DNA Edit: All for a meme – Mamata Banerjee can be as dictatorial as anyone else

Those who criticise Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a dictator, need to keep their own slates clean. Topping this list is West Bengal’s formidable Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. She is prone to describe the PM as ‘Hitler’, dictator and the like, without taking her own conduct into account. Mamata’s behaviour is far from lily-white, as an incident last week confirmed.   In Bengal, a 25-year-old BJP youth wing leader was booked under Section 500 of the IPC (defamation), and Sections 66A (offensive messages) along with the non-bailable 67A (punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, in electronic form) under the Information Technology Act.

The charge against Priyanka Sharma is she posted a photoshopped image of the Bengal chief minister on Facebook. On Saturday, she was produced at the chief judicial magistrate’s court in Howrah, which remanded her to judicial custody for 14 days. Sharma, whose Facebook profile describes her as Howrah district club cell convener of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), was held for allegedly posting a picture of actor Priyanka Chopra with her husband Nick Jones at the red carpet of the recent Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Gala in New York, with Banerjee’s face superimposed on the actor’s. The absurdity of the case is evident. Legal experts believe it will be hard for the police to prove obscenity or the meme’s ‘sexually explicit’ nature. Besides, Section 66A, the other provision that Sharma has been charged with, was struck down by the Supreme Court in March 2015.  

Mamata, who finds most others, except herself, dictatorial, has enough critics in Bengal who find her government too overbearing. In this particular case, many people had posted the same meme on social media, yet because of her political affiliations, the BJYM activist was picked up. To speak of being democratic and then use memes to book political opponents, reeks of vendetta and intolerance. Neither is this Mamata’s first misdemeanour. Last month, the Supreme Court had to order the West Bengal government to ensure smooth screening of a political satirical film, which was abruptly taken off the theatres across Bengal. Bhobishyoter Bhoot ran into trouble apparently over some remark by its director Anik Dutta, which was perceived to be critical of Mamata, popularly also known as didi. 

A division bench of justices DY Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta directed the state chief secretary, home secretary and director general of police to ensure that there was no obstruction to the screening of the film at multiplexes and single-screen theatres. The producers of the film later said that once a film had been cleared by the Censor Board of Film Certification, no one had any business to obstruct its release. In April 2012, Ambikesh Mahapatra, a chemistry professor at Jadavpur University, was arrested for circulating an email with a caricature of Mamata. Not only was Mahapatra assaulted, but was also arrested for distributing ‘defamatory’ pictures of the chief minister, which Mamata felt maligned her. Those who live in glass houses need to be careful when they hurl stones at others.