India, May 8 -- From a state known for the class politics of the Left, West Bengal now seems to have emerged as a new laboratory of identity politics. Political analysts are currently concentrating on what, on the surface, appears as signs of caste-based political assertion by several lower caste groups. However, a closer analysis divulges a curious reality. What West Bengal is currently witnessing is not conventional caste politics, but an extraordinary marriage between the politics of Hindutva and the politics of caste, where the former informs the logic underlying the latter....