Living fossils in a dynamic world

In many dictatorships across the world, lampooning the ‘supreme leader’ is a crime punishable by death or prison sentences worse than death itself. Before we pat ourselves for our ‘vibrant’ democracy, as our political stalwarts and their foreign counterparts put it, let us take a realistic stock of our country.
If you thought it was the whimsical Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee alone who threw tantrums over cartoons and threw people into dungeons, you got it wrong.
The row over political cartoons in the NCERT textbooks is the best examples. Netas of all hues have thundered against a 50-year-old cartoon showing Jawaharlal Nehru whipping BR Ambedkar for the snail’s pace of work in drafting the Constitution. Both have played their roles in nation building, but are now dead and gone. The cartoon was published in a national daily and is a matter of historical record.
Now suddenly we find some groups taking umbrage to that cartoon (getting offended, developing feeling of animosity... the list goes on) and has got the government to agree to delete it.
The incident made several interest groups realise that if children were allowed free (or rather uncensored) access to political developments of the past, there would be little future for several ideologies based on divisiveness. It also dawned on many that if the origins of their political movements were laid bare before the smart schoolchildren, their out-dated and irrational outfits would soon run out of takers.
 And so began the clamour from across the country for text books to be ‘politically correct’. The designated panel of ‘experts’ sifted through the NCERT curriculum for political booby traps. And lo! 36 out of 176 cartoons were found to be inappropriate and the panel has recommended their removal.
These cartoons reflect the critical political analysis of the times when the corresponding incident occurred. Going back to them now and trying to erase their presence is nothing short of juvenile conduct. And the current ‘revision’ reeks of the dictatorship we see in George Orwell’s 1984. In the book, there is a government department dedicated to destroying records of all follies of the past and rewriting them to make the leadership look like infallible visionaries — we are not far.
Tolerance to criticism, no matter how vitriolic it is, is an indicator of the maturity of a leader or an organisation. The more convinced the party is about its ideology and history, the less will be the tendency to throw tantrums over ‘offensive content’.
It is an attempt at the impossible to keep historic realities away from the children as they are not confined to text book knowledge. Information of all shades is available in the media, especially on the internet.
We also need to understand that perspectives on the same person or event are divergent, depending on the level of involvement and impact in the life of the person involved.
 For example, Indira Gandhi is a great leader but others perceive her as the only dictator the country has had since independence. So who gets to decide the political ‘acceptability’ of a cartoon on the Emergency?
Many political parties that ran decades of mindless ‘education in mother tongue only’ campaigns are now struggling to own up their folly when English-speaking youths from other liberal states corner the best jobs. Attempting to erase the records of their actions will not undo the damage done.
We should come out from the state of denial and learn to accept criticism as inputs for introspection and course correction. Ego-driven ideas of self-glorification must not ossify us into living fossils in a dynamic world.
(This article was published as the editorial column in Postnoon on July 4, 2012)

Didi reigns supreme with little mamata

It’s been more than a year since Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee ended the three-decade-old rule of CPM and occupied the chief minister’s chair at Writers’ Building.
The firebrand leader rode the crest of anti-incumbency wave, powered by her ‘ma, mati, manush’ campaign: the communist government’s heavy-handed land acquisition made her victory easier.
If one were to judge the CM by the state of affairs during her rule, Didi, as she is popularly known, presents a disturbing picture.
Trinamool numbers are crucial to the survival of the Union government, and Mamata has never missed an opportunity to assert herself — though it might not be exactly in the interest of the nation.
She threw spanner in the works on crucial policies like FDI in retail and National Counter-terrorism Centre and even managed to derail an important river water treaty with Bangladesh. While her populist stance may win her applause from the masses, the damage that is being done will be hard to undo.
Like any leader who is dependent solely on personality cult, Mamata has shown extreme paranoia when it comes to facing criticism. Her conspiracy theories are ludicrous and at times would make one doubt the mental stability of the chief minister.
For all her rhetoric about the empty state coffers and the ultimatum to the Centre to provide a bailout package, the chief minister ordered all government structures to be painted light blue — it doesn’t take rocket science to understand the colossal waste of money.
Fires, rapes, baby deaths, train accidents and failures of governance are attributed to CPM-sponsored conspiracies ‘to tarnish the paribortan (change)’ she has ushered in. So far she has not suspected aliens, thank goodness! The much-hyped ‘surprise visits’ to check public amenities and open criticism of officials concerned has not changed much for the people.
When cornered over failures of the government, especially on law and order, she goes into a denial mode and lashes out at critics. When the story of a mother-of-two who was raped near a night club was highlighted by the media, the CM dismissed it off as another conspiracy — her minister went a step further to question the moral fabric of the victim.
Later, a diligent IPS officer who cracked the case and arrested the suspects, and therefore proving the chief minister wrong, was shunted out to an insignificant administrative post.
In a reminder of Emergency-era censorship, a professor was arrested for circulating a cartoon lampooning Mamata and Trinamool leaders. And, in a literal blacking out of criticism, the CM has ordered removal of English dailies from state libraries.
Even schools have not been spared. The history text books will be dropping sections about Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to ‘correct the imbalance’. A basic understanding of history would have told the firebrand CM that she is not the first one to try this route (and fail).
The ally has now become a burden for the UPA government. She forced senior party leader Dinesh Trivedi to quit as railway minister because he defied her diktat and used common sense to hike passenger fares. Every time she forces the Centre to backtrack on a key policy, it is the credibility of the government that goes for a toss.
After yesterday’s civic poll victory, the Trinamool has made it clear that it doesn’t need the junior partner’s support anymore — more bad news for the already humiliated and marginalised state Congress. West Bengal definitely needs change, and for this the chief minister must rise above her self-obsession and put the state’s interest first.
(This article was published as the editorial column in Postnoon on June 6, 2012)