Article first published as The Cartoon Conspiracy And Merciless Mamata! on Technorati.
Mamata Bannerji
threw the Left government in West Bengal—an eastern state of India—out of
power in 2011 after its marathon rule of 34 years. She got an overwhelming
majority for her party Trinamool Congress (TMC). Trinamool means
grass-root and Mamata Bannerji—the Chief Minister of West
Bengal—has been firing all guns to uproot what she calls Leftist
‘conspiracies’.
First, the new
Chief Minister got unnerved by an unceasing stream of baby deaths in many
hospitals across the state. Instead of going into the root of the problem she
conveniently decided to identify the Left as the root-cause. Not only that, she
dismissed cases of dastardly crimes against women in her capital Kolkata as
made-up ones thanks again to some leftist roots of the victims.
Second, Mamata
wanted to initiate an era of change in the state by dictating to public
libraries to stop subscribing to newspapers linked to political parties other
than hers. Disturbed by the specter of deep-rooted communism in the state she
also decided to erase Marx and Engels from all school textbooks. ‘This is
arrogance…intolerance…suppression of freedom of speech…dictatorship! Democratic
traditions are being rooted out!’ cried the citizens and intellectuals of West
Bengal who were the first in India
to bask in the renaissance.
Third, so rooted
to reality the new Chief Minister was she objected to everything done by India’s
coalition government at the centre of which TMC is a dictating partner, be it
in the social or economic or internal security or technology and science sector. She even sacked her
own party’s Railway Minister at the centre for the crime of presenting a good
and sensible railway budget.
And the latest,
Mamata Bannerji got one professor of a reputed university of Kolkata
beaten and arrested for taking part in presenting and forwarding a cartoon in
the internet. The cartoon depicted a narrative regarding her sacking of the
Railway Minister and putting in one of her faithful party men as a replacement.
Cartoons are
very common in the lives of Indian politicians. They may hate to see themselves
in those satirical cartoons on a daily basis, but they also realize the
publicity generated by such works. They also believe candidly that in a
democracy you must learn to laugh at yourself. So practical indeed!
But Mamata
Bannerji only saw a ‘conspiracy’ in the act and a supposed attack on the
modesty of a woman. A cyber crime against women! In fact, the cartoon was a
creative work based on famous characters of a Satyajit Ray film which could
hardly even be understood by the so-called ‘conspirators’. Public outrage broke
out across the country with huge cries of protest by the netizens in particular,
but Mamata continued to defy. As public opinion in her own state became too
strong for her to ignore she tried some damage control by allowing four of the
gang who assaulted the professor to be arrested. But they were released on bail
immediately while the professor was kept in lockup for a full night. And, the
professor feared for his life with an incredibly large number of charges lodged
that could put him in jail for at least one year. Mamata’s antics have
attracted international reactions too. Not only this professor, but Mamata Bannerji also arrested an eminent molecular biologist Partho Sarothy Ray and kept him in custody for over two weeks now for a protest rally he did not attend. Apart from scientists all over even ‘arguably the most controversial
intellectual alive’, Noam Chomsky had written to the Prime Minister of India to intervene in this growing intolerance against academicians in West Bengal.
Mamata in
many Indian languages means ‘love or kindness’. Driven, of course, by
the urge to ‘change’, if Mamata becomes merciless our democratic roots will
definitely get jolted at the very grass roots, you wonder! And, this ‘change’
has been attempted by someone who claims to belong to the ‘grass-root’. Such a
confounded confusion of roots!
Even if you
admit Left conspiracies are there, the very thought about the possibility of ‘right’ conspiracies taking deep roots would send shivers down your spine.
