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Journalism of Courage
A farmer in his 60s, Ziyarul Haq is sitting this hot May afternoon at Beraberi in Singur, reading the Bengali-language Left mouthpiece newspaper Ganashakti. “Aamra ekhane shilpo chai (We want industry here),” he looks up to say. “My son went for a job interview near Howrah, and the moment they saw in his biodata that he belonged to Singur, they asked him to leave… That has become our reputation, our curse.”
About half-a-kilometre away, another farmer, Rabindra Sadra, echoes Haq, “If there was industry, that would have meant jobs for our children.”
Singur, of course, was to be the site of the Tata Nano plant, which never came to be thanks to an agitation led by Mamata Banerjee, who rode the movement’s momentum to power. While the site lies bare now, there is a chemical factory just opposite.
Across Hooghly, West Medinipur and Bankura districts in West Bengal, this absence of jobs has framed the Lok Sabha elections as an interesting battle: that between Mamata Banerjee’s 13-year-rule vs Narendra Modi’s 10 years. And while it is a Lok Sabha election, the burden of incumbency is on Mamata’s Trinamool Congress government in the state – and not Modi’s at the Centre.
There are the positives, such as the TMC’s marquee ‘Lakshmir Bhandar’ scheme – involving Rs 1,000 to 1,200 monthly payments to women above 25 years of age in the state – which has all-round support. Rupsa, a teacher at the Anandapur Boys’ Primary School in Medinipur, says, “Earlier, women had to ask for money from their husbands, now they can spend it pretty much the way they like.”
However, the shadow of corruption permeates all aspects of the TMC government, which has been hit by a series of embarrassing scandals. The party has dubbed them witch-hunting by the Centre.
Monica Soren, a student of BSc in Zoology at a college in Midnapore, flags the scam involving recruitment of about 26,000 teachers in state government-run schools. Just earlier this month, the Supreme Court gave relief to teachers and non-teaching staff whose appointments were cancelled by a Calcutta High Court order in April.
“There should be transparency in recruitments,” Monica says, calling it a big issue for youths of the state.
The common belief, in both rural and urban areas, is that TMC leaders have benefited from the scam, with many pointing to the arrest of former education minister Partha Chatterjee. “TMC-r neta ra phoole-phenpe gechhe (the TMC leaders have prospered)… This is something people can see,” says Rudro Guli, a businessman in Bankura’s Sarenga.
Maurya, 18, who is preparing for IIT entrance, says such scams are worrying given the paucity of employment opportunities already. “We are anxious about our future… What will happen to us?”
Even supporters of Mamata admit that corruption has weighed down her government. “As the leader, she can’t say she did not know… considering how centralised her party structure is,” a local Trinamool leader in Medinipur admits, saying the teacher scam has left a “gobhir daag (deep stain)” on Mamata.
The BJP, in this context, is seen as filling that growing gap of youth aspirations. Rudro Guli, a businessman in Bankura’s Sarenga, says, “We had the Left for more than 30 years, and we then brought in the TMC. After 13 years, the TMC is seen as no different from the Left. So let us try the others, like the BJP. If they too do not perform, we can vote them out.”
This sentiment is potentially bad news for the TMC, which was shaken by the BJP’s 2019 performance in the state, winning 18 Lok Sabha seats, compared to its 22. While the TMC halted the BJP march in the 2021 Assembly polls, its tally of 77 seats was still remarkable for a party that was used to be non-existent in the state.
The sense is that if the BJP gains a few more seats in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls, the momentum may shift towards it, ahead of the 2021 2026 Assembly elections, which are more crucial for the TMC.
Mamata, who has always had her ear to the ground, understands the stakes, and the alarm can be seen in how the state police machinery is allegedly being used to double down against the BJP.
The Election Commission, which has a tough balancing act, removed the West Medinipur SP this week.
Mamata has also softened her stance towards the INDIA coalition, which she had unceremoniously snubbed by refusing to share Lok Sabha seats. Recently, she said she was very much a part of the Opposition coalition that “I helped form”.
TMC general secretary Tanmoy Ghosh puts his hope in TMC schemes “which have touched the lives of the people”. “The BJP is using communalism as a tool to garner votes,” he says.
However, the BJP’s trump card, apart from the promise of change, is also welfare schemes. A radio jingle that plays on loop on FM puts Modi front and centre of many of them.
BJP Purulia district president Vivek Ranga says the party is confident of bettering its 2019 performance. “People of Bengal have seen the scams and corruption in TMC rule, which were not there the last time. And they have seen the impact of PM Modi’s schemes.”
Asked why he calls Modi “one of India’s best PMs”, Rabindra Sadra, the farmer in Singur, says: “Biswa Bharoter dike cheye achhe, eta hoyechhe Modiji’r jonno (the world is looking at us because of Modi).”
At a Kendriya Vidyalaya in Kharagpur, Principal Sudip Mondol proudly shows around the upcoming new block which will replace the ramshackle school building next door. On the board of the Central government-run school, bulletin boards talk about “G-20 and India’s presidency” and “corruption-free India”.
Arindam Bhunia, a school teacher in a Muslim-dominated pocket in Medinipur, however, is worried about the BJP playing on Hindu-Muslim divisions in Bengal, which has a huge minority population. “Modi is a popular figure, no doubt. But the BJP at the local level is trying to create rifts in society,” Bhunia says.
The TMC too hopes to drive this point in. As one drives around southern Bengal, the party’s hoardings and posters, with Mamata’s face, declare: “Jonogoner Gorjon, Bangla Birodhider bisorjon (People’s roar calls for destruction of those against Bengal).”
