[“Mamata Banerjee has always been someone in ‘opposition’, someone used to picking fights with the rest of the world as an underdog,” Mr. Joshi said. “She has no governing experience, nor, it seems, any serious vision. She’s still searching for enemies, for people who are against her, who she can fight. Having got into power now her fight is merely about how to stay in power,” he added.]
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Parivartan Sharma/ReutersWest Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee
speaking to the media in Kolkata, West Bengal on March 19, 2012.
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Aamra ekhon-o boli ni kon kagoj porte hobe, kintu agami dine
kintu setao bole debo. (Till now, we haven’t told which newspapers must be
read, but in the future, we will do that as well.) – West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee,
speaking on March 29 in defense of her government’s decision to bar all but 13
newspapers from more than 2,400 government-approved libraries across the state.
“Kunal Ghosh, associate editor of Sambad Protidin, a Bengali
newspaper, Nadimul Haque, owner of the Urdu newspaper Akbar-e-Mashrique and
Vivek Gupta, director of Sanmarg, a Hindi daily, have been nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House
of Parliament, on Trinamool Congress tickets.”- Indian Express, March 18
Ms.
Banerjee seems to have adopted a divide-and-rule strategy when it comes to
managing her public image, using hostility on one hand and appeasement on the
other to counter a recent flood of bad press. The combination of banning some
of the state’s most widely-read newspapers from libraries, while naming
journalists from favored papers to cushy political spots seems designed to
improve her public image.
On
Thursday, in perhaps her most iron-fisted attempt to date to take control of
her public image, she even had a Jadavpur University professor of chemistry,
Ambikesh Mahapatra, and his neighbor, Subrata Sengupta, arrested for making and
circulating a mild-mannered cartoon of
the spat between Ms. Banerjee and the former railway minister, Dinesh Trivedi.
Ms.
Banerjee’s public relations strategy has turned the urban, intellectual,
well-educated voters who once supported her, against her. But the minister’s
problems may go far beyond the reaches of a public relations exercise,
according to interviews with analysts, commentators, bureaucrats and
legislators within her own Trinamool Congress Party.
They
paint a picture of a chief minister for whom very qualities that won her the
hard-fought state election, including a single-minded sense of purpose and
indomitable fighting spirit, are becoming liabilities as she tries to govern.
If the chief minister continues on this path, they say, her party could
crumble, making it easier for the Communist Party of India, Marxist — which
held West Bengal for decades — to make a return.
“She
does not listen to anyone,” a Trinamool Congress legislator who joined the
party more than three years ago, won over by her movement against land
acquisition in Singur for Tata’s Nano factory, told India Ink on the condition
of anonymity. “She just does what she feels like,” he continued. “Delegation of
power is a no-no. She wants to do everything herself,’’ he said. “She does not
trust anyone.”
“She
is in a hurry, in a tearing hurry,” said a senior bureaucrat who has worked for
the state government for more than 20 years. “And so, suffers from what you can
term as ‘what-nextism.’ Every time she has to make a new promise, announce a
new project, without even realizing the ground realities or the preparedness of
the government.” In January she announced that the tenders for building theSubarnarekha Bridge had
already been floated, when it wasn’t until Feb. 22 that the Planning Commission
approved the project.
The
senior leader of the Trinamool party, Subrata Mukherjee and the chief
spokesman, Derek O’Brien, both of whom were regularly interviewed in the days
before and after her victory, did not respond to numerous phone calls and
e-mails seeking comment.
Armed
with the mantra of “Ma, Mati, Manush” (mother, motherland and people) and the
promise of “poriborton” (change), Ms. Banerjee came into power in style, with a historic electoral victory, putting an end to the
34-year-old Left rule in the state. “Saviour Didi” was soon credited for
bringing in a new work culture, her
poriborton mantra working a Midas touch even on the city’s film festival and book fair.
Energetic and very hardworking, Ms. Banerjee said she dreams of turning Kolkata
into London, complete with a Kolkata Eye just like
the London Eye, and is painting the city blue to make it a Blue
City, just as Jaipur is a Pink City, in order to build a global brand for the
city.
Ms.
Banerjee also made it clear early on that she hadn’t come to the top spot only
to listen to others. Just 13 days after assuming office, she had the director
of Bangur Institute of Neurosciences suspended for
“insubordination and noncooperation” because he had dared to tell her that her
entourage – which included five television crews and a host of print
journalists – was causing problems for patients inside the hospital. The
neurosurgeon, Dr. Shyamapada Ghorai, had six critical surgeries lined up for
the next day, including a brain tumour removal, but he was suspended later in
the night upon Ms. Banerjee’s orders.
Most
recently, Ms. Banerjee stripped Dinesh Trivedi
of his rail ministry for proposing what he said was a much-needed rise in fares
in his Union Railway budget last month. Between Dr. Ghorai and Mr. Trivedi, she
has randomly reshuffled portfolios of
ministers, sometimes even without their knowledge, earning the wrath not just of the
Congress party, an ally, but also sections within her own party. She even
involved the state government in restructuring of portfolios at
Kolkata Municipal Corporation, an independent body.
The
seemingly random upheaval, combined with her perceived inability to listen to
others or give them responsibility has turned supporters into critics in a
remarkably short time.
The
Trinamool Congress Party’s rule has become “anarchic” and “chaotic,” said
social activist Anuradha Talwar, once a Banerjee sympathizer. “It is difficult
to get her appointment. And without her we are unable to take up any issues
with the government because she has not authorised anyone else for the job.”
A
joke often heard in the corridors of power is : “If Ms. Banerjee is sick for a
day or two, the state would take ill, too.” A phrase often repeated in the
corridors of Writers Buildings, where the state’s bureaucrats work, is “Didi
should not talk and let others do their work.”
