Abir Kanjilal

@DrSonuBhaskar Next time, pls ask your Ai to omit the em dashes and en dashes. Looks odd for such a great CV.

Has the Red and Green Alliance ruined West Bengal? How did she move from being an Industrial Powerhouse to a State in Decline? In January, I visited Kolkata after many years, revisiting the places that once defined my memories of the city. It was a flood of nostalgia mixed with deep sadness. I walked through Thakurbari (Rabindranath Tagore's birthplace), Victoria Memorial, Burrabazar, the iconic Coffee House, College Street, and the Planetarium – spots I had last explored with my family so long ago. Those visits brought back waves of warmth. But Kolkata has stagnated. The lack of infrastructure and the frail, crumbling buildings were disheartening enough. What truly broke my heart was going from bookstore to bookstore, unable to find even a single compilation of Tagore’s complete works. Individual titles were scattered on the shelves, but no collected editions. In stark contrast, massive compilations of Marx, Lenin, and every other left-leaning authors proudly adorned the frontages and display tables. It was a deeply sad thing to witness – a quiet symbol of how the soul of Bengal has been overshadowed. For over five decades, West Bengal has been governed by the Red and Green Alliance – first the CPI(M)-led Left Front (Red) under Jyoti Basu (1977-2000, and the Front until 2011), then Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (with its Green appeasement politics) since 2011. What was once India’s third-largest economy and an industrial engine of the East has been reduced to stagnation, demographic upheaval, and rising insecurity. The facts are stark, drawn from official data and published reports. This isn’t rhetoric – it’s the record of ideology over development, appeasement over security, and neglect over progress. Firstly, economically speaking, from Top 3 to Near the Bottom In 1960-61, West Bengal contributed 10.5% of India’s GDP – ranking 3rd nationally – with per capita income at 127.5% of the national average. By 2023-24, its GDP share has plummeted to just 5.6%, and per capita income has fallen to 83.7% of the national average (ranking around 24th). This consistent slide, documented in the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC-PM) working paper (2024), began under militant unionism and anti-capitalist policies during the Red Front era. Jyoti Basu famously told struggling industrialists that “capitalists are class enemies” and they should expect “no sympathy.” Factories fled, investment dried up, and the state’s share of registered factory production collapsed from nearly 30% at Independence to under 6% by the early 1990s. The decline didn’t reverse under the Green phase of the Alliance – it continued, with thousands of industries shuttered and youth forced to migrate for jobs. Secondly, vis a vis demographics, West Bengal is witnessing a rapid, unchecked shift. Official Census data paints a clear picture of transformation. In 1951, Hindus formed ~78.9% of West Bengal’s population and Muslims 19.85%. By the 2011 Census (the latest comprehensive official religious data), Hindus were down to 70.54% while Muslims rose to 27.01% (24.65 million out of 91.28 million total). The Muslim population grew by 381.7% between 1951-2011, compared to 210.2% for Hindus – a divergence official Census tables attribute to differential growth rates. Districts flipped. Murshidabad went from 55.2% Muslim (1951) to 66.27% (2011); Malda from 37.4% to 51.27%; Uttar Dinajpur neared 50%. These are not abstract numbers – they reflect real shifts in social fabric, voting patterns, and local governance in a state with porous borders. (Sources: Census of India 1951 & 2011, as compiled in official tables and Pew Research Center’s 2021 analysis of state religious demography). Thirdly, growing Islamic radicalisation and appeasement politics that fuels extremism pose a grave danger. Under the Red and Green Alliance, policies perceived as minority appeasement have coincided with rising radicalisation threats, especially in border districts. The Bangladesh-based Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) has repeatedly used madrasas in Murshidabad, Burdwan, and Malda for radicalisation and recruitment of Indian youth, according to the Union Home Ministry and National Investigation Agency (NIA) probes. Multiple modules have been busted, with arrests linking JMB to terror plots, bomb-making camps, and cross-border networks. SATP (South Asia Terrorism Portal) records document ongoing terrorism-related incidents tied to these groups in West Bengal from 2007 onward. Intelligence reports highlight exploitation of porous borders, madrasa networks, and soft policing – a pattern that intensified in the Green phase post-2011. When ideology trumps security, vulnerable youth become cannon fodder and communal tensions rise. West Bengal’s story is a cautionary tale: decades of Red and Green Alliance governance - rigid socialism under Basu, followed by populist appeasement under Banerjee - have hollowed out industry, altered demographics through unchecked growth and migration pressures, and allowed radical elements to gain footholds. Once a beacon of culture, education, and enterprise, Bengal now exports its youth and imports instability. The data doesn’t lie. The people of West Bengal deserve better – development, security, and equal opportunity, not ideological experiments of the Red and Green Alliance. It’s time to confront these facts before the “Red-Green Zones” become the new normal and the state’s decline becomes irreversible. May 4 may be the turning point we are all waiting for. Towards "Amar Sonar Bangla". Share if you believe Bengal needs a real change. Facts over fear. Development over decline. FACTS >>> NARRATIVES Note: Links to data and evidence used are provided in next tweet. #BengalElections #assemblyelections2026 #WestBengalLegislativeAssemblyelection2026 #AmarSonarBangla

