Western Media Forced to Rethink West Bengal
The BJP’s landslide victory in West Bengal has forced a dramatic narrative shift among Western media outlets that had confidently predicted a triumph for the TMC. For years, much of this media ecosystem has displayed open hostility towards the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, often framing them as threats to liberal democracy. After the 2024 Lok Sabha election, when the BJP’s tally fell to 240 seats, for instance, The Economist warned that “Modi’s illiberalism may imperil India’s economic progress,” while the Financial Times described Modi as having a “darker side” and discriminating against minorities. British think tank Chatham House spoke of “democratic backsliding” that might eventually force Western capitals to reconsider their cooperation with New Delhi, and Bloomberg drew a sharp contrast between a supposedly progressive South and a “poverty-ridden north” led by a majoritarian government. Much of this criticism, especially in the run-up to the 2026 state elections, was filtered through Delhi’s “old ecosystem” of commentators and fixers who have long despised Modi and the BJP.
The Delhi Circuit and Its Predictable Biases
Foreign bureau chiefs in New Delhi are typically mid-career journalists for whom India is a stepping stone to more prestigious postings in Beijing, Berlin or beyond. During their time in India, they often rely on and socialize with the remnants of the old Lutyens ecosystem, whose members remain viscerally opposed to Modi and the BJP. This small but influential circle shapes much of what these journalists see and hear, reinforcing pre-existing prejudices rather than challenging them. As the 2026 assembly elections approached, this network helped entrench a single narrative: that Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress would punish the BJP for daring to conduct the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) that removed dead voters and suspected illegal migrants from the rolls. The expectation in these circles was that West Bengal would become the stage on which Mamata humbled Modi and re-emerged as a national challenger for 2029.
The “Travelling Circus” and the Shock Result
A travelling band of foreign journalists, accompanied by a global investor, swept through West Bengal and returned with a seemingly authoritative conclusion: Mamata Banerjee was headed for a comfortable fourth term. This assessment electrified the old ecosystem, which saw in Bengal the launchpad for Mamata’s national ambitions and Modi’s long-awaited political comeuppance. The script, however, was torn up on the evening of May 4, when results showed the TMC routed and the BJP sweeping the state in a landslide. The defeat was especially stunning because Mamata Banerjee herself lost her long-held bastion of Bhabanipur, suffering a personal and symbolic humiliation. Faced with a result that upended their confident predictions, Western journalists – ever conscious of their reputations – pivoted sharply and began to recast the story.
Overnight Praise and Persistent Fears
The BBC promptly acknowledged the magnitude of the outcome, noting that with more than 100 million people, West Bengal’s electorate is larger than Germany’s and that its polls resemble a national contest rather than a routine state election. It conceded that a BJP victory in Bengal ranks among the most significant breakthroughs of Modi’s 12-year reign, describing it as the culmination of a decade-long political project rather than a sudden upheaval. The Guardian, meanwhile, admitted that the result carries far-reaching implications for India’s political landscape and inflicts another demoralising blow on an already weakened opposition. It quoted Modi as saying that the West Bengal assembly elections “will be remembered forever,” insisting that people’s power had prevailed and that the BJP’s politics of good governance had triumphed. Yet not all commentary accepted the verdict with equanimity; some voices worried that the BJP’s rise in Bengal could fundamentally alter India’s relationship with its volatile neighbour Bangladesh, potentially shifting it from chronic hostility towards a more structured cooperation. Writing in Eurasia Review, Dr Habib Siddiqui lamented that what he had long feared had now occurred, warning that a BJP government led by Suvendu Adhikari – known for incendiary anti-Muslim rhetoric – marked a profound rupture for a state once celebrated for pluralism and resistance to communal politics.
Legacy Media’s Waning Influence in India
Memories are still fresh of how Western media parroted Pakistan’s narrative after Operation Sindoor a year ago, with CNN’s Nic Robertson in Islamabad amplifying ISI talking points without evident scepticism. Against that backdrop, the West Bengal verdict has deeply offended the itinerant band of Indian and foreign journalists who had confidently forecast a sweeping Mamata win. Many of them now blame the SIR process for the BJP’s victory, arguing that it stripped the TMC of its core base – illegal migrants who had sustained its dominance. The numbers are telling: in 2021, the TMC secured 48 per cent of the vote against the BJP’s 38 per cent; by 2026, the TMC had fallen to 40 per cent while the BJP had risen to 45 per cent. SIR removed roughly 10 per cent of unregistered voters from the rolls, and the eight-point drop in TMC’s vote share between 2021 and 2026 reinforces the belief that illegal voters had long helped it remain in power.
What explains the BJP’s rise from 38 per cent to 45 per cent? A key factor is the consolidation of the Hindu vote behind the party, combined with the erosion of fear once SIR reduced the clout of illegal voters and criminal elements within the TMC’s cadre. Yet even as the BJP’s reach expands, Western media’s influence in India continues to decline: few Indians now turn to CNN or the BBC for coverage of their own country. Their shrinking relevance has not yet translated into better journalism on India, in part because many correspondents still depend on an ageing, embittered ecosystem that filters and distorts the information they receive. Until that dependence ends, Western coverage of India will remain out of step with Indian realities, lurching from complacent predictions to hurried narrative reversals whenever the electorate delivers an unexpected verdict
