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Correspondent

21 August 2024 at 10:20:16 am

Grim Reckoning

The heckling of Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee during the latter’s visit to Sonarpur is a stark reminder that fear has an expiry date. For years, West Bengal’s politics has been defined by intimidation. First the Communist, and later during Mamata Banerjee’s TMC regimes, the state’s political discourse has been overwhelmingly accompanied by violence, cadre dominance, partisan policing and a culture in which dissenters were expected to keep their heads down and their opinions to...

Grim Reckoning

The heckling of Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee during the latter’s visit to Sonarpur is a stark reminder that fear has an expiry date. For years, West Bengal’s politics has been defined by intimidation. First the Communist, and later during Mamata Banerjee’s TMC regimes, the state’s political discourse has been overwhelmingly accompanied by violence, cadre dominance, partisan policing and a culture in which dissenters were expected to keep their heads down and their opinions to themselves. Whether in villages, municipalities or university campuses, countless Bengalis, especially the Hindu community, have complained that political power was exercised not only through the ballot box but through fear during the TMC rule. Against this backdrop, the scenes that unfolded during Abhishek Banerjee’s Sonarpur visit was a symbolic moment. The TMC political class that once inspired fear suddenly found itself confronting fearlessness and the ire of ordinary citizens. Trinamool leaders accustomed to hectoring and threatening the public were forced to face its ire as Abhishek was heckled and pelted with eggs. The Trinamool Congress would be mistaken if it dismisses the episode as an isolated incident. Across West Bengal after the polls, there is a palpable anger against TMC leaders and their henchmen. That simmering rage appears increasingly difficult to contain. For years, Abhishek Banerjee had projected himself as the heir apparent to Bengal’s ruling establishment, speaking haughtily with the confidence of a man convinced that power was permanently on his side. Now that the TMC is out of power, Sonarpur offered a starkly different picture. It showed what happens when politicians who are accustomed to commanding the public are suddenly confronted by it. From the horrors of Sandeshkhali to the public fury unleashed after the R.G. Kar outrage, West Bengal witnessed episode after episode that laid bare the TMC’s intimidation and moral corruption. The crowd that confronted Abhishek Banerjee at Sonarpur was venting years of accumulated resentment against a political culture many Bengalis had come to associate with arrogance, patronage and strong-arm tactics. They reflected what a significant section of the public has increasingly come to see as the moral bankruptcy of a political order that believed it could rule indefinitely through fear and organisational muscle. Abhishek Banerjee, more than any other TMC leader, had became the face of that system. The hostility he encountered in Sonarpur was political payback delivered by a public no longer willing to whisper its anger. While no civilised society should endorse mob violence, no politician can expect public sympathy after years of bullying and intimidating citizens. He or she must realize that political arrogance has consequences and that public anger, when it finally erupts, grinds even the most powerful dynasties to dust. Abhishek Banerjee’s reception in Sonarpur may therefore prove to be more than an embarrassing political episode. It may become the defining image of Trinamool’s final decline and fall.

Goa rocks to IFFI and SFX

Updated: Nov 29, 2024

IFFI and SFX

The stretch along the Mandovi from Goa’s capital, Panaji, to Old Goa is a beehive of activity thanks to two mega events. Both interestingly started on the same day, with the International Film Festival of India or IFFI beginning 21 November, and 6 kms or so along the iconic river, relics of the 16 th century saint, Francis Xavier (SFX) being brought down from its mausoleum in a section of an iconic church, Bom Jesus, and then carried ceremoniously across the road to a nearby church for veneration.


Both events have brought people in their hundreds from all over the world and India to Goa. Attending the film festival, this writer saw filmmakers and cinephiles from all over India. There were students of cinema from as far as Tripura, and Coimbatore, Delhi, Kerala and Chennai. The festival began with the screening of the movie, Better Man, a musical based on the life of the British singer and song writer, Robbie Williams. Essaying the role of the singer was an actor who added his human voice to a computer-generated image of a monkey which was a way that film director Michael Gracey, attempted to portray Williams after he apparently asked him “If you were an animal, how would you see yourself?”


The movie opened at Inox, Panaji, the permanent IFFI venue. This is the 20 th IFFI edition which moved to Goa in 2004. This time around, movies are also being shown in Madgaum, Goa’s business capital as well as in Ponda in the hinterland, thus enabling many locals to see some of India’s best films and documentaries. Film director, the well-known Shekar Kapur, best known for Masoom was present to inaugurate the event, and also joined other international film directors to moderate a panel discussion.


Queues of similar length could be seen at Old Goa where devotees lining up to see the relics. It has been reported that Governor and Chief Minister of the state offered prayers at the relics in the morning before the main event commenced. It is to the credit of the state government that it has pulled out all stops to ensure that the event runs smoothly. Transportation arrangements include special buses by the state-owned transport from Panjim to Old Goa. There has also been a special stamp cancellation to commemorate this one in a decade event.


The banks of the Mandovi are now alight with lights adorning the street lamp posts and trees that line the roads that run along the city’s periphery all the way to Miramar beach.


Both the IFFI and the exposition of the relics will segue into events and merry-making leading up to Christmas and the New Year. Recently, a venue was announced for Sunburn a popular music festival that has run into controversy for its impact on the state’s fragile environment as well as the fact that it allegedly encourages a drug culture. Many locals are now increasingly vocal about the fact that the environment suffers the most and also, the state known for its clean environs has seen a big deterioration in air quality with a real-time AQI of 144 which is poor rating. This is an area of concern for a state that wants to attract quality tourists and also preserve a way of life in harmony with nature.


(The author is a senior journalist based in Goa. Views personal.)

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