Your “simple truths” are just smug defeatism from an editor who ran away from Bengal decades ago. Kolkata is India’s 3rd richest city by GDP. Yet you call it the world’s largest old-age home? Bhadralok shipping kids abroad after Class XII isn’t pride—it's fleeing the wreckage your generation created and watched from the sidelines. And that lazy “rice-belly siesta” trope? It’s cheap colonial garbage peddled by outsiders who never built anything.

Simple truths: 1. Kolkata is the largest old-age home in the world. 2. The bhadralok will keep talking about Bengali pride while trying very hard to get their children out of Bengal after Class XII. Some non-resident bhadralok who will never come back are even more vociferous. 3. There is no unemployment crisis in Bengal. With Didi's doles (and free rations etc), now the average Bengali young man can have fish twice a week and that sacred siesta every day with his belly full of rice (bhaatghum). Why would he want to go out and sweat and—God forbid—compete?

Your essay is elegantly written, but it is the textbook Non-Resident Bengali syndrome. Spend two years in Kolkata for an MBA, collect stories of decay, then spend the next two decades lecturing Bengal from Delhi with zero skin in the game. You thanked your father for leaving in 1978. Fair. Many of us thank ours for staying and building anyway. The “koop mandook” you mock are running 150-person global tech firms out of Salt Lake and Rajarhat while paying taxes to a state that treats enterprise like a crime. The real rose-tinted glasses are on the NRB who mistakes his personal escape story for Bengal’s permanent destiny. Bengal’s tragedy is not that people want ₹1000-2000 a month. It is that a certain class of educated Bengali who left turned failure into a moral badge and now lectures those still here that change is impossible. You are right that 50 years of policy failure cannot be fixed by “chaa-er cup-e biplob”. But defeatism dressed as realism is the same intellectual laziness you claim to hate. Builders matter more than exiles with opinions. The light at the end of the tunnel will not be carried by NRIs waving placards from abroad. It will be built brick by brick by the people you called frogs in the well. We see you. We don’t need your permission to keep working.

I am a Non Resident Bengali. I was born and brought up in Delhi. Apart from yearly visits to Kolkata during summer vacations, I stayed continuously in Kolkata for 2 years only- during MBA. And that stay removed the rose tinted glasses. There are 3 things that jolted me- generic dilapidation, civic apathy and abject urban poverty. My friends from CU/JU wore "You can travel the entire city and eat if you have 100 in your pocket" as badge of honor. You see half the people would starved as they did not earn 100 a day. Apart from IIMC which places almost everyone outside WB , every B-School struggled to place anyone within the city that paid more than 3 LPA. There were just no jobs. The students at these B-Schools boasted of being from Xavier, Brabourne etc. and were 'koop mandook'. Most of the people I knew of then are not in Kolkata. Some realized early, some late. But they realized. No one wants to go back. And then you see some random Bong NRIs clownishly dancing with placards saying 'Don't vote BJP'. Really? You bloody left because leftists destroyed industries and TMC appeased the peaceful folks to the hilt. In my ancestral village, everyone from my father's gen either has a small shop or is a party worker. Their sons while away their time at nooks, smoke weed. I always thank my father who decided in '78 that it is time to leave Bengal. Visionary. Else I would be one of those guys. I don't know if the situation Bengal can be reversed. Most Bengalis are too poor and really want that 1000-2000 every month. Elites are co-opted. Sliver of middle class wants to go out. Even if BJP comes somehow, all gundas might shift en masse to BJP. Then what? We Bengalis need to bring changes from within. Too much of marinating in past glory and 'Amartya Sen maachher matha kheye boro hoyechhen, tuio khaa', has done us in. I don't know how. I don't see light at the end of the tunnel. Chaa er Cup ey Biplob ene baal kichui hobe naa. What did not work for ~50 years, will magically start working now? Are you daft?

@NalinisKitchen Just imagine if Bengalis decided to do a list. :)

Mahatma Gandhi - Gujarati Sardar Patel - Gujarati Morarji Desai - Gujarati Vikram Sarabhai - Gujarati Jamsetji Tata - Gujarati Narendra Modi - Gujarati Mukesh Ambani - Gujarati Gautam Adani - Gujarati Hardik Pandya - Gujarati Ravindra Jadeja - Gujarati Gujarat has given many great people to India.

@SelflessCricket Bhai mere... I want the stuff you smoke, man! Who is your dealer?

