Delusions of a Bengal Tigress

I was on my way home from work on Thursday evening when I got an SMS alert sent by a news channel: “Mamata Banerjee says she would rather sacrifice her life than bow down to Tatas.” And the scary part is that she might very well mean it! For, about the only positive quality this woman has is physical courage. For the last quarter of a century, she has fearlessly—almost insanely—braved police firings, lathi charges and attacks by Left Front cadre. This woman is not your normal politician. But whichever way her Singur agitation ends, in some footnote of a yet-unwritten Indian history book where she may be mentioned, Mamata will be remembered as a near-unhinged destructive force that kept on either failing, or, more importantly, failing the people she was supposed to work for.

This Singur blockade is an outrage and an act of such idiocy and such complete lack of understanding of economics, what is good for people, the big picture, the long term, indeed, of anything sensible and progressive, that it beggars belief. And she is supported by the usual bunch of development terrorists: our most well-known bleeding-heart liberals and some Naxalite losers. I am hardly an admirer of the Left, or of the Left Front, but in this case, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya is correct, and Mamata is all set to do incredible damage to West Bengal and its people. She already has done significant damage.

If you were in the manufacturing sector, mulling a new project, would you now even consider West Bengal as a possible destination for your money? And every other Chief Minister in the country must be laughing their heads off at Mamata and her cohorts and rubbing their hands in glee.

Many years ago, in a small magazine I used to work for, I had hired a recent arrival in Delhi as a cut-paste artist (a job that has since become extinct with progress in publishing technology). He had been working as an electrician’s helper in his hometown, and knew nothing about our business, but I thought he was a plucky lad to have travelled to an unknown city to seek his fortune, so I should help him. The man did absolutely no work. He drank several gallons of water every day and hung around the office reading newspapers. Finally, one day, I had to call him in and speak to him. Look, I told him, you showed initiative and courage to come to the big city so far from your home and were willing to learn a new trade. There are huge economic opportunities in Delhi; if you work hard, you can see your earnings grow several times in a few years, maybe even double every year. Please try to give some attention to your work, do what you are asked to do. He thought about this a bit, then, while cleaning his right ear with a little finger, said: “Actually, sir, when I was a child, I had paratyphoid. After that, whenever people talk to me, I don’t quite understand what they are really saying.”

... contd.

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