New Delhi: A man dressed as Mamata Banerjee being paraded around, hands tied, as he is beaten and kicked by men dressed in BJP colours. An AI-generated video of Banerjee firmly sat on her throne as PM Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi try to unseat her. And voiceovers of Vidya Balan’s hysterical character from Bhool Bhulaiyaa. These were the social media echoes of the BJP’s conquest of Bengal.
In the Viral Spiral of West Bengal election result memes, “Jhalmuri kha ke pura Bengal le gaya” is the chorus. And former (?) chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s refusal to resign is getting primetime treatment. While a good chunk of the memes also question Modi’s promise of pariborton, a majority have opted for the easier laugh: mocking Mamata.
In a reel posted Thursday, influencer Jhilmil Bhatt dressed in a simple white saree and black glasses. Seated on a bed, she smiled sweetly and sang a modified version of Lata Mangeshkar’s ‘Bindiya Chamkegi’:
“Mere aangan jab jeet ke election tu kamal khilayega
Main nahi dungi istifa, keh dungi mujhe loota,
Main na jaaungi…
(In my yard, when you win the election and make the lotus bloom
I won’t resign, will say you have looted from me,
I won’t leave…”
A smiling young man dressed as Modi—an orange Nehru jacket and a white-paint beard—danced along to the lyrics. The video was viewed over 15 lakh times in less than 24 hours. No wonder a whole army of content creators has taken to dressing up as the deposed TMC leader.
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A sadistic pleasure
Jokes on Modi and Didi are hardly new. Long before the elections began, “Lavanena bhojyam” and “hamba hamba ramba ramba” were low-hanging fruit for politically minded memelords. But what about the recent portrayals of a woman who led West Bengal for over 15 years, where she is beaten, kicked around, and shown as a deranged woman? Is it the long-suppressed anger of a suffering populace finally finding release? Perhaps, but it is much more.
Recall the way former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s undergarments were paraