Heckling Mamata Banerjee in Oxford guarantees her a hero’s welcome in Kolkata

There is one singular deed by Banerjee that deserves a hat tip. She did at Kellogg College, Oxford, what Prime Minister has not risked doing yet, either at home or abroad.

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took on hecklers at Kellogg College, Oxford, on 28 March, saying, 'You have the right to speak. This is a democracy' | X screengrab

Mamata Banerjee goes to Oxford to deliver a lecture. A handful of people in the audience hurl hostile questions at her on issues that to her are like red rags to a bull: the RG Kar rape and murder in Kolkata, the rise of communal politics in West Bengal, and the flight of industry from the state, like the Tatas from Singur. Banerjee identifies her tormenters as “Left, ultra-Left and some communal forces” but doesn’t flounce off in a fit as she was wont to in the past. Instead, she cajoles them—“brothers”, she calls the hecklers—and admonishes them for turning the venue at Kellogg College into a political platform.

This noisy 10-minute showdown turns Banerjee’s otherwise bland Oxford outing into banner headlines at home. She is guaranteed to get a hero’s welcome from her supporters when she returns to Kolkata.

In other words, the politically super-savvy Banerjee turns a knotty situation at Oxford into one in which she emerges as a victim of a conspiracy by her hecklers, who are identified as members of the Left-leaning Students Federation of India (SFI). An adversarial situation has been turned into an opportunity to berate the hecklers’ parent party, the CPI-M, which is her political rival back home.

But is it a total win-win? Banerjee went to Oxford to flaunt the success of her welfare schemes to empower women in West Bengal. But that was overshadowed by the fiasco at her lecture. She went to woo investments, most desperately, a direct Kolkata–London flight. But has she got anything substantial on that front? Publicly, no, she hasn’t. Instead, the fiasco has turned the glare back on the RG Kar rape and murder, on divisive Hindu-Muslim politics in the state, and on Banerjee’s claims about industrial investments, which need to be less opaque.

And all these warts went on display before a foreign audience.

Will Banerjee’s Operation Oxford catapult her to a better place or simply boomerang?

 

Overconfident & underprepared

Buzz is, Banerjee and her entourage of bureaucrats and journalists knew something was cooking. They were anticipating protests not just at Oxford but also at their first stop on the tour: London. Nothing happened in the capital city. But before heading out for Oxford, a member of her entourage, TMC spokesperson, Kunal Ghosh, declared in a social media reel that protests against the rape and murder of the RG Kar doctor were most likely at Oxford. Using cricketing idioms, he said Mamata Banerjee was all padded up to hit any googly all the way for a six.

And she largely did. She swatted away the RG Kar question, saying the matter was sub judice and that the Centre was in charge. She even took a potshot at the protestors, saying she knew all about how they had crowdfunded the protests in Kolkata back in August last year. On the state of Hindus in Bengal, she shot back all “castes” (sic) were equal for her.

চিত্ত যেথা ভয়শূন্য, উচ্চ যেথা শির

She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t falter. The more you heckle, the fiercer she roars. Smt. @MamataOfficial is a Royal Bengal Tiger!#DidiAtOxford pic.twitter.com/uqrck6sjFd

— All India Trinamool Congress (@AITCofficial) March 27, 2025

 

But when it came to the question of investments in industry in the state, Banerjee stumbled on numbers, confusing lakhs and crores and millions of rupees, and faltered on the names of companies that had actually invested in Bengal. Given that her whole visit to the UK was to seek investments, this pitfall should have been avoided.

Perhaps Banerjee knew all the relevant data by heart, but was frazzled by the abrasive questions from the heckling students. Aggressive questions she is not really used to back home.

BJP has a stick to beat her with

Banerjee’s hosts, however, asked her the mildest questions — just a couple of what journalists call “softies” or “lollipops” or “vanilla questions” — so that an interview can end on an upbeat, happy note. But Banerjee’s answers have come under the BJP scanner and are being labelled anti-Indian. Similar charges were levelled against Rahul Gandhi after his various lectures at foreign venues in recent years.

One of the questions was about India’s economy overtaking the UK’s on its way to becoming the world’s biggest in 2060. But instead of a vanilla answer, Banerjee blurted out, “I will differ that (sic). There are so many things what I should not speak here, internal matter, external affairs matter. I cannot disclose… I have some other opinion…”

The BJP is touting this as an insult to the nation and is determined to milk it to the last drop.

Where Mamata showed spine

Could Operation Oxford come back to haunt Banerjee in future? Or did she hit bull’s eye with her performance? On her flight back to Kolkata, Banerjee will no doubt be wondering how things will eventually turn out, especially as the 2026 Assembly elections and a possible fourth term as chief minister are exactly one year away.

But there is one singular deed for which Banerjee deserves an unreserved hat tip. She did at Kellogg College what Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not risked doing yet, either at home or abroad: facing uncensored, unscreened questions from the public on live TV. Rare.

Monideepa Banerjie is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. She tweets @Monideepa62. Views are personal.

(Edited by Asavari Singh)