I am not an advocate of either the Left’s or Mamata’s brand of politics, and this is not a philosophical defence of her as a politician. But, as the media in the past few days wrote over and over again about woman power in Indian politics, clubbing her with many other names ruling several states, I thought there was one simple fact that set Mamata's case apart from all other powerful women: there is simply no man in the backdrop of her political strength. She has no surname to ride on. She is nobody’s protégé, wife, widow, sister, or daughter. She has not inherited a mantle from anyone. She is, simply, the only man in her political establishment.
Of course, that has been said for others before. Indira Gandhi was called the only man in her establishment, and today Mayawati is the sole terror in the BSP. But while Indira’s guts cannot be denied, she did not have to start at the base and make her way up; she was a prime minister’s daughter before she became prime minister. Sonia has made her mark in Indian politics today, but she would not have been Congress president if she had not been married to Rajiv Gandhi. In fact, across the subcontinent, which does not empower women very enthusiastically, we can justifiably be proud of the political positions held by an Indira or a Sonia in India, or by a Benazir in Pakistan, a Sirimavo Bandarnaike and Chandrika Kumaratunga in Sri Lanka, a Sheikh Hasina and a Khaleda Zia in Bangladesh. But, without taking any credit away from what they all have done, they began their political journeys as women related to men of some political consequence, if not men of supreme political consequence in their respective countries. Indira was the daughter of a prime minister; Benazir was the daughter of a deposed and executed prime minister; Bandarnaike was the widow of an assassinated prime minister while her daughter Chandrika was one of the few people in the world to have both parents serve as prime minister; Khaleda was the widow of an assassinated president; Sheikh Hasina was the daughter of an assassinated president.
Interestingly, President Asif Zardari represents a prominent subcontinental gender reversal of that pattern – of riding on the wave of an assassinated relation to the top of the political system – but that’s a story for another day.
The trend doesn’t stop at the Indian subcontinent alone. Corazon Aquino was the widow of an assassinated Senator who rode to presidency; even the much respected Nobel laureate, Aung San Su Kyi, is the daughter of an assassinated national icon whose name is embedded in her own, and whose legacy she has carried on at great personal cost.
Within the country, Jayalalithaa inherited the mantle from MGR: if I recall correctly, there were ugly scenes between her and MGR’s widow’s supporters after the superstar’s demise. The public chose her as the bearer of his legacy, and she, of course, carved out her own space subsequently. Kanshi Ram built the BSP from scratch and mentored Mayawati, till, of course, it came to a role reversal and in his last days he was virtually secluded from the world and in her care – or custody, as some say. A similar track could be dug out in many other cases, or at least in the majority of instances. Rabri Devi, of course, is a one of a kind example. I haven’t run through a database, but am arguing a common sense perception call. There probably will be strong women leaders at different levels, who have made it from the grassroots completely on their own strength, but as you go towards the apex, to the levels of the CMs and the PM, the pattern described above seems to be the predominant one.
I do not for a moment suggest that these women are not achievers in their own right, or that they have not fought their own battles. I only wish to point out that the voter in the subcontinent, in standing by women leaders, has not often stood by a woman who has no political family, track, history, who commands no sympathy – someone who is simply a political leader, with gender being of no consequence.
But Mamata has had nobody whose political legacy she has taken forward, no mentor who launched her, nobody in whose name she has ever asked for votes. As she assumes charge of one among the most volatile political states in the country, she does not even have a party high command she needs to keep happy – something even other women who could see themselves as largely self-made, such as a three-term Sheila Dixit or a fiery Uma Bharati, need to think about when they serve as chief ministers.
I do not know how Mamata will govern West Bengal; she may turn it completely around, or make a mess of it. But either ways, her political victory is one of the few instances of a subcontinental woman – a lone woman – making her way from zilch in the political system and earning the support of millions of voters, of fighting the establishment just by herself, with no launchpad. She neither owes any share of success to a family legacy, nor owes answers to a political supreme command. She is her own political brand, 100%. For that, alone, her electoral win is perhaps a milestone.
So when she says, grammar be damned, ‘I am a simple man’ – yes, in fact, today, she’s simply the man in Bengal.
