Why I want to see Moon Moon Sen in Delhi

Aashish Chanana must be a very happy man. His dream beauty in 'Tasveer' has become the darling of the people of Bankura, trouncing nine-time MP Basudeb Achariya by nearly 1,00,000 votes. I faintly remember the Diwali evening when this telefilm was shown on Doordarshan sometime in the 90s. Those where the hey days of Doordarshan, India's public sector broadcaster. Since then the dynamics of the media in India has has changed dramatically, so has the politics of the country.

Moon Moon Sen was able to communicate with her
electorate in a familiar lexicon (Pic: ET)

To me the nomination of Moon Moon Sen (Shrimati Dev Varma) from Bankura, against a seasoned politician of the calibre of Mr Acharya - CPI-M's outgoing leader in Lok Sabha, and her dramatic victory symbolises the emergence of what can be described as 'new politics' - which relies on modesty and humiliation, encourages individual aspiration and demonstrates grace and not arrogance even in victory - as against the older version of the game - which stokes fear and insecurity, treats people as faceless numbers - as depicted in their voter identity card - denying the minimum dignity that a person is entitled to, and sermonises the electorate rather than interacting with them with due respect to their level of knowledge and enlightenment.
I say this not because of any fancy for Ms Sen as an actress or for her 'exquisite beauty '  - I borrow this term from one of my classmates in university who went to Ballygunj Government High School where she used to teach Spoken English before getting married in 1978 - or for her familial connection to the legendary Suchitra Sen, whom I admire not only for her acting but also for her personality, grace and the way she challenged the patriarchal domination in Indian Cinema.

On the contrary, I think 'Tasveer' is probably the only film I have seen where Moon Moon Sen did some decent acting, especially because she didn't have much talking to do.

My classmate describes Ms Sen as "a good human being" and that he has "never seen such a gorgeous woman in his life". This probably puts into context the way Ms Sen conducted herself during the election campaign and after her triumph.

Ever since she was nominated as a candidate, Ms Sen didn't even pretend that the candidature was bestowed upon her because of her calibre. Ms Sen always maintained that she was nominated only because Mamata Banerjee wanted her to contest, didn't conduct herself hypocritically by sporting a symbolic spartan life concealing her luxurious lifestyle and never tried to project herself as a superior human being to the electorate.

All along the campaign trail, Ms Sen maintained that she wanted to do some 'small little things' for the people of Bankura and she was even ready to learn from his political opponent Mr Acharya as he had the experience of representing the constituency nine times. Even after her triumph, Ms Sen said she felt sorry for her opponent. These little nuances may not mean a lot in the din and bustle of accusations and counter-accusations of contemporary politics but they definitely portray a sense of respect both for the electorate and the opposition.

 My mother-in-law, who is currently in Mejia, which is part of Bankura constituency, is apprehensive that Ms Sen will just be a silent spectator in parliament and it will not augur well for the people she is representing. This is just a hypothetical apprehension as India's political and parliamentary system do not have any scientific criterion (like the SMART Targets) to assess the achievements and failures of elected lawmakers. So whatever said is either claim or mere rhetoric.

There is no reason to believe that Ms Sen will be any less successful as a lawmaker than her predecessor only because of the fact that she is not a 'seasoned' political character.Essentially, politics is about power relations and such interface doesn't happen only within the parametres and framework of conventional politics. On the contrary, every sphere of human life is influenced by the intersection of such power relations.

There is also a public perception that Ms Sen is intellectually less equipped than those who claim to be progressive and omniscient. On the contrary her academic credentials are no less impressive than some of the self-styled the custodians of conventional wisdom. And I have heard from senior journalists, can't vouch for the veracity though, that Ms Sen was adjudged the best film critic while covering an international film festival in Kolkata for the now extinct Amritabazar Patrika in the late 70s.

What I gather from some of the close confidantes of Suchitra Sen, including her journalist friend Gopal Krishna Roy, that Mrs Sen wanted her daughter to be a domesticated wife, concentrating only on her house and husband (ঘরটি আর বরটি) . I have no clue as to why someone who challenged the patriarchy herself wanted her daughter to succumb or resign to it. It seems that it was too much for Moon Moon Sen, who was outward, went to upmarket educational institutions and had an illustrious family background. Probably she took to the films against her mother's wishes only to rebel against her intellectual captivity and without assessing whether she had the elements for it.

