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Swapan Dasgupta

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Swapan Dasgupta
Dasgupta in 2026
Finance Minister of West Bengal
Incumbent
Assumed office
1 June 2026
GovernorR. N. Ravi
Chief MinisterSuvendu Adhikari
Preceded byChandrima Bhattacharya (Minister of State)
Member of West Bengal Legislative Assembly
Incumbent
Assumed office
4 May 2026
Preceded byDebasish Kumar
ConstituencyRashbehari
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
In office
1 June 2021 – 24 April 2022
ConstituencyNominated (Journalism)
In office
25 April 2016 – 16 March 2021
Succeeded byHimself
ConstituencyNominated (Journalism)
Personal details
Born (1955-10-03) 3 October 1955 (age 70)
Kolkata, West Bengal, India
PartyBharatiya Janata Party (since 2016)
SpouseReshmi Dasgupta
Children1 son
EducationSt. Stephen's College, Delhi (BA)
SOAS University of London (MA, PhD)
Nuffield College, Oxford (Postdoctoral Fellow)
OccupationJournalist, Writer, Political analyst
Awards
Padma Bhushan (2015)

Swapan Dasgupta (born 3 October 1955) is an Indian politician, journalist, and former historian.[1] He is one of the leading spokespersons of the Indian right-wing, notable for writing columns for leading English dailies espousing Hindu nationalism.[2][3][4][5]

Since June 2026, he is the Finance Minister of the West Bengal Government and a member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly representing the Rashbehari Assembly constituency.[6] He was twice a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha, between April 2016 and March 2021, and June 2021 and April 2022.[7][8] He resigned from the upper house to contest the Tarakeswar seat on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket in the 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly Elections.[9] He lost to AITC's Ramendu Sinharay by a margin of 7,484 votes.

In 2015, Dasgupta was conferred with the Padma Bhushan for his contribution to literature and education.[10][11]

Early life and education

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Dasgupta was born into a prominent Bengali Baidya family on 3rd October 1955 in Calcutta, West Bengal. His father was Samarendra Chandra Dasgupta, and his grandfather was Khagendra Chandra Das, founder of the Calcutta Chemical Company. He received his schooling from St. Paul's School and La Martiniere Calcutta before graduating with a Bachelor's in History from the St. Stephen's College in 1975. He earned his MA and Ph.D. in History (South Asian Studies) from the School of Oriental and African Studies, graduating in 1980. He was awarded the Inlaks scholarship in 1982 to pursue a Junior Research Fellowship at Nuffield College, Oxford, where he also taught South Asian Politics.[12][13] During this time, an excerpt from his thesis concerning the intersectionality of local politics in the Midnapur district was published in one of the Subaltern Studies volumes.[12] He also briefly worked in a management position at his family's organisation, Calcutta Chemical Company, prior to his short stint at Oxford and following his completion of his doctoral studies in London.

Career

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Dasgupta has served in editorial positions over several English dailies in India including The Indian Express, The Times of India, The Statesman, India Today etc.[12][14] He is a frequent guest on news channels in English-language debates on Indian politics and international affairs.[12]

In February 2015, Swapan Dasgupta was appointed on the Board of Directors of Larsen and Toubro as a nominee of the Unit Trust of India.[15] He stepped down from Directorship of Larsen and Toubro upon being appointed to the Rajya Sabha.[16][17]

In 2019, he published Awakening Bharat Mata: The Political Beliefs of the Indian Right.[18]

He was conferred Honorary Visiting Professorship at Center for Media Studies (CMS) at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in recognition to his excellent expertise on journalism and media.[19]

Dasgupta led the first edition of the Delhi University Literature Festival as its festival director alongside Sanjeev Sanyal as the festival patron in March 2023.[20]

Politics

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Dasgupta started as a Trotskite during college but became a Thatcherite in England; since then, he has self-identified with centre-right politics.[citation needed] Dasgupta has been active in national politics, especially as a political commentator in English dailies, since the early 90s as a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). By 1996, he supported the Ram Rath Yatra to forge a common Hindu identity. He claimed that "the BJP's positions on Ayodhya were forced upon it by the passions of its Hindu constituency."[21] Later, he had also come in support of the Mandal Commission recommendations.[22][12] However, in a 1990 article for the Times of India, Dasgupta called the Mandal Commission "a grotesque caricature of Hinduism."[23]

Mushirul Hasan, writing in 1997, held him the chief spokesperson of BJP in the English language press.[24] In the early 2000s, Dasgupta blogged:[25]

The Right is an endangered community in India's English-language media. I happen to be one of the few to have retained a precarious toe-hold in the mainstream media.

