THE Trinamool Congress’ ‘laapataa ladies’, a sarcastic reference to the Hindi movie by the same name, finally showed up at a march led by their leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata on Friday in support of the female doctor gruesomely raped and murdered a full eight days ago at a state-run hospital in the city.
Mahua Moitra, Saayoni Ghosh, Dola Sen, Satabdi Roy, Sharmila Sarkar, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, June Maliah — all women MPs — and minister Shashi Panja were among those flanking Mamata as they walked from Moulali to Dorina crossing in Kolkata, seeking to wrest back the narrative that India’s only woman chief minister at present seems to have clearly lost in the last one week.
The Trinamool allowed the creation of an information vacuum into which the Opposition BJP walked right in.
For the first time in years, Didi seems to be on the back foot. She knows she’s faltered. Her 11 women Lok Sabha MPs, many of them stars on social media, are keenly aware that when they refused to speak up in support of the victim, except for former journalist Sagarika Ghose, in the all-important hours and days after the grisly murder — the Trinamool allowed the creation of an information vacuum into which the Opposition BJP walked right in.
These smart women, the bane of the BJP in Parliament and in Kolkata, know that when they shut themselves up against their better judgement — perhaps, as they waited for the Kolkata Police to carry out its investigation, or perhaps, waited to hear what their Dear Leader, Didi, first wanted to say on the subject — they waited too long. That, at least for the moment, that sense of trust that politicians constantly strive for in the minds of women and men they claim to lead, seems to be faltering. That for the first time in more than a decade, an element of doubt seems to have crept in.
Here’s what we know. The rape-murder of the young woman took place between 3 and 5 am on August 9, when after working for 36 hours straight in the hospital, she decided to get some rest in a seminar room. The post-mortem report details the horror— that she was throttled to death (the thyroid cartilage was broken due to strangling), that there were deep wounds on her private parts which were, ostensibly, caused by ‘perverted sexuality’ and ‘genital torture’. That she was bleeding from her eyes and mouth too. Pictures doing the rounds show her legs at awkward angles to each other — some say that that can’t be possible unless the pelvic girdle is broken.
Strangely, though, for the next six days, all these bright young politicians, a galaxy of shining stars that include Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee, occupied themselves in a variety of matters, including the fell blow to Vinesh Phogat in Paris. Didi, herself, is said to have spoken about the matter in Bangla in Kolkata — a bit like a peacock dancing in a dense jungle which few saw, and then disregarded. By then, events were taking on a life of their own. The principal of the medical college resigned but was within hours given another plum assignment. Rumours about the police calling it a ‘suicide’ (they didn’t) or that they cremated her without telling her parents (it was the family that cremated her) blew into the information gap. The X handles of all these women MPs, rightfully most vocal about things gone wrong, were strangely silent. Even when more than half of Kolkata was out on the streets that fetid night of August 14-15, seeking to “reclaim the night”, thousands of women and men demanding justice, a right to life and safety, the Trinamool was missing in action. Their anger, passion and ardour that often stir up the Lok Sabha had either been spent or misspent.
TV gave the girl a name: Abhaya, the Fearless One, invoking the name that was awarded to the girl, Nirbhaya, brutally raped in Delhi 12 years ago. Everyone remembered how that winter of 2012, when the Congress government of Sheila Dikshit sought somehow to save the girl, had turned out. Two years later, the Manmohan Singh government had lost power at the Centre, paving the way for the BJP.
Nirbhaya, many said, had shown the way for the fortunes of one political party. Clearly, the BJP believes Abhaya can do for it today what Prime Minister Modi has failed to do in the last 10 years, which is to persuade Bengal to vote for the BJP, or at least turn in its favour since there are no elections on the horizon. Not for nothing has Smriti Irani returned to the TV screens for the first time since she lost Amethi to the unfancied Kishori Lal Sharma in the recent Lok Sabha polls.
But the BJP may still find that Bengal is somewhat different from the Hindi heartland states it has experience of conquering. Despite the growing admiration for Hindutva, the outrage on the streets of Kolkata today is less about the BJP and more about the sheer anger and helplessness it feels against the Trinamool. It is Didi, not the BJP, who invokes Bengal’s women as its primary audience and asks for their votes. On August 14, hours before the midnight mob ransacked the hospital where the girl’s murder took place, Saayoni Ghosh was applauding Mamata’s ‘Kanyashree’ project which is full of schemes for the girl child.
For the moment, Mamata and the Trinamool are the focus of Kolkata’s anger against the sheer corruption and mass helplessness that have begun to pervade the city as well as the state. Nothing seems to work, little seems to have changed. If this mass anger spreads to other parts of Bengal, Mamata knows what can happen — it’s happened before, in Nandigram in 2007, when the CPM, then in power, refused to listen to the angry voices from the ground and lost power some years later — when she became the welcome beneficiary of that anger.
That’s why Mamata led a march in Kolkata on Friday, along with her most articulate women MPs and MLAs. All of them understand that they must fight for Bengal again. That if they don’t — and notwithstanding Mahua Moitra — the Trinamool MPs are in danger of being called Bengal’s ‘laapataa ladies’ and its ‘goongi gudiyas’.
Content retrieved from: https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/the-great-game-laapataa-ladies-opportunistic-bjp/.
