Apart from the corruption in the School Service Commission’s recruitment process, there are reports of rampant instances of mining coal, sand and stone and selling for private profit, with apparent assistance from the law keeping force, as also instances of money laundering that are peeping through preliminary investigations by the Central agencies.
Till Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Ganguly opened the Pandora’s Box, the allegations of corruption within the Trinamool Congress (TMC) administration in West Bengal were never official. These allegations till that time were muffled by TMC leaders shouting many other political and unsubstantiated allegations against the Central government. The typical debates in West Bengal, particularly in defence of the TMC style of governance, followed that principle. The problem arose due to credible evidence placed before the court. More so due to acceptance of such documentation prima facie by all adjudicating judges, not merely by a single judge in the High Court.
While the corruption in the West Bengal School Service Commission’s recruitment process has hogged the limelight, there are many other, no less exciting, side stories. There are reports of rampant instances of mining coal, sand and stone and selling for private profit, with apparent assistance from the law keeping force, as also instances of money laundering that are peeping through preliminary investigations by the Central agencies. This has perturbed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee so much that she brought a resolution in the state Assembly, condemning the operation of the Central investigating agencies. Creating a record of sorts, the West Bengal Assembly, on 19 September, became the first state to pass a resolution against the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and other federal agencies. The allegation was that these agencies were “selectively targeting” ruling party leaders of the state and “creating an atmosphere of fear”. Forgotten in the process was the fact that all these cases were monitored by the court. What is more, the most disturbing exposure was by a single sitting judge, Justice Abhijit Ganguly of the Calcutta High Court.
The Assembly resolution stopped short of criticising Justice Ganguly, though in public both Mamata Banerjee and her “nephew” Abhishek Banerjee, had, on many occasions, criticised the judiciary. They levelled statements that some judges were beholden to the ruling BJP and accordingly created cases where there were none. These are contemptuous of the judiciary, therefore the Constitution, by those who took oath and assumed their respective positions based on the Constitutional provisions. The continued slander in public perhaps coaxed Justice Ganguly to take the unprecedented step of talking on TV screen with a Bengali channel. This of course gave rise to criticisms if this was a violation of the conduct rules of judges. Rightly the judge pointed out that the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct 2002 is the guiding principle of how a judge should behave. It says inter alia that “A judge, like any other citizen, is entitled to freedom of expression, belief, association and assembly, but in exercising such rights, a judge shall always conduct himself or herself in such a manner as to preserve the dignity of the judicial office and the impartiality and independence of the judiciary.” In any case we see judges delivering lectures in public fora, and often enough what they say assumes headlines in media. What was unprecedented in this case was Justice Ganguly consenting to get interviewed. He was careful during the interview not to touch upon the ongoing litigation in his court.
A study of the 2002 document indicates that the learned judge did not flout the principles of judicial conduct. On the other hand, the judgment has, in effect, taken his examination of administrative and political impropriety of those in high offices to the court of people. Only politicians in India keep talking of people’s court—even West Bengal Chief Minister the other day invoked it while criticising the judiciary. By taking the issue public, Justice Ganguly has blunted this rhetoric of politicians caught on the wrong side of law.
Political leaderships thrive on distorting truth if not resorting to blatant falsehoods. Careful leaders use this tool carefully, keeping options of escaping in case the lie is called out by some. Sadly, the Chief Minister of West Bengal often enough ends up at risk of losing her face. One recent instance was when she was distributing on 12 September private job offer letters to over 10,000 youths after attending a skill development programme conducted by the state government. Apart from confusion over sending appointment letters to the candidates, it later transpired that many (if not all) such letters were fake since the appointing authorities—private agencies—were surprised to know that they had issued such offers. Once this was exposed the Chief Minister did not hold other scheduled offer letter distribution meetings at Durgapur and Siliguri. The risk taken by the Bengal Chief Minister in creating unverified “job melas” have hurt her already depleting credibility. Evidently, Mamata Banerjee has chosen inefficient people around her. In times of crisis her support system seems to be badly faltering.
Such “mistakes” by the political leadership strengthens the hands of TMC detractors. West Bengal’s popular leader Mamata Banerjee is at her wit’s end. Take the shocking law and order failures of West Bengal’s police in finding a missing five-year-old Dalit boy at Shantiniketan or negligence in identifying two teenaged boys whose bodies were lying unidentified in morgue at Baguihati near Kolkata. In the latter case, Mamata Banerjee as police minister procrastinated over taking actions on the police officials who were accountable. Without learning a lesson, she again was seen sitting over requisite crisis management steps in the case of the child’s murder at Shantiniketan. This gave opportunity to the opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari to take the issue to the people, thereby hurting the Chief Minister’s image further.
Mamata Banerjee’s inability to create an organised disciplined political party as also utter ignorance on matters of the economy led her to rule using cadres from the huge unemployed and unemployable youth of the state. She followed the example of the Left Front government, which had its political muscles in place—from panchayat to parliamentary constituency levels—and accordingly ruled the state unchecked for 34 years. Finally, they lost due to political miscalculation of its national leadership and a sincere but politically suicidal effort by Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, its last Chief Minister, to break away from the past and try to develop the state. By then, the ruling CPM and its allies were so steeped in corruption charges and so used to exercising power that Buddhadeb had lost control over the events. His efforts to growth hurt the vested interests, therefore, political status quo. Mamata Banerjee was thrust to power without any organised party base, but as a shrewd student of West Bengal politics, she knew the value of exercising control over daily lives of Bengalis. Thus, she relied on people who could control the lumpen elements and ensure TMC’s hold over the political system.
The problem arose in generating funds for such cadres. In an economically stagnant state, the party had depended on leakages from the system to lubricate political wheels. This gave rise to syphoning of funds from various government schemes as also plundering state resources—coal, sand and stone smuggling, for example. The other easy option was to charge rent for whatever jobs the state could offer—the SSC scandal is one element of such plan.
Media and so called intellectuals in the state had fallen in line with Mamata and refused to highlight the state’s slide to misery. Those who could, went out of the state—educated, skilled even unskilled people simply left the state and are leaving every day. Those who did not have many options stayed on and sided with the state government. This would have continued unchecked for some more time but for the crusading judge Abhijit Ganguly. Now the Pandora’s Box is open and Mamata Banerjee, her cadres or supporting cheer brigade can do little to salvage the position.
There is one important lesson for the opposition parties, BJP in particular. In 2021, the party attempted to win election by enticing the corrupt from TMC. Evidently BJP’s leadership managing the state were either ignorant or some corrupt or both. If the party hopes to replace TMC in West Bengal BJP needs to carefully select morally and intellectually competent people who can administer as well as instill confidence among the people. People of West Bengal are desperately looking for honest and efficient government to bail them out or it may end up weakening the national fabric badly.
Author Sugato Hazra’s latest book is “Losing the Plot: The Political Isolation of Bengal”.