Mamata Banerjee: The jury is still out

Way back in December 1984, when former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi decided to field a Youth Congress greenhorn as the Congress candidate from the prestigious Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency in Kolkata against heavyweight Somnath Chatterjee of the Communist Party of India–Marxist (CPM), many had smirked, dismissing Gandhi’s choice as yet another example of his political naivety.

Decades later, on May 20, 2011, when Mamata Banerjee walked all the way from Raj Bhavan (Governor’s House) to the Writers’ Buildings, the seat of West Bengal government, after being sworn in as the state’s first woman chief minister, Gandhi wasn’t there to savour the moment — the metamorphosis of the rookie of his choice into one of the most potent entities in West Bengal’s political history. Banerjee’s shocking triumph over Chatterjee in the winter of 1984, in a David-versus-Goliath battle, marked the beginning of a firebrand career that reached its crescendo with her Trinamool Congress terminating 34 years of left rule in West Bengal with a three-fourths majority in the Assembly elections of 2011.

Never known to be possessing the gift of the gab and lacking in the kind of finesse that some of her contemporaries in national politics seem to have, Banerjee’s USP lies elsewhere. Her in-your-face attitude, minimalist approach to life and unique ability to connect with people at the grassroots level, in a lingua franca that is passionate at best and pedestrian at worst, have endeared Banerjee to the masses like no other. Her slogan of Ma-Mati-Manush (mother-earth-humanity) had such an impact on voters, particularly in rural Bengal, that it was not a storm but a whirlpool of popular dissent that CPM was haplessly sucked into.

Ending three decades of left rule in the state was indeed a watershed in Banerjee’s career and becoming the chief minister was a lot more than a dream come true.

If becoming the chief minister was a Herculean task, then getting used to the role of an administrator was no cakewalk either. It has been a little more than two years that Banerjee has been at the helm and during this time, her transformation from a gung-ho opposition leader — one who would bring the Durgapur Expressway to a standstill as her supporters laid siege at the site of Tata Motors’ Nano car plant in Singur, off Kolkata — to that of a chief administrator has been fraught with much doubt, debate and dilemma. To make matters worse for her, Banerjee’s every move has been under the media microscope right from the day she took charge. Her detractors have latched on to virtually every opportunity that has come their way to snipe at the chief minister. Her critics have found ample podium on local prime time television debates to spew venom at her. And many from her trusted band of intelligentsia have broken ranks. A loose cannon that she is, Banerjee herself has made the going tough at times. Be it the Park Street rape case, a hyperactive police taking a Jadavpur University professor to task over an innocuous Facebook cartoon or the recent rape-and-murder in Kamduni, controversies have just not stopped stalking Banerjee. Scarcely since the days of the maverick Siddhartha Shankar Ray have West Bengal had a chief minister whose days in office are fodder for such scathing public scrutiny and analysis.

So where does Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee stand right now? Is her honeymoon with the masses over? Is her popularity on the wane? Has she lost the plot already? The results of recent Panchayat (village council) and civic body polls in West Bengal point to the contrary, with Trinamool having won very decisive victories. Yet, there are those who feel that the sky-high expectations that catapulted Banerjee to power have started proving to be her undoing. While there are still others who are not yet ready to say that the Mamata Banerjee story is over. They would rather grant her some more time before having the last word. Going by the mood on the street today, West Bengal is a divided house and the many-splendoured views on the chief minister are as rich in content as they are varied in form.

Theatre personality and actor Kaushik Sen, in a candid chat with Weekend Review from Kolkata, tried to put things in perspective. “The Mamata magic may have waned a bit, but that’s only in the city and suburban areas, where media is very active and where people have ready access to information. However, rural Bengal is still strongly behind her and the Panchayat elections have proved that.

“In rural areas, people have a different yardstick altogether to measure the performance of a government. And from that point of view, the Left Front had left people so disappointed that two years is too short a time for these people to be disappointed with the present government. Rural Bengal had suffered so much under the CPM regime that these people do not want to get back to those dark days as yet and Trinamool is taking full advantage of that sentiment.”

Sen was quite a vocal supporter of Banerjee’s policies during her Singur and Nandigram agitations. However, of late, he seems to have broken ranks with the chief minister, quite like painter Samir Aich, who too has been airing his reservations about Banerjee and her party, despite being known to have been close to her in the past. Aich said: “All through the Left Front’s rule, politicisation had gripped every aspect of life in Bengal. From health to education, industry to social life, CPM had managed to not only politicise life but also instil a fear psychosis in the minds of the people. We are experiencing a similar situation under the new government now. People voted for Mamata Banerjee because they felt she would be able to deliver better governance than the left, but unfortunately that has not happened. This government relies more on gimmick than concrete measures.”

