Mamata

History repeats itself, apparently. In Bengal’s political life, historic blunders repeat themselves.

Mamata Banerjee might lack the articulation — and the depth of frustration — of Jyoti Basu who called his party’s decision not to permit him to be Prime Minister an “historic blunder” some years after the deed. But five, or more or less, years from now even she might have occasion to reflect on this October and ask herself if this was the month of another historic blunder.

Even if she does not — because voters may still treat her kindly and no one looks inwards for answers until crippled by despair — nothing stops Bengal from treating the death of its people’s hope for industrial rebirth as the consequence of an historic blunder.

The loss and dejection Ratan Tata’s pullout, caused by Mamata “pulling the trigger”, has left in its numbing wake cannot be measured by the Rs 1,500 crore he was to spend. Nor by the potential loss of investment other businessmen would now be scared to make.

It’s a loss an entire people have suffered that can compare with the individual disappointment of being stopped, by factors beyond one’s control, from fulfilling a lifelong ambition when within handshaking distance.

Such dejection leaves you without the strength to get up. Or, as the minister Nirupam Sen said in the statement defining this state’s moment of despair, “I don’t want to live in Bengal”.

Many, like possibly Sen, can’t afford not to live in Bengal. That includes the willing and unwilling landlosers of Singur who are at the bottom of the despair scale. No land, no work, only the predatory nothing thought.

The Nano had caught the world’s imagination with the halo, ironically, of cheapness, never a ticket to celebritydom. There was no reason for it not to do so in Bengal once Singur became the chosen land. Tata’s entry into Bengal with such a project was the defining moment in Bengal’s history that snapped the trend of industrial desertification.

Just as G.D. Birla packing up and leaving was in the sixties at the height of the Naxalite movement. “I can’t understand how people who worship Lakshmi in every home can do this,” he had said in Bengali with sadness to a young reporter who later worked for an ABP publication.

An exodus that started with a Birla — Philips, Britannia, Brooke Bond, Lipton and Union Carbide followed — would have been reversed by a Tata.

Such was the project’s symbolism. That’s why the emptiness-inducing sense of loss.

Ratan Tata is a businessman who left under duress to cut his losses. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Nirupam Sen are probably a dysfunctional duo at this point in time but will shortly have to pick themselves up by their bootstraps or the ends of their dhotis and get on with governance.

Mamata Banerjee may be feeling lost and sucking on the lollipop of a self-created conspiracy theory while she tries to fall asleep.

On her own she’s unlikely to light upon the realisation of having committed an historic blunder. The responsibility to make her realise lies elsewhere.