But a moderate career in films doesn't mean that it is surely to be replicated in Ms Sen's tenure in parliament. Given her credentials, penchant for serving the people, in "small and little ways", and humility, there are reasons to believe that she may spring a surprise for those who doubt her commitment and associate Ms Sen only with her anglicised Bengali accent.

Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay is a journalist and media consultant. 
He can be contacted at tirthankarb@hotmail.com 
All comments are personal.

Sensing Narendra Modi's game plan

Political circles in India are agog with rumours and apprehensions about the fall out of a Narendra Modi-led government in Delhi. No one even pretends not to comprehend the difference between a BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and the one led by the Gujarat strongman.

Narendra Modi talking to media in Delhi
after BJP's historic victory (Pic: Blogger)

Given his track record in Gujarat and the rhetorical implication of a long drawn election campaign in the height of an extraordinary period of heat and dust, there is an element of anxiety not only among the political rivals of the BJP but also within the very party he is leading.
Stalwarts of the 'old BJP' like one of its founder members L K Advani and senior leader Murali Manohar Joshi are feeling left out amidst the euphoria of the biggest ever election victory the party has achieved. Even middle rung leaders like Sushma Swaraj are bearing the brunt of a 'Modi-ride' within the party, leave aside the expulsion of Jaswant Singh, who often mesmerised Atal Behari Vajpayee, Madeline Albright and Strobe Talbot with his stiff upper-lip usage of Queen's English, so prevalent in Westminster.

Powerful triad

As the centre of gravity of BJP shifts from Delhi to Ahmedabad, Mr Modi and his Man Friday Amit Shah have ensured that the political and numerical weight of India's largest state with the maximum number of seats in Lok Sabha, Uttar Pradesh, also fall in line. The 'Delhi-Ahmedabad-Lucknow' triad is going to play a significant role in the chessboard of the Modi-brand of national politics. Having Uttar Pradesh as part of the game plan also has a symbolic connotation for Team Modi, because of Babri Masjid and Ayodhya, and Mr Modi contesting from Varanasi is not just one of the many decisions taken during the polls.

On the periphery of the powerful triad is Bihar, where Sushil Modi has pushed his once coalition partner Nitish Kumar to face the worst challenge of his political life. On the western front, Maharashtra is already having a government in waiting of the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, ready to take on a disoriented Congress and an opportunist NCP.

Despite a last-minute alliance with the TDP in Andhra Pradesh, managers of Team Modi will probably use their brute majority at the Centre to gradually assert themselves in the state and project the BJP as a political rival to Chandrababu Naidu.

My understanding is that Mr Modi's game plan is somehow similar in Karnataka and  B S Yedurappa may find himself in political isolation sooner than later. By doing so Mr Modi will try to take the steam out of the political capital of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Not that AAP has made any significant impact in national politics, but Mr Modi wants to address the domain of Arvind Kejriwal & Co only to tame the civil society and to nip any possible brand of the 'social Left' from being part of the dominant political discourse in the country.

Those who have analysed Mr Modi's character, his psyche and thought process would acknowledge that he has a tremendous penchant for being part of history. His call for 'Gujarati Pride' or interest in building the tallest ever statue of Sardar Patel are only reflection of such a trait. No one should be surprised if the popular slogan of 'Ab ki bar Modi sarkar' changes to 'Bar bar Modi sarkar'.

Battleground Bengal 2016

The biggest challenge for Team Modi will be to expand the party and its influence to areas which are yet to witness the footprints of Modi brand of politics. Mr Modi's renewed emphasis on West Bengal during the campaign bears testimony to such a strategy.

Team Modi would try to make the next assembly polls in West Bengal in 2016 a battleground between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress (TMC). And similar game plans may also come into play in Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Assam and other North Eastern states, either against AIADMK, or the Biju Janata Dal.

