"Pursuit Of Excellence In Literature, Painting And Poetry": Bengal Governor's Glorification Of Mamata Banerjee Draws Disdain

Bengal Governor C.V Anada Bose went overboard with his praise for chief minister Mamata Banerjee, and drew a lot of mockery and derision for that. 

Bose, speaking at a function Monday (6 January) evening where a D.Litt was conferred on Banerjee by the private St. Xavier’s University, called the chief minister an “eminent statesman”, lauded her political acumen and extolled her “pursuit of excellence in literature, painting and poetry”. 

To add to the amusement of students, teachers and others attending the event, Bose put Banerjee on the same pedestal as former Presidents Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan and A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, former Czech Republic president and eminent writer Vaclav Havel and eminent English poet-novelist John Milton!

Bose told the gathering that Mamata Banerjee was conferred the D.Litt not for her “political acumen” but for her “pursuit of excellence in literature, painting and poetry”. The chief minister, he said, had won many awards from the “people’s university” for her political acumen, said Bose in reference to Banerjee winning many elections in Bengal. 

The Governor told the incredulous gathering: “We also have none other than A.P.J Abdul Kalam who gave Wings Of Fire to the young generation and also ignited their minds through his writings. We have the poet A.B Vajpayee in whose team Mamata Banerjee was also a distinguished member. These were all statesmen and politicians who were writers. We also have Winston Churchill and we have John Milton. Milton is known for his Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained and he was also a statesman”. 

“We, the people of Bengal, are glad that in this distinguished league we have none other than Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. Kudos to her on this deserved recognition (the D.Litt she was awarded). Now how did she get it is the question. When Euclid, the geometrician, was asked by Ptolemy what was an easy way to learn geometry, Euclid answered that there was no royal road to geometry. There is no royal road to literature, there is no royal road to learning. She has earned it through her pursuit of excellence in art and literature,” the Governor said. 

“It is a matter of great delight to me that I have been able to witness this great occasion when my distinguished constitutional colleague, Mamata Banerjee, is honoured deservedly by this great institution (St. Xavier’s University). I see above me, I see around me ancestral voices praising her, praising the moment because in the Vedas it is said that when women are honoured, the Gods rejoice. This is an occasion when a deserving woman leader has been honoured with a D.Litt,” Bose said. 

The Governor’s extravagant praise of Banerjee evoked a lot of disdain. Many even questioned his intentions and said that he had lowered the dignity of his office. Bose’s undeserving praise for the chief minister is unbecoming, said a number of people from different walks of life who spoke to Swarajya. 

That’s also why her ‘paintings’, if they can be termed as such, have never found any favourable response from the commercial art world. Banerjee’s paintings are only bought by her wealthy party colleagues and her coterie of businessmen, as well as those who seek favours from the state government. 

The purchase of one of her paintings by Saradha chit fund scam prime accused Sudipta Sen for a whopping Rs 1.8 crore had caused a controversy. Some of her other paintings were also purchased by owners of some other ponzi firms for lakhs of Rupees. The CBI, while investigating this, had told a court that the paintings did not deserve such high prices. 

The chief minister’s literary works have also been trashed often by many. She has written hundreds of poems, and all are quite “purposelessly nonsensical”, as an eminent Bengali poet who did not want to be named told Swarajya. 

“The Governor is an educated and accomplished person and it does not suit such a person to shower undeserved praise on poems or paintings of a person which singularly lack merit or even a small flicker of quality. No one will disagree with the fact that Mamata Banerjee’s literary works are worthless,” said an award-winning Bengali writer. 

“Perhaps the Governor has some personal motive in showering such a lot of undeserved praise on her. This is most unusual and incomprehensible. One can understand and endorse the need felt by the present Governor to have cordial ties with the Chief Minister. But he went overboard and his speech was like a fawning tribute to some non-existent qualities of the chief minister,” said a well-known professor of Bengali of Calcutta University. 

A former IAS officer who retired as an additional chief secretary told Swarajya that the Governor went “way too far by putting Mamata Banerjee on the same pedestal as Radhakrishnan, Kalam, Vajpayee, Churchill, Vaclav Havel and Milton”. “Was he out of his mind? He broke all limits of credulity. It does no honour to his constitutional post,” said the former bureaucrat. 

A person who was present at Monday’s gathering told Swarajya that Bose’s praise of Mamata Banerjee became a subject of a lot of mirth and ridicule after the event. “We all joked about it and wondered what’s wrong with the present Governor. Many people also ridiculed him,” said this person who not only declined to be named, but also wanted his association with St. Xavier's University to be kept under wraps. 

Governor Bose, with his gushing praise of Mamata Banerjee, may have succeeded in pleasing her and other Trinamool worthies,but has surely lost the respect of many in Bengal. Even some level-headed Trinamool leaders cringed at Bose’s praise of Mamata and felt uncomfortable to talk about it.