While Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee cautioned a section of the media against ‘spreading lies’ against her government, an MP of her own party — Kabir Suman — in his own right as songwriter, composer & singer, is using various media platforms to lambast his own party and the chief. His recent salvo is a two-minute song, ‘Shiladityo – with an apology to Rabindranath.’
The song, a tribute to the farmer, Shiladitya Chowdhury, who was recently arrested for shooting allegedly ‘uncomfortable’ questions at Ms. Banerjee publicly, has been released on Mr. Suman’s website. It is going viral on social and conventional media and the composer-singer claims that it was partly ‘responsible’ for the release of the farmer last week.
Mr. Suman is a controversial artist in West Bengal and is often compared to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen — the two eminent protest singers of the U.S.
No-holds-barred attack
The song, composed within hours of Mr. Chowdhury’s arrest, is a no-holds-barred attack on the State government. ‘ ….get Shiladitya and throw him into prison, let’s make him a servant ’ because ‘he protests’ and such people are always ‘Maoists,’ goes the song. Ms. Banerjee had called Mr. Chowdhury a “crooked man” with Maoist connections before he was arrested by the police.
The MP has also attacked the very idea of the ‘parivartan’ or ‘change’ in the State. ‘Change is like slitting the throat,’ he says towards the end of the song.
“It is not one of my favourite Tagore songs – but the words fitted the tune,” Mr. Suman said over phone.
‘Shiladityo – with an apology to Rabindranath’ is a parody of one of the most popular Tagore songs. The song ‘Momo chitte’ (In my mind) composed by Tagore in 1910 is an evergreen hit.
“Suman has used the rhythm and the pace of the song perfectly,” says Shibaji Bandopadhyay, professor of cultural studies at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta.
The song, first posted on Mr. Suman’s website ‘Kabirsumanonline,’ began rolling on multiple social networking sites last week. “It is just hilarious,” said Srabanti Mukherjee, a housewife.
While a few years back most of Mr. Suman’s songs were directed against the CPI(M), of the last 20 songs posted now on ‘Kabirsumanonline,’ only one is directed against the Communists. Some songs empathise with the Maoist movement in central India and West Bengal. Some others overtly reprimand the government of West Bengal.
“The reason is paranoia. Ms. Mamata Banerjee is seeing the ghost of Maoism in everything and restricting all democratic spaces, so I’m doing what I am expected to do — write protest songs,” said Mr. Suman. He refused to accept that he was breaching party discipline. “Ms. Banerjee’s victory is not her victory alone. It is a victory of dead farmers, raped women and every tortured soul from Singur, Nandigram or Lalgarh. I am part of the victory and so are all the voters who have suffered and voted for me. Now if Mamata Banerjee refuses to take any criticism from any of these people — what do I do,” asks Suman.
He is also ‘keen’ to see himself out of the party, he had said in an earlier interview.
