Mamata is caught in her own game of mindless appeasement of the Muslims first and now Hindus for Durga Puja.
The scene & the actors:
Mamata Banerjee, the two-time Chief Minister of West Bengal, has recently announced a dole of Rs 10,000 to each of 28,000 Durga Puja committees this festive season in Bengal, of which 3000 are in Kolkata city limits, thus granting Rs 28 crore from culture ministry of her government. This is along with the waiver of fire licenses and Kolkata Municipal Corporation fees for the Kolkata puja committees.
Earlier she tried to prevent Durga immersion on Moharram last year, to maintain law and order, which was stuck down by the Kolkata High Court. She had also brought in Imam Bhata, the policy of stipend to Imams and Muezzins, which was also struck down by the High Court. And, since 2011, after coming to power first time, she has distributed Rs 600 crores to 15,000 clubs of Bengal for festivals and sports events, from the Sports & Youth Welfare Ministry. This has been criticised by CAG at the centre as a wasteful expenditure.
Expectedly, the Hindu groups of Sangh Parivar protested against the Imam stipend and Imams are protesting against Durga Puja dole now.
Rahul Gandhi, the Congress President, after a continued year-long temple hopping from Gujarat in 2017 to Karnataka and the North Indian states of MP, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh in 2018, is now preparing for Durga Puja participation actively on camera in Kolkata.
The competitive majoritarian appeasement by Mamata and Rahul in Bengal is being ridiculed by the original majoritarian party, BJP, which for the first time had organised Ram Navami rallies in Bengal with swords and maces. BJP had recently accorded cabinet ministry status to five so-called Godmen in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh. MP CM has announced a bovine express. And they are now up on the streets of Kolkata calling out the 'communal politics of deceit' of Mamata and Rahul.
The irony of it all:
It is irony enough that the major anti-BJP forces of Bengal are locked up in competitive appeasement when they could have come together more constructively.
The irony of a different sort is that the injured in the Majherhat bridge collapse in Kolkata have not been compensated by the Bengal government as announced, and there have been smaller instances of bridge collapses and damages continuously since then. The government has been complaining of cash crunch due to the alleged unfavourable allocation of funds to the states.
The Bengal irony is further compounded by the fact that the Left Front, which ruled the state with an iron hand for four decades before Mamata came to power, is nowhere in the picture today with no youth force worth noting, has no stand against appeasement, and is sulking from taking a public stand on dole to imams and Durga Puja committees.
Sadly enough, its forces at grassroots have been seen even colluding with BJP to resist TMC violence during the recently concluded Panchayat elections. The Left has failed so far to either organize a movement against the economic woes of the people or take any political leadership to bring secular and democratic forces together for the electoral battle of 2019. The only credible work of the Left has been to mainstream the farmers' woes and agrarian distress through the Kisan Sabha rallies in some parts of India.
Poverty of political imagination:
The Mamata regime, in spite of politically paying and globally appreciated measures like Kanyashree for the welfare of the girl child, and some admirable initiatives on public health, education, roads, power and urban beautification etc, failed to create an atmosphere of communal amity in the state. Syndicate-run construction corruption, forced fund-raising from small time business enterprises by TMC cadre, and harassment of women in rural hinterland have rocked the state repeatedly.
Congress, on its part, is failing to take the onus of creating a strong anti-BJP front in spite of there being no dearth of issues, owing to its weakened central leadership, arrogant and over-ambitious regional leaders, rampant factionalism, and a lack of organisational coherence or a killer instinct to fight it out on ground.
An overall poverty of political imagination in the coteries of two PM hopefuls in the Opposition camp, Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee, is leading them to fall prey to an unimaginative strategy of what is being dubbed as 'Soft Hindutva' to stay afloat. They have failed to make the issue of breach of social cohesion today into a mass concern through Mohalla/local level Aman (peace) committees. They have failed to actually take the issues of economic failures to each household. They have no clear alternative development vision or a Common Minimum Program and are lost in the din of who leads the Opposition camp.
Mamata is caught up in her own game of mindless appeasement of the Muslims first and now of the Hindus in the Hindu festival, and failing miserably.
