Mamata Banerjee's swearing-in as chief minister of West Bengal on 20 May marked the end of nearly three and a half decades of rule by the Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Many factors contributed to this historic transition, one significant cause being the role of the state's intelligentsia. After the Nandigram firing of 2007 and coercive land acquisition in Singur for a proposed car factory, a large number of eminent public intellectuals and artists – playwrights, actors, directors, filmmakers, singers, painters, poets – came out on the streets, demanding change. The state was witness to a civil-society movement led by individuals who, for the most part, were not aligned with any particular party. To describe this 'new' section, the ruling Left Front pejoratively coined the epithet susheel samaj or the 'polite society' – an attempt to portray the intelligentsia as privileged people who had entered politics merely on a whim, and had no contact with the blood and sweat of the masses. The implication was that the movement had no enduring political significance or future.
Many members of this movement, it should be noted, had been sympathisers of the left, but had become disenchanted with the rule of the Left Front. Processions came out, candlelight vigils were organised; teams were also organised to go into Adivasi and other communities to talk with victims of state as well as Left Front harassment and violence. Their reports and protests had significant impact; for many, this was an unprecedented and welcome experience. Suddenly, it seemed as though a third, and independent, voice was emerging that went beyond the partisan bickering of the CPI (M) and Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress. For a year or two, in 2007 and 2008, there was a strengthening sense of the power of the people's voice in West Bengal. The protests sent ripples across the state, eventually turning into a major anti-incumbency wave.
During the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the Trinamool was able to ride this anti-government wave to win 19 parliamentary seats. This was up significantly from just a single seat during the previous polls, in 2004. Some of the intellectuals and artists involved in the civil society movement contested the Lok Sabha elections on a Trinamool ticket and won. Kabir Suman, the eminent singer, was among them. After her electoral success, Mamata, then railway minister, rewarded quite a few of the eminent individuals among the movement, putting them in paid posts on various railway committees. This offered grist for CPI (M) criticism. The party attacked these members of the intelligentsia as greedy mercenaries who had come out on the streets against the Left Front for personal gain. Inevitably, this weakened the civil-society initiative greatly; once again the voices became partisan, and the potential for a 'third space' was compromised. Public intellectuals such as Sankha Ghosh, Aparna Sen, Kaushik Sen and a few others strove to retain their somewhat independent space, but the movement had clearly been weakened.
Politics of paribartan
Following the declaration of assembly elections in March 2011, clashes between supporters of the Trinamool and the left parties became increasingly violent across the state. Maoist violence also spread in the Adivasi belt, and clashes between opposing camps even ended in a large number of deaths. It became increasingly clear that the violence was exhibitionist in nature, as bodies were being left in roadways and fields in order to terrorise opponents.