In Five Years, Mamata Changed From Face of Hope to Ugrachandi

Days when didi would organise sing-alongs with Tollywood celebrities in office are long gone, writes Abheek Barman.

In 2011, campaigning to overthrow a doddering, 34-year old Left regime in Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, chief of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) called for “poriborton” or change in the state.

She promised development, liberation from Left violence, jobs, growth and so on. And one slogan that went viral was, “Badli chai, badla noy.” In other words, “We want change, not revenge.”

For someone whose first name literally means ‘compassion,’ this seemed apposite. No retribution for her opponents and their supporters if she came to power.

Five years later, with polls due from 4 April to 5 May, that compassion has evaporated. In widely telecast rallies, Mamata now talks a different language. It is a language of retribution and rage.

“I had told you earlier that there will be no revenge … but that was then. We will come back again, I promise you. And all those who are against us will pay,” she thunders.

“Koto dhaaney koto chaal bhujhiye debo,” she says, a Bangla colloquialism which implies vengeance will be meted out measure for measure.

Swift Transformation

• Criticism about the last five years of TMC rule has reached a crescendo.
  
• Soon after coming to power, Mamata developed a notorious reputation as a rape-denier.
  
• All claims about development have proved hollow and the promised ‘poriborton’ looks like a mirage.
  
• Mamata has been unsettled by the recent electoral tieup, or ‘jot’ as it’s called, between the Left and Congress in the state.
  

Besieged TMC ‘Netri’

Bengal has a long tradition of Mother Goddess worship. Durga has at least 128 names with different attributes. Today’s Mamata is not the kindly Durga, consort of Shiva, mother of four. This is another avatar altogether —familiar to all Bengalis as Ugrachandi —vengeful and full of spite.

Now the TMC ‘netri’ or supreme leader feels besieged. The days when she’d organise sing-alongs with Tollywood celebrities in her office are long gone. Criticism about the last five years of TMC rule has reached a crescendo, finding a receptive audience among Bengal’s voters.

How did things come to this pass?

First, is a near-total collapse of law and order. Mamata, who spent most of her political career in an adversarial relationship with cops, took two years after 2011 to comprehend that she was now boss of the administration.

In that time, she gutted the morale and discipline of the state police, effectively handing over enforcement of local disputes to TMC goons. She refused to pursue those guilty of shooting a police officer in broad daylight, allegedly her ‘boys’. Soon after coming to power, Mamata developed a notorious reputation as a rape-denier.

The police officer who booked some of those who allegedly gang raped Suzette Jordan in Calcutta’s tony Park Street, was transferred for her efforts. Jordan died last year. The principal accused has not been traced.

Banerjee also brushed off the gang-rape of another woman, assaulted on a local train, by arguing that the victim’s, “husband is a CPI(M) worker.” For many, these acts were unacceptable, especially when performed by a woman chief minister.

This anarchy also opened the doors for shady businessmen who worked Ponzi schemes originating in Bengal. When the largest of these, Saradha, sank taking the savings of thousands with it, Mamata turned a blind eye to the involvement of many of her senior ministers with these schemes.

Hollow Development Claims

Second, all claims about development have proved hollow. A steel plant proposed to be built by Sajjan Jindal-controlled JSW has been abandoned, probably because of a global commodity bust. But Tata also left Singur, Infosys pulled out and a giant Siemens operation in Calcutta has been abandoned. Nobody wants to put money where Mamata’s mouth is.

Mamata’s finance minister, a former corporate lobbyist called Amit Mitra, is mostly silent. It’s left to Abhirup Sarkar, professor at the prestigious Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, member of the Bengal Planning Board and various sarkari committees, to establish ‘facts’ which ‘prove’ Bengal Shining under TMC.

In January this year, Sarkar wrote an article in Anandabazar Patrika, the largest Bangla daily. There he claimed that under TMC, Bengal was not only growing faster than under Left rule, but also faster than the rest of India.

Maitreesh Ghatak, professor of economics at the London School of Economics responded to this on March 15 in the same paper. He showed that most of Sarkar’s claims were based on statistical jugglery and cherry-picking facts.

Ghatak showed for example, how Bengal’s growth between 2011-14 (under TMC) was 5.4 percent, marginally under the 5.5 percent rate clocked between 2005-10 (under the Left). During 2004-10, under the Left, the average Bengali earned 10.4 percent less than the average Indian; from 2011-14, under TMC, her income slipped 12.2 percent below the all-India average.

Even if they don’t track numbers, most people have a spring in their step when an economy is booming. The Bengali slouch shows the promised ‘poriborton’ was a mirage.

The Left-Congress Alliance

Finally, Mamata has been unsettled by the recent electoral tieup, or ‘jot’ as it’s called, between the Left and Congress in the state. It might not seem like much in terms of seats, but the combined vote share of these two blocs in 2011 was much more than the TMC’s, and neck-and-neck in 2014. Her hold on power —if she retains it —will be precarious.

Thursday’s collapse of an incomplete flyover in Kolkata has claimed 25 lives so far. It is another blow for Mamata, whose government dithered five years over this ill-fated project. Banerjee, whose political career is based on aggression, can’t figure how to deal with all this.

Hence, the shrill aggression, threats of ‘badla’ or revenge, the decibel level rising ever higher. Thus, the morphing of the Mamata avatar into Ugrachandi.

(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist)