Opinion His own tune
Mamata cant afford to alienate the people Kabir Suman represents....
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For some time now,the Trinamool Congress leadership in Bengal has had trouble figuring out what tune the balladeer-turned-politician,Kabir Suman has been singing. The Trinamool MP from Jadavpurs terse,twisty,cynical comments about the Trinamool for the past six months have undoubtedly cast him as a villain for them. A brilliant orator,his highly calibrated dialogue will have seeped painfully into Didis heart,even as it affected her swelling ranks. The entire party leadership,therefore,is eagerly waiting for the rogue MP to put in his papers and save the party from further embarrassment.
This week things seemed to have reached a dead end and Sumans resignation was practically a fait accompli. But doubts have cropped up at the last moment about the singers next move; he is said to be mulling over a request from the celebrated Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi and some other intellectuals to put his resignation bid on hold. These intellectuals,with Devi in the lead,have in fact been at the forefront of a civil society campaign for transformation in Bengal overtly in support of Mamata Banerjee acting as a catalyst for change. Like Banerjee,they too have set their eyes on April-May 2011,the likely dates of the assembly elections,to achieve their goals. They do seem,thus,to have a real stake in resolving the present deadlock,and are working hard at a breakthrough. Should Suman stop in his tracks and desist from going on with what he has been so far saying publicly,it would definitely lower the discomfort level of the Trinamool leadership most of whom,as of now,want him out.
After Mamata Banerjee nominated Kabir Suman from Jadavpur one of Bengals most prestigious Lok Sabha constituencies the singer came to represent this segment of the civil society/ intellectual lobby. His dithering about his resignation,therefore,could be attributed to the pressures they are now exerting on him. And it is also the reason why
Banerjee has been more than tolerant so far,trying hard to digest Sumans invective. Given such compulsions,she will try and avoid doing anything that precipitates the situation even if it means living with some discomfort.
In the last core committee meeting,she did,however,clearly spell out her strategy. The party would not prevent Suman from resigning,and would instead prepare for the by-poll should the seat fall vacant. Tactically,the Trinamool chief would want the singer to resign because in case of an expulsion,Suman may continue to be an MP,unattached to the Trinamool as has happened in the case of Jaswant Singh and the BJP. It would be easy to assume that the tussle is largely about personality and ego. At one end: Sumans individualistic attitude,that clashed with the structures and bottlenecks characteristic of any political organisation. Hence his cry for freedom and a free hand to do development work without any interference from the party. The singers relative inexperience as a politician might have made him more impatient than he should have been. After all,some party control over,for example,MPLADS funds is the case with
all political outfits,from Mayawati to the Marxists and the Trinamool.
But Trinamool insiders hint at a further dimension to the personality clash,one at the root of the present discord. The cultural front that Mamata has been assiduously cultivating includes other personalities including some important singers who are often dealt with on an equal plane,if not with more respect and affection,by Didi.
Here lies the story of the other eccentric personality,Didi herself,whose inept handling of the issue has evidently forced Sumans grievances to snowball into frequent outbursts. Mamata,in her autocratic manner,has been as insensitive as ever about such grievances. What differentiates similar public outbursts against her leadership earlier from those now is the fact that this dissenting voice within the party was not a career politician,like in most other cases.
The tremors,whatever they are worth,should be a wake-up call for the Trinamool. Banerjee might think she can afford to dismiss Suman as an utter nuisance or she might take his discordant tune seriously,and make amends. It is high time she realised the need for a clearly defined command structure and decision-making process,a more sensitive set-up to listen to grievances within the organisation,and more political accountability about corruption all the issues that Kabir Suman has raised.
After all it was only the other day that Mamata Banerjee was a Congress dissenter and dissenting precisely on these very issues.
The sooner she addresses the problems,the better. Because,like millions of her supporters,Didi must have realised by now that peoples disgust with the CPM will not take her beyond a certain point. By 2011,she has to elevate herself and her party,if real change is to reach Bengal.
subrata.nagchoudhury@expressindia.com
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