OPED | Monday, November 23, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Anti-establishment blues
Shikha Mukerjee
Kabir Suman, once known as Suman Chattopadhyay, made a splash with his me-too-Bob Dylan ballads and became a hero for those who saw themselves as fighting the establishment in West Bengal. Then he decided to join the establishment — only to feel cheated and frustrated!
When being is defined by the ideology of anti-establishment, one manifestation of it could be a high level of public spiritedness. Sometimes persons whose being is defined by anti-establishment get sucked into inserting themselves into a material engagement with public issues instead of being bystanders and critics.
If the engagement occurs via a political party and unexpected election triumph, then the process of adjustment to reality can be painful if not bitter, as Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament from Jadavpur, fading rock star Kabir Suman has only just found out. His discomfiture over discovering the limitations of what he can do, as a member of the establishment, is no less than the Trinamool Congress’s faced with a rebel within the ranks.
The difference, between the growing disillusionment of Kabir Suman with the ‘system’ to which he now belongs and the Trinamool Congress, is one of experience. The Trinamool Congress has had others, many far cannier than Kabir Suman to begin with, voicing their frustration about their powerlessness to initiate changes and make a difference. Some like former IAS officers Mr Bikram Sarkar quit; others like Mr Nitish Sengupta distanced themselves; and still others retired into private life. None of them were inexperienced and so understood that the promise of change was a slogan; it helped the Trinamool Congress make political inroads.
The Kabir Suman-Sucharu Haldar problem is, therefore, generic; their outbursts are symptomatic of an older malaise: The limitations of political parties hungry for power in fulfilling their promises. The public-spirited may feel that as members of the establishment their role is to be efficient about delivering on promises to constituents. Political organisations that position them self as anti-establishment may not share the same zeal to get things done, because they are in reality part of the ‘system’.
If the Trinamool Congress leadership is annoyed by the complaints it is because they do not need an over eager beaver to begin making changes in the way things work, efficiently. A system with its leakages, its waste and its amnesia is easier to use for purposes other than delivering promised development to constituents and ensuring that the benefits are delivered in full measure. For where half or even quarter measures will suffice to get voters to endorse the political platform again and again, why should anyone bother with doing the whole thing?
If the MP gets things done then what happens to the network of political intermediaries whose power emanates from their capacity to facilitate or hamper the doing of things. MP Sucharu Haldar’s complaint that he is being pressurised over the utilisation of his MPLAD funds illustrates the point; intermediaries of the Trinamool Congress have a stake and they cannot be cut out by well meaning public-spirited amateurs.
However, as the anti-establishment party, the Trinamool Congress cannot afford to have MPs with grievances, because that discredits its politics captured in the slogan of change. Kabir Suman and Sucharu Haldar as outsiders have unwittingly perhaps put their finger on the problem that faces a party like the Trinamool Congress.
In West Bengal, politics is divided as establishment or anti-establishment. Over the years, the Communist Party of India(Marxists) has graduated from being the permanent opposition to becoming the establishment. The Trinamool Congress has occupied the vacated space and is the current anti-establishment force in West Bengal. The Congress, though in the opposition vis-à-vis the CPI(M), is nevertheless an establishment party having once upon a time reigned in West Bengal and because it continues to run the Government at the Centre.
There is a fundamental divergence between calling for a change and doing things differently. The first is about power shifting from one political party to another. The second is about the ways in which power is employed after the change of Government happens. It is obvious that people like Kabir Suman and Sucharu Haldar believe that as members of the powerful elite their responsibility is to use that power in ways that are significantly different from the past.
In the context of West Bengal achieving the goal of doing things differently is much harder than for instance in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. The Trinamool Congress cannot get away by defeating the CPI(M) and becoming the ruling party. Unlike Mr Lalu Yadav or Mr Nitish Kumar or Ms Mayawati or Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav or the Shiv Sena or the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena where incumbency rearranges, irrespective of the flaws in the manner of redistribution, the socio-political power equations.
The Trinamool Congress does not have a specific constituency there are no caste or identity divides in West Bengal that would be automatically altered. The Trinamool Congress’s constituency includes the expanding numbers of voters aggrieved with the establishment. Having positioned itself as the anti-establishment, breaking away from the Congress, confronting the CPI(M), opposing land acquisition for industrialisation, opposing the policy of Special Economic Zones, it needs to sustain that act in order to keep voter sympathy.
The Trinamool Congress is the new party, unburdened by the past. It is not an establishment party unlike the CPI(M) and the Congress, both of whom have ruled the State for almost 30-year spells. A rebel within its ranks challenges its brand equity. However, the rebel could also serve a purpose; Kabir Suman raging against systemic obstacles is also the voice of conscience. Being permanently opposed to the establishment, an angry Kabir Suman within the Trinamool Congress can become a glorified gatekeeper; detecting infiltration of the bad old ways in doing things. It will, therefore, depend entirely on Ms Mamata Banerjee on how she handles the very volatile presence of her public-spirited allies and not just Kabir Suman.
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