Laapataa ladies & opportunistic BJP
THE GREAT GAME: Amid outrage over Kolkata rape-murder, Trinamool MPs in danger of being called ‘goongi gudiyas’
THE Trinamool Congress’ ‘laapataa ladies’, a sarcastic reference to the Hindi movie by the same name, finally showed up at a march led by their leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata on Friday in support of the female doctor gruesomely raped and murdered a full eight days ago at a state-run hospital in the city.
Mahua Moitra, Saayoni Ghosh, Dola Sen, Satabdi Roy, Sharmila Sarkar, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, June Maliah — all women MPs — and minister Shashi Panja were among those flanking Mamata as they walked from Moulali to Dorina crossing in Kolkata, seeking to wrest back the narrative that India’s only woman chief minister at present seems to have clearly lost in the last one week.
The Trinamool allowed the creation of an information vacuum into which the Opposition BJP walked right in.
For the first time in years, Didi seems to be on the back foot. She knows she’s faltered. Her 11 women Lok Sabha MPs, many of them stars on social media, are keenly aware that when they refused to speak up in support of the victim, except for former journalist Sagarika Ghose, in the all-important hours and days after the grisly murder — the Trinamool allowed the creation of an information vacuum into which the Opposition BJP walked right in.
These smart women, the bane of the BJP in Parliament and in Kolkata, know that when they shut themselves up against their better judgement — perhaps, as they waited for the Kolkata Police to carry out its investigation, or perhaps, waited to hear what their Dear Leader, Didi, first wanted to say on the subject — they waited too long. That, at least for the moment, that sense of trust that politicians constantly strive for in the minds of women and men they claim to lead, seems to be faltering. That for the first time in more than a decade, an element of doubt seems to have crept in.
Here’s what we know. The rape-murder of the young woman took place between 3 and 5 am on August 9, when after working for 36 hours straight in the hospital, she decided to get some rest in a seminar room. The post-mortem report details the horror— that she was throttled to death (the thyroid cartilage was broken due to strangling), that there were deep wounds on her private parts which were, ostensibly, caused by ‘perverted sexuality’ and ‘genital torture’. That she was bleeding from her eyes and mouth too. Pictures doing the rounds show her legs at awkward angles to each other — some say that that can’t be possible unless the pelvic girdle is broken.
Strangely, though, for the next six days, all these bright young politicians, a galaxy of shining stars that include Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee, occupied themselves in a variety of matters, including the fell blow to Vinesh Phogat in Paris. Didi, herself, is said to have spoken about the matter in Bangla in Kolkata — a bit like a peacock dancing in a dense jungle which few saw, and then disregarded. By then, events were taking on a life of their own. The principal of the medical college resigned but was within hours given another plum assignment. Rumours about the police calling it a ‘suicide’ (they didn’t) or that they cremated her without telling her parents (it was the family that cremated her) blew into the information gap. The X handles of all these women MPs, rightfully most vocal about things gone wrong, were strangely silent. Even when more than half of Kolkata was out on the streets that fetid night of August 14-15, seeking to “reclaim the night”, thousands of women and men demanding justice, a right to life and safety, the Trinamool was missing in action. Their anger, passion and ardour that often stir up the Lok Sabha had either been spent or misspent.
TV gave the girl a name: Abhaya, the Fearless One, invoking the name that was awarded to the girl, Nirbhaya, brutally raped in Delhi 12 years ago. Everyone remembered how that winter of 2012, when the Congress government of Sheila Dikshit sought somehow to save the girl, had turned out. Two years later, the Manmohan Singh government had lost power at the Centre, paving the way for the BJP.
Nirbhaya, many said, had shown the way for the fortunes of one political party. Clearly, the BJP believes Abhaya can do for it today what Prime Minister Modi has failed to do in the last 10 years, which is to persuade Bengal to vote for the BJP, or at least turn in its favour since there are no elections on the horizon. Not for nothing has Smriti Irani returned to the TV screens for the first time since she lost Amethi to the unfancied Kishori Lal Sharma in the recent Lok Sabha polls.
But the BJP may still find that Bengal is somewhat different from the Hindi heartland states it has experience of conquering. Despite the growing admiration for Hindutva, the outrage on the streets of Kolkata today is less about the BJP and more about the sheer anger and helplessness it feels against the Trinamool. It is Didi, not the BJP, who invokes Bengal’s women as its primary audience and asks for their votes. On August 14, hours before the midnight mob ransacked the hospital where the girl’s murder took place, Saayoni Ghosh was applauding Mamata’s ‘Kanyashree’ project which is full of schemes for the girl child.
For the moment, Mamata and the Trinamool are the focus of Kolkata’s anger against the sheer corruption and mass helplessness that have begun to pervade the city as well as the state. Nothing seems to work, little seems to have changed. If this mass anger spreads to other parts of Bengal, Mamata knows what can happen — it’s happened before, in Nandigram in 2007, when the CPM, then in power, refused to listen to the angry voices from the ground and lost power some years later — when she became the welcome beneficiary of that anger.
That’s why Mamata led a march in Kolkata on Friday, along with her most articulate women MPs and MLAs. All of them understand that they must fight for Bengal again. That if they don’t — and notwithstanding Mahua Moitra — the Trinamool MPs are in danger of being called Bengal’s ‘laapataa ladies’ and its ‘goongi gudiyas’.
Content retrieved from: https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/the-great-game-laapataa-ladies-opportunistic-bjp/.