No mamata for holiday seekers in Bengal

With dry days drying up considerably, appetites in Bengal would obviously be whetted for free time to commune with the hearty spirits thus freed from the confines of abstemious officialdom. So, the Mamata Banerjee government’s diktat busting all bandh holiday hopes in the first week of September must come as serious dampener.

Cracking down on obstreperous industrial agitators is one thing, denying others — notably the congenitally languid Bengali babu — the right to a few bonus holidays bespeaks an effort to change the culture of the state carefully nurtured over the preceding five decades. No one except commuters and store owners would cavil at the assertion that bandh organisers are considerate people. They still choose days abutting normal holidays, to allow stressed citizens the chance of a few 'stolen' holidays, empty streets and resultant peace and quiet.

The stern curtailment of any moves to exploit such ersatz holiday options may lead the chief minister’s detractors to discern a dastardly plot to take Bengal back a century, especially given the state’s recent return to a single-word name. However, since a hundred years ago Bengal actually spearheaded a swadeshi movement-spurred industrial revolution, Banerjee may not be entirely displeased at the allusion, allegation or outcome.