The message in the recent defeat of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Indian state of West Bengal is clear: the people of West Bengal want a shot at reversing their state’s long-term decline.
West Bengal is the western half of the Bengal region — the other half being Bangladesh — that has long been one of South Asia’s richest areas. The election reflects the desire on the part of the population for change and economic development.
Long an economic and cultural powerhouse, West Bengal’s ailment has lasted several decades. Between 1960 and 2024, its proportion of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell from 10.5 percent to 5.6 percent. Recent estimates rank its GDP per capita at around the 23rd or 24th of India’s 36 states and union territories (UTs), behind states that used to be much poorer than it, such as Rajasthan and Odisha. Its Human Development Index (HDI) rank is also abysmal; it ranks 27th amongst Indian states and UTs.
The prosperity of West Bengal is important not only for the sake of its own people, but because the state is the natural hub and port for the entirety of eastern India. Eastern India’s economic stagnation compared to the rest of India is partially a function of West Bengal’s underperformance, which pulls down Bihar, Assam, and Odisha along with it.
What happened to West Bengal? Colonialism alone does not fully explain the decline of West Bengal. After all, while all of India was under British rule or suzerainty, different states today have wildly varying developmental outcomes. Furthermore, the eastern half of Bengal, Bangladesh, has a booming, export-oriented economy. West Bengal’s woes are of its own making: it implemented poor policies after India’s independence in 1947.
During the Mughal Era, Bengal became the richest part of India. In pre-modern times, a region’s wealth was most often a function of its population size and how much land it had under cultivation. These factors enabled not only taxation — and subsequently, great revenues — but surplus food and labor that could be used in other sectors of the economy. Many historians refer to Mughal-era Bengal as a proto-industrial economy. This meant that a large proportion of the population was employed in industry, but in the form of rural handicraft production rather than the factory-driven production that characterizes modern industrialization. According to the historian William Dalrymple, in the 18th century:
With [Bengal’s] myriad weavers – 25,000 in Dhaka alone – and unrivalled luxury textile production of silks and woven muslins of fabulous delicacy, it was by the end of the seventeenth century Europe’s single most important supplier of goods in Asia and much the wealthiest region of the Mughal Empire…. One single market near Murshidabad was said alone to handle 650,000 tons of rice annually. The region’s export products – sugar, opium and indigo, as well as the textiles produced by its 1 million weavers – were desired all over the world….
Bengal also did well under the British Raj, becoming the powerhouse of their Indian Empire. The British ruled the subcontinent from Calcutta (modern Kolkata) for almost 200 years, until 1911. On one hand, the British were notoriously linked to the deindustrialization of India — because factories put local, cottage industries out of business — and to a number of famines in Bengal itself, including the great famines of 1770 and 1943. On the other hand, the British also introduced modern industry, technology, and transportation to India. The Bengal Presidency, being the hub of British India, received much of this investment. At the time of India’s independence and Bengal’s partition, West Bengal’s industrial capacity was the highest among Indian states.
Partition, along with the influx of refugees and the severance from some of its agricultural markets in East Bengal, dampened West Bengal’s prospects. The ruling Indian National Congress (INC) did not help the state much, preferring to direct industry toward other states, such as Maharashtra and Gujarat. West Bengal’s decline really began with the rise of militant leftism in the 1960s and 1970s, much of which was driven by agrarian anger against landlords. It was in 1967 in West Bengal that the Maoist Naxalite insurrection started in the town of Naxalbari. In 1977, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front came to power in West Bengal, ruling the state for 34 years. Between 1970 and 1998, the state’s share in India’s industrial production fell from 13.5 percent to 5.10 percent because leftist politics enabled militant trade unionism and scared away businesses.
Even after India liberalized its economy in 1991, West Bengal did not attract much investment because local hostility to land acquisition was exacerbated by politicians taking the side of protestors to block industrialization. This, in turn, created the impression that the state of West Bengal was anarchic and could not deliver the administrative and infrastructural environment necessary for development and investment. Protests in the state frequently featured the blocking of roads and shootings.
Take, for example, the actions of Mamata Banerjee, the leader of the Bengal-based TMC. In 2006, while in opposition, she began protesting on behalf of a minority of farmers near the town of Singur, who were opposed to the acquisition of their land for a Tata Motors factory because they believed that the compensation was inadequate. Banerjee even went on a hunger strike on their behalf. In 2008, Tata moved the factory project to Gujarat. Banerjee — and the current BJP chief minister of West Bengal, Suvendu Adhikari, who was then a member of the TMC — were also involved with violence in the town of Nandigram protesting a plan by the CPI(M) to build a chemical factory. As a result of these allegations, the TMC came to power in the 2011 state assembly elections, ending three decades of communist rule.
But the economy did not improve: Banerjee’s hostility to industry and development did not abate, nor did her commitment to not acquiring land for industry. With the growth of manufacturing and the information technology (IT) sectors, cities and states such as Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Bangalore, and Hyderabad thrived, largely because their leaderships courted investment. On the other hand, West Bengal resorted to welfare handouts without attracting investment. While Banerjee’s government introduced over 90 welfare schemes, spending on infrastructure decreased. TMC-run extortion rackets also drove away investors.
The economic and social decline of the state went hand in hand with the decline of its cultural and social influence, as Mumbai and the Hindi Belt’s national influence grew. It did not help that West Bengal’s political and economic trajectories were at odds with the trends of the past two decades in the rest of India, trends that emphasized development, economic growth, and nationalism.
The modern 21st-century economy is different from that of a rural economy shaped by peasants’ concerns over oppression by rapacious landlords. Modernity — industry and services — demands a different structural approach to development than rural revolution and land revolution, the hallmarks of 20th-century Maoism. A modern economy needs the internet, electricity, technology, factories, and an education to match those demands. On top of its lack of interest in development, the TMC was increasingly perceived by the state’s Hindus to be most interested in using Muslims or alleged Bangladeshis to win elections, moving them into constituencies to provide the necessary votes. All these factors led to the victory of the BJP, led by an individual who was once one of Mamata Banerjee’s top lieutenants.
The trajectory of any state can be turned around with the right policies, even if it takes time. Bihar used to be synonymous with lawlessness and violence, but has lately improved greatly, thanks in part to the policies of Nitish Kumar, who invested in roads, schools, and healthcare, while taming political violence. West Bengal has a tradition of education and a literary culture and, as a coastal state, is well-placed to benefit from the global economy. The new BJP government, with a clear majority, has the opportunity to do so, and has promised to adopt new land policies to bring industries to the state without alienating the population by removing cash transfers and welfare schemes.
Balancing the competing aims of development, citizens’ rights, and welfare is tricky. But after 50 years of failed policies, the election of a government committed to industry, investment, and modernization is a welcome development, however complicated its implementation might be.
