Paribartan: Supporters turn critical of Mamata Banerjee

This article appeared in The Economic Times, Kolkata, Dated: 16/04/2012

Bengal Icons Upset with Mamata’s Bungle Book

ATMADIP RAY & SUTANUKA GHOSAL KOLKATA

Paribartan, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s rallying cry for change during last year’s landmark Assembly polls, increasingly seems to represent the disillusionment among her supporters more than the way the state is being governed.
Several of her newfound supporters, including former icons of the Left movement who helped her party acquire a certain legitimacy against the ideology-driven Communist parties, have turned severely critical of her government.
The tide seems be turning faster since the arrest of a Jadavpur University professor last week for circulating a cartoon featuring the chief minister.
“The arrest was very sad, very shameful,” Mahasweta Devi, the celebrated writer-activist who had campaigned for the Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress in the Assembly polls, told ET. “I am protesting such a move,” said the 86-year-old, who had earlier termed the chief minister “fascist” for stopping a civil rights rally.
“It was an autocratic decision. The arrest of the professor has sent a very wrong signal. I expect such incidents will not be repeated,” said Abhirup Sarkar, professor of economics at the Indian Statistical Institute, who took over as chairman of West Bengal Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation in February.
Sarkar said such incidents, if they continue to happen, may pave the way for the return of the Communist parties. “I feel the Trinamool Congress has failed to handle the media. The new government has taken some positive decisions, but it is in the news for all wrong reasons,” said Sarkar, considered among Banerjee’s most trusted officials. Well-known novelist Suchitra Bhattacharya, another ardent supporter, termed the situation in West Bengal “extremely alarming”. “I personally mail cartoons and other funny materials to my friends. Maybe, the next day I will get arrested for doing this,” she said, adding that the Trinamool Congress government was behaving much like its predecessor which had banned Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen’s book.
“It is scary and confusing,” theatre personality Koushik Sen, a former Leftist who had supported Banerjee, said. “Tomorrow, I am afraid, someone might try to stop me from doing a certain kind of theatre if it is not considered favourable,” Sen added.
The social networking media is much less polite.
Just last year, the party had brought in Hotmail creator Sabeer Bhatia to devise strategy to communicate with the masses through the mobile phone platform. It seemed to have worked brilliantly for the party, too, giving it new tools of real-time political engagement. Party member Derek O’Brien, with a following of 68,884 on Twitter, helped the party win friends and influence people. Now, however, an uncharitable cartoon on Facebook shows West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee walking along a road “On the Way to Ranchi”, referring to a mental asylum.
Analysts say the arrest of the professor was the proverbial last straw as it was preceded by a series of controversial decisions – the sacking of Rail Minister Dinesh Trivedi, the transfer of police officer Damayanti Sen who was probing rape cases and the banning of leading newspapers from state libraries.
A Delhi-based industrialist, who did not wish to be named, said if the chief minister was hurt by a cartoon, she should have just taken the cartoonist to court. “The series of events that have taken place in West Bengal over the past 11 months has sent some very wrong signals to the business fraternity outside Bengal. It is not good for the state.”

Mamata proving a disappointment for Bengal

This news appeared in Yahoo News India

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's inability to transform herself from a rabblerouser to a responsible politician cannot but have come as a huge disappointment to the people of West Bengal.

Having lived through three decades of the Communist Party of India-Marxist's (CPI-M) cadre raj, they expected that the 'paribartan' or change promised by the feisty Trinamool Congress leader would bring to an end the practice of the government tailoring its words and deeds to partisan requirements. If anyone was thought to be the right person to do so, it was Mamata because of her common touch, which has long been evident in the way she dresses and lives.

In their eagerness, however, to bid goodbye to the past, the average citizen may have overlooked some of the glaring deficiencies in Mamata's political and administrative style.

For one, her politics had always been marked by the one-point agenda of ousting the Left. To achieve this goal, she did not hesitate to switch back and forth between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, suggesting that she was a weather-cock who did not have a clear ideological vision. An offshoot of this itinerant political style is she cannot be depended upon - a fickleness which the Congress is ruing today.

