India, Aug. 17 -- The Bharatiya Janata Party's victory has undoubtedly changed the atmosphere of West Bengal, and it is assuredly for the worse. A state that has long been accustomed to religious coexistence is rapidly being denigrated into subservience to the Hindutva agenda. People who, until yesterday, were living harmoniously are being taught to look at their neighbours through the prism of religion.

History, no doubt, witnesses that Bengal has never been perfect. It has seen communal riots, political violence and periods of intense polarisation. Yet the cultural imagination has traditionally been larger than its religious identities. The Bengal of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Tagore, Nazrul and Vidyasagar never asked a person's religi...