When mamata ji secured landslide victory in west Bengal, everyone was euphoric including me, she replaced left rule government with a promise of a great dawn, but now it seems to be fading up gradually, she probably misjudged the people mandate, clearly, it was more because of people being fed up with the left rule than sheer charisma of didi, she miscalculates that mandate has been given to do whatever she wishes to do and people will be behind her to justify her action. First it was disastrous decision to replace visionary rail minister, over an issue which she acted of not being aware until budget was made public, and now defending the arrest of a professor from Jadavpur University, over making a cartoon of her, the professor was thrashed, beaten up and forced to resign.
Even in the days of emergency Indira Gandhi never got any one arrested just because she was shown in poor lights, this is even worse than those days. Freedom of expression includes freedom to resent, until it is strictly personal affair, and by no standard this caricature was vulgar or personal, her supporters are explaining that those were real picture and not cartoon. This is the most laughable defence, as cartoons are always made to look real pictures funny. Just before this incident she ordered rewriting of history in school books, so that left ideology could be wiped off from the schools. It seems that she has become a guardian of everything that will take place in west Bengal.
The real issue is not about the cartoon or the books but about the ways she intends to carry out the governance, the real problems of Bengal are as stark as they were before her, but she chose to get engaged in those issues which suggest sheer vendetta or her own image building. At the time of left rule Bengal was stuck into the inertia, everything was compromised in the name of socialism, industry registered negative growth, number of chronically poor went up, and now when people thought they can see a new light mamta ji is engaged into everything other than real issues.
The most unfortunate event for the public figure happens to be when he or she stop listening to his/her own criticism because then they are surrounded by sycophants and false supporters who completely prevent any undesirable information and thing to reach to their leaders, and from here, these figures start drifting away from the reality, and that, ultimately becomes the cause of great collapse. Check the history of collapse of any figure and you will find almost the same answer, I am afraid mamta ji is on the same boat.