Throughout these years, Dasgupta emphasised the value of the English language in reaching out to the elites, who were allegedly mass-committed to the left-liberal cause, and winning them over towards Hindutva;[26] he was one of the most fierce critics of the pro-vernacular policies followed by the communist government of West Bengal.[27]

Legislation

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In April 2016, the incumbent BJP government nominated Dasgupta to the Rajya Sabha as an eminent personality in literature; his term would have continued till 2022.[28] However, in 2021, Dasgupta resigned from Rajya Sabha to contest the Legislative Assembly election in West Bengal for BJP from Tarakeswar; he lost by 7,484 votes. A month later, Dasgupta was renominated to the Rajya Sabha for the remainder of his original term — opposition politicians and constitutional scholars questioned the legal soundness of the renomination.

He contested in 2026 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election for BJP from Rashbehari Assembly constituency and won by a margin of 20,865 votes.[29]

On 1 June 2026, he was sworn in as a Cabinet Minister of West Bengal, along with twelve other members.[30]

Reception

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Meera Nanda finds Dasgupta among India's most prominent center-right public intellectuals.[31][32] Arvind Rajagopal found Dasgupta among the most vocal enthusiasts for the spread of Hindutva in English language press in the 80s.[33] Scholars have located parallels between his writings and the thought school of Hindu nationalist organisations.[34][35][36]

Awards

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Personal life

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He is married to Reshmi Ray Dasgupta, Lifestyle Editor at The Economic Times and has a son, Soumya Srijan Dasgupta, who is a practicing lawyer in the Supreme Court of India.[13] They reside in Kolkata.[13]

Bibliography

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  • Awakening Bharat Mata: The Political Beliefs of the Indian Right. India: Penguin Random House. 2019. p. 440. ISBN 9788185990309.
  • The Ayodhya Reference: The Supreme Court Judgement and Commentaries. India: South Asia Books. 1995. p. 208. ISBN 9780670091690.

