Trinamool Congress (TMC) Rajya Sabha MP Jawhar Sircar recently announced his decision to step down from politics and resign from the Upper House of Parliament. His resignation comes at a time when West Bengal is gripped by widespread protests over the brutal rape and murder of a trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical College in Kolkata.
In a strongly worded two-page resignation letter to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Sircar expressed his dissatisfaction with the government’s delayed response to the incident. He attributed the intensity of the protests to the ‘unchecked overbearing attitude of the favoured few and the corrupt’ within the TMC.
The former civil servant, who once headed Prasar Bharati, emphasised that immediate action could have quelled the unrest if the government had cracked down on corrupt doctors and administrative officials implicated in the incident.
This is the first sign of cracks appearing in the TMC fortress, following the relentless pressure applied by the massive people’s protest against Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal.
From ‘reclaiming’ nights to building never-ending roadside human chains, extinguishing lights at home to writing poems, crooning songs, and splashing roads with cries for justice, the unprecedented outpour of emotions following the violent death of the RG Kar hospital medic shows that tyranny doesn’t last forever.
The enough is enough mindset, is reflected in the common Bengali’s mindset which wants to break free from the shackles of its sense of helplessness. The RG Kar incident seems to have erased the limiting class consciousness of the educated civil society, which has now chosen to participate in the protests, rather than watching from the sidelines.
One can see the anger among ordinary people against Mamata Banerjee’s dictatorial style of governance and overall decay of the Bengali society, which was once the symbol of socio-cultural renaissance and fanned the fire of nationalism against British rule.
The demand for justice for the victim and her kin has spilled over into demands for the security of women in all levels of public and private spaces.
The current public outpour of emotions against the West Bengal government is not just regarding the ghastly death of a young lady medic. It is the outcome of the pent-up frustration to the sustained lack of employment opportunities in the State, along with sustained criminalisation of the society and rising corruption.
The RG Kar rape and murder incident was the trigger, than the people of Kolkata perhaps needed to vent their ire against the political establishment.
Ironically, Mamata Banerjee’s meteoric rise in West Bengal and national politics was due to her participation in various protest movements against the erstwhile Left Front government, led by the then Chief Minister, Jyoti Basu and late Buddhadeb Bhattacharya.
She earned for herself the image of the gutsy political leader, who weathered physical attacks and injuries in her four-decade- long career to emerge stronger in her public life. Her comebacks after such incidents saw her attacking her opposition with greater ferocity.
The TMC supremo's image as a fearless fighter took shape after one such deadly attack when she was hit on the head by a CPI-M youth leader in 1990 and had to be confined to a hospital bed for an entire month. It was her vociferous protest against Tata Motors’ Nano car manufacturing plant at Singur that finally propelled her to power.
Today, she is facing similar protests on the streets, not led by politicians, but by the people themselves. The writing is clearly seen on the wall - her time is up. She may try to remain in power using the brute force of the police. But the people are unforgiving. They won’t give up until they see her back.
A popular Hindi film by actor Shah Rukh Khan goes by saying, “Don’t estimate the power of the common man”. That’s exactly the message for not only Mamata Banerjee, but for all politicians, who believe that they can subjugate the people through brute force. Beware. The common man is now flexing his muscles. This means trouble. Neighbouring Bangladesh has already seen it.