Mamata Banerjee has pushed West Bengal to a new low



A journalist once asked the Chinese Premier Chou En-lai what he thought had been the impact of the French Revolution. Chou thought for a while and replied: “It is too early to say.” In West Bengal, it may have been simply termed ‘poriborton’ (change), but when Mamata Banerjee made possible the rout of the 34-year-old Left government in 2011, it was considered nothing less than a revolution. However, less than three years later it has become absolutely clear that the revolution in West Bengal has come a cropper. The brutal manner in which a 16-year-old girl was gang-raped twice and then set afire in Kolkata’s Madhyamgram, and the way Mamata referred to it as yet another conspiracy against her government, is a stark reminder of how she has lost the plot. The West Bengal of Mamata Banerjee is autocratic, and the whole state machinery is susceptible to her whimsical attitudes.

In May 2011, after her party’s victory, a jubilant Mamata stood outside her Kalighat home and declared: “Only development, no autocracy.” Everybody believed her. People wanted change. They had grown sick of the Left. Even Left- leaning intellectuals like the writer Mahashweta Devi had pledged support to her. But soon, incident after incident of her huffy behaviour began to irk many. Any question or concern would be dubbed as a ‘Maoist conspiracy’ by her with alarming regularity. During a TV show to mark one year of her office, Mamata became furious when a girl—a student of Presidency College—asked her a question on crime against women. Calling the girl a Maoist supporter, Mamata walked off the show.

Through 2011 and 2012, when more than three dozen babies died in a government hospital in Malda, Mamata, who also holds the state’s health portfolio, blamed this too on the erstwhile Left government. In 2013, 16 infants died of malnutrition at the hospital. Last week, another 13 infants died in the same hospital. In the last three years, 350 children have died there. Healthcare facilities continue to be in an abysmal state, though Mamata claimed last month that the maternal mortality rate in the state had dropped by 20 per cent.

The dragging of Mamata’s name into the Saradha chit fund scam by an MP from her own party has also left the Chief Minister red-faced. Many rogue and criminal elements who owed allegiance to the Left government simply switched parties after Mamata’s Trinamool Congress came to power. They have been accepted by the party, and continue with their activities just as they did under the Left regime. Prominent among these is the practice of collecting money illegally from households and businessmen.

Those who voted for the Trinamool Congress in 2011 at least expected some sensitivity on women’s issues from Bengal’s first woman Chief Minister. But the rape and death of the girl in Madhyamgram has left them completely disillusioned. Instead of identifying the policemen who failed to do their duty, the Mamata government has so far shown no seriousness about taking action in such matters. Instead, her government wasted no time in getting a professor arrested for drawing a political cartoon and banning a film that was critical of her.

Political observers say Mamata is taking the people’s support for granted. In July last year, her party won an absolute majority in local Panchayat elections. In rural areas, she still enjoys tremendous support from people who are sick of Left rule. That is why people voted for her in spite of being not too happy with her.

But now, a new wave of opposition is building up against Mamata. And this time, her hawai chappal image may not save her.