Around this time exactly a year ago, it was as if the spring had arrived in Bengal. A new government had taken over after a gap of over three decades and the change, whatever be the causal relationship, came as a gush of fresh air.
After the din and bustle of the state elections there was euphoria all around, not least because Mamata Banerjee took over the reins of the beleaguered state but because the Communists had been thrown out of power, exposing their vulnerability.
I remember the ray of hope I saw in the eyes of a young driver whose father lost his job following rampant and irresponsible trade unionism of the Left leaders.
The pout-faced chief ministers the people of the state were used to gave way to a leader who mingled with the masses, drank tea from earthen pots with the proverbial 'proletariat' after getting drenched in rain, responded to phone calls even from political opponents, tried to dissolve the government's partisan position which dominated the political sphere of Bengal for decades and made it a point to prove that she was indeed a people's leader.
The late spring that sprang in the midst of a humid summer filled the air with hope even when the people of the state were despairing the torrential monsoon downpour.
The situation in Darjeeling, the favourite destination of Bengali tourists for generations, was much different from a lull before the storm. The ultra-radical Maoists of Junglemahal took a breather probably to celebrate the downfall of a regime which tried to crush them to the ground only using force without initiating any political process.
And as the newly elected chief minister relished the positive changes that came her way, Mamata Banerjee's followers gradually took the people of the state for a ride.
The ever lasting influence of the CPI-M started showing even in its bitter rival, only driving home the fact the 'party' was one of the few things which got intrinsically associated with the institution of the state in Bengal.
Some of the intellectuals who helped the Trinamool Congress supremo to get the better of the polls started smelling rat. Questions were raked up in people's minds as to whether the transformation that the state underwent actually adhered to the much aspired 'change'. Signs of cracks started surfacing in the rock solid bond between the Trinamool Congress supremo and her intellectual backers.
Soon the waves of 'change' would turn into a Nor'wester that is very common when spring gives way to a baking summer in rural Bengal. This time it was the entire state, and to some extent the national politics, which seemed perplexed by the caricature that came along.
On the one hand, India's central government, led by the Congress, stood helpless in the face of the political onslaught launched by Mamata Banerjee to keep her image as a people's person intact, on the other she epitomised a typical politician in power who saw ghosts in her dreams.
The result was a political disarray gripping the state, and taking advantage of the overall confusion, the CPI-M supporters made full use of their imagination to ridicule and undermine the Trinamool Congress government. It was an irony that the CPI-M which once vehemently opposed the introduction of computers in the state was now trying to make full use of technology to launch a vitriolic campaign against Mamata Banerjee.
Despite some desperate efforts, which often seem mindless and trivial, the opposition is yet to cut any ice in the support base of Mamata Banerjee. The irony again is that the social media campaign of the Left hardly made any impact in rural Bengal, which once formed the crux of their power base.
My sources say whatever impact, if any, the vitriolic campaign could achieve was mainly confined to the urban middle class.
The triviality of such mindless campaign of the Left and the way the Trinamool Congress conducted itself, by getting into a slanging match, in effect brought down the gravitas of the politics in the state to such a level that the real issues facing the people of Bengal got mired in the humdrum of naive political point scoring and brinkmanship.
The sudden spring which ushered in the horizon of Bengal around the same time last year had been short-lived and the people of the state again got stuck in the alley of moribund politics.
All comments are personal.
Tirthankar.Bandyopadhyay.Blog@gmail.com
Showing posts with label CPI-M. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CPI-M. Show all posts
Wednesday
Friday
Great men think alike
The West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Bandyopadhyay may be ‘ridiculed’ for her plans to turn Kolkata, the place where I belong, to London, the city where I have been living for over a decade now, but her way of thinking has now found a taker in no less than the US President Barack Obama. Apart from being ‘harbingers of change’ in their own constituencies, Bandyopadhyay’s economic policy of going on a spending spree without much concern for the health of the exchequer has now evinced interest for the Democrat President, who despite lot of hope and aspiration, is struggling to ensure a second term in office.
The rare Obama speech, delivered before the US Congress (on Thursday US Time, kept me awake till the early hours and a drowsy journey to work this morning lured me to frame a queer comparison between the two, which might be unfamiliar for any average person living outside West Bengal or without any clear knowledge about the state Chief Minister.
The speech that Obama delivered last night lacked much in detail, but the underlying message was crystal clear, ‘spend and get out of the economic mess' that the US and much of the western world is in. While there is a deliberate attempt to practice austerity (and carry out cuts) in the changed environment in Europe, yet Obama has taken recourse to the Keynesian way of creating demand through government spending. The impact of the stimulus packages, which the US and many other governments around the world announced after the demise of the Lehman Brothers, amidst the fear of a double dip recession, are debatable (although that was probably more of a historical necessity) but that did not deter President Obama from treading a path, which any conservative would find dangerous and self-defeating.
