Sunday, January 8, 2012

OPINION Chappals Firmly Grounded Mistake not Didi’s instinct-driven defiance for chance antagonism SUNANDA K. DATTA-RAY

ILLUSTRATION BY SORIT
OPINION
Chappals Firmly Grounded
Mistake not Didi's instinct-driven defiance for chance antagonism


Mamata Banerjee needs to carve out a niche for herself, the Congress in West Bengal is desperate to come in from the cold. Between the two compulsions, Trinamool's alliance with the UPA at the Centre is threatening to run aground. But it would be a mistake to ascribe any grand or sinister motive to West Bengal's rumbustious new chief minister.

Those who imagine her laying the foundations of a new federal equation overrate her philosophical vision and political perception. Those who accuse her of blackmailing New Delhi on the eve of the Uttar Pradesh elections to gain benefits for her state malign her unnecessarily.

Didi, elder sister, as she is popularly called, is a street fighter in constant need of causes and contestants. After 34 years of dictatorial rule, the Marxist-led Left Front has been banished to the sidelines. If the state branch of the Congress party can at last be seen and heard, it's only because Trinamool's triumph has emboldened it to sneak out into the open and speak. So, who does the woman who is used to yelling raucously from the back of a jeep and to brawling in the well of the Lok Sabha engage with? The Union government is the only adversary worthy of her might.

Not that this is empty posturing. She needs to restore her credentials. Six months in office have done little to sustain and develop Mamata Banerjee's image as the champion of the people. The mysterious deaths in government hospitals of 37 newborn babies and the tragedy of the AMRI hospital fire in which 92 people perished could not be laid at her door. But with discontent creeping in, any stick happens to be good enough to beat the chief minister with.

If she gets little effective support from her own people, that is largely her fault. She runs a tight ship, so tight that people call the Trinamool government a one-man show. By all accounts, her ministers enjoy the liberty only of agreeing with her. She has upset the civil service with her whimsical inductions and transfers that disregard the bureaucracy's sacrosanct protocols. After 34 years of a tacit alliance with the Marxists, the business community feels all at sea. It had worked out a way of dealing with Jyoti Basu that survived under his successors. Didi is not sufficiently interested in personal gain to give them a chance of broaching a similar modus vivendi.

What shows through it all is utter inexperience. Mamta has shed two of the nine portfolios she assumed to start with; but even seven are too many for a woman who is temperamentally far more interested in public drama than in painstaking work on files. The Rs 500 note she bestowed on a clutch of little beggar children through the window of her car was typical of her style. She meant well, but had no idea how to help those children in a practical way.

She is now faced with the same dilemma on a much bigger scale. How does she acquire land to attract industry without alienating the peasants she championed at Nandigram and Singur? How does she give orders to civil servants she sees as her enemies because they loyally served the Left Front for 34 years? How does she make the most of businessmen suspected of bankrolling her Marxist enemies?

She is not wily enough to work these out. But her instinct tells her, rightly, that the people are with her. Middle class Bengal's honeymoon with Didi's turbulence may be wearing thin but Trinamool's unprecedentedly large victory in the by-election for her vacated parliamentary seat showed her magic has lost none of its shine with the masses.

Shades of Indira Gandhi, she is therefore reaching out to the people who know nothing as yet of frustrated bureaucrats, disgruntled political colleagues and empty exchequers. They know only that the woman of their choice is at the helm.

The issues she has picked on to battle the Centre are carefully chosen to appeal to this, her only constituency. She can tell the Bengal peasant that the Teesta water agreement with Bangladesh will starve his paddy fields of water. She can convince small shopkeepers—the only Bengali entrepreneurs left in Bengal—that FDI in retail sales will profit only foreign superchains and the big Indian business houses, the Goenkas and Birlas, who represent them in India. She does not have to tell the Bengali professional classes that the Lokayukta clause is the thin end of the wedge of Hindi domination. Her stand on coal pricing or pensions is similarly designed to appeal to her constituency at home much more than to defy Manmohan Singh or Sonia Gandhi.

If, as a consequence, she and the UPA part company, it is as well: it was never anything more than a token marriage to begin with, like her earlier association with the NDA. Trinamool may have launched a Goa branch, but Mamata Banerjee is not, and never has been, a national politician. She loses nothing by being cut down to regional size.

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DAILY MAIL
6/D-76
JAN 08, 2012
08:10 PM

@ Lopamudra: I was a student in the 70's when Charu Mazumdar exported his violent armed struggle to Kolkata. Thousands of idealistic but misguided youth waged an urban guerilla warfare against the state and were ruthlessly annihilated during Siddhartha Shankar Ray's regime.

But I do not subscribe to the view that this is the reason for the general apathy towards politics, which is prevalent all over India, not just Bengal. It should be remembered that Mamata and many of the Trinamool leaders belong to the same generation as those killed in 1970's as are many of the CPM leaders.  What Bengal lacks is a third alternative, a party which is liberal, democratic and development-oriented.

D.L.NARAYAN
VISAKHAPATNAM, INDIA
5/D-63
JAN 08, 2012
06:10 PM

"It is absolutely incomprehensible that a state famed for its intellectualism and political savvy is doomed to suffer under either the communists who are prisoners of an antiquated ideology or a destructive Mamata Didi" - D.L.Narayan

I think 70's destructive Naxal movement have a lot to do with the void in the political leadership in Bengal. During that time The best of the brains either were killed by police or by each other. Those who were not killed moved out of the country for safety and career. That decade has been a scar to middle class bengali psyche till date and politics became pariah. 
However,There is very little written on the impact of 70's movement on Bengali society, this is a personal observation based on the oral history of family and community. I was not even born then :-) and I am not historian either. 

Irreverent,

After reading your inaninities day in and day out I have added two more adjectives for describing Bengalis like you, Self-Pompous Smug. Please add this as well next time onwords on your daily crusade against anything Bongo.

LOPAMUDRA
MUMBAI, INDIA
4/D-50
JAN 08, 2012
02:21 PM

Congress was planning to confer Bharat Ratna on Jyothi Basu who single handedly destroyed Bengal.Now that he has gone,under quota system for Bengal,Mamatha deserves to be given Bharat Ratna for throwing out CPM from power,which the Congress was unable to do.

S.S.NAGARAJ
BANGALORE, INDIA
3/D-185
JAN 07, 2012
11:15 PM

>> "It is absolutely incomprehensible that a state famed for its intellectualism and political savvy is doomed to suffer under either the communists who are prisoners of an antiquated ideology or a destructive Mamata Didi who is guided by instinct and not by intellect." - DL Narayan

What is so incomprehensible about this?

Almost every Bong is a (self-proclaimed) intellectual and a prisoner of antiquated ideology. To make it worse, these jokers are still in reverence of the lowly trams and continue to hang by Tagore's beards. Like Mamata, they are largely guided by instinct and not by intellect.

THE IRREVERENT INDIAN
ONLINE, INDIA
2/D-181
JAN 07, 2012
10:48 PM

It is absolutely incomprehensible that a state famed for its intellectualism and political savvy is doomed to suffer under either the communists who are prisoners of an antiquated ideology or a destructive Mamata Didi who is guided by instinct and not by intellect.

What is good for her is good for Bengal and what is good for Bengal is good for India. She is a tyrannical dictator who brooks no dissent, does not seek to build consensus, is unable to run an administration, she shirks responsibility....she does not even smile. There is no hope for Bengal unless a third alternative emerges.

D.L.NARAYAN
VISAKHAPATNAM, INDIA
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