Asked to comment on the fact that there are intellectuals in the state who may have benefited from Banerjee’s benevolence time and again, but have now become turncoats, perhaps finding an anti-establishment line easier to toe, Sen was quite unequivocal: “Personally speaking, I feel I am privileged because I have access to all those advantages and utilities that many in rural areas do not have. In villages, the needs and demands of the people are subsistence-related and they are tied to fulfilment of certain very basic necessities. That is not to say that people living in rural areas are any less intelligent than us city dwellers. As an artist also I feel privileged because I still have enough intellectual space and freedom. However, my expectations from the chief minister have not really been met and I can only see things getting worse in the days ahead so far as her party is concerned.”

Sen’s caveat about rogue party elements found an echo in what film producer, entrepreneur and homemaker Sampa Bhattacharjee had to say: “Administrator Mamata has been at loggerheads with party chief Mamata and that is primarily because of a section of Trinamool leaders whose ineptitude has left the party supremo embarrassed time and again.”

The same concern was aired by actress Sreelekha Mitra. Sharing her thoughts on the issue, Sreelekha said: “I do believe that Mamata as an administrator is probably trying her best to get things sorted out. However, she is probably not being fed with the right kind of information by people close to her. This often gives rise to confusion within as well as outside her government.”

Her partymen have often left Banerjee red-faced. From suspended Rajya Sabha member Kunal Ghosh’s alleged involvement in the Sharada chit fund scam to a district Trinamool chief openly asking party supporters to resort to violence during Panchayat polls to challenge independent candidates, the list of misdemeanour is long enough. Aich, while speaking about the presence of lumpen elements in the ruling party, had this to say: “People will be grossly mistaken to consider Mamata’s success in the recent Panchayat and civic polls as a reflection of her popularity. This success was entirely due to the kind of election machinery that her party had galvanised at the grassroots level and was not due to the spontaneous support of rural Bengal. In 16 per cent of seats, Trinamool won unopposed because of the reign of terror that Mamata’s party had unleashed.”

It is no wonder that Banerjee has sent out a stern message to her party workers at the grassroots level, seeking greater discipline and coherence. In fact getting her house in order is as much a challenge for the West Bengal chief minister as bringing the state’s jaundiced economy and a moribund work culture back on track. To Banerjee’s credit, according to some people, there has been some perceptible change in the work culture front. Abhijit Chakraborty, a salaried individual working for a Kolkata-based private firm, was quite upbeat about the Trinamool government and Banerjee’s role as the chief administrator. “By and large, as an administrator, she exudes a lot of positive vibes. In these two years, she has certainly made a difference in the way the administration functions. Her strictures in enforcing discipline among government employees and improving work culture have brought about a perceptible change. Then again, the state government’s decision to provide financial support to all female students of government schools in the 13-18 age group [a monthly stipend of Rs500 (Dh30) and a one-off payment of Rs25,000 at the age of 18] has earned plaudits from the common people. This scheme is bound to help girl students in families that are not financially well-off and it goes to show Mamata’s sensitivity to the needs of the poor. Even if you look at the government’s handling of the Kamduni incident, the state administration has so far been very impartial in dealing with the legal procedures of the case. There has been no interference at all. No wonder Trinamool has done so well in the Panchayat and civic polls,” Chakraborty said.

But unlike Chakraborty, Pradip Bhattacharya, president of the state unit of Congress party — once a coalition partner of the Trinamool-led government in the state before it pulled out following Banerjee’s decision to withdraw support from the United Progressive Alliance government at the centre — had a word of caution for Banerjee’s recent electoral success, much in the vein of Sen and Aich. Bhattacharya said: “There are two things that need to be kept in mind in making an assessment of Mamata Banerjee’s performance as chief minister. First of all, there is a general perception among many that she is just two years old as the head of the state’s administration. So she deserves to be given more time. But this is a misconception. In reality, her popularity is actually on the wane. Which brings us to the second point and that is the recent elections in the state. Trinamool’s success notwithstanding, the recent Panchayat and civic poll results are not a true reflection of Mamata’s popularity because much of the success was achieved because of a fear factor. The elections were not free and fair. So these results will never give us a true picture of what the ground reality is. Personally speaking, I think Mamata has lost quite a bit of the popular support that had brought her to power.”

