With her Brahmin background Mamata Banerjee has never been eligiblefor a place on any of these lists. Instead her life-long struggle to oust thecommunists from Writers’ Building recently earned her a place on Timemagazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people. Internationally, aswell as nationally, Mamata Banerjee’s political stock has never been higher.But some suggest that her honeymoon with the Bengal electorate may be headedfor a premature end.
The story of the political rise of Mamata Banerjee is wellknown and has by now acquired almost mythical qualities. Coming from a modestmiddle-class background, she joined student politics at an early age and wenton to work her way up the Congress hierarchy during the 1980s and 1990s.
Frustrated with the lacklustre performance of the Bengalbranch of the grand old party, which she accused of having become the CPM’sB-team, she quit in 1997/98 and launched her own Trinamool Congress. Withinmonths, the TMC had become the main opposition in the state, confident enoughto declare, in 2001, that if Bengal wanted an end to the communist rule, it was“now or never”. The electorate said, no thanks, and from then onwards, MamataBanerjee’s star waned considerably. By 2005, she was considered almost ahas-been in Bengal politics, until Singur and Nandigram turned the tide.
The TMC’s tie-up with the Congress “ facilitated by theLeft’s tactically unwise withdrawal of support for the UPA in 2008 “ hasgranted Mamata Banerjee considerable clout in Delhi as the support of her 19MPs is crucial for the survival of the government. The alliance, however,appears to be a marriage of convenience rather than a love marriage.
This agenda is a self-declared populist one: Mamata Banerjeehas often said that ideologically she is neither on the left nor on the right,but on the side of the people “ which of course is the textbook definition ofpopulism. This has meant that she has opposed, for instance, her own (nowformer) railway minister’s suggestion to increase railway fares; the UPA’spetrol price hike; and FDI in multi-brand retail, all of which she believeswill work against the interests of the common man.
But perhaps more importantly she has used her influence onthe UPA to cater to Bengali interests and aspirations in particular. Thisshould come as no surprise. Mamata’s pride of being a Bengali has been arecurring theme throughout her career in politics, and an affectionate love forSonar Bangla figures strongly in her poetry and other writings. In policyterms, she has lobbied extremely hard for a considerable debt relief packagefor her state in order to turn around the ostensibly bankrupt state sheinherited from the Marxists.
The number of ‘controversies’ this has landed her in duringher first 400 days in power is too long to list here. It includes banningcertain newspapers from public libraries; meddling with the contents of schoolbooks; jailing a professor people over a cartoon; making derogatory commentsagainst a rape victim; ignoring reports of farmers’ suicides; a controversialeviction drive in Nonadanga; and generally dismissing all kinds of criticism as‘conspiracies’, to name but a few.
Her way of running the state has also alienated a largesection of the intelligentsia that had supported her during and after themovements in Singur and Nandigram. Frustrated with the Left, many among theintelligentsia had banked on a seemingly transformed Mamata Banerjee. KabirSuman, who was elected to the Lok Sabha on a TMC ticket three years ago, has,for instance, long since fallen out with the party, which he has accused ofbeing corrupt. Magsaysay awardee Mahasweta Devi has likened the TMC governmentto a fascist regime, while social activists like Anuradha Talwar have usedwords like “anarchic” and “chaotic” to characterise the TMC.
Mamata Banerjee’s honeymoon with this particular section ofthe Bengali electorate does indeed seem to be coming to an end.
Much will of course depend on the ability of the CPM tobounce back from its first significant electoral defeat since 1977. The CPMdoes not appear to have so far recovered much of the lost ground, but if andwhen they do, West Bengal may move towards a more ‘normal’ North Indianpolitical pattern of competitive electoral politics and alternatinggovernments, with some level of political unrest. And for better or worse,Mamata Banerjee is sure to play a key role in the future politics of West Bengal.
