Didi’s Second Innings: A Cyanide Fix for the Suicidal Bengali

After celebrations, an imminent challenge for Mamata will be to contain Bengal’s fiscal mess.

In 1988, the foppish Anglo-Bengali writer Nirad Chandra Chaudhuri published a book called ‘Atmaghati Bangali’ – literally, ‘The Suicidal Bengali’. Like most of his writing in Bangla and English, it was intended to provoke, rather than entertain or illuminate.

Nirod babu’s book was a rant against Bengalis: he felt they had an overweening sense of self-importance, couldn’t see beyond short-term interests, were nihilistic and – horror of horrors – couldn’t appreciate the genius coiled within the tiny frame of Nirad Chandra Chaudhuri. At the time, his book was laughed out of bookstores by readers and critics.

Today, 17 years after Nirod babu’s death, the title of that book is an apt description of Bengal’s voters. On Thursday, when results of an epic, seven-phase assembly poll in Bengal was announced, it emerged that the Trinamool Congress (TMC), led by Mamata Banerjee, had won 72% of Bengal’s 294 seats, bettering her 2011 tally of 184.

Incompetent Regime Back in Power

In 2011, Banerjee had delivered the coup de grace to a sclerotic, 34-year old Left regime, in alliance with the Congress. This summer, the Congress switched sides and tied up with the Left. TMC, fighting solo, mopped up 45% of all votes, more than it has ever done.

The Left Front trailed far behind with 27% (with the CPI-M contributing around 20%). That, added with the Congress’ 12% was still six percentage points short of the TMC’s numbers, a gap that led to a rout. Mamata, or Didi as she is known, is all pumped up.

I was in Bengal intermittently through every phase of the campaign. One of the most perceptive things I heard people say was, “Why can’t we be like Kerala? Changing the party in power every five years will keep every regime on its toes.” I thought that was a good argument.

I imagined it signalled the beginning of an era of intensely competitive – and therefore, result-oriented – politics. But when it came to voting, my fellow Bongs wouldn’t walk the talk. They herded like sheep to bring back an incompetent regime, riddled with graft (ministers and lawmakers have been videotaped stuffing bribes into their pockets), back to power.

Fiscal Mess Awaits Mamata

• January 8: West Bengal Finance Minister, Amit Mitra requests for restructuring of Bengal’s Rs 200,000 crore debt.
  
• April 26: News reports indicate a 64 percent increase in West Bengal’s debt in last six years.
  
• Budget documents of the state government show an outstanding debt of Rs 3.05 lakh crore in 2015-16.
  
• According to a March 2016 study by HSBC Securities, Bengal ranks at 13 in terms of investment as a percentage of state GDP.
  

Mountain of Debt

During her 2011 campaign to oust the Left, Didi harped on the fact that successive communist regimes had dumped debt worth nearly Rs 200,000 crore on Bengal. She promised to clean up the balance sheet.

But instead of shrinking, Bengal’s debt bloated to more than Rs 280,000 crore by 2015 under the benign gaze of Didi’s ineffectual finance minister Amit Mitra. Never mind, said the suicidal Bong and proceeded to vote for Didi with greater gusto.

The growth of the debt mountain could have been justified if most of the money had gone into investment, creating durable assets and jobs, and triggering a virtuous chain of higher incomes and more investments.

Alas, a March, 2016 study by HSBC Global Securities, which analyses finances of 17 major states shows Bengal ranks at 13 in terms of investment as a percentage of state GDP. On average the 17 states invest a little more than 3.5% of their GDP. Bengal clocks in at less than 3%. Who cares? Not the suicidal Bengali.

Forget numbers for a moment and think about a deeply disquieting facet of TMC raj over the last five years. One of Didi’s first moves after coming to power was to target the police and emasculate their authority. Today, Didi’s ‘boys’ – dissolute lumpen gangs – rule Bengal’s streets and villages. They are immune to censure or prosecution.

Many gang up to form the state’s notorious ‘syndicates’, a mafia that sucks rent out of everything, from fisheries to real estate. The nihilistic Bengali clearly loves the criminal economy, demonstrating its affection with even more votes.

A woman chief minister, Mamata is a notorious rape-denier: her initial response to most assaults on women is denial, followed by a cover-up of those accused and persecution of officers who try to nab them. This was the template she laid down in 2013, after the gang rape of Suzette Jordan, in the tony Park Street area of central Calcutta.

Another gang rape in a moving local train was brushed aside with the justification that the victim’s husband was associated with her rival CPI-M party. If voting behaviour is any indicator, the suicidal Bengali is blind to such inhuman callousness.

Thursday’s results are an ominous portent for Bengal. With 184 seats in 2011, Mamata and her TMC displayed a brazen disregard for law, institutions, finance and the structure of civil society. With an even larger mandate, the TMC could just be the cyanide fix the suicidal Bengali craves.

(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist)

Also read:

Disillusioned with Left Rule, Bengal Gives Didi Another Chance

Will Bengal Sink in Electoral Tidal Wave That Has Lifted Mamata?

In a Personality-Driven Campaign, It was Mamata Versus the Rest