But not everyone is ready to be as dismissive as the Congress chief. Mitra, for instance, would prefer to wait just that wee bit longer before coming out with a verdict. “I would say it is still premature to pass a final comment on whether Mamata’s popularity is waning. We have had a government ruling this state for 34 years. In comparison, Mamata has been in power for a little more than two years. So it is still early days,” she said. But she did admit that some of the gloss may have started chipping off. “There is a fair bit of disillusionment over some of the comments that the chief minister has made. Secondly, security of women is definitely an issue in Bengal today. Women do think twice before stepping on to Park Street beyond 11pm nowadays. And that is unfortunate.”

For some, such as painter Suvaprasanna Bhattacharya, a known Mamata Banerjee supporter, the positives still far outweigh the downside. Reacting to all the criticism aimed at her, Bhattacharya stood his ground: “As chief minister, I think Mamata is doing just fine. Mamata has been in power for a little more than two years now. However, even in this short span of time, she has shown enough honest intent and sincerity of purpose as an administrator. She has really tried her best to offer good governance. Her government has solved the issue of Maoist unrest in the state. But for the Telangana issue, even the hills were quite peaceful.”

What Suvaprasanna Bhattacharya said about Banerjee’s handling of Maoist insurgency and the Gorkhaland agitation in the Darjeeling hills was supported by Sampa Bhattacharjee, who too felt that in both these areas, the chief minister showed remarkable poise and resilience in handling very sensitive problems.

“Blaming Mamata for everything that is going wrong in the state doesn’t make sense. At least she is making an honest effort to clean up the mess that Left Front has left behind. And I am quite hopeful that she will do an even better job with time. She deserves to be given at least three or four more years for her plans to reach fruition,” Bhattacharjee said.

While Bhattacharjee, Suvaprasanna Bhattacharya and Chakraborty found their chief minister to be their money’s worth, others such as Mohammad Selim, CPM Central Committee member and a former MP of the party from north Kolkata, and Dilip Banerjee, a retired Indian Railways employee in Howrah, near Kolkata, found a hollow ring to many of Mamata Banerjee’s tall claims.

“The expectations were sky-high when Mamata came to power. There is no doubt about that. However, she has failed to bring about any perceptible change in these two years. If the present government’s track record is any indicator, then I must say Mamata hasn’t offered much of a difference from what we had seen during the Left Front’s rule. Even the thumping wins that Trinamool has had in recent polls should not be construed as a real reflection of Mamata’s popularity. We had seen the CPM win many an election in Bengal by brute majorities, but those were not always a true reflection of people’s will,” Dilip Banerjee said. His words bearing a stark resemblance to what Sen and Aich had to say. In fact, CPM leader Selim too was quite caustic in his assessment of Chief Minister Banerjee: “Mamata Banerjee has been selling some empty dreams to the people of Bengal and some people have bought into those dreams. She has been successful in deceiving them. But sooner than later, people of Bengal will see through the bluff. In certain parts of the state, such as Burdwan, Habra and Panihati, the entire electoral process was reduced to a farce by Trinamool goons during the recent civic polls. Had the ruling party been confident about its leader’s popularity, it wouldn’t have needed to coerce voters.”

Be that as it may, the fact remains that the last word about the West Bengal chief minister is yet to be said, as Sreelekha Mitra made an apt observation: “I do not think the people of Bengal are ready to write off this government after just two years in power. At the same time, there has been some degree of disillusionment for sure. So the vast majority of Bengal’s voters are in a confused state of mind right now.”

Caught in two minds is what West Bengal is at the moment over the popularity quotient of its chief minister. While some people such as the state Congress party president cite her motto of “scoring a goal by all means — even from the offside position” as bearing the hallmark of Banerjee’s political DNA, there are others such as Anindita Chatterjee, a social activist working for a Kolkata-based NGO, who prefer a more objective view of things. “The problem is that some of her comments in the wake of recent atrocities against women didn’t go down well. But Mamata’s biggest advantage is that she is still quite accessible to commoners. She has not erected any barrier between herself and the masses. That is why she finds it quite easy to reach out to people whenever she wants. Moreover, she is sincere in her efforts to make life a bit easier for the common man. Take, for instance, the large number of government buses that have been pressed into service over the past few months. This has certainly made a difference to the way people commute.

“So the signals emanating from CM Mamata are mixed at best,” she said.

Banerjee has made all the right noise and done all the hard work, but she perhaps has “miles to go”. Two years is indeed too short a time to tick all the boxes, more so when seen in the context of a monolith that the erstwhile Left Front government was. And honestly, there has been no dearth of positive energy so far as the chief minister’s body language is concerned. She at least does not shy away from a crisis and prefers to tackle things head-on — at times even to the extent of being crass and ruffling a few feathers here and there. Her honesty also is one of her strong points. But then, these two years in Writers’ Buildings will have surely given Mamata Banerjee enough to chew on and she is no political novice to ignore the first signs of a popular disenchantment, should there be any. After all, CPM’s demise is an interesting case study that she can always fall back on in moments of doubt.

