At face value, the twin “anti-goonda” Bills, now the West Bengal Public Safety and Control of Anti-Social Activities Act, 2026 and subsequent West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order (Amendment) Act, 2026 are a strict response to Bengal’s violent political landscape, which since the rule of the CPI(M) has included a necessary nexus between local strongmen and the ruling party.
Yet, a thorough read reveals an asymmetric process of identifying, justifying and adjudicating the threat of “goondas,” with gaps in the policy leaving room for punitive misuse against political opposition in West Bengal.
While the association between party and muscle men began with the Left, muscle men had become integral to Trinamool’s consolidation of power since 2011. Without the ideological discipline of the Left cadre, the Trinamool depended on this network of local strongmen for both campaigning, maintaining chains of patronage and stifling competition from the opposition.
Over time, this association integrated itself as a routine and benign institution within Bengal’s party-state, propounding a culture of cut-money, hawala, “protection-money,” extortion, illegal land acquisition, construction materials, dubious local tenders and so on and so forth. Political backing allowed criminal nexus to monetise its activities, while the political establishment gained from their discretionary use.