And yet Mamata goes on and on, monopolising opposition to the Left Front and, in election after election, ensuring that a good number of votes get cast for the longest-running Communist government in the history of democracies. What is the reason for this extraordinary longevity?

In south Calcutta, where I grew up and where Mamata lives in a famously nondescript house with a red tile roof, it is because she is considered authentic. Other states might choose politicians as a vehicle for ethnic aspirations and take pride in their very conspicuous consumption; it appears that for many Calcuttans Mamata’s very earthiness is enough — especially, perhaps, given that the Bengal CPM has always had more than enough members of the upper crust running things. That she is viewed as “one of us” is not surprising. She did not inherit power, she earned it, working her way up from primary membership of the Congress in the tumultuous ’70s. Today, she wears plain, cheap cotton saris; when she writes poetry — as she did, locking herself in her room for days after the debacle that was last general election — she is fairly definitely going for emotional effect rather than literary quality. (On old foe Somnath Chatterjee’s election as speaker: “Somnath speaker/ Congress sticker/ they are all together/ is it a get-together?” Fairly unlike that other poet, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, in both sentiment and style.)

“One of us” figures emerged in states across the country through the late ’80s and ’90s, at about the same time that Mamata was throwing shawls in Parliament and addressing rebel rallies on the Maidan. Yet most of them have matured, and almost all of them have had a shot at governance. Mamata, clearly, is different.

Perhaps the most likely explanation for this is that Calcutta, and Bengal, are different from those other states. Bengal had never been dominated, like Andhra, and so did not need an NTR to fight back against the Centre. Social cleavages were never sufficiently severe to merit a Lalu Prasad Yadav. Bengali identity, given the mess that Bengal was, remained surprisingly resilient, and did not need a political champion. Defending the Bengali language against Hindi could be left to novelists like Sunil Gangopadhyay — and in any case was something the Left was willing to do. What remained? Perhaps nothing but the desire to recognise aspects of an imagined Bengali character in a leader: and the aspects that came to the fore with Mamata were, unfortunately, sentimentality and reflexive negationism.

The first might seem less problematic overall than the second. After all, a bit of drama, of shrill speech-making, is part of the experience, surely? Certainly, passion fits Bengal’s conception of politics — giant rallies on the Maidan or roadblocks in the suburbs — more than, say, the measured tones of Pranab Mukherjee. Yet, sometime towards the end of the ’90s, people began to think that Mamata took it too far. When she resigned theatrically from post after post, the insidious question began to be asked: was she doing so because she was so much better at resigning than governing? Would nothing in office become her like the leaving of it?

That was perhaps when she lost the middle class in Calcutta, at about the same time that Jyoti Basu gave way to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, someone younger, and willing to at least admit that the Left Front had ignored urban Bengal. She was forced to look beyond her comfort zone, to rural areas, which, for decades, have been LF strongholds. The need to make rapid inroads into the landless poor who have not traditionally voted for her — but did not benefit from land reform — explains her shrillness over Nandigram and over Singur; the need to try and win over the 28 per cent of the electorate that are Muslim explains her inability to commit to membership of the NDA.

The truth is, though, that there is much else that she could have done to win over the landless poor. Yes, the development of rural land has been politically charged throughout modern history, from enclosures in 18th-century England and the peasants’ revolt that it inspired onwards; but the manner in which Mamata chose to take up the cause reflects the second aspect of the Bengal’s self-imagined national character that she represents — the “cholbe na” part, which refuses to acknowledge the passing of history, which insists that Bengal can turn the clock back, or at least through an effort of will prevent it from moving forward. “No” can be said in many ways. It can be said, like Karat and Manmohan Singh, softly but firmly. It can be said, like Bardhan and Mamata, loudly and assertively. The problem is when that volume, and that assertion, become exactly the sort of self-expression that a politician believes the culture she represents demands .

Other populists have changed. Populists mature in office — even populists who run that holy grail of the populist politician, the railway ministry. Lalu Prasad Yadav seems to have done well in that ministry, and Nitish Kumar used it as a springboard to attempt the unthinkable, reforming Bihar. Mamata alone remained unchanged. More, she has little sympathy for those that attempt to modify their populism once in office; she famously reined in Subrata Mukherjee when he, as the Trinamul mayor of Calcutta, attempted to get tough on those defaulting on their dues to the corporation.

Mamata’s populism has never been aspirational. Reflecting a city and a culture rooted in the past, her populism is confrontational, denying change. And yet, her populism has never won her an assembly election; and, in spite of the Trinamul’s success at the panchayat polls earlier this year, the LF still looks secure. There is a lesson here for all those who oppose, and get to be really good at it: people will think that is your core competence, and keep you in opposition.

mihir.sharma@expressindia.com