hat’s on your mind this week

nAs I settle down to write this article, chief minister Mamata Banerjee is conducting her first cabinet meeting with her ministers. I was very young when the Left Front government came to power in 1977. However, in 2011, I have witnessed history in West Bengal. Through my youth, I have witnessed many tumultuous events across the world — the breakdown of the erstwhile USSR; the fall of the Berlin Wall; the fall of the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe; Lech Walesa’s New Poland; the Tiananmen Square massacre; Aung San Suu Kyi’s fight for democracy in Burma (Myanmar) and lately, the democratic revolutions sweeping across the Arab world.

All these were people’s movements. It was people’s wish to determine their destiny. Democracy is, after all, the manifestation of a dominant idea or wish which is accepted by the community through the ballot and the political authority must be responsive to this dominant idea.

The change in West Bengal is, thus, a response to this dominant idea. The Left had lost touch with this dominant idea. The dreams of millions over the past 15 to 20 years need to be fulfilled — a daunting task for Mamata Banerjee and her cabinet.

Much has been said and written about what Banerjee and her cabinet need to do. Looking at the teeming crowds and their adulation at her swearing-in ceremony; it is clear that the expectations are sky-high and deliver she must!

It is easier to oppose but administration is a different thing altogether.

One vital point that this government must remember is to give due importance to merit. The whole system, from top to bottom, must be based on merit and transparency. Let her make new policies and laws but these two pillars must be the foundation of her governance.

As a teacher, I don’t want my students to be left behind in terms of opportunity. They should get equal scope, as found elsewhere in India, with respect to education and employment.

This may require hard and less populist decisions to be enacted. The new government must have the courage to follow it through.

Unlike the Left Front, the Trinamul Congress has no ideological baggage. Banerjee has the freedom to make policies for a better West Bengal. But, of course, her cabinet ministers must also enjoy this same freedom.