When Politicians lose their marbles...

What does a nation or a state do when confronted with politicians who have figuratively and literally lost their marbles? Take the case of Mamata Banerjee, the indomitable and maverick politician, who ironically swears by the three P’s – Painting, Politics and Poetry – don’t ask me in what order. She has single-handedly managed to hold an entire state to ransom by going hammer and tongs at the TATA’s ‘Nano’ car project at Singur; and going by the latest reports the TATA’s are peeved at the way the dispute has been handled and are in a good mood to pull out of the state and relocate their signal small car project.

It’s a strange breed of mammals these politicians – thinking the shortest of the short term – if and when they are thinking, if at all! If this wasn’t enough we have so called ‘intellectuals’ and ‘social activists’ a.k.a. Medha Patkar and her likes – who love nothing but diving right into the already murky waters as soon a ripe and juicy opportunity presents itself – Singur being a case in point. The Singur impasse has all the portents of pushing the state back into the industrial dark ages with the Wipro’s and Infosys’s of life emitting ominous growls.

While there will always be a heated debate on whether agriculture should take precedence over industry or vice-versa, in so much as land is concerned – the ability to arrive at an amicable solution, where the interests of each of the stakeholders are addressed to the maximum extent possible, is what is sorely missing from our political masters. While listening to the Guv (Gopal Krishna Gandhi), who mediated between the opposition and the government, I felt the TATA’s would necessarily have been taken into confidence by the back-room boys and posted minute by minute on the unfolding discussions. It is stupefying to even think that a government would go-ahead and negotiate deals with its distracters without taking one of the principal stakeholders into confidence. What use is of having an intellectual in Buddhadev Bhattacharya as the Chief Minister?

On one hand we have the intransigence of Mamata Banerjee, who like Nero was painting Khaas Phool (a kinda flower?), confident in the belief that she is doing good for the state and its populace, while infact she had single-handedly managed to push ‘industrialisation’ on an express elevator to hell. On the other side of the coin are the honourable Chief Minister and his colleagues working like a pair of Tweeddalde and Tweeddaldums unaware of the basics of negotiating deals – forever content with igniting and fighting fire.