The
Trinamool Congress Party is now a head with no other vital organs, claims the
author, filmmaker and columnist Ruchir Joshi, who chronicled her meteoric rise
just a year ago. “It seems every decision, even at a panchayat or village level
needs to be run past her,’’ said Mr. Joshi, who authored “Poriborton: An Election Diary.”
He told India Ink from London, “MamBan,” as he refers to her,
is “childishly megalomaniac and fascist of a different type.”
“The
joke is there is now a new law in Bengal, ‘Didi bolechhey,’”Mr. Joshi said. The
last part translates as, “Didi has said.”
“Defection
from the T.M.C. ranks to the Congress could be a high possibility,” predicted
Om Prakash Mishra, general secretary and spokesperson of the West Bengal
Pradesh Congress Committee, which is affiliated with the Congress Party.
“Intolerance and antagonism is a characteristic of her governance and shall
spell disaster for her party and government,” he added.
Mr.
Joshi agreed. “I see interesting new alliances forming in the near future,
perhaps in one year or so,” he said. “Unless Mamata Banerjee’s learning curve
shows a steep rise, which is unlikely, the political landscape of Bengal is in
for more upheaval.”
While
Ms. Banerjee’s critics are vociferous, some of her supporters are still big
enthusiasts.
The
state’s tourism minister, Rachpal Singh, whose car was attacked in a clash
between two Trinamool factions last month, dismissed the criticism. “T.M.C. is
a strong party and enjoys a huge mass support,” he said. “Ms. Banerjee has been
a very successful chief minister.”
In
the tourism department, for example, she “took the onus on herself to get the
cooperation of other agencies and departments for an inter-disciplinary action
to develop and promote tourism in the state.” The group plans to announce new
tourism services soon, Mr. Singh said. “This is something that others had not
been able to do earlier,” he said.
“She
is very thorough in her work and that makes it tough to handle her because you
got to do your homework really well,” Mr. Singh said. “She has tremendous energy
and expects the same from others.”
Ms.
Banerjee’s demanding, sometimes school-marmish demeanor has sparked laughter, as
shown at an investors meet in January where she took a roll call of investors
and foreign delegates, asking, “Are you interested in investing money in
Bengal, or no. Yes? My China friends? Mr. Jindal, when will the industry be set
up? We have done everything, now you hurry up too.”
But,
ministers and bureaucrats who are at the receiving end of her often-public
rebukes and reprimands, say her demanding, unpredictable nature is no joking
matter. “She scolds us, and very badly,” said a senior bureaucrat. “It is
difficult to predict her. She can be extremely mercurial, throwing files one
moment and chattily cheerful the next.”
Ms.
Banerjee’s gaffes and conspiracy theories in recent past have been a major
source of embarrassment to the party and government officials alike, say party
insiders and bureaucrats.
Whether
it has been a case of rape, infant deaths in hospitals or farmers’ suicides, her
response has been quick and nearly always the same: The issue is related to a
conspiracy to malign the government. In the Park Street rape case, while her
transport minister, Madan Mitra, raised questions on the
victim’s character, Ms. Banerjee said the case was “concocted” to “malign” her
government.
On
the Katwa rape case, she went on to suggest that victim had
staged the “drama” backed by the opposing Communist party because her husband
belonged to the party. The woman’s husband had passed away 11 years ago.
In
both cases, she was proven wrong by the police, who investigated and made
arrests. But neither she nor anyone from her party apologized.
Trying
to understand what makes Ms. Banerjee act the way she does has become something
of an armchair sport. Many people cite herhard-won fight to the
minister’s seat, which occupied the better part of 30 years and left her
literally battered, with a fractured skull included among her injuries.
“Mamata
Banerjee has always been someone in ‘opposition’, someone used to picking
fights with the rest of the world as an underdog,” Mr. Joshi said. “She has no
governing experience, nor, it seems, any serious vision. She’s still searching
for enemies, for people who are against her, who she can fight. Having got into
power now her fight is merely about how to stay in power,” he added.
“Street
politics backed by populism seems to be her key. She’s a fighter without
ideology and a very insecure person,” Ms. Talwar said.
This
“fighting spirit” has trickled down the rank and file. On the rise are not only campus violence and
attacks on teachers, but also clashes between the Trinamool party’s various
factions. “The gunda politics, the thug culture of Bengal has only shifted
loyalties” from the Communist party to Trinamool, Mr. Joshi said.
Whether
the unrest Ms. Banarjee is stirring in her own party and among the educated
middle-class and intellectuals will actually translate into a comeback for the
Communist party is unclear.
“Didi
has her math right where it matters, that is her vote bank in the rural areas
of Bengal,” the Trinamool party legistlator said. “Her extreme populist
measures, such as no price-hike policy, has kept them happy and will continue
to do so.”
During
last year’s election campaign, the legislator said, he met people who had never
cast a vote in their life, thanks to the Communist Party of India, Marxist’s
oppressive rule. “For these villagers Didi is goddess,” he said.
Industrial
development, while a focus of her election campaign, is on a slow track —
though she has taken some baby steps on land
reforms — for it’s time now to focus on the villages. Perhaps with the upcoming
panchayat elections in mind, the party is doling out sopsto farmers and minorities, and announcing honorariums to imams.
At
the same time, she seems to be quietly trying to appeal to the culture clan and
intellectuals who once rallied behind.
In
this year’s state budget the allocation of funds for information and culture
was raised by 125 percent, the steepest in any section, to 110 crores, or 1.1
billion rupees, or $21.5 million. One of the main ways the money is to be spent
is on awards for drama and music.
