Lunatic Queen of Misrule

For Mamata Banerjee , ending 34 years of cpi(m) rule in West Bengal was the easy part. Even a year after her historic victory, she still acts more like a street-fighting Opposition leader than a Chief Minister. Samples from the whimsical reign of Mamata , Queen of the Absurd.
Don't Look Left
Addressing a meeting of the party workers on April 16, Food Supplies Minister Jyotipriyo Mullick asked Trinamool Congress (tmc) party faithful not to socialise with the Left. "Don't sit with them, don't eat with them. Unless you don't learn to hate them, you won't be able to take revenge," he said. cpi(m)'s former Rajya Sabha member Mohammad Salim laughed at this, saying, "It's very difficult to read Mamata Banerjee these days. One reason for this could be the panchayat elections due next year. The spirit of debate and discussion is very strong in West Bengal. People gather at tea stalls and social functions and debate politics. Maybe Mamata is worried that her cadres will not be able to defend themselves." tmc leader Derek O'Brien, however, says, "One must look at the context of where it was said. It was mentioned at an internal party meeting to a crowd of 1,500 party workers. The statement was taken out of context." A tmc worker points out that the cpi(m) has little reason to smirk: "Look at their own constitution. They also follow a policy of social ostracism towards expelled leaders such as (former speaker) Somnath Chatterjee."

Cartoons are Blasphemy
On April 13, the police arrested a Jadavpur University professor, Ambika Mahapatra, and his neighbour for circulating an anti-Mamata cartoon on the Net. The cartoon, based on Satyajit Ray's movie Sonar Kella, allegedly shows Mamata and Railway Minister Mukul Roy discussing how to get rid of party MP Dinesh Trivedi. Mahapatra was charged under Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and Sections 500, 509 and 114 of the Indian Penal Code (punishment for defamation) for forwarding "derogatory images" of the West Bengal Chief Minister to nearly 65 recipients. "This is not democracy but democrazy," Mamata baiter and Congress leader Deepa Dasmunshi told the media. The Congress, which shares power with tmc, has been careful to distance itself from the controversy. Such was the sense of panic in the city that rumours of Big Didi planning to use the state Criminal Investigation Department (cid) to monitor social media began to do the rounds. The battleground shifted to Twitter, as O'Brien denied the cid rumours and tried to defend his leader. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah jumped into the fray, tweeting, "Do not worry. If I arrested everyone who made fun of me or a cartoon of me I (would) run out of prison space in a flash."

Protest and be Damned
On April 8, Professor Sarothi Partha Ray, an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, was arrested for participating in an anti-eviction movement at Nonadanga in Kolkata. His bail application was rejected on April 12 and he was sent to judicial custody. This had the scientific community and ngos up in arms. A group of academics, scientists and social activists dashed off an angry letter to Manmohan Singh. Much to the Prime Minister's embarrassment, the first signature on the letter is from Sonia Gandhi's favourite activist, Aruna Roy. On April 18, the professor finally got bail.

Select Reading
On March 14, a government order directed that only eight selected newspapers would be purchased by the 422 state-funded libraries and 2,060 state-owned libraries in the state. The list has eight newspapers-five Bengali dailies, one Hindi and two Urdu papers. Some sheepish tmc leaders claimed that this was a decision taken by a low-level official from the Library Services Department but Abdul Karim Chaudhury, West Bengal's library services minister, told the media that the circular had the Chief Minister's blessings. Later, Derek O'Brien tweeted that an English daily had been added to the list. "Mamata had joined politics during the Emergency. Indira Gandhi apologised for the Emergency but Mamata never has. She has only said that it was wrongly implemented. So what Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Vidya Charan Shukla failed to do, Mamata Banerjee will," chortles cpi(m)'s Salim. The real reason behind this move is there in the fine print of the circular which states that public money should not be spent on political publications. cpi(m) brings out a paper, Ganashakti, which could be found in the state libraries prior to Mamata's diktat. With Mamata, if you look hard enough, all decisions lead to the Left.
London Calling
Mamata wants to convert Kolkata into London. She has decided to paint all the bridges, lamp posts, public buildings and even cabs sky blue, the colour of peace. According to some estimates, Plan Blue will allegedly cost the state Rs.80 crore though there are some tax breaks for those citizens who paint their houses blue. Says a tmc leader proudly, "A uniform colour all around will lessen the sense of chaos in the city." Hmm...

Music, Not Marx Rabindrasangeet at traffic lights to soothe irate drivers and banning Marx and Engels from textbooks is Mamata's chicken soup for the Bengali soul. "Marx should be studied as a historical phenomenon but not at the expense of Mahatma (Gandhi) and (Nelson) Mandela. Bengal is only redressing a balance, not trying to doctor history," tweets the ever-faithful O'Brien. Clearly, even the quizmaster is having a hard time trying to find the right answers to explain his leader.