Why Mamata today is left red-faced among the Bengal civil society
It was an unusual evening. Rabindra Jayanti was being celebrated outside the Rabindra Sadan campus, sans the usual pomp, fanfare and star-studded extravaganza, which seem to have been the hallmark of all cultural programmes of the Mamata Banerjee government.
With just over a week left for the state Assembly results to be out, Mamata is maintaining a low profile. She came quietly to the programme not with her usual entourage of celebrities from Tollywood. The usual hangers-on, Firhad Hakim, Sovon Chatterjee and Subrata Mukherjee, who were allegedly caught in the Narada sting operation taking bribes, were conspicuous by their absence.
Mamata preferred to have veteran leader Sovondeb Chattopadhyay, who has a clean image, and poet Subodh Sarkar, the leftist intellectual crossing over to Trinamool, by her side. After sitting through two to three songs, not quite listening though, and deeply immersed in something else, the West Bengal chief minister made a quick exit in the middle of a song to take her evening stroll across the street at Citizen’s Park.
It was a marked departure from the scene over the last four years, when Mamata would move around in style, flanked by film actors, actresses, singers and intellectuals, requesting singers to sing some of her favourite songs and even joining the chorus on occasions.
 |
| Mamata with Bengali film actor Dev (extreme right). |
According to a Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA, Mamata is preferring to stay away from the intellectuals, at least till the election results are out.
“Mamata has realised that it is better not to mix politics and culture. She had relied on many celebrities, such as (actor) Dev, to be the face of the Trinamool Congress youth, but they have let her down by making statements, which are being interpreted as negative to her image,” said a Trinamool MLA, on the condition of anonymity.
Dev, after casting his vote, had said, "May the best party win". It left ample scope to speculate if his wishes were directed towards the Congress-Left alliance as well. Mamata had been too fond of Dev and his sudden disillusionment with politics has alarmed the TMC supremo.
After the Narada controversy rocked Bengal, many intellectuals - some of whom Mamata considered to be her sympathisers - created a furore and made adverse comments. A section of intellectuals, headed by poet Sankha Ghosh, even met the Election Commission, expressing concern over the poll violence.
Another group led by professor Abhirup Sarkar and poet Subodh Sarkar, owing allegiance to Mamata, in a counter move dubbed the Narada videotapes as manufactured and met the chief electoral officer separately, submitting a memorandum that the law and order situation in Bengal was satisfactory and the reports of violence were actually in the nature of skirmishes happening in local clubs. Attacks and counter-attacks, instead of helping build and influence public opinion, brought the cultural divide out in the open.
Mamata, as minister in charge of the information and culture portfolio, has always preferred to keep the cultural flock in good humour by awarding the intellectuals from time to time and even treating them as guests of honour at her political rallies and various government programmes.
In fact, after taking over as the chief minister, one of Mamata’s prime concern was to wean away the pro-Left intellectuals to her side. She was largely successful because even prior to 2011 - the year which saw an end to the 34-year-old Left Front rule in Bengal - the intellectuals had given the call for change (poriborton).
The intellectuals, who were known to dote on former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee - who was himself a poet and a playwright - turned away from the Left after the Buddhadeb government killed innocent farmers at Nandigram over land acquisition in 2007.
That was the turning point and Mamata was able to garner the support of intellectuals.
After she became the chief minister, prominent faces such as author Mahasweta Devi, actress-turned-director Aparna Sen, painter Suvaprasanna, Jogen Choudhury, singers Kabir Suman, Nachiketa and the prominent faces of Tollywood could be seen in the TMC government programmes.
But a year down the line, some of the intellectuals started feeling claustrophobic. People like Aparna Sen, Kaushik Sen, Sankha Ghosh, Bibhas Chakrabarty, who at one point of time felt the need of poriborton, and gave the call for it, strongly felt that the poriborton did not live up to the expectation. For some, the change was for the worse.
Within a year of the TMC rule, once again the intellectuals took up their pens to lampoon the government over the Saradha scam, the growing intolerance of the TMC and Mamata's megalomaniac and autocratic attitude.
In 2014, the streets of Kolkata once again witnessed the civil society taking out processions against the ruling party for allegedly shielding criminals of a rape incident in Kamduni.
The conscience keepers of the society, however, kept the show going and plays lampooning the government were being staged.
“From 2012 onwards we have felt a moral and artistic compulsion to tell people that this (the change) was not what we had advocated. My production house Swapno Sandhani came out with three productions — Macbeth, Thana Theke Aschi and Karkat Krantir Desh, which are strong political commentaries of the situation unfolding around new power hubs in the state and the Centre,” said theatre artist Kaushik Sen.
If Macbeth and Thana Theke Aschi have been contemporised to educate the masses about the current political situation, Sen believes that the recent production, an adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone, which tells the story of a tyrant king, Crayon, needs no contemporary reference to connect with the people.
“By now, everything is crystal clear to the people about what is going on. When Crayon keeps on smelling a conspiracy in everything that is happening in his state, no one in Bengal needs to be told who am I alluding to,” he quipped. Leave aside Mamata, even Prime Minister Narendra Modi is getting a whiff of a “large conspiracy” behind incidents at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
Mamata, over the last four years of her rule, has also realised that it is best to leave the intellectuals to their world and not to engage them in the hurly-burly world of politics.
May be this is why it has become so lonely at the top.