Bulletin n. 3/2014
February 2015
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Chatterjee Shibashis
    Regionalism in West Bengal: A Critical Engagement
    in India Review , Volume 13, Issue 4, Special Issue: Regions and Regionalism in India ,  2014 ,  417-435
    The central argument of the article is that West Bengal’s regionalism is a two level game. The state’s predominant regionalism is financial, set in antagonistic terms vis-à-vis the Centre. This financial or economic regionalism is paradigmatic to West Bengal. The tragedy of Partition; exceptional sensitivity to any prospect of further loss of territory; a sense of betrayal and helplessness; blaming others rather than engaging in critical introspection about its secular decline as a front ranking industrial state; and the political dominance of the middle class espousing a so called “bhadralok” identity are pivotal factors in explaining the relentless dynamics of West Bengal’s financial regionalism, regardless of the party in power. West Bengal has constructed a sub-textual identity raised on soft Bengali nationalism bereft of overt and exclusivist cultural markers.
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