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Play the sport, not the rules

On January 7, 1993, when Mamata Banerjee was literally thrown out of the Writers’ Buildings in Kolkata — for trying to stage a demonstration outside the then chief minister Jyoti Basu’s chamber, to protest the alleged rape of a speech-impaired girl — many had laughed it off as nothing more than a gimmick by the firebrand lady to earn some brownie points on the popularity scale.

Earlier, on August 16, 1990, Lalu Alam, a CPM activist and a political goon, struck Banerjee on the head with an iron rod while she was leading a protest rally against the ruling party at Hazra crossing. The injury could have been life-threatening. But Banerjee powered on.

Both these skirmishes helped increase Banerjee’s credibility as a go-getter and established her as the epicentre of West Bengal’s anti-left sentiment. Through thick and thin, what has propelled Banerjee is a certain fearless streak that has made her unpredictable at worst and indomitable in the best of times. Her ability to connect with the masses has always endeared her to the man on the street.

Unfortunately, since coming to power in West Bengal, both she and her party seem to be perpetually high-strung — perhaps under pressure to be politically correct by all means.

When Weekend Review contacted some of Banerjee’s senior party colleagues and cabinet members, they preferred to duck the innocuous query on how successful they thought the chief minister was in these two years since coming to power. “We do not make comments on such issues in public. Even if we have to say something, we do so in the party forum and that is not for public consumption,” a senior minister in Banerjee’s cabinet said..

And that is sad. In a multiparty democracy and in this age of social media-blitz, opening up and being transparent can help dispel a lot of doubts and misconceptions. Both Banerjee and her party will have to realise that not everyone who seeks an opinion or expresses one is an antagonist and therefore need not be kept on a leash. Secondly, every voice of protest in public domain need not be stymied on the basis of a threat perception. As an opposition leader, she won hearts by trying to get as close as she could to where the “action” was — even at the expense of taking a few body blows at times. As an administrator too Banerjee can succeed — provided she takes her job as a fact and not an act.

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Hits & Misses:

Hits:

1. Taking on Maoist insurgents in the strongest possible terms.

2. Defusing the tension over Gorkhaland agitation.

3. Compensation for Sharada chit fund scam-hit investors.

4. Passage of Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Bill.

5. Setting up of a mentor group for Presidency University.

6. Constituting a ten-member committee to suggest ways to overhaul higher education.

7. Saying “no” to all bandhs (general strikes) in the state.

Misses:

1. Failure to have a re-negotiated deal with Tata Motors over the unused Nano car plant site in Singur.

2. Allegations of financial irregularities over installation of trident lampposts in Kolkata.

3. Unsavoury comments over the Park Street rape case.

4. No commitment for acquisition of land for private industries.

5. Saying “no” to Special Economic Zones.

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Education:

Graduated with honours in History from Jogamaya Devi College.

Post-graduation in Islamic History from University of Calcutta.

Studied Education at Shri Shikshayatan.

Earned a Law degree from Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri Law College.

Honours:

In 2012, Time magazine identified her as one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World”.

On February 16, 2012, Bill Gates sent a letter to the West Bengal government praising Mamata Banerjee and her administration for achieving a full year without any reported cases of polio. The letter said this was not only a milestone for India but also for the whole world.

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The road less travelled

• 1955: Mamata Banerjee born in Kolkata.

• 1976: She becomes the general secretary of West Bengal Mahila Congress.

• 1984: She becomes the youngest parliamentarian. As a Congress candidate, she beat CPM’s Somnath Chatterjee in the Jadavpur constituency.

• 1989: Loses Jadavpur to Malini Bhattacharya.

• 1991: Becomes Lok Sabha member again by defeating CPM’s Biplab Dasgupta. Becomes minister of state for human resource development, youth affairs and women and child development in the Narasimha Rao government.

• 1997: Quits Congress and forms All India Trinamool Congress in Kolkata.

• 1999: Becomes minister of railways in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.

• 2001: Quits NDA, forms alliance with Congress for state elections in West Bengal. Loses to Left Front.

• 2001: Returns to the NDA.

• 2004: Becomes coal and mines minister.

• 2006: Holds a rally against the proposed Tata Motors car project at Singur.

• 2009: Becomes railways minister again in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.

• 2011: Becomes the first ever woman chief minister of West Bengal by putting an end to long-rooted communist rule.

• 2012: Withdraws support from the UPA government citing opposition to foreign direct investment in retail.

–Agencies