When the first time MP from Krishnanagar, Mahua Moitra made her debut in the 17th Lok Sabha with a fiery speech last week, it created a huge furore on social media. The newly elected TMC MP is in news again as she submitted a breach of privilege motion against ZEE News and its editor Sudhir Chaudhary, albeit it was rejected by the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
Who is Mahua Moitra?
Representing the Krishnanagar constituency in West Bengal, Mahua Moitra is an MP of the All India Trinamool Congress. A former investment banker with JP Morgan Chase in New York City and London, she is an Economics and Mathematics graduate from Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley in Massachusetts, United States. She was a Vice President at JP Morgan Chase when she decided to move to India in 2008 and begin her political journey. Her stint as a politician started with the Congress and later she joined the TMC to test her political fortune. She was elected as an MLA from the Karimpur constituency in 2016. Having been the national spokesperson for TMC, Mahua Moitra was elected to the Parliament for the first time in the recent Lok Sabha elections.
Why Was She In The News?
The country’s political climate just got hotter as the 23rd of March saw the BJP come back to power with a thumping majority. Chants of ‘Jai Shree Ram’, ‘Allah-Hu-Akbar’ and ‘Vande Mataram’ during the oath-taking ceremony of the 17th Lok Sabha was nothing less than a political drama. Just as it appeared to us that the Parliament had turned into a circus with MPs juggling with Parliamentary ethics, Mahua Moitra rose as the voice of dissent.
In her maiden speech in the Parliament, Mahua Moitra overshadowed all the stalwarts and veterans in the house as she spoke with courage about how the country, according to her, was showing signs of early fascism. In her speech, she bravely mentioned the following 7 signs of fascism that India has been reflecting under the current regime:
- Superficial Nationalism (She made a reference to the NRC exercise),
- Disdain for Human Rights (She referred to the lynching of Pehlu Khan and Tabrez Ansari),
- Suppression of Dissent,
- Government Control over Media, organized spreading of fake news,
- Obsession With National Security,
- Mixing of Religion and Government and
- The Lust to Divide, Not to Unite.
Her reference to the Constitution of India being under threat invited a lot of traffic on social media. Some hailed her speech as an act of bravery, while the Right-Wingers could not come to terms with the fact that a ‘Woman’ from the ‘Opposition’ had dared to speak against them and their excesses in a house full of Right-Leaning MPs.
What Renewed The Controversy?
While the whole debate around Mahua who was hailed for her speech had cooled down, a report by the ZEE News Editor Sudhir Chaudhary rekindled the controversy. It just proved her point about fake news and propaganda as the news channel reported that her speech had been plagiarised from an article by the U.S. based commentator Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly in 2017.
As soon as the fake piece of information was received by the troll-army, an aggressive trolling spree was unleashed against Mahua Moitra. What came to rescue Mahua was a tweet from Martin Longman himself where he remarked that the news of Mahua’s speech being plagiarised from his article was fake.
Mahua Moitra moved a privilege motion against the News Channel and its editor, although the speaker rejected it.
Lessons From The Controversy
There has been an upsurge of Right Wing nationalism, not just in India but all throughout the world. In my opinion, fake news and propaganda are tools of the incumbent government to distract people from the real agenda. The controversy has brought to light how people fall victim to the spread of fake information.
The Need For More Mahua’s In The Indian Political Scene
Mahua’s speech was an outrageous attack on the government that has been in power for the last five years and has been re-elected. A strong opposition that voices its opinion in the times that the government commits excesses is the need of the hour. The Congress is limp and lame when it comes to its current form as it has lost its charm to lead as well as to oppose. Mahua may sound hypocritical to some in her remarks on authoritarianism, given her association to TMC but her act deserves accolade and appreciation. There is a need for more people of her kind in Indian politics.
As B.R. Ambedkar spoke in the Constituent Assembly on the 26th November 1949, “By Independence, we have lost the excuse of blaming the British for anything going wrong. If hereafter things go wrong, we will have nobody to blame but ourselves.”
Let us hope that we won’t let the country go into the wrong hands. Let us hope that the democratic and constitutionalist spirit of the country stays alive. Let us hope dissent registers its voice.