Social Movement Decomposed into State: Understanding the West Bengal Experience

Abstract

Indian politics has been passing through a transitory phase and social movements have become the major fulcrum of such changes. West Bengal has seen two massive transfers of power in post independence period – in 1977 the Left parties came to power and in 2011 the Left parties were ousted by Trinamul Congress. On a comparative note the paper argues that after coming to power, the Left Front for over three decades and the Trinamul Congress in its one and half a year regime have failed to translate their revolutionary zeal in the state structure in a sustained manner and concludes that the character of a social movement changes after its decomposition into state power and the story of social movements remains a story of political illusion.