Fifty years ago, in 1974, a teenage woman from a downtrodden family living in a tiles-roofed home along the stinking Adiganga canal in south Kolkata바카라s Kalighat neighbourhood enrolled at the Jogamaya Devi College, a few kilometres from her home. She joined the Chhatra Parishad, the student wing of the Congress, that very year.
Over the next five decades, she singlehandedly changed the course of Bengal politics, humbling almost all her political rivals. She split the Congress in 1997, she dethroned the Left in 2011 and she has so far also managed to prevent a saffron takeover of the state.
Now 69, Mamata Banerjee continues to live in the same house, with some modifications and installations of some modern facilities like air conditioners and trade mills, even as she has already served multiple terms as a Union minister and is currently ruling West Bengal for 13 years.
Her electoral career also turned 40, beginning with the 1984 Lok Sabha election victory against CPI(M) heavyweight Somnath Chatterjee which helped her arrive in Bengal바카라s political theatre as a giant killer.
Even though she now uses the iPad and fitness bands, she wears the same appearance that made her popular 바카라 a blue-striped white cotton saree and blue slippers. She has remained as energetic as ever.
바카라She hasn바카라t changed much. She continues to make decisions on impulse, without going through any great deal of paperwork. Her guiding philosophy has remained 바카라poth e amay poth dekhabe바카라 (roads will show me the way). And luxury still has no appeal to her,바카라 says Sudipta Sengupta, a veteran journalist who has been covering Mamata Banerjee and state politics since the early 1990s.
Sengupta says he does not remember any instance of Banerjee going on a vacation or pleasure trip and indulging in any form of luxury. 바카라She had never visited any hill station as a tourist before she went to Darjeeling as the chief minister,바카라 he tells Outlook.
He describes Banerjee as someone who trusts blindly when she trusts someone but is at the same time susceptible to becoming suspicious of someone all of a sudden. 바카라She is soft as a human being and a caring person but the pressure of handling power may have taken a toll on her compassion in the later years,바카라 Sengupta says.
While Banerjee may have not changed much, she has changed state politics in many ways. Sengupta lists three major impacts: she has liberated politics from ideological confinements and made pragmatism the central point; her rise has increased women바카라s presence in political leadership positions; and she has replaced the refinement of the bhadrolok culture in the political language with more plebian political expressions.
When she joined student politics, the Congress ruled both India and Bengal. By the time she passed out of college and got deeply involved in political activism beyond the campus, the Left Front swept the Congress out of power through the watershed 1977 election.
For 34 years since then, her political career has been that of an opposition leader. She could not hide these oppositional traits even when part of the government at the Centre 바카라 for example, the multiple resignations that she gave from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinet on issues ranging from corruption to price rises or hikes in public transport fares.
Even after becoming the chief minister, she opposed the 2012 rail budget presented by railway minister Dinesh Trivedi, who belonged to her own party, for proposing a fare hike without consulting her first. She made the minister resign and enforced a rollback.
바카라She loves playing the victim, she loves playing the rebel, and she does not like to be dictated,바카라 says a TMC veteran who has closely worked with her for many years, adding, 바카라 She is also susceptible to flattery.바카라
One of the major changes she brought to Bengal politics is that of a personality cult. The Left was all about collective leadership, while Congress also had its own bureaucracy. But Banerjee was a phenomenon, ready to walk the extra mile to champion her minority positions.
Perhaps two examples perfectly reflect her political success in becoming the person who mattered the most in state politics.
Subrata Mukherjee, who had served as a minister in Siddhartha Shankar Ray바카라s last Congress ministry in Bengal (1972-77) and mentored Banerjee in the early years of her career, accepted Banerjee바카라s leadership and joined the newborn TMC. Mukherjee later fell out with her, and parted ways, only to return to her fold.
Banerjee left the Congress rebelling against state Congress president Somen Mitra. By 2009, Mitra had accepted her leadership and joined the TMC.
바카라How she treated Mukherjee is no less interesting,바카라 says a senior TMC leader who requested anonymity, 바카라Though she took him back, she never trusted him politically. She gave him no organisational responsibility. But she respected his administrative abilities and entrusted him with important ministerial portfolios.바카라
Different, In Many Ways
Banerjee is special in many ways. Almost all major women politicians in South Asia had some kind of privilege to start with. From prime ministers Indira Gandhi, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Benazir Bhutto, Sheikh Hasina, and Begum Khaleda Zia to Indian chief minister Jayaram Jayalalitha, Mayawati and Vasundhara Raje Scindhia 바카라 they either inherited their position of power from fathers, husbands or male mentors or had family wealth to rely on.
