Early Life of Mamata Banerjee

Early Life of Mamata Banerjee

                                                           -  Dr. Keshab Chandra Mandal

                                                           E-Mail: mandalkeshab2013@gmail.com

Mamata Banerjee is one of the most famous and influential people in not merely the whole of West Bengal or India, rather in the whole world as her popularity reached the zenith with the culmination of the uninterrupted 34-year-old rule of the CPI (M)-led Left Front government over West Bengal. Mamata Banerjee is not only popularly known as “Didi” (elder sister) in West Bengal and to her party members and supporters, but also to the common people in entire India. She has already earned many epithets like ‘a firebrand leader’ ‘tigress of Bengal’ ‘rough and tough leader’, ‘most humble leader’ ‘most ordinary chief minister’ ‘rubber slipper-worn chief minister’, ‘most far-sighted leader’, ‘most popular leader’ ‘dictator chief minister’, ‘most talented chief minister’, ‘most hard-working’ and ‘most down to earth leader’ in India. This most humble and workaholic chief minister of West Bengal was born on 5th January 1955 in a lower middle class family at Hazra in Kolkata. But she herself has written in one of her books – Ekantey that “durgapujar mahastamir din sandhipujar samay amar janma”, (she was born on the eighth day of Durgapuja while Sandhipuja was going on). Her mother told her that date of birth, while in her school certificate the date 5^th January is written and it is now recognized as official.

   Her father Promileshwar Banerjee was a small businessman and a freedom fighter. The relation with her father has nicely been described by Mamata Banerjee in her book – Ekantey. She wrote that she was lovingly called as “Monababa” by her father, who passed away at an early age of 42 at P.G. Hospital without proper care and attention by the doctors. Her father taught her ‘not to do injustice with people.’ She was greatly influenced by the teachings of her dear father as we find similar influence of father in case of former President of India Dr. A.P.J. Kalam, who wrote in his Wings of Fire, “I inherited honesty and self-discipline from my father; from my mother, I inherited goodness and deep kindness and so did my three brothers and sister.”³ In her childhood days she was a student of Bhabanipur Girls’ High School. She had many friends in her locality. “Tader sange gadi khela, dang-guli khela, guli khela, Gangai santar kata sob-e chilo nitya-noimittick ghatana,…..but putuler biye deoata chilo sobcheye majar” (“Playing Gadi, Dang guli, marble, and swimming in the river Ganga were her daily activities”, but the most interesting game was wedding of dolls). Mamata Banerjee was graduated in History from the Jogamaya Devi College in Arts. She got her Master's Degree in the same subject from the University of Kolkata. She had also done B.Ed. from Shri Shikshayatan College. Later she secured a Bachelor’s degree in law (L.L.B) from the Jogesh Chandra Chowdhury College of Law, Kolkata. She pursued research work also. Throughout her political life she had never spent money on clothes, cosmetics, jewelry and other luxury goods. She is one of the best all-rounders ever born in West Bengal. She knows every type of talent starting from debate, painting, singing and so many more arts. People say Mamata Banerjee loves writing poems and drawing pictures when she is not at work. She is an author of several books, which are selling in every corner of West Bengal and some pockets of India. Since her adulthood, she became a devotee of Sri Ramkrishna and Swami Vivekananda, whose teachings still she follows in her daily life.