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Partha Chatterjee and Sanjay Raut are both former professionals, the first an ex-HR executive and the second a former journalist. But today, a coarsened money-oriented politics has taken a terrible toll on society.Īlso read: Dasmunsi fan who had rapport with Buddhadeb too: Story of Mamata’s tainted aide Partha Chatterjee When Maharashtrian middle-class icon Sachin Tendulkar acquired a Ferrari, it was a conspicuous break from the norms of austerity and resistance to flashiness.

Similarly the Maharashtrian middle-class, as exemplified in the residents of Dadar and Shivaji Park, have always taken pride in their literary and social reform ancestors (and their cricket stars), in the legacy of Phule-Shahu Maharaj-Ambedkar. Instead, Bengali heroes are figures like Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Rabindranath Tagore and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose who evoke high ideals of learning and sacrifice. Businessmen have never been Bengal’s heroes. For example, as TMC ‘syndicates’ and Shiv Sena ‘ shakha pramukhs’ wield ever more influence, a new bourgeoisie in Bengal and tough-playing lumpenised groups in Maharashtra have risen to prominence, and politics has become a cutthroat contest for resources.īengal’s bhadralok class, known to prize education and gentility, have always looked at the pursuit of money with some unease. In fact, in the last 30 years, India’s politics has been overturned by the power of money. Today, in a nationwide phenomenon, the crorepati cult seems dominant across most communities and certainly among members of all political parties. To believe that only certain communities are known for their money-making instincts and others not is an old pre-liberalisation notion. When did hauls of cash and gold-once seen among ‘ dabang’ netas elsewhere-start to appear in Bengal of all places?Įarlier this week, in another twist, Maharashtra Governor BS Koshyari was forced to apologise for his remarks about Rajasthanis and Gujaratis being primarily responsible for making Mumbai India’s financial capital. It seems that the greed for cash has caught up with some members of communities traditionally associated with a disdain for money, namely the Bengali bhadralok and the Maharashtrian educated middle-class. The voluble Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, till recently editor of Sena mouthpiece Saamana, who is known for his fluent and fiery editorials, has been charged with money laundering.

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TV images of heaps of currency notes recovered from a close associate of former TMC minister Partha Chatterjee are playing out. In Maharashtra, money laundering charges against a party ideologue over ‘redevelopment’ of a small chawl. A mountain of hard cash, gold bars, and dollars stacked in a room.

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