Mamata Banerjee had nothing. She was neither heir to anyone else바카라s position nor had any wealth. In all senses, she has been her only capital.
A veteran journalist who has been watching her closely for about two decades says that Banerjee always felt uncomfortable in structured atmospheres and formalities and she continues to be so.
According to the journalist, as the leader of the party, she knew even sub-division and block-level leaders by their names and now she knows all the district magistrates and police supers by their names.
바카라In the early years of her chief ministership, when some bureaucrats were older than her, she used to add the 바카라dada바카라 suffix to their names to address them. This was unprecedented. Her predecessors, Jyoti Basu and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, always added the 바카라babu바카라 suffix while addressing bureaucrats. Now she calls all the officers by their names. I am not judging whether that바카라s good or bad, but that바카라s how she is.바카라
However, the authoritarianism that she brought with her way of doing politics has also meant the collapse of collective leadership, first at her party level and now at the administrative level.
Party leaders remember when former Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee, during a renaming ceremony of a street to honour the filmmaker, Satyajit Ray, blurted out the new name as Satyajit Ray Sarani before the chief minister announced, she instantly changed the new name of the road to Satyajit Ray Dharani.
So, every decision that the party바카라s local leaders, MLAs, MPs, ministers, or even panchayat and municipalities take is always described as having been 바카라inspired by the chief minister Mamata Banerjee바카라 -- be it the naming of newborn turtles in the state-run zoos or the inauguration of public toilet facilities.
CPI(M) leaders, however, accuse her modest lifestyle as a facade, alleging that her family has amassed huge wealth using her influence. They often highlight how the TMC바카라s wall graffitis no longer describe her as 바카라satotar protik바카라 or a symbol of honesty, which was a popular practice in the early years of the TMC.
Zaad Mahmood, an associate professor of political science at Kolkata바카라s Presidency University, says that Banerjee replaced the dominance of ideology-based politics in Bengal with agenda-based politics.
바카라When she launched her own party, her sole agenda was to remove the Left Front government, for which she could join hands with any force. Ideology did not matter. She, though, incorporated certain manobik (humane) values into her agenda-based politics to increase the appeal of her populist approach,바카라 Mahmood says.
According to him, Banerjee should also be credited for changing the Congress way of politics in Bengal altogether. Bengal had a long history of street politics but it was the domain of the Left parties. Banerjee changed Congress바카라s politics by introducing street politics into it. In showing her doggedness, she even called bandhs spanning 72 hours.
He pointed out how in the 1960-70s, Congress-supporting upper caste, upper-class elites used to brand the communists as chhotolok-er party (party of chhotolok, a derogatory term for the subaltern), while currently, many middle-class and upper-middle class families in the state refer to the TMC as chhotolok-er party.
Mahmood, however, thinks that her evaluation as a politician and as the leader of Bengal should be done separately. As the leader of Bengal, she practices 바카라governmental populism바카라, proactively announcing welfare schemes before demands are raised or any mass mobilisation takes place but has failed to set any long-term vision for industrialisation and employment generation.
바카라Some of the social welfare schemes had a very positive impact on the downtrodden. At the same time, the complete politicisation of the administration has severely weakened the administration and reduced its effectiveness,바카라 he tells Outlook.
Mahmood considers it as her failure as the leader of Bengal that the benefits of the schemes she herself launched are not reaching many of the targeted beneficiaries, due to both corruption and politicisation.
바카라The contradiction can바카라t be missed that while she tries to portray herself as a political ascetic with a simple lifestyle, the people around her are well-known for their extravagant living,바카라 says Mahmood.
Banerjee faced a personal electoral defeat only once 바카라 in the Nandigram assembly seat in 2021. But many political observers see this defeat as one that adds to her glory 바카라 she risked her personal electoral defeat by choosing the toughest seat for herself. But it helped her win the larger political victory by infusing new confidence and energy among her party바카라s rank and file.
바카라To speak honestly, very few leaders, not only in India but also globally, would choose the toughest seat for himself/herself. And that바카라s exactly why she is special. We know we are up against a phenomenal leader,바카라 says a senior leader of West Bengal BJP who is unwilling to be named.
Two decades ago, she used to describe herself as 바카라rough and tough바카라 and she has not shed that image. Khela Hobey (game on!) or Ladke Lenge is still the kind of language that she is used to speaking.
Now, in 2024, when her party is struggling in the face of a series of corruption charges in various recruitment processes as well as in the implementation of government schemes, can she lead her party once more to maintain supremacy over Bengal바카라s political sphere and mark her fiftieth year in politics with a cherishable electoral performance? The answer is due in another nine weeks.