However, this is not the only manifestation of the desperation that Obama is facing in the run up to the presidential polls. In his much animated speech Thursday night, he couldn’t even resist the temptation of mentioning that the next round of elections were actually round the corner. “The next (presidential) election is 14 months away but the American people have no patience to wait that long”, quipped Obama. See the similarity in the rhetoric that Bandyopadhyay uses justifying her hasty approach: “I want move quickly and ready to learn from mistakes rather than do nothing”. Like Obama, Bandyopadhyay also wants to ensure jobs for the frontline staff, the teachers, nurses etc. build infrastructure projects (Obama calls for modernising airports and Bandyopadhyay wants to build new roads, hospitals etc.), plug government wastage and tax those who can afford to pay more (Obama mentions about Warren Buffett paying less tax than even his secretary).
Apart from the economic elements, there is also a shrewd political side to the whole saga. Despite being a Democrat, Obama has called for tax cuts which is very difficult for the Republicans to ignore and if they, because of their majority in the House of Representatives, try to block the President’s plan then there is a fear that the opposition would expose themselves to the American people (at least that is what the strategists in the White House are betting on.) On a similar vein, Bandyopadhyay can also combat any resistance to her plans, either from her opposition, including the CPI-M, or from her alliance partner the Congress, as being anti-development. At least the strategists from both sides are possibly thinking that the whole saga puts them in a virtual win-win situation.
However, the objective of this post is not to draw similarities between two personality cults operating in different circumstances or to compare Bandyopadhyay with Obama but to highlight what one of the greatest and influential economists of all times John Maynard Keynes, despite being a votary of the free market, observed during his time, that “even the government could fill in the shoes of business by investing in public works and hiring the unemployed”.
In an age when Keynesianism, as an economic doctrine, is considered to be exhausted and when the state plays only a secondary role to the private sector, Keynes might turn in his grave and say, “one day I saved Capitalism from Communist onslaughts and today I am back to save the whole world”.
Who knows?
The rare Obama speech, delivered before the US Congress (on Thursday US Time, kept me awake till the early hours and a drowsy journey to work this morning lured me to frame a queer comparison between the two, which might be unfamiliar for any average person living outside West Bengal or without any clear knowledge about the state Chief Minister.
The speech that Obama delivered last night lacked much in detail, but the underlying message was crystal clear, ‘spend and get out of the economic mess' that the US and much of the western world is in. While there is a deliberate attempt to practice austerity (and carry out cuts) in the changed environment in Europe, yet Obama has taken recourse to the Keynesian way of creating demand through government spending. The impact of the stimulus packages, which the US and many other governments around the world announced after the demise of the Lehman Brothers, amidst the fear of a double dip recession, are debatable (although that was probably more of a historical necessity) but that did not deter President Obama from treading a path, which any conservative would find dangerous and self-defeating.
However, this is not the only manifestation of the desperation that Obama is facing in the run up to the presidential polls. In his much animated speech Thursday night, he couldn’t even resist the temptation of mentioning that the next round of elections were actually round the corner. “The next (presidential) election is 14 months away but the American people have no patience to wait that long”, quipped Obama. See the similarity in the rhetoric that Bandyopadhyay uses justifying her hasty approach: “I want move quickly and ready to learn from mistakes rather than do nothing”. Like Obama, Bandyopadhyay also wants to ensure jobs for the frontline staff, the teachers, nurses etc. build infrastructure projects (Obama calls for modernising airports and Bandyopadhyay wants to build new roads, hospitals etc.), plug government wastage and tax those who can afford to pay more (Obama mentions about Warren Buffett paying less tax than even his secretary).
Apart from the economic elements, there is also a shrewd political side to the whole saga. Despite being a Democrat, Obama has called for tax cuts which is very difficult for the Republicans to ignore and if they, because of their majority in the House of Representatives, try to block the President’s plan then there is a fear that the opposition would expose themselves to the American people (at least that is what the strategists in the White House are betting on.) On a similar vein, Bandyopadhyay can also combat any resistance to her plans, either from her opposition, including the CPI-M, or from her alliance partner the Congress, as being anti-development. At least the strategists from both sides are possibly thinking that the whole saga puts them in a virtual win-win situation.
However, the objective of this post is not to draw similarities between two personality cults operating in different circumstances or to compare Bandyopadhyay with Obama but to highlight what one of the greatest and influential economists of all times John Maynard Keynes, despite being a votary of the free market, observed during his time, that “even the government could fill in the shoes of business by investing in public works and hiring the unemployed”.
In an age when Keynesianism, as an economic doctrine, is considered to be exhausted and when the state plays only a secondary role to the private sector, Keynes might turn in his grave and say, “one day I saved Capitalism from Communist onslaughts and today I am back to save the whole world”.
Who knows?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)