Didi's Achilles Heel

Mamata Banerjee stays the course but her party, plagued by corruption charges, spins out of control

- Snigdhendu Bhattacharya 

WHEN Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was preparing its bid for West Bengal ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election, a senior BJP ideologue told this writer that the party hoped Mamata Banerjee’s rise in West Bengal politics had shattered the Bhadrolok dominance over the state’s socio-cultural sphere, making it easier for the BJP to make inroads into the state. “The Bhadrolok who take pride in their secular-liberal views have been the biggest hurdle towards our mass acceptance in Bengal,” said the ideologue. “But Banerjee’s rise has meant the subalterns have gained the upper hand over the Bhadrolok.”

The Bhadrolok are the English-educated, mostly Hindu upper-caste, upper and middle-class elites who have dominated the discourse in the state from pre-Independence times. Culture is integral to Bhadrolok society. Children in Bhadrolok families are usually trained in painting, poetry recitation, singing, dancing, playing musical instruments, or several of these arts. Born in a lower-middle-class family, Banerjee grew up without any of these. In the Bhadrolok-Chhotolok (subaltern) divide in Bengali society, Banerjee belonged to the latter.

Considered by many to be loud and theatrical, Banerjee became an ideal element for Jatra, a form of Bengali folk theatre. Cultural elites look down upon Jatra for its lack of artistic refinement, but the form enjoys immense popularity in Bengal’s rural districts. In the 1990s, when she was becoming known as Agnikanya or daughter of Fire, Banerjee’s detractors often referred to her as bostir meye (slum woman) or kajer mashi or