The problem with left-liberal establishment of the country is that they are uprooted from the ground reality. In the last five years they have time and again concocted narratives of doom to turn voters in the favour of political parties of their choice. With utter disregard for the electorate’s choices, most of them still desperately aim to weave apocalyptic narratives for political gains, when not in power, with heavy but loosely used words like ‘fascism’ and ‘fascist’. A large chunk of the establishment spend their formative years in western nations or in isolated elite environments, and manage to become tragically deracinated, arrogant and selfish. Mahua Moitra, the new darling of left-liberal establishment with her recent Lok Sabha speech and first time MP of Mamata Banerjee led TMC apperas to have a similar experience.
Moitra who is 44 years old had left for the US along with her family at an early age of 15. She studied economics and mathematics at the Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and went on to work as an investment banker at the JP Morgan, eventually rising to the post of company vice-president. She came back to India only in 2008 to look for career in politics and joined the Congress. However, she later switched sides and joined the Mamata Banerjee led Trinamool Congress.
Moitra has been true to her Orientalist teachings and it showed when she did a speech in the Lok Sabha essentially stating ‘7 early signs of fascism in the country’ to take a jibe at the Modi government that just won a second term with a massive majority.
The most important years of her education and career were spent in United States and she sees Indian politics with the lens of American political system. That she is a member of the TMC, a party whose goons are alleged to have killed over a hundred poor political dissidents in West Bengal, is enough to puncture her campaign, a concise rebuttal to which can be read here. But turns out there’s more- Mahua Moitra is so obsessed with American politique that she may have plagiarized her, much celebrated by leftist media among other doomsday scholars, bombastic speech from an article by Martin Longman published in Washington Monthly on January 31, 2017. Longman wrote the article to criticize US president Donald Trump and argued that his administration shows ‘early signs of fascism’ which are listed in U.S. Holocaust Museum.
The holocaust museum has the above poster on which 14 early signs of fascism are listed by Political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt. Longman picked up 12 of these signs for his article to argue that America is moving towards a fascist state under Trump administration and the early signs are visible.
Moitra shortened it further and cherry-picked 7 points to argue that early signs of fascism are visible in India. She picked up content from Longman’s article and basically replaced Trump with PM Modi. This caught the attention of many well-known Twitter users and reducing the TMC MP’s overrated speech into a laughing stock.
“Is Mahua Moitra a plagiarist? Compare https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/01/31/the-12-early-warning-signs-of-fascism/ … & https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/mahua-moitra-speech-in-lok-sabha_in_5d12f9ade4b04f059e4bcd39 … The words aren’t identical but the basic structure (using the Holocaust memorial poster) & ideas have been lifted; instead of @realDonaldTrump she’s lambasting @narendramodi on similar lines,” tweeted Makrand R Paranjape, Director of IIAS Shimla and well know public intellectual.
Is Mahua Moitra a plagiarist? Compare https://t.co/XdRr0rDDW7 & https://t.co/LeVeOEIFnA The words aren't identical but the basic structure (using the Holocaust memorial poster) & ideas have been lifted; instead of @realDonaldTrump she's lambasting @narendramodi on similar lines.
— Makarand R Paranjape, Ph.D. (Illinois) (@MakrandParanspe) July 1, 2019
MAHUA MOITRA DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO GET HER SPEECH WRITTEN – She just “borrowed” 7 points from here. The 12 Early Warning Signs of Fascism by Martin Longman. If you go to the U.S. Holocaust Museum,…” tweeted The Darjeeling Chronicle, a news website.
MAHUA MOITRA DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TO GET HER SPEECH WRITTEN – She just "borrowed" 7 points from here
The 12 Early Warning Signs of Fascism
by Martin Longman
If you go to the U.S. Holocaust Museum,… https://t.co/XwUmPZDph5
— The Darjeeling Chronicle (@TheDarjChron) July 1, 2019
If you heard the speech by Moitra and read the article by Longman, the similarities cannot be missed. In conclusion of the speech, Moitra mentioned that these early signs of fascism are listed at US holocaust memorial but the uncanny resemblance with Longman’s article, the obvious lack of originality and the deviation from reality has raised many questions about the parliamentarian’s sincerity.
The ‘oriental’ teachings of left-liberal establishment have kept away from popular narrative of the country very long. The establishment’s takeover of Congress party destroyed the career of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and reduced them to double-digit seats in last two general elections. Seeing everything from a western perspective or juxtaposing the American political system with that of India’s does not work.
The comparison between any racist, xenophobic, sexist American politician and PM Modi is foolishness only left-liberals could afford. The ideological positions of Trump and Modi are completely different on environment change, economy, trade, and social issues. If the left-liberals do not wish to be marginalized further, they need to pick better icons than Mahua Moitra. If they wish to remain relevant in the intellectual and political discourse of the country, they needed to Indianize themselves.
Mamta may see Moitra as a rival who is growing in stature because of her power of articulation.That her ideas and phrases are borrowed from other sources is known only to a few people. In her recent sojourns, Mamta has become conscious of her own image as the rest of India sees her.The fear is natural because both are independent, domineering personalities.Like poles repel.
My guess about this public haranguing is that it is to pull up some other groups by using Moitra as the obvious target.Didi is shrewd enough to know that Moitra can never connect with the people of rural and small town Bengal the way other leaders from her party do.In fact before the assembly elections in W.B. the people of Moitra’s constituency didn’t even know her name.Like the HMV logo Moitra can only be her boss’ voice in the Lok Sabha.