SIR in Bengal: Mamata's problems with political truths

That rampant rigging, common in all kinds of elections in the state, are structured on the presence of false voters is evident from the aggressiveness resorted to by Mamata Banerjee.

- SUGATO HAZRA

(SUGATO HAZRA)

The eminent political science scholar John Mearsheimer had categorised five types of political lies: interstate lies, fear mongering, strategic cover-ups, nationalist myths and liberal lies. US President Donald Trump has taken the first kind of lie to an extreme extent, repeating ad infinitum such lies—his utterances on India are a glaring such example.

Liberal lies used liberally by a section of opinion peddlers to demean certain global heads of government, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for example, to create narratives not strictly factual, such examples are galore. Mearsheimer has summed up the general types of lies most use. He also has been categorical that such lies are used often by “democratic” political leaders, not dictators. In fact, if one looks at the leaders who are cherished by opinion peddlers and media use “lies” as a common enough tool to address their support base.

While the five types mentioned by Mearsheimer seem exhaustive, what he missed is the unique kind of “narrative” peddled by the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Such “tales” are essentially aimed at self-aggrandizement. Coming from a very humble background politics of Mamata Banerjee started with a well circulated narrative that she had a Ph.D. from “East Georgia University” and used “Dr” in her name during her first Lok Sabha election in 1984 against the CPM’s erudite lawyer Somnath Banerjee. The claim had worked wonders with ant-CPM newspapers in Calcutta playing up the humble but successful person Mamata Banerjee, who managed to defeat Somnath Banerjee from Calcutta’s Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency.