By Amulya Ganguli, IANS,
Mamata Banerjee’s ascent is based on an unrehearsed, inchoate, impulsive political movement, which has surged ahead of other parties in recent years in acquiring close grassroots links. As the name of her party, Trinamool (or grassroots) Congress, shows, she did not bank on any ideological conviction or organisational strength to reach her present position where she is regarded as the next chief minister of West Bengal.
The nature of her party, which is essentially a one-person outfit with Mamata wielding dictatorial powers, is in striking contrast to its main adversary, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M). The latter has unshakeable faith in its dogma of “scientific socialism” and depends heavily on its cadres, known for their militancy.
Mamata probably realised, therefore, that she had to project a model which was the exact opposite of what the Marxists represented. Her emotional slogan – ma, mati, manush (mother, earth, people) – underlines her nebulous political creed, which has nothing to do with codified belief.
In any event, she had no alternative but to chalk out her own undefined path because she had set out on her political journey virtually alone after her expulsion from the Congress in 1997. Since the ideology of the Congress is far less easy to grasp than that of the Marxists, she had to formulate her own tenets.
Her success depended, however, not on a well-defined set of beliefs, but on challenging the Marxists whenever they acted in a high-handed manner, which was often. Before she appeared on the scene, the ordinary people had no option but to abide by the dictates of the cadres, whether in the matter of contributing monthly subscriptions or accepting their choice of contractors to build a house or seeking their help for admissions to schools and colleges and even for employment.
Since the police were in the grip of the ruling Left Front, and mainly the CPI-M, the common man could not but follow what the cadres said. The fact that the latter were mostly anti-socials ruled out any question of defiance.
Mamata was the first to take up cudgels against the cadre raj. The Congress’ failure in this respect can only be explained by a curious loss of nerve after its comprehensive 1977 defeat. The reason perhaps was that none of its leaders, except the late A.B.A Ghani Khan Chaudhury, had any solid base. Khan Chaudhury’s influence too was limited to Malda in north Bengal.
The other top-ranking leader, Pranab Mukherjee, could not win a Lok Sabha election till 2004 while the others – Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, Subrata Mukherjee, Somen Mitra and others – did not have the stature to offer a credible challenge to the Left Front, which was led by the charismatic Jyoti Basu.
They were also unnerved by Mamata’s belligerence, presumably because they sensed that she was gaining in popularity. She too must have realised that the Congress was suffering because of its meekness. Ridiculing the century-old party as the CPI-M’s ‘B’ team, she decided to form her own outfit.
It was a courageous, even foolhardy, decision, for, ostensibly, she had little going for her. She was not known for her intellectual or organisational ability. Nor was she of any account as a minister at the centre between 1991 and 1993. As her rather stormy tenure in the Congress had shown, she found it difficult to get along with her colleagues. This trait of an aggressive loner has persisted to the present day.
Not surprisingly, it took more than a decade for her to reach her present position when she is regarded as some kind of an icon because of her ground-level popularity. One reason for her slow rise is her mercurial temperament, which saw her first align with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and become railway minister at the centre in 1999, then with the Congress in 2001, then back to the BJP and then teaming up again with the Congress.
Such a topsy-turvy course would have been ruinous for the reputation of any other politician. But if Mamata survived her swings of loyalty, the explanation lay, first, in her single-minded opposition to the CPI-M which enabled her to retain and expand her base of support. It has to be remembered that the non-Left vote in West Bengal is considerable and that the Trinamool routinely grabs a major portion of it.
In the 2006 assembly elections, for instance, the combined vote of the Trinamool and the Congress was 41.2 percent, of which the former’s share was 26.3 percent. In the 2009 parliamentary polls, the two parties received 44.7 percent of the votes, of which the Trinamool’s share was 31.2 percent. Between 1997 and now, it is the Trinamool which has become the “real” Congress.
The second reason for her success is she is trusted by the ordinary people who see her as the only bulwark against the depredations of Marxist cadres. She also highlights her proximity to the common folk by dressing casually and living in a lower middle class locality in Kolkata. This side of her personality shows that she is aware of the reasons for her popularity.
Mamata has also been helped in the last few years by the CPI-M’s blunders. Although the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government’s efforts to reverse the earlier flight of capital by wooing the industrialists back to the state were noteworthy, it went about doing the right thing in the wrong manner.
By unleashing its cadres on the protesters in Singur and Nandigram, who were unhappy about the acquisition of their land, the CPI-M showed it was still intent on ruling the state via the cadres with police acting as bystanders. This egregious policy of the government helped Mamata to organise protests as never before and whip up a frenzied opposition to the ruling parties, which has led to their defeats in successive elections from 2008.
What kind of a chief minister will she be? The jury is still undecided. As her unwavering anti-CPI-M focus shows, she pursues one-dimensional politics which has its pitfalls. Nothing emphasises this more than her toing and froing between the “secular” and “communal” camps in the last 10 years.
Clearly, her lack of ideological convictions enables her to be unabashedly opportunistic, which is also shown by her ambivalence about the Maoist threat. Such a person can be quite unpredictable in a position of power as her West Bengal-centric policies as the railway minister suggest.
Her “open mindedness” about politics, if her cynicism can be so described, is accompanied by a limited understanding of economics. After the eviction of the Tatas, one of the most respected industrial houses in India, from Singur, the scope for investment in West Bengal has been sharply reduced. She may resort to vague “socialistic” enterprises to create employment opportunities, but that will be tantamount to repeating the mistakes which the Left made.
It isn’t that the people are unaware of these deficiencies. But at present, they seem to be more intent on replacing the Communists than thinking about the future.
(12.06.2010 – Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be reached at [email protected])