For another, her stint as railway minister in both Atal Bihari Vajpayee's and Manmohan Singh's cabinets - an apt example of her brittle loyalties - showed that she had little interest in dull, desk-bound, routine but essential work on files. There was a period towards the last few months of her tenure when her visits to the ministerial office in Delhi became few and far between as she concentrated on fighting her political battles in West Bengal.

The warning conveyed by that period of absenteeism about what can be expected of her as chief minister has now been fulfilled. But it isn't the lack of attendance which is a worry this time, but her hogging of all the limelight and turning all other ministers, who include a former chief secretary and a secretary of a chamber of commerce, into ciphers. This trait of grabbing everything herself was evident when she was the only cabinet minister from her party in Manmohan Singh's cabinet although with 19 MPs, Trinamool Congress could have had three full-time ministers. But Mamata evidently did not want to have anyone else of an equal rank from her party in the cabinet.

What this denotes is a sense of insecurity, which is surprising in a one-person party. Arguably, it is her ordinary upbringing, limited education and lack of any ideological depth which explains why she wants to keep all those with a more impressive bio-data at arm's length. Besides, the 14-year-old Trinamool itself is an artificial construct, comprising defectors from the Congress, fading film stars, a pro-Maoist song writer and other time-servers.

If the chief minister is insecure in her own party, she is paranoid about what is happening outside. Hence her description of cases of rape and of deaths of children in hospitals as evidences of a conspiracy against her government. But if she barely escaped being severely censured because of her indifference to the hospital deaths, she has evoked widespread outrage at the way she initially dismissed as 'concocted' the case of a gangrape in a moving car of a woman returning from a night club.

Taking a cue from the chief minister, police were equally callous about the woman's plight. It was only when Mamata's outrageous conduct hit the national headlines that she woke up and accused police of mishandling the case. But the gaffe hasn't prevented her from recounting the irrelevant detail of another rape victim being the widow of a CPI-M supporter.

Apart from these incidents, the outbreak of campus violence, the clashes between the Trinamool and Leftist workers and the threats of extortion faced by businessmen and traders show there has been no 'paribartan' at all. If there has been any change, it is that the place of the Marxist myrmidons has been taken by their Trinamool counterparts in accordance with the familiar habit of goons switching sides from the loser to the winner.

Yet, at a time when the law and order situation remains volatile and Mamata appears to be out of her depth in the chief minister's position, she has taken the curious decision to paint Kolkata blue as if a facelift is all that is needed to set things right. The move is all the more strange considering that West Bengal faces a debt burden of Rs.2.3 lakh crore and that the prospect of an economic revival is minimal in view of Mamata's aversion to private sector investment.

After the long years of leftist rule, virtually from 1967, and Maoist depredations with their ruinous impact on the state's economy and work culture, the need was for a leader with vision, who was aided by talented non-Communist economists and administrators. But West Bengal's misfortune is to be denied all of this.

(03-03-2012 - Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com)

Mamata proving a disappointment for Bengal

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's inability to transform herself from a rabblerouser to a responsible politician cannot but have come as a huge disappointment to the people of West Bengal.

Having lived through three decades of the Communist Party of India-Marxist's (CPI-M) cadre raj, they expected that the 'paribartan' or change promised by the feisty Trinamool Congress leader would bring to an end the practice of the government tailoring its words and deeds to partisan requirements. If anyone was thought to be the right person to do so, it was Mamata because of her common touch, which has long been evident in the way she dresses and lives.

In their eagerness, however, to bid goodbye to the past, the average citizen may have overlooked some of the glaring deficiencies in Mamata's political and administrative style.

For one, her politics had always been marked by the one-point agenda of ousting the Left. To achieve this goal, she did not hesitate to switch back and forth between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, suggesting that she was a weather-cock who did not have a clear ideological vision. An offshoot of this itinerant political style is she cannot be depended upon - a fickleness which the Congress is ruing today.

For another, her stint as railway minister in both Atal Bihari Vajpayee's and Manmohan Singh's cabinets - an apt example of her brittle loyalties - showed that she had little interest in dull, desk-bound, routine but essential work on files. There was a period towards the last few months of her tenure when her visits to the ministerial office in Delhi became few and far between as she concentrated on fighting her political battles in West Bengal.