- Ties with both Israel & Palestine. - Ties with both America & Iran - Ties with both Russia & Ukraine - Never behaved as American Puppet like Shehbaz Sharif Narendra Modi has to be the only Prime Minister with a Spine in South Asia

@AstroSharmistha Everyone knows he will join BJP. Sit down.

Raghav Chada got packed up by his own party. I knew it was coming. Those who feel a strong voice was stopped, then I will request you not to judge by small action. Huge twist is coming up in his life. I will predict that in my STELLAR TALK 2027 edition. Punjab election is now going to be very interesing. #ArtOfPrediction

Tax every trade Tax every gain Add STT regardless of profit Then call traders gamblers 🤡

@AshishGupta325 No man, vote of the dehati's and the firm belief that desh chumtiya se bhara hua hai!

What exactly is this arrogance built on? A collapsing currency An underperforming equity market Relentless FII outflows And inflation that refuses to cool down

@swing_ka_sultan Market abhi gir raha... will go up when the bull market comes. That's only what he said. 😀 Value = 0, bokchodi = 100

Capitulation is a phase, not a single day. What you’re seeing right now is no different from what we’ve seen in the last three bear markets. Study how markets behaved in the month leading up to 28th March 2023, 5th August 2019, and 29th Feb 2016. Many will say markets are making new lows every day and every rally is getting sold into. But for anyone who has experienced a couple of bear markets, there’s nothing unusual about this. This is exactly what capitulation looks like. If the news and price action aren’t at their worst, what purpose does capitulation even serve? Who would be the last weak hands to give up, and why would they sell? I remember a beautiful quote from Bill O’Neil: “Later, at the least expected time, when all the news is terrible, winter will ultimately pass and a great new bull market will suddenly spring to life.” I was listening to Qullamaggie recently, and it was interesting to hear him echo a similar thought. In my #SA_Notes, I mentioned that we are in a transition phase from a bear to a bull market following the India–US trade deal. I also noted that it could still be a few months away, with a final leg of capitulation likely. What we’re seeing now feels very similar to how the last three bear markets unfolded, and I’m quite hopeful that a new bull market is not too far away.

@braddy_Codie05 Gobi cant do anything

This should be the First and last Incident ,if Iran repeats this again there must be serious Consequences.

@mountain_rats More people died standing in the demonitization line in India than missiles coming down in Dubai. Shut the f up.

Everything is normal in Dubai: NRI’s While Govt has requested remote work, all parks and resorts closed Ain Dubai closed (Giant Ferris Wheel) Ajman Private schools switch to remote learning Dubai International Financial Centre working remotely Jebel Jais closed But trust NRI’s everything is fine!

@antmillionsbot Yes

@ArindamPramnk @nid_rockz Har baat pe gyan pelna jaruri nehi hota hai...do u think @nid_rockz doesn't know tht?

@nid_rockz When everyone is frustrated,depressed not ready to press buy button its time for market to arrive near bottom This cycle is getting repeated for many years

For the last 2 years, FIIs have been quitting/trimming/selling Indian equities It looks like retail too has started from the last 5-6 months and is getting intensified And now we have higher STT, on top of that higher STCG and LTCG from last year?? Will the majority be eligible to pay capital gain taxes for FY27 and FY28??🧐🧐

@riteshmjn u know the fun part? u still can lose 100% of ur money.

2X inverse silver etf 3 years back it was 165 Today it is 1.85 You know the best part… it cannot go to ZERO.

@WeekendInvestng Relax, you are getting bit too excited.

5k close tomorrow?

@itsTarH yeh sab single digit pe mein milega..

Median valuations in SME sector have collapsed to a new low Median PE is now ~15 Median PB is now <1.5 Median PS is now ~1 Meanwhile number of companies have increased from 251 to 941 Liquidity has evaporated Some good companies here if you can brave the volatility

The market doesn’t pay you for being smart. It pays you for doing things humans hate. It pays you for waiting when nothing is happening and everyone else is trading out of boredom. Waiting feels useless. That’s why it works. It pays you for being wrong for a while without panicking, tweaking, or abandoning your rules. Most people don’t lose money. They lose patience. It pays you for buying when it feels scariest when the news is bad, confidence is low, and conviction feels uncomfortable. It pays you for selling too early before greed shows up, before screenshots look impressive, before ego gets involved. Trading isn’t hard because it’s complex. It’s hard because it’s human. The market rewards discipline over brilliance, rules over feelings, and survival over excitement.

They say, “Just increase your SIP.” assuming lifestyle expenses don't creep in and responsibilities don’t grow. That’s not how real life works. Advice isn’t wrong. The assumptions are invisible. Before following any strategy, ask: Is this advice built for my life or someone else’s?

They say, “Hold long term” assuming your income is stable your spending is predictable and life won’t force a bad exit. Markets test patience. Life tests liquidity.

Money advice almost never works. Not because it’s wrong, But because it assumes too much about you. 👇