Does that mean Mr Modi will try to liquidate parties like the TMC, using money power from the BJP funders, or the constitutional muscle power of the Centre, or by pulling strings of the Central Bureau of Investigation in cases like the Saradha Scam?

I doubt that. Rather Team Modi will try to decimate those who have the potential of emerging as formidable opposition to Mamata Banerjee, and pit the BJP as the main rival of the TMC. At the national level BJP's main opponent is Congress and Team Modi won't do anything that will offer even a whisker of opportunity to the party. Taking the TMC by its horn, may tempt Ms Banerjee to glide towards the Congress, which may come as a lifeline to the age old party after its worst ever political drubbing.

Mr Modi is also pathologically against the Left. He knows it very well that the Left is ideologically closer to the Congress than any other political formation in the country. Without decimating the Left in West Bengal, BJP has no chance of elevating itself to become the most formidable opposition to the TMC.

The jigsaw of the political puzzle is which side of the political spectrum the supporters of the Left or the CPIM move? In a neo-liberal set up where individualism is at its prime and ideology taken a backseat, political success is primarily linked to delivering benefits. People would support any political formation not so much for ideological reasons as it is for clientelism. No other political party mustered the patron-client relationship better than the CPIM in its 34-year rule. Team Modi at the centre will channelise all its resources to better service its own clientele in states where the BJP has any potential to expand.

Political polarisation may not be socially desirable but it is any politician's delight, especially those like Ms Banerjee and Mr  Modi who basically love to operate within a non-democratic set up. Recall the "Either you are with us or against us" statement of US President George W Bush just after 'Nine-Eleven'.

Strengthening of any political element which lies in between two polarising parties only weakens the sharpness of the divide. Any polariser always tends to demonise its opponent to create a sense of insecurity among its clientele so that the supporters tend  to cling together and flock with those who serve them in terms of benefits and security. In this back drop, analyse the sharp and uncivil comments made by Ms Banerjee against Mr Modi, or the uncharitable comments made by the BJP and the Congress against each other at the national level.

Newton's Third Law of Motion

In the final analysis, with a BJP government led by Narendra Modi at the Centre, the TMC and its leader Ms Mamata Banerjee will have a chance to consolidate and regroup against a specific opposition, rather than scattered multiple adversaries  like the Congress, the CPIM etc. The weakening of the Congress in the state will also ensure that its core support base will flock with the TMC rather than siding with the BJP, especially under Mr Modi.

Sociologists now recognise that Newton's Third Law of Motion -"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" - also operates at the societal and the socio-political levels.  I was first made aware of this by one of my tutors in Economics Kunja Behari Kundu, better known as 'KBK' to his students, while talking about the Harrod-Domar Model. It was further substantiated in academic papers.

Extrapolating that principle, it can be stated that to be formidable in Bengal, the BJP needs an equally strong opponent. This points to the conclusion that Team Modi will rather try to consolidate its position in the next two years ahead of the 2016 assembly polls and not liquidate the TMC. This in effect may guide some Left supporters towards the BJP only for security reasons and against the onslaught of the TMC.

Ms Banerjee and her party have two years to consolidate and regroup rather than fear that Team Modi will initiate a witch hunt. He would rather prefer to decimate the Congress and the Left in Bengal before taking on the TMC.

Mr Modi would rather prefer a 'kaante ka takkar' or a battle of thorns, than silently engineering defection.

Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay is a journalist and media consultant.
He can be contacted at tirthankarb@hotmail.com
All comments are personal.

Manmohan Singh inculcated a sense of purpose

I am not sure who was the real architect of India's economic reforms. Manmohan Singh is credited by many, but I think it was the acumen of a shrewd and pragmatic politician in P V Narsimha Rao which made an effort to free India from the shackles of Licence Raj, tried to open up the economy, and with it liberalise the mindset of a large section of the Indian population. Who ever is credited with initiating economic reforms in India, the Rao-Singh duo gave Economics students like me a sense of purpose in internalising what we were learning as part of an academic discipline.