The warning conveyed by that period of absenteeism about what can be expected of her as chief minister has now been fulfilled. But it isn't the lack of attendance which is a worry this time, but her hogging of all the limelight and turning all other ministers, who include a former chief secretary and a secretary of a chamber of commerce, into ciphers. This trait of grabbing everything herself was evident when she was the only cabinet minister from her party in Manmohan Singh's cabinet although with 19 MPs, Trinamool Congress could have had three full-time ministers. But Mamata evidently did not want to have anyone else of an equal rank from her party in the cabinet.

What this denotes is a sense of insecurity, which is surprising in a one-person party. Arguably, it is her ordinary upbringing, limited education and lack of any ideological depth which explains why she wants to keep all those with a more impressive bio-data at arm's length. Besides, the 14-year-old Trinamool itself is an artificial construct, comprising defectors from the Congress, fading film stars, a pro-Maoist song writer and other time-servers.

If the chief minister is insecure in her own party, she is paranoid about what is happening outside. Hence her description of cases of rape and of deaths of children in hospitals as evidences of a conspiracy against her government. But if she barely escaped being severely censured because of her indifference to the hospital deaths, she has evoked widespread outrage at the way she initially dismissed as 'concocted' the case of a gangrape in a moving car of a woman returning from a night club.

Taking a cue from the chief minister, police were equally callous about the woman's plight. It was only when Mamata's outrageous conduct hit the national headlines that she woke up and accused police of mishandling the case. But the gaffe hasn't prevented her from recounting the irrelevant detail of another rape victim being the widow of a CPI-M supporter.

Apart from these incidents, the outbreak of campus violence, the clashes between the Trinamool and Leftist workers and the threats of extortion faced by businessmen and traders show there has been no 'paribartan' at all. If there has been any change, it is that the place of the Marxist myrmidons has been taken by their Trinamool counterparts in accordance with the familiar habit of goons switching sides from the loser to the winner.

Yet, at a time when the law and order situation remains volatile and Mamata appears to be out of her depth in the chief minister's position, she has taken the curious decision to paint Kolkata blue as if a facelift is all that is needed to set things right. The move is all the more strange considering that West Bengal faces a debt burden of Rs.2.3 lakh crore and that the prospect of an economic revival is minimal in view of Mamata's aversion to private sector investment.

After the long years of leftist rule, virtually from 1967, and Maoist depredations with their ruinous impact on the state's economy and work culture, the need was for a leader with vision, who was aided by talented non-Communist economists and administrators. But West Bengal's misfortune is to be denied all of this.

(03-03-2012 - Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com)

BETTER CITY BETTER LIFE

To make our city a good place to live in, a balance between renewal and preservation, innovation and tradition, urbanity and nature, community and individual development needs to be created. The Chinese have taken this concept to heart. One may not like the radicalism of their approach, but we'll be kidding ourselves if we think we can transform our cities by simply tinkering with them. One of the many "visionary" things Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee has promised to accomplish if her party comes to power in West Bengal is to turn our Kolkata into London. Well, as visions go that's laudable, indeed, but, as mankind moves irreversibly into a rapidly urbanising world with worsening living conditions, visions alone won't ease the urban pressure.

Of course, Mamata is being euphemistic and her reference to London stands for what a good, liveable city should be like: clean, green, orderly, commuter-friendly, aesthetic, harmonious, and well maintained, with lots of open areas, well-laid roads, and a balanced integration of spaces for business, work and leisure. In Kolkata's case, it would also mean banishing hand-pulled rickshaws and hand-pushed carts, permanent vendor occupation of sidewalks, festering slums - London doesn't have any of these - and everything else that contributes to urban chaos and unhealthy living conditions. If that's the case, her city would require massive, bold, and often unpopular reconstruction of its image. Would Mamata have the political courage to take such measures?

Kolkata's ills are true of most of India's cities. London or not, they all need massive redevelopment, and the same question must be asked of all who are charged to save our cities from degenerating into urban rat holes. It's all the more urgent since we seem blithely oblivious of the magnitude and complexities of the urban challenge while the rest of economically dynamic Asia is continuously reshaping its urban future.

Singapore we all know. Hong Kong is an amazing example of how to stay alive and thrive within narrow geographical limits. Kuala Lumpur has wonderfully preserved its picture-postcard image by developing a new and equally picture-perfect administrative centre, Putrajaya. Seoul has improved its look dramatically simply by relocating its business and government districts and turning the giant former centre-city traffic intersection into a park. Bangkok isn't a nightmare anymore.

