengal’s culture and politics have been steeped in binaries — despite its presumptive intellectual supremacy, the place for the “transcendental” has been limited. Take football clubs, for instance: It’s either East Bengal or Mohun Bagan; other clubs rarely pop up in popular discussions. In debates over fish, the conflict revolves around hilsa and prawn; over identity, it is Bangal versus ghoti, and many more. This is not to claim that there is no liminal space, but that its scope is constrained. The state’s politics also reflect these binaries, hardly leaving space for alternatives.

The recent instance of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee intervening in an Enforcement Directorate raid on the political consulting agency I-PAC, and the subsequent confusion over whether it should be read as federal resistance or administrative interference to safeguard the corrupt, reflects a larger political contradiction, produced out of the binaries that determine Bengal’s political landscape.

Since 2011, when the TMC came to power, ending the Left Front’s 34-year rule, the party has faced widespread corruption allegations. From Saradha, Narada to the teacher recruitment scam, the TMC’s track record has been anything but clean. The only narrative that helped the party return to power in 2021 and increase its seat tally in........

© Indian Express