I was a third year Economics Honours student in St. Xavier's College, Kolkata, when the economic reforms were initiated in 1991. A few of us bestowed upon ourselves a sense of obligation to comprehend what was happening. It was later described as one of the biggest policy upheavals in independent India. 
That was the time when I was introduced to the pink papers  or business broadsheets, took interest in seminars organised by various chambers of commerce and trade bodies, came to know about journals like the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), Mainstream, Seminar etc and subscribed to the Indian Economic Survey and Yojna, a journal brought out by the Government of India. 

Many of these collections remained unread but still occupy the dusty cupboards of my ancestral house in Belgharia. Everytime I visit them, my parents insist on getting rid of the bundles of papers turned red and flaky journals wrapped nicely in a plastic packet to retain their historical value of bearing the testimony of a watershed moment in the history of post-independent India.   

Much to our dismay and surprise, not a single word was uttered inside the classrooms about the tectonic shifts that were shaping the Indian economy for decades to come. Few of us, including Ritwik Mukherjee, Joydip Bhattacharya, would huddle in Arun Da's canteen and try to collectively comprehend the so called liberating moment of the Indian economy and with it the archaic and inward looking mindset of the policymakers. 

We were too naive to take any call as to whether liberalisation was good or bad for the Indian economy and would often sit blank-faced in seminars and symposiums, but there was a sense of collective restlessness for not being able to decipher the hitherto unknown lexicons of the new economy that was to take over.

Ritwik used to work in a newspaper then and that made it easier for us to ensure invitations to important meetings organised by the chambers of commerce and gain access to trade bodies. We didn't understand much but there was a sense of euphoria for being part of a milestone in the history of independent India. Some of us, the students also derived as sense of purpose for studying Economics  as an academic discipline. 

For me, Economics taught within the confines of classrooms and at private tuition centres were as if insulated from the real world. In the few years that I studied Economics before 1991, I literally struggled in establishing its link to our daily lives. But the motivation for me in studying the subject was to understand the socio-political and economic factors that affected human behaviour and relations. 

Economic liberalisation was that very moment which gave us an opportunity to carry out a reality check of the academic initiatives to educate young minds. Dr Singh deserves my thanks and praise for being the steward of a significant change in history that made Economics more palatable and grounded personally for me. In a way, he being an economist also thrust upon us a self-imposed moral obligation to ensure and explain as to why economics is an important guiding force behind political decision-making. 

As he demits office at the end of his controversial, often ineffective and sometimes unassertive tenure as prime minister, Dr Singh deserves my gratitude for playing a role in transforming the Indian economy which in effect gave us an opportunity to enjoy Economics as an academic discipline. It also inculcated a sense of purpose in Economics students like me, which later extended to a wider realm of social sciences.  

All comments are personal.

Indian Babus & Nehruvian legacy

My dad wanted me to be a 'great man'. Every Sunday when visiting me in my boarding school, he would utter those words, the meaning of which were not very clear to me, neither to him I suppose. And yet those were among his favourite lexicons in the short conversation we had after having a couple of rosgoollahs and a cucumber or a mango at Narendrapur's Aam Bagan (Mango Grove).

It was in 1993, when I decided to take up a newspaper job while doing my Masters in Economics, that I realised that my father's definition of 'great man' was still very vague and obscure but roughly veered around something like an Indian Administrative Service Officer. He insisted that I prepared for an IAS job, which probably many middle class Bengali parents do even without doing a SWOT analysis of their children and I was no different. My self assessment was that I neither had the intellectual prowess nor the steely determination to compete for such jobs. In hindsight, probably I was not totally out of the mark.

I later realised that my dad's liking for IAS jobs, not necessarily state-level administrative jobs called WBCS in Bengal, was not so much for the challenges that lay ahead in terms of running an administration but more for the social weight - reflected by the perks and facilities, and the privileges the officers enjoyed.

Going through a story done for the NDTV by my good friend Rahul Joglekar, on the alleged unsocial behaviour meted out by the staff of the Indian High Commission in London, I was reminded of one of my father's many unfulfilled wishes involving me.

India House, as the High Commission building is named, is one of the prized locations of 21st Century London. It is next door to Bush House, which housed the BBC World Service until mid 2012 and where I worked for over 12 years.