Even Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are transforming so nicely as to earn the world's attention. Both cities have moved out thousands of people to make room for inner-city redevelopment while building new, well-connected suburban centres to balance out the distribution of populations and activities.

But it's in China, more than anywhere else, that Asia's urban history is being rewritten. Beijing is a shining example of how a whole new city can rise on its old foundations when action blends with vision in equal proportions. Based on the concept of "one street, one centre, and four parks," downtown Shanghai has thoroughly reconfigured its residential space and created a more harmonious balance between various urban functions. Seventy other major cities around China are spending scores of billions of dollars to build a brighter urban future.

Obviously, such changes can't come from patchwork and tinkering. They involve drastic demolitions, massive rebuilding, and large-scale relocation of affected people. Beijing's old quarters, for example, are being knocked down to make room for new roads, flyovers, high-rise residential complexes, and greenbelts. Of course, such drastic facelifts can't always be popular, and, in the face of frequent popular outbursts against such changes, the authorities have been obliged to frame new rules. These reflect the government’s willingness to mend its ways wherever necessary in order to reach its desired goal, not any inclination to step back from its course.

True, China’s urban programme stems from its intense craving to present to the world a dynamic, captivating, modern face. But it’s also born of a clear realization that the future city must be a place where people and their activities can exist in a healthy balance. How will cities expand without encroaching on outlying rural areas? How are we going to build wider, straighter, newer roads unless we demolish obstacles coming in the way? How will the environment improve if there’s no space to put in additional greenery? Our urban future will depend on how bold are we about answering these questions.

For Kolkata, we need not look far. Case in point being the award-wining transport system in Guangzhou, in south China's Guangdong province, which includes not only Bus Rapid Transit but wide, tree-lined bicycle lanes and a tie-in to the large city's rail network. The BRTS system transports as many as 800,000 commuters a day, making it one of the worlds largest. Perhaps more importantly, the new bus system "hooks up seamlessly" with rail as well as "idyllic" bicycle paths and bike-sharing stations, and helps to make the city "more livable."

The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) has been working closely with Guangzhou to build out the bus and bike infrastructure and the city's recent transportation efforts make it a place that "goes against the idea of a burgeoning Chinese metropolis that's only serving the economy." Experts say that easing congestion and reducing pollution from the transportation sector in China—with its increasingly urban and car-buying population—will require coordination of land-use planning, information technology, and mass-transit development, as well as cleaner vehicles.

The three key factors to look for in a ‘sustainable’ transportation system should benefit both the city’s environment and its economy, and it should be equitable, meaning "you should be able to move about your city regardless of income level,"

An Exasperated Presidency

The erstwhile Hindu College opened on Monday, January 20, 1817 with 20 'scholars'. The foundation committee of the college, which oversaw its establishment, was headed by Raja Rammohan Roy. The control of the institution was vested in a body of two Governors and four Directors. The first Governors of the college were Maharaja Tejchandra Bahadur of Burdwan and Babu Gopee Mohan Thakoor. The first Directors were Babu Gopeemohan Deb of Sobhabazar, Babu Joykissen Sinha, Babu Radha Madhab Banerjee and Babu Gunganarain Doss. Babu Buddinath Mukherjee was appointed as the first Secretary of the college. The newly established college mostly admitted Hindu students from affluent and progressive families, but also admitted non-Hindu students.

At first the classes were held in a house belonging to Gorachand Bysack of Garanhatta (later renamed 304, Chitpore Road), which was rented by the college. In January 1818 the college moved to 'Feringhi Kamal Bose's house' which was located nearby in Chitpore. From Chitpore, the college moved to Bowbazar and later to the building that now houses the Sanskrit College on College Street .

On 21 October, 1853, Dalhousie, the Governor of Bengal, suggested that

“

a new general college should be established at Calcutta by the government and designated "The Presidency College" .. the College should be open to all youths of every caste, class or creed.

”

The new name, 'Presidency', referred to the Bengal Presidency, which was the local administrative unit of British India. Accordingly, the Committee of Management for Hindu College met for the last time on 11 January, 1854. The Court of Directors renamed the College as Presidency College. The College started functioning on 15 June, 1855. The 'scholars' of the College Department of Hindu College were transferred to Presidency College and 101 new students were freshly admitted.

