KOLKATA, India — She spent her life fighting communists but is the biggest obstacle to economic liberalization in India today. She is the leader of a small regional party but wields more power than the prime minister.
Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of the state of West Bengal, is a rising force in Indian politics, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton paid a special visit to Kolkata this month to meet her.
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The 57-year-old Banerjee — determined, resolutely populist and hardworking, yet eccentric and intolerant of dissent — holds the balance of power in India’s coalition government and has used that political might to huge effect.
Time after time, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s efforts to introduce economic reforms have foundered because of Banerjee’s opposition. Time magazine recently listed her among the world’s 100 most influential people, and 25 out of 50 CEOs surveyed by a leading Indian newspaper last week said she was the biggest stumbling block to economic growth.
Banerjee is the personification of a fundamental change that is transforming Indian politics: the declining vote share of the country’s two main political parties and the rising influence of regional parties.
To some, she also personifies a fear that politics will fragment to such an extent that India becomes almost ungovernable, that populists pandering to local interests will block important policy decisions.
“We are not Marxist or capitalist, we are for the poor people,” she said in her first major interview with a foreign newspaper. “Our policy is very clear: whatever policy will suit the people, whatever policy will suit the circumstances, whatever policy will suit my state.”
Nicknamed “Didi,” or elder sister, Banerjee wrested power last May from a communist government that had ruled the state of West Bengal for 34 years. But she has been no better for business and investment than her predecessors were, to the disappointment of those who had hoped that the vanquishing of the communists from their biggest foothold in the country would help revitalize eastern India. On the national stage, she holds just 19 seats in the 543-seat Parliament but wields immense influence.
In October, Singh’s government announced a long-promised reform: Foreign supermarket chains such as Wal-Mart would be allowed in. Just 12 days later, worried about the future of small shopkeepers in her state, Banerjee forced the government to back down.
To protect the poor, she has blocked attempts to raise gas prices, despite huge subsidies that are bleeding government finances, and overturned a small increase in railway fares. She opposes legislation that would open the country’s banking, insurance and pension sectors to more foreign investment.
Yet in what may have been shrewd diplomacy, or a sign of a genuine personal rapport, Clinton embraced her warmly. A “remarkable” experience, the secretary of state said of their hour-long discussion, which was characterized as “warm, vibrant and energetic.”
Clinton talked of the “common bond” she shares with women who have broken through barriers of discrimination and braved the fire of electoral politics. Indeed, Banerjee claims to be the only woman who has risen to political power in South Asia without being the widow, orphaned daughter or former girlfriend of an established leader.
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