I’d written this in response to an article in the Hindu a
couple of weeks ago - Arghya Sengupta's article "How a city lost when it
won".
In the good old times they used to say ‘What Bengal thinks
today, India thinks tomorrow’. Despite this ostensible lack of speed in
execution, the rest of India has moved ahead and one might well add ‘what India
does today, Bengal may think of doing some years later’. The culture of ‘cholbe
na, cholbe na’ and ‘inquilab zindabad zindabad’ has permeated so deeply into
its rank and file, that the investing community is reduced to owner-driven
self-run businesses rather than large-scale industries. I probably shouldn’t
use the word ‘file’ – files are confronted with severe lethargy in the
Government offices and find difficulty moving.
The letter I wrote was not published. By then, there had
already been a week of Mamata-bashing in the papers and the Editor probably had
had enough. Perhaps, I was needlessly cynical. But amongst my friends are
several bhadralok from Kolkata who had really hoped that Mamata di will bring
in ‘Poriborton’. Their disappointment, angst, anger and disgust at her way of
functioning is almost palpable.
The unpublished letter…
Congrats to the KKR club team which won the IPL-5 edition fair and
square. That's that and let's get on with life. But 'Wait, our State would like
to celebrate this victory', is what Mamata di seems to have felt.
Let's view this from her point of view. A year and a bit after her
party won the elections on the 'Poriborton' platform, nothing much seems to
have changed in the State. Investors have continued to stay away, hospitals
have gone up in flames, infants have died in huge numbers, violence has escalated,
especially against women, - in other words, it's business as usual for the
State of West Bengal. From her own point of view, in the last one year, she
blamed all and sundry for deteriorating law and order, found fault with fellow
countrymen who speak 'good english' and tarnished her image, arrested freelance
cartoonists, contributed to change in railway ministry and walked out of an
interview session with students because they asked 'CPM' questions. She hardly
had any occasion to celebrate. About the only citizen who fanned her claims of
ladyship (in Bengali they'd say 'gave her pattha') was Shah Rukh Khan. So, she
really had a cause to publicly celebrate a victory by Shah Rukh's KKR team.
Some State funds got used up in this process, but big deal. There are other
State Governments in India who have consigned warehouses of currency notes to
flames, in comparison.
Arghya should realise that this kind of public voicing of opinion could
be seriously injurious to his health. He could be banished or could 'vanish'
from the scene. He'd be well advised to take these events for what they are -
'good entertainment value'.
