Kolkata. For years, India's West Bengal state was a major exception to Narendra Modi's political rise. His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had dominated India's Hindi-speaking regions, expanded into the west and northeast, and defeated once-powerful regional rivals. Yet Bengal, steeped in its own rational and cultural distinctiveness, had stubbornly remained resistant. This made the state's election unusually significant. With a population of over 100 million, West Bengal's electorate is larger than Germany's, making its election closer to a nation choosing its government than a regular Indian state election. The BJP's victory there on Monday will be counted among the most...