Contributing to the ongoing discussion (Sinharay 2012, 2014; Chandra and Nielsen 2012; Bandyopadhyay 2012; Chatterjee 2012; Samaddar 2013) in the EPW on the role of caste in Bengal politics, this article argues that the present tendency is to envisage a larger political role of caste on the basis of a faulty exercise of equating the electoral defeat of the left parties with the decline of the left ideology. The argument overlooks the deep hangover of a secular-leftist-political culture in Bengali society and therefore fails to understand the limited scope of caste politics in modern Bengal.
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Comments
EPW looks forward to your comments. Please note that comments are moderated as per our comments policy. They may take some time to appear. A comment, if suitable, may be selected for publication in the Letters pages of EPW.