The reason behind the vivid description and proximity to India House, is not to demonstrate self-importance but to acknowledge what is reflected in the online petition initiated by Arun Asokan, an IT professional, and so far signed by around thousand people. One can't miss the swerving queues for Passports and OCIs etc. irrespective of whether the place is shivering in cold or lashed by heavy rain. Only a few years back the High Commission outsourced the job of issuing short-term visas.

As some one who had the privilege of being inside the majestic building several times, I can vouch that there is not much difference between what is on offer inside the premises as compared to the situation outside and around the statue of India's first Prime Minister, which was inaugurated during Jawaharlal Nehru's birth centenary as part of the global celebration initiated by the Indian government, then led by his grandson Rajiv Gandhi.

Despite such an assessment, those of us who are living in London and the United Kingdom for 15 years like me or more alike many others would endorse the fact that a lot has changed from the situation that was in place and the way ordinary Indians were treated.

Lalit Mansingh was India's High Commissioner when I first arrived in the UK in 1999. We read in school textbooks that embassies and high commissions were custodians of Indian citizens when they were abroad. I took those words quite seriously only to be disappointed after father of one of my acquaintances suddenly passed away while visiting his son in Hounslow. Since the old man was not registered with UK's National Health Service (NHS) his body was taken to Charring Cross Hospital for post mortem. This was only fueling the agony of his distraught family who were already in a state of shock. When I approached the High Commission, expecting some help for the devastated family, I was told straight on the face that there was nothing on offer, but reminded that I should surrender the Indian passport of the deceased.

When I applied for my OCI and that of my family in 2007, the work ethics in India House was apparently much better than before and yet the concerned staff kept mum after misplacing our applications for weeks. It was only when I sought the intervention of then High Commissioner Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, after our OCIs were long due, that they accepted their failing, with a caveat of course that it was not 'entirely' their fault.

In fact, Mr Mukherjee partially liberated the High Commission and made it communicable by the commoners in the outside world. He ensured that Independence Day was celebrated at the Indian Gymkhana in Osterley, and not in either the India House or the posh residence of the High Commissioner in Kensington, and was open to all. Earlier, the High Commission and its custodians were in virtual captivity of some people who were either influential or mustered financial muscle or allegedly connived in business relations with some people linked to the High Commission. It was only after Mr Mukherjee's intervention that outside calls were attended and emails responded to.

And yet, nothing much has changed over the past years as the inertia of 'Babudoom' is difficult to be altered or reconfigured. It is all the more challenging to make things work or change in places like London, mainly because the postings here are considered plum and a fallout of either the efficiency of the officials or their ability to keep the masters (both administrative and political) in good stead. Those who got postings in London considered themselves to be way ahead of others.

The significance of Britain, the importance of London on India and the lives of Indians or for that matter the affinity of a generation of Indians towards Britain and London is not only historical, it also bears the hallmark of Nehruvian legacy.

Having lived and studied in England, Nehru was always very proud of his English links. He thought it provided him with an added advantage and authority of assessing history and society and hence become first among equals, at least within India, in the noble task of being a moderniser. A large section of the Indian elites, both in India and abroad - certainly in London, and those who are posted in London (who also consider themselves as part of the elite class) as representatives of the Government of India are definitely carrying the age old Nehruvian legacy, which shows them as being superiors compared to others.

Probably, this sense of superiority is the reason why many Indian Babus frown at those who in academic parlance are referred to as the 'others'.


Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay is a journalist and media consultant.
He can be contacted at tirthankarb@hotmail.com
All comments are personal.

When secularism is skewed

By courting the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid, Sonia Gandhi has pulled the last plug for her son Rahul Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. This will consolidate the support base behind Narendra Modi. It comes at a time when there is not much scope for a national debate ahead of the general elections in India and little chance for the Congress leaders to clarify their position.

It's an irony that those progressive minds who don't fail in tongue-lashing Narendra Modi are in stoic silence after Sonia Gandhi's flirtations with what is being termed as 'minority appeasement' and 'pseudo-secularism'. My understanding is that this double-standard of the so called secular forces is one of the reasons behind the rise of 'aggressive Hindutwa' in India.

