The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has taken over the reins of West Bengal at a time when the State is faced with numerous formidable and multidimensional challenges. The country is hopeful that the new Government will steer the State back into the national mainstream by tackling issues that are deeply entrenched and systemic—a collapsed law and order apparatus, a moribund economy, crumbling infrastructure, rampant corruption, relentless infiltration and the steady degradation of culture, health and education. These crises have accumulated over the past six decades and have been greatly aggravated under successive TMC administrations. Undoubtedly, they will take considerable time to resolve.
The critical question is what must be the decisive first step to ensure that subsequent remedial measures seamlessly follow? The immediate priority is converting the historic electoral mandate into a dynamic movement, actively encouraging the common citizen to stand solidly beside the new administration. To navigate this labyrinth of challenges successfully, the Government and the public must perceive themselves as steadfast co-warriors united in a shared civilisational and administrative cause.
The first few months of the new government constitute the absolute “golden hours,” for the critically ailing State and this brief window must be utilised with unrelenting urgency. The administration needs to realise that although the opposition parties are currently lying low and scattered in the wake of the dramatic mandate in favour of the BJP, they are likely to spring back into action, coalesce under a common umbrella, and begin weaving ill-motivated, anti-BJP narratives with vigour sooner rather than later. In fact, the chief of the former ruling party issued a clarion call to the entire opposition including the ultra-Left—to forge a common front against the BJP on the very day the new Government took its oath. For the time being there was no taker, but the future may tell a different story, given their incorrigible bias against BJP and obsession with pseudo-secularism.
The window of time is short, and the journey to implement the highly demanding and ambitious Sankalp Patra is long and arduous. Before the opposition mobilises, the new Government must succeed in cementing an unimpeachable partnership with the common people of West Bengal. Here is a blueprint of practical, highly visible measures to secure that end.
Restoring Rule of Law
Establishing an ironclad law and order structure is the fundamental bedrock upon which the people will extend their enthusiastic cooperation to the Government. A secure environment instantly instils public confidence, allowing crippled industries to safely reopen, enabling the health and education sectors to restore operational normalcy, and ensuring that vital welfare schemes reach their targeted demographics without the interference of corrupt intermediaries. To improve law and order in the vast expanse of rural Bengal—where common people have lived for years in fear of jihadis and local syndicates stockpiling firearms and explosives—the new Government possesses the unique advantage of having massive numbers of paramilitary forces stationed for nearly two months. A segment of this force can be effectively utilised to sanitise sensitive areas, thereby liberating tens of millions of citizens from crippling fear. This is a rare, fleeting opportunity to draw the populace firmly to the government’s side.
Timeline for Speedy Trials
A natural corollary to robust law enforcement is the absolute assurance of prompt, uncompromising justice; to garner public trust, time is of the essence. The new administration possesses an opportunity to send a strong message of intent by delivering swift, decisive justice to the victims of major, high-profile crimes, like the atrocities at Kamduni, Hanskhali, Sandeshkhali, and RG Kar Medical College, as well as cases of brutal post-poll violence in 2021. A white paper should be published at the earliest, documenting every individual case and setting a strict timeline for speedy trials to secure exemplary punishment for the guilty. These decisive judicial actions will serve as potent, highly visible symbols of the government’s unwavering resolve.
Securing Demographic Integrity
Sustained illegal infiltration by Bangladeshi Muslims into Bharat through West Bengal has escalated into a major crisis. Not only are these populations consuming resources meant for Bharatiya citizens, but they also portend a grave threat to communal harmony and national security. Sensible estimates place their numbers in Bharat in ‘crores’, distributed across the nation. West Bengal has served not only as their primary gateway but also as a major habitat. They have infiltrated silently over the years, thriving with the support of successive short-sighted political parties and ruling regimes.
The measures designed to repatriate them must be highly strategic. It appears impossible to accomplish this monumental task purely through official diplomatic channels, as Dhaka has stubbornly refused to take back even a few thousand of its citizens. While Government-to-Government attempts may continue, the most plausible solution lies in creating administrative conditions that make their continued stay in Bharat harsh and unsustainable. When this occurs, they will return home as silently as they arrived, assimilating seamlessly back into their country of origin without diplomatic fuss.
A combination of measures:
As a visionary stroke of statecraft, the Government should fulfil its sacred promise of implementing CAA on a war footing. That very action shall, by separating grain from the chaff, exercise tremendous psychological pressure on the illegal infiltrators to exit from the country on their own, for they would realise that they can no longer hide behind ‘refugees’ nor can count on any further political backing in Bharat. Not only that, the Government may also actively encourage and systematically settle CAA beneficiaries on Government-owned land along the sensitive Indo-Bangladesh borders, from the Northern hills to the Southern sea. This strategic demographic deployment will be particularly effective in challenging terrains where natural geography precludes the erection of physical fencing. The most apt geography for this robust initiative includes the Ganges Delta region in South 24 Parganas.
Simultaneously, the Government may undertake a well-publicised review of all Aadhaar cards issued in select border districts of the State followed by cancellation of spurious cards on an urgent basis, announce the establishment of detention centres, and encourage infiltrators to return voluntarily by a specified date which should be soon enough. Until then, the border should remain wide open for ‘exit’ (except for those accused of crimes within Bharat) but strictly sealed against any future infiltration.
Of all the States where the BJP governs, it will face its toughest ideological challenge in West Bengal due to the region’s long history of Leftist political culture. The party’s greatest strength undoubtedly stems from its ideology, and it must zealously protect itself from contamination by preventing the influx of unscrupulous opportunists from other factions. History has repeatedly shown the en-masse migration of lumpen elements—masquerading as political workers—from the Congress, to the Left, and finally to the TMC in search of power. In every instance, this group has orchestrated the downfall of the party they joined. Nothing will erase public confidence faster than allowing this vicious tribe entry into the BJP. A practical policy of ‘no entry’ should be adopted until the government secures a firm administrative grip.
Economic Restitution
Considering the high financial implications of the Sankalp Patra, the new Government must generate funds innovatively without increasing the burden on the common citizen. In this regard, the governance model of Uttar Pradesh serves as a robust template, demonstrating how administrative measures can simultaneously generate revenue and inspire public confidence.
For example, the new administration can launch a campaign to reclaim all Government land currently under illegal occupation with utmost urgency. The size of such land is estimated to be considerable and their sale can generate considerable funds for the new Government. Simultaneously, it must initiate the rapid sequestration of vast estates and ill-gotten wealth hoarded by corrupt politicians and their cronies. These processes can be expedited through the immediate establishment of special fast-track courts. On the other hand, the burden of high State subsidies is likely to naturally abate once industries reappear on the horizon and the State’s youth and women secure regular employment.
Restoring Civilisational Legacy
Alongside economic restitution, immediate action must unfold in a sector that often escapes short-term political attention: the education sector. In West Bengal, education has been one of the worst victims of an anti-civilisational agenda, suffering from a lamentable degradation in teaching standards and a deliberate subversion of native language and history. More than one generation passing through this compromised system has been indoctrinated by distorted lexicons, warped vocabularies, and falsified historical narratives.
Therefore, the Education Ministry must be entrusted to exceptionally competent hands, and profound corrections regarding both the academic syllabus and the teaching staff must commence without a single day’s delay. This massive clean-up operation necessitates the aggressive weeding out of fraudulent, “blank answer paper” appointees and the speedy reinstatement of genuinely qualified, meritorious teachers.
Fall of Appeasers & Pseudo-Intellectuals
While these systemic tasks are undeniably daunting, the new Government assumes office with two strong initial advantages that neither the Left nor the TMC ever possessed. First, the long-standing political myth of the “Muslim vote veto” as an absolute prerequisite for acquiring political power in Bengal has been conclusively shattered. Consequently, the new Government operates with zero electoral pressure to resort to the destructive politics of minority appeasement.
Establishing an ironclad law and order structure is the fundamental bedrock upon which the people will extend their enthusiastic cooperation to the Government
Second, the era of the so-called “Buddhijeevis”—the Left-leaning intellectual cabal that has historically exerted disproportionate pressure upon the State’s politics—is definitively over. For decades, they arrogantly claimed to be the moral guardians of the State, consistently stalling its industrial and social progress using the specious logic of endless class struggle. Their devious contribution to the gradual decline of the state’s economy and educational institutions—forcing the brightest youth to migrate and effectively turning Bengal into a vast, virtual old-age home—cannot be underestimated. Furthermore, by providing an intellectual shield to illegal infiltrators, they posed a grave, existential danger to national security.
Whatever residual respect this tribe of pretenders once commanded was completely eroded during the last five years of the previous Government, a period during which their cowardly silence and complicit passivity actively helped the corrupt regime thrive. By now they have been so thoroughly exposed and degraded in the public eye that the very term ‘Buddhijeevi’ has degenerated into a term of mockery. The new Government is entirely free from the obligation to pander to this dangerous, self-serving lobby. In fact, there is an urgent need to consciously abandon the age-old political culture in the country to seek their approval for any Government agenda.
The time has arrived for West Bengal to resume its rightful journey on the path of true progress, strictly in alignment with the grand civilisational ethos of Bharat. Indeed, the entire country is waiting eagerly for the nationalist people of Bengal to step forward, reclaim their historic heritage, and bravely resume their role of national leadership after several dark decades of decline.
