Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Bengal once had arenas for identity battles—stadiums, football, jerseys. Now it’s polling booths

From Mohun Bagan and East Bengal to Mohammedan Sporting, footbclubs once shaped identity, pride and belonging across Bengal’s social fabric. Now, the political field has taken over.

The high-voltage West Bengal Assembly elections have lived up to the expectations—drama, rhetoric and enough identity politics to fuel primetime debates for months. But Bengal’s identity conflicts are not new. What has changed now is the field on which they are fought. There was a time when the eastern Indian state settled its identify battles on the field. Yes, the football field.

Stadiums, boots, goalposts, jerseys, slogans and a ball — these were the arenas of rivalry, not polling booths, political speeches and welfare promises. The clubs still exist, and so does the passion. But football no longer occupies the same space in West Bengal’s everyday life. The political field has taken over.

If’ Egiye Chalo’ once echoed from the stands, today it is, quite ironically, ‘Khela Hobe’ that dominates the discourse. It’s just that the game now is electoral.

And in this new identity war, the “outsider” (or bohiragoto) has emerged as the central midfielder, put to duties by both the defense and the attack — the TMC and the BJP. As the state heads into the second phase of the polling, both parties have identified their own ‘outsiders’.

The BJP, which eyes a breakthrough in the state, has raised issues of illegal migration from Bangladesh and what it calls crumbling border security. In response, the TMC has leaned into Bengali ‘asmita’, accusing “people from Delhi” of trying to impose a culture that Bengalis don’t relate to. The party has positioned itself as the protector of Bengali identity.

Fight for an identity

It may sound dramatic, but West Bengal’s football history mirrors the state’s deeper social and........

© ThePrint