A critical look at the track record of the Congress, will demonstrate that the way Sonia Gandhi has conducted herself is no different from what Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi did. While Mrs Gandhi was known for courting the Shahi Imam ahead of every polls (she was also known to have courted the RSS during the Emergency and in 1977), Rajiv had the dubious distinction of surrendering to 'institutional Islam' in the Shah Banu Case.

In fact, this emanates from Nehru's understanding of secularism, which is characterised by Western thinking. Nehru can be critiqued for his linear thinking and symbolism on secularism, development and many other socio-political strands. One could argue that Nehru was influenced by some sort of a moral compulsion to protect the minority but in the process overlooked the sentiments and ethos of the majority. India being a much more complex and diverse society the principle of secularism which worked in the West probably resulted in widespread resentment among a large section of Nehru's countrymen.

The whole saga reminds me of a situation that I came across just after my arrival in London in 1999. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was in power then during its 13-month stint in government and Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress was very much part of the coalition. During a private conversation in Bush House, a former BBC colleague from Bangladesh, who is a very well-respected writer, asked me how come Ms Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress allied with the BJP.

I tried to explain that to fight the 'mighty' Marxists in Bengal Ms Banerjee needed both physical, financial and moral support from a bigger player in national politics and since the Congress, Ms Banerjee's parent party, was allegedly hand in glove with the CPI-M, she had very little option but to ally with the BJP.

Obviously, my former colleague was not convinced and tried to impress upon me that after all the 'BJP was communal' and it was 'unethical' on the part of Ms Banerjee to share a coalition and the ministry with them. I tried to underline the fact that real politic in India was much more complex than the conventional divide between 'secularism' and 'communalism' and a much closer look at the regional balance of power, caste equations need to be looked into before jumping into any inference. I also argued that although apparently with secular credentials, the Congress was also blamed for playing the religious card for short-term political gains. Even the self-styled epitome of secular politics in India, the Left, especially the CPI-M, who overlooked the caste and religious realities in favour of a class-based analysis of the Indian society, were not free from such allegations.

With due respect to his secular credentials and the depth of knowledge, I could see that my former colleague was clearly out of touch with the changed ground reality in India. And this is not unusual for someone who is from Bangladesh and has spent a good part of his life in London. But even the conventional wisdom of scholars and journalists in India suffers from such myopic thinking and inconsistencies in their assessment of secularism and plurality.

If Narendra Modi and the BJP is to be blamed for their divisive politics, the same applies to the Congress. The Congress leadership, especially under Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, resorted to the divide and rule tactics not only to rule the country but also to manage their own party, especially the regional satraps. Recall how chief ministers were para-trooped from Delhi in the middle of nights only to be elected by the legislative parties without caring for inner-party democracy. And let's not forget if Nehru is credited with practicing democratic pluralism in India, it was threatened by none other than his daughter Mrs Gandhi and grandson Sanjay Gandhi during Emergency.

Obviously, Nehru can't be blamed for the deeds of his daughter and grandson(s) but he was very proud of his Western upbringing and thinking based on European modernity. This personal pride often derided the traditional thinking that prevailed in India. And it was not only Nehru but majority of Indian elites suffered from such derision, be it academics, social and political thinkers, journalists or politicians. For most of them enlightening ordinary Indians was an act of charity that hardly differed from the way the Europeans looked at the natives in colonies.

The transformation of Indian society, especially in the Hindi heartland, can hardly be gauged by sitting in the metropolises or in Lutyens' Delhi. A trip to any semi-urban or rural area would show how the thinking and actions of the masses have been influenced by 'political Hindutwa', and this is irrespective of the fact whether the BJP was the dominant political force there during that period of time. Identifying the Hindu way of life as practiced by a large section of the Indian population with the BJP or the RSS would be an oversimplification of the collective thinking that is prevalent in India. Acknowledging the transformation of the Indian mindset would augur well for the minorities. After all it has been proved time and again that the state has limited power to protect the minorities and their safety can possibly be ensured not by conflict but by respecting and reconciling with the mindset of the majority, thereby entrusting upon them the responsibility of upholding pluralism and tolerance.


Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay is a journalist and media consultant. 
He can be contacted at tirthankarb@hotmail.com 

All comments are personal.