By Swapan Dasgupta
Last week, Mamata Banerjee organised a mammoth
political rally at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata. From all accounts, the
crowd was bigger than anything witnessed in recent years: estimates ranged from
seven lakhs to 12 lakh people. The rally had a larger political significance
too. It suggested that the Trinamool Congress (AITC) would try to maximise its
haul from West Bengal and leverage that with whichever political formation is
closest to the 272 mark in the next Lok Sabha. Her strategy is not dissimilar
to the one being pursued by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa.
Mamata’s rally and the unveiling of her strategy for
the Lok Sabha polls was a major political development and certainly much more
significant than the Nitish Kumar-led initiative to forge a Federal Front of
those who were at one time or other associated with the old Janata Dal. Whereas
Mamata and Jayalalithaa look like winners in their home turf of West Bengal and
Tamil Nadu, the trio of Nitish Kumar-Mulayam Singh Yadav-H.D. Deve Gowda give
the impression of being a club of the left-behind. Indeed, given its illusory
nature and waning fortunes the Left parties could just as well have joined this
formation.
The irony is that the audacious move of Mamata to
seek a greater role in the politics of the Centre was barely noticed by a media
that calls itself “national”. Jawaharlal Nehru’s stereotype of Kolkata being a
“city of processions” still plays a role in shaping the minds of the so-called
opinion-makers. Maybe it wouldn’t have been the case if the Left was still
dominant in what was once regarded as the Red Fort. Thanks to the intellectual
patronage accorded by the Congress Establishment to anything that remotely
smelt “progressive”, the Left could merrily punch above its weight. Its
electoral insignificance (except in the period 2004-09) was always offset by
its strategic role in the opinion-making industry. The Left became the
certifying authority for determining good or evil.
The Left’s disdain for a gutsy street-fighter who
ousted them from West Bengal is well known and understandable. However, the
Left’s clout in the corridors of power and social influence has diminished
considerably ever since Prakash Karat effected the rupture with the Congress
over the Indo-US nuclear deal. If the significance of Mamata, Jayalalithaa or
for that matter Naveen Patnaik is insufficiently understood in the “national”
media it is because Kolkata, Chennai and Bhubaneshwar are outside the imagined
world of the dominant intellectual elite which is incapable of thinking beyond
the Hindi-speaking belt.
In the old days this used to be manifested in the
exaggerated preoccupation with the likely voting patterns of the voters of
Uttar Pradesh. Countless column inches—those were pre-TV days—were devoted to
dissecting the intricacies of caste alliances, particularly the AJGAR or MAJGAR
phenomenon. The more self-professedly ‘enlightened’ of the political pundits
branched out into a fanatical obsession with which way the Muslims of UP would
vote. We would be subjected to reams of narrative about the lost world of a
community which once ruled India but rued the fact that it was now struggling
to make itself heard in the Ganga belt.
Today, the residual effects of this bogus
romanticism are still in place but in the main it has been overwhelmed by a
further narrowing of horizons. Far from being concerned with the 542 Lok Sabha
seats, the forthcoming elections have been reduced to one question: how will
the Aam Aadmi Party do in 2014? If the opinion polls are any guide it seems
that AAP is likely to be a factor in about 20 Lok Sabha, mainly in the National
Capital Region. In other places they might play the role of spoiler. The point
is that these 20 seats are well below the 42 seats where Mamata is a big player
or the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu where the charm Jayalalithaa could work. But yet,
AAP has hogged the media space, outpacing the regional parties by many miles.
Is it only because AAP is unique or is it because it is a doorstep
Hindi-speaking phenomenon? If a smooth-talking Yogendra Yadav was from the
‘provinces’ would the media have cared for him?
This obsession with what is in sight has proved a
double-edged sword. The beautiful people who have flocked to the various
committees set up by AAP (perusing the lists is very instructive) may have been
embarrassed by the anti-African tirade let loose by a lout masquerading as a
people’s representative. But by upholding his right to spread prejudice and
hate, by mooting proposals to keep Delhi University only for ‘locals’ and by even
endorsing KHAP panchayats, the AAP created the conditions whereby some
shopkeepers in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar felt that thrashing a student from
Arunachal Pradesh was all right? After all, like the Africans in Khirkee
village of Delhi, this young student too was ‘different’.
In the guise of protest and newness, the AAP is
inflicting some of the most regressive social attitudes on Delhi and according
it the legitimacy of a political party. And yet, the opinion-makers are either
silent or quietly approving. Is it because a movement run by common friends in
Delhi—and let’s have no doubts that AAP is phenomenally well-connected—is more
important than a 10 lakh rally in Kolkata?
As the proprietor of a large media group once
remarked while turning down a story on Manipur: “Who cares?” Those entrusted with manufacturing opinon
certainly don’t give a damn.
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