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ "Dasgupta Swapan, RASHBEHARI constituency, BJP, WestBengal Assembly Election 2026: Profile & Affidavit". The Hindu. Retrieved 18 September 2026.
  2. ↑ Ayres, Alyssa (2018). Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World. Oxford University Press. p. 28. ISBN 9780190494520.
  3. ↑ Joseph, Tony. "The real reason Indian intellectuals are backing Narendra Modi". Quartz. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  4. ↑ Basu, Manisha (August 2016). The Rhetoric of Hindu India by Manisha Basu. Cambridge University Press. pp. 67–68, 139. ISBN 978-1-107-14987-8. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  5. ↑ Basu, Manisha (August 2016). "Introductory Matters". The Rhetoric of Hindu India by Manisha Basu. Cambridge University Press. p. 16. ISBN 978-1-107-14987-8. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  6. ↑ "Rashbehari Assembly Election Results 2026 Live Updates: BJP's Dasgupta Swapan won by over 20865 votes - The Times of India". timesofindia.indiatimes.com. Retrieved 10 September 2026.
  7. ↑ "Subramanian Swamy, Sidhu, Suresh Gopi, Swapan Dasgupta nominated for Rajya Sabha". The Indian Express. 23 April 2016. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
  8. ↑ "Swapan Dasgupta Resigns From Rajya Sabha Amid Row Over His Name For Polls". www.ndtv.com. Archived from the original on 10 February 2026. Retrieved 18 September 2026.
  9. ↑ "West Bengal Assembly election 2021, Swapan Dasgupta profile: BJP gives columnist and ex-Rajya Sabha MP ticket from Tarakeswar-Politics News , Firstpost". Firstpost. 5 April 2021. Archived from the original on 14 August 2022. Retrieved 18 September 2026.
  10. ↑ "President presents Bharat Ratna and Padma awards". Gulf Times. 30 March 2015. Retrieved 18 September 2026.
  11. ↑ "Press Information Bureau". pib.nic.in. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 Basu, Manisha (August 2016). "Between death and redemption". The Rhetoric of Hindu India by Manisha Basu. Cambridge University Press. p. 161. ISBN 978-1-107-14987-8. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  13. 1 2 3 Soni, Aayush (6 June 2014). "Swapan Dasgupta: The Face to Ring in Modi's New India". OZY. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  14. ↑ Murari, S. (13 June 2012). The Prabhakaran Saga: The Rise and Fall of an Eelam Warrior. SAGE Publications India. p. 72. ISBN 9788132109914.
  15. ↑ "Business Standard". Business Standard India. 9 February 2015. Retrieved 9 June 2015.
  16. ↑ "Swapan Dasgupta is not untouchable for me". Rediff. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  17. ↑ Saikia, Arunabh (10 July 2015). "Hartosh Bal Versus Swapan Dasgupta. And Others Caught in the Crossfire". Newslaundry. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  18. ↑ Pushkarna, Vijaya (10 June 2019). "Understanding the Indian right". The Week. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  19. ↑ "CMS Faculty".
  20. ↑ "It's raining lit fests at Delhi University". The Indian Express. 19 March 2023. Retrieved 25 April 2023.
  21. ↑ Ludden, David (April 1996). Contesting the Nation: Religion, Community, and the Politics of Democracy in India. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 9780812215854.
  22. ↑ Rajagopal, Arvind (25 January 2001). Politics After Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Public in India. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. pp. 343, 194. ISBN 9780521648394.
  23. ↑ Dasgupta, Swapan (13 August 1990). "Curse of Mandal: Grotesque Caricature of Hinduism". The Times of India. The devastation that the Mandal Commission's grotesque caricature of Hindu society is likely to create has not yet been fully gauged. In the short run it will inject a woefully sectarian stridency into electoral politics and further impair the efficiency of the public services. The division of the country into an efficient private sector and an inefficient state sector will be formalised. However, the long-term consequences for Hindu society is likely to be even more catastrophic.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  24. ↑ Hasan, Mushirul (1997). Legacy of a Divided Nation: India's Muslims since Independence. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. p. 303. doi:10.4324/9780429039690. ISBN 9780429701207. OCLC 1110150477. S2CID 242620789.
  25. ↑ Basu, Manisha (August 2016). "Between death and redemption". The Rhetoric of Hindu India by Manisha Basu. Cambridge University Press. pp. 140–144. ISBN 978-1-107-14987-8. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  26. ↑ Basu, Manisha (August 2016). "Preface". The Rhetoric of Hindu India by Manisha Basu. Cambridge University Press. pp. xi. ISBN 978-1-107-14987-8. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  27. ↑ Kapoor, Richa (2008). Understanding and Interpreting English as a School Discipline in Postcolonial India (Thesis). University of Minnesota.
  28. ↑ "Official: Swamy, Sidhu, Swapan Dasgupta and Mary Kom nominated to Rajya Sabha by PMO - Latest News & Updates at Daily News & Analysis". dnaindia.com. 22 April 2016. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
  29. ↑ "ECINet Result 2026 WB LA election". Election Commission of India. 7 May 2026. Retrieved 7 May 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  30. ↑ "Ministers Taking Oath on 01 June 2026" (PDF). wb.gov.in. Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  31. ↑ Nanda, Meera (2011). The God Market: How Globalization is Making India More Hindu. New York: Monthly Review Press. pp. ix. ISBN 9781583672501.
  32. ↑ Basu, Manisha (2008). Fathers of a Still-born Past: Hindu Empire, Globality, and the Rhetoric of the Trikaal (Thesis). University of Pittsburgh.
  33. ↑ Rajagopal, Arvind (25 January 2001). Politics After Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Public in India. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p. 170. ISBN 9780521648394.
  34. ↑ Datta, Pradip; Pati, Biswamoy; Sarkar, Sumit; Sarkar, Tanika; Sen, Sambuddha (1990). "Understanding Communal Violence: Nizamuddin Riots". Economic and Political Weekly. 25 (45): 2487–2495. ISSN 0012-9976. JSTOR 4396965.
  35. ↑ Thakore, Aloke (2004). Reporting ethnic violence: context, text, and practice of journalism in an Indian city (Thesis). University of Wisconsin–Madison.
  36. ↑ Sarkar, Sumit (1993). "The Fascism of the Sangh Parivar". Economic and Political Weekly. 28 (5): 163–167. ISSN 0012-9976. JSTOR 4399339.
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