Stop the violence

Mamata Banerjee has set the state on a perilous course

From her days as an opposition activist, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has worn her reputation for unrelenting feistiness as a badge of honour. Against the tired, old men of the Left Front, her energetic defence of those who lost land to industrial projects propelled her to two terms in power. Against the juggernaut of grassroots mobilisation by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recent parliamentary elections, however, she has played into the hands of her opponents and has created conditions for communally-charged confrontation that the state has not seen since 1947. To be sure, violence has been