As the year draws to a close, the general opinion in what is often called the ‘City of Joy’ appears to be that 2025 is not something to be looked back upon fondly for West Bengal, and that 2026 too should be treated with caution because Assembly elections will be held then and there will be attempts to create a communal divide.
“I think people are very much disturbed by the election process. I am personally worried about our long tradition of communal harmony. It is not new for us to aim for votes of the minority community in order to achieve victory. And for the last few years, given the changed political scenario, the Opposition has been trying to get votes of the majority Hindu people by trying to destroy communal harmony,” celebrated Bengali writer Amar Mitra told The Hindu.
“This is a secular country,” the writer, a winner of the O. Henry Award and the Sahitya Akademi Award, said. “Political parties should not talk against the minority people. I must also mention the attack on poor Bengali-speaking people in a few States. This is a threat to our democracy; it’s my right to go and work anywhere in the country,” Mr. Mitra said.
According to a State government officer who did not want to be named, the outgoing year, for West Bengal, was neither transformative nor tranquil and was marked by a recurring pattern where “serious governance challenges coexisted with spectacle-driven narratives”.
