Is ‘benevolent mother’ Mamata’s new avatar?

Large democracies need larger-than-life politicians; leadership is either expanded or reduced to populism on the one hand and a specific way of establishing consociation on the other, whichever way one may look at it. The proliferation of suffixes and prefixes across India to idolise the leader is a measure of how the popular is invented, through an investment in building on the idea of one the world, rather whichever fragment of it is occupied by a particular leader, as one family.

The bhaiyas, behenjis, netajis, ammas, annas, garus, dadas, to describe the relationship of Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Jayalalithaa, a host of male Tamil politicians who are often identified as thalaivi or thalaivar, KCR garu attest to the significance of establishing a connection. There are other ways in which the masses have addressed leaders, not all of them in cosy familiar terms: mahatma, pandit, acharya, sardar and bapu. Seldom have these definitions of the relationship changed.

The appearance of flexes of Mamata Banerjee as the “Banga Janani” in juxtaposition with the devi, described as Vishwa Janani, is an intriguing signal of a possibly imminent metamorphosis; the benevolent mother as a powerful authority figure from the lovable, familiar, somewhat harum-scarum sister or Didi. The formality of Janani is very different from the familiarity of Didi. It implies a shift to a persona that is dominant and aloof and of course the only representative of the people.

The message of the aloof and only leader was subtly conveyed as Ms Banerjee stood still, which is unusual, and all by herself, to officially bid a grand farewell to a long, long parade of prize winning Durga images and attendant organisers and dancing troupes. The carnival and its presiding queen turned the wide road into a local colosseum, a stage for a triumph in the ancient Roman style.

The need for a splendid show on a giant scale is imperative political theatre. To be seen as holding the high ground of a celebration that is both secular in the sense that it is inclusive and deeply religious is a balance that Ms Banerjee has to achieve to defend her turf in West Bengal and challenge the Bharatiya Janata Party in national politics. The vulnerability of West Bengal to the potent emotional appeal of BJP’s incendiary politics of illegal immigrants, Hindus as an endangered community and Hindutva as an idea that must be defended is the toughest challenge that the non-BJP political class has ever faced. It is harder to fight because community is perhaps the most openly acknowledged difference in the public space. Caste as a baggage in public and even social, but not intimate, conversations is not a divider. The history of socially progressive reforms, loosely branded as the renaissance put paid to that at one level and the wealth and social success of the Schedule Caste and Other Backward Caste families as agents of the East India Company sorted out the rest.

However much the Bengali, especially the bhadralok and the Babu class, was and is significantly different from the rivalries of caste that continue to reign in the politics of other states, Hindutva’s aggressive campaign has changed that. The BJP has made inroads, as a political party as well as an idea. Casual, common conversations in West Bengal today at every level of the hierarchy of class, caste and politics, is permeated with anxiety as much as concern over the communal question. And as these conversations progress into a venting of grievances or an appraisal of Ms Banerjee’s government, the sub-text is a communally charged interpretation of her actions vis-à-vis the Muslims and the Hindus.

Identity politics, of legitimising the assertion of the majority in terms of its religion, is the BJP’s most effective incursion. It happened much earlier across other states, and it is happening in West Bengal now. This does not mean that the BJP is poised to takeover West Bengal and Ms Banerjee is a spent force. What it adds up to is that there is now an alternative to Ms Banerjee, another saviour of the Bengali race. The difference is that the saviour is not home grown as were the Communists who led the Left Front and reigned for 34 years, nor the Congress that was founded in Kolkata. And that is why, this is probably the closest that West Bengal’s politics and choices have ever got to that of the rest of India.

Like all the other regional parties and leaders, Ms Banerjee seems to be coming to grips with the biggest headache of the league of regional parties, otherwise known as the federal front. The leaders of the league are gambling with small change in a game that is being played for the biggest of all stakes, the job of the Prime Minister. As a champion of the federal front and claimant to the position of a founder, Ms Banerjee has pitted herself as anti-Modi. It is not that Narendra Modi’s populism is of a particularly elevated variety, but as the Prime Minister it has a certain something that makes it very different from the ordinary populism of a chief minister, dealing with a horrifying stampede, fires, collapsing bridges, corrupt babudom and servile police, murderous factionalism, dynasty politics versus democratic politics.

The small change is not nothing; there is growing disenchantment with the government led by Mr Modi. Price rise, joblessness and farmer fury are real everyday problems around which mobilisation of voters should have been easy. That it is not so, is a brilliant and successful strategy of diversion such as blood-soaked sanitary napkins at Sabarimala. When the small coins are blown up into a mobilisation for purity and in defence of faith then it becomes difficult for regional party leaders, irrespective of how larger than life they make themselves out to be or familiar to their constituents as brothers, mothers, sisters and elders, to outdo the BJP’s populist, divisive and dangerous machinations.