2011 - India was different. Bharat Mata was more friendly to women leaders unlike 2026 when the stage is almost set to oust India's only woman chief minister, that is Mamata Banerjee.
Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Congress party, was by far the most influential single politician in the country. She remote controlled the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the UPA Govt.
The so-called National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by Sonia easily over ruled union cabinet and as a doting mom, - Italian or Indian - Sonia was planning big for her son Rahul Gandhi and a bit also for daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
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| Mayawati - Once a PM-material; now marginalised in UP |
Other prominent female politicians included Late Sheila Dikshit, then chief minister of the national capital, Delhi.
And by May 2011--- even Anna Hazare-Arvind Kejriwal combo had not surfaced in the debate in the Lutyen's city nor at the spacious Ram Lila ground.
In Uttar Pradesh, BJP supremo Mayawati ran the government with men 'netas' in her party including Brahmins regularly meeting her and even touching her feet.
Even the president of India, a largely ceremonial position, was also a woman - Pratibha Patil, -- onetime die-hard loyalist of Sonia Gandhi.
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| Mamata : Younger Days |
By May 13 (2011); state assembly election results came in and in Tamil Nadu it was Jayalalitha all the way wresting power from DMK. And in Bengal by ousting the communists, Mamata Banerjee had emerged big.
In 2011 after the mandate came in; On being asked if Mamata would be able to live up to the challenge of rebuilding West Bengal, former journalist M J Akbar had said,
"The foremost challenge for her will be finding jobs for youth - which the CPI-M denied them - and if she can't provide solutions to these issues, she is going to have far more bigger problems.
She has to win the private sector, which will be a very important challenge. But I believe, she is fully conscious of her responsibility."
Saying that 'it's a dream come true' for the Trinamool, Akbar added, the Left is a movement, 'which is not going to die and for a rebirth, you have to accept death"
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| Buddhadeb Bhattacharya - CPI-M leader ousted in 2011 |
See, how much things have come a full circle.
The Communist parties in West Bengal have seen their once powerful support base weakened by corruption, poor administration, a series of land protests and a failure to bring any serious economic growth and the gross failures to provide jobs.
Late Vinod Mehta, then the editor of 'Outlook' news magazine, said in 2011 the Left Front had lost power because of "more than three decades of misgovernment and dogma".
In 2026 - if Mamata has to bow out, the same issues would be debated once again. In politics - certain things remain as permanent point of pains and intellectual discourse.
ends
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