The recently held India Impact AI summit did not reach West Bengal busy as the state is for the forthcoming assembly election. Not only politicians but also intellectuals there did not waste time over certain artificial event created by the Modi government. More than the electoral strategy the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll proved disturbing to the state’s political parties. SIR threatened to disenfranchise more than a crore in the state. This include a large section of illegal migrants from the neighbouring Bangladesh. In every election this section had been steadfastly had been voting against BJP which now has emerged as the main opposition to the ruling TMC. The political instinct of survival, for ‘secularists’, from the possible ant-minority BJP rule led to desperate knock at the door of the Supreme Court. The AI Impact summit had no place in media or political discourse in West Bengal.
Calcutta, the city that the English occupants built, was the harbinger of modernisation of India. People there espoused English as their communication tool, learnt occidental philosophy, gathered new knowledge discarding stale oriental archaic rituals. The city ushered in modern knowledge to India. It also was the seat of modern politics in what is today the largest democracy in the world. What is critical, post-independence the city emerged as the cradle of left politics. The Marxist philosophy with its catchy pro-poverty slogans could find easy support from the people displaced from the East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
Once the Leftists take over power what they carefully work on is ensuring their political hegemony. And following the built-in process of all left political outfits in the world, West Bengal ensured a polling system that created road blocks for ‘debased’ bourgeois (non-left) parties to replace ‘forward looking’ left in the state. One inbuilt safeguard is creating a dedicated list of voters, even if fictional, which could inflate number of votes cast for the ruling Left. The Mamata-led TMC followed the same process. SIR unleashed a threat to such safe haven of vote banks. Naturally political intelligence of West Bengal found no merit in the ‘tamasha’ called AI and paid no attention to it.
The AI event in the Capital Delhi revealed that AI would see new investment worth $200 billion (Rs 18 lakh crore) in the country. In fact at Jewar, located close to the upcoming NOIDA airport foundation stone was laid for a chip factory to be installed jointly by the HCL group and the Foxconn, the largest contract manufacturer in the world today, bringing in investment worth Rs 3700 crore. In contrast West Bengal government allocated Rs 2843 crore for industry and infrastructure during 2026-27. A state economy dedicated to pay pittance to its residents winks at such flamboyant events and investments ignoring any discussion on the massive development effort undertaken in Delhi.
When national media in the capital were busy interviewing personalities like Sam Altman, Sundar Pichai, Dario Amodei et al. Kolkata was busy talking of local politicians Pratikur Rahman, Bishnu Prasad Sharma, Humayun Kabir and others. Clearly political priorities and with that media focus on events vary depending on the socioeconomic condition in a region. West Bengal opted for status quo, though it is the reason for unmaking of the state stability at the cost of stagnation, opted for infiltration in the garb of secularism, distributing poverty and doles in place of economic prosperity.
The political rhetoric in the state centres on what the quantum of hand out given or would be given. Even the main opposition BJP is talking of how much doles the party would deliver. Judged by the discourse it seems the target audience, voters in the state, are so accustomed to enjoy their poverty that some measly monthly doles of Rs 1500 are strong enough to obtain their support in the election. Apparently more than 60 lakh persons have enrolled for the unemployment scheme. This means a monthly payment of at least Rs 900 crore, and an annual expenditure of Rs10,800 crore. Since there is no scope of any new job, particularly for the largely unskilled workers, regular doles remain the only option of influencing voters.
For lack of any employment people in the working age migrate to other states which offer low skilled job opportunity, hence option to earn and send some money back home. The most exciting gadget they want to possess is a mobile phone. AI does not exist in their thought process, even it does to some, and they view this as a disrupting technology that will eat into their livelihood. Unless they actually experience the beneficial effect of the new business and enjoy the fruits of the same, the AI Impact summit is far removed from their lives or at the most a threat to their future.
The only exposure to modern industry to most people in the state was that the House of Tata wanted to set up an auto factory but had to wrap the nearly finished factory up due to then opposition political feeling that the impact would be disastrous for them in future. It is a different story that many such people have moved to Sanand to work in the auto plant which had to move out of West Bengal. But thanks to the reluctance of the state media the people who queue up for doles and free ration have no idea of what they lost. The losers’ mind set is so deeply engraved that unless new generations emerge who experience the fruits of growth the state will discuss quantum of handouts only.
As electoral success depended on keeping people poor, the ruling administration turned them dependent on government largesse so as to maintain political authority on the voters. The state’s communist chief minister Jyoti Basu knew this well. An anecdote of his views expressed to his own party’s MP (member of LokSabha) Amal Dutta explains this. When Dutta requested to promote floriculture in his constituency Basu told him if the farmers earn money and turn better off how would the party get cadres. This mind set hammered among the people of the state for nearly fifty years now resulted in the AI summit being ignored in Kolkata, a city of poverty and pontification.
Will the scenario change with the change of a government? People live in hope.