Initially, it was felt that the Civil Engineering College and Medical College, that were located nearby, should be associated with Presidency College. But with the formation of the University of Calcutta, also located close by, the Council of Education shelved plans for allowing the expansion of the these three premier institutions into a full fledged university. The college was formally placed under the control of the University of Calcutta in 1857.

Presidency college, being the oldest educational institution in the country, boasts of a number of prestigious institutions of primary, secondary and higher learning that were started under its aegis. The Hindu School was the college's school when it was established, although it is now independent. The Hare School has been from the middle of the nineteenth century located inside the premises of the college and has been traditionally associated with the college. Its students used to complete their higher education in the college in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur was founded in this college and was a department of the college frm 1865 to 1879. The Indian Statistical Institute, was founded in the Statistical Laboratoty of this college in 1931.

A college which should have been an university long long ago finds itself exasperated as a section of teachers try to stifle the placement of the bill in the assembly. Why would this happen. Why should anyone object to an establishment like 'Presi' becoming an university. Nothing is strange in Bengal. A few teachers to further their own personal agenda are doing everything possible to create a chaos. Being a state government institution, the teachers automatically become government employees. Now who would like to loose this status or look for a transfer after spending years at the union room. The Telegraph editorial today clearly exposes this.

read more...

Goonda Raj!

The culture of bandh once created by the leftists, which made Calcutta famous was once again in view during yesterday's bandh called by BJP. The total lack of governance and administration in Bengal was amptly demonstrated by Goondas who ran riot across the city, burning buses, breaking car windscreens, stopping trains, blocking arterial roads. There was no effort by the administration machinery to even try to protect the citizens and public property. These events showed how how little the people can expect of the administration which has been made inept by the leftists during their three decade rule.

During the recent past, across various places within the state, the governments unwillingness to uphold the writ of the law has been all too evident. The lack of political competition had meant that there was no incentive to deliver governance and human capital development. A morally degraded society fed on a diet of the typical Bengal form of protest of burning buses, stopping trains midway, stoning cars, stopping willing citizens from reaching work, deflating tyres cannot vision beyond all of these. The BJP leadership should be made to pay 40 lacs for the two buses it burnt. The money came from the taxes we pay. Calcutta has turned into a city where anyone can do anything. There cannot be a more free place anywhere else in the earth.

Buddha is the chief minister of the left party, the state seems to run on its own. It seems to be; A government by the party, for the party and of the party. Buddha dear, you are still the chief minister for the next two years. Get up from your slumber and deliver what you have been elected to do. You cannot ditch the people like this who elected you three years back with two-thirds majority. Bengal cannot be ruined further.

Murderer On The Roads

How many more innocent lives are going to be lost before we can reign in these murderer's. Every day we hear of stories how lives are being lost as buses race against each other on our streets. What is more ironic is that the drivers go scot free (if they are not lynched by the crowd) without any sort of action taken on them.

There is enough provisions in our existing laws to punish these drivers if the police are allowed to do their work unhindered. But the unions like CITU who control everything in West Bengal presently, do not allow the drivers to be booked under harsher penal codes.

Section 308. Attempt to commit culpable homicide

Whoever does any Act with such intention or knowledge and under such circumstances that, if he by that Act caused death, he would be guilty of culpable homicide not amount to murder, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both, and if hurt is caused to any person by such Act, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, or with fine, or with both.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“bearing in mind the galloping trend in road accidents in India and the devastating consequences visiting the victims and their families, the quantum of sentence (for) rash or negligent driving, one of the prime considerations should be deterrence."

Thanks to police inaction, political patronage and union pressure rash drivers escape with a simple fine of Rs.500/- (under Section 279), or a minimum fine along with a few months imprisonment if booked under Section 304A (culpable homicide not amounting to murder)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unless the police and courts look from the victims angle they will never realize the devastating effect these accidents have on the families of the affected. The government has to abolish the commission system immediately. The root cause of the majority of the bus accidents is due to this reason. If this is possible in every city of India, why not here? Are the drivers earning any less in the other cities? Unfortunately (like in so many other issues) Buddha's government does not have the balls to go against their own members in citu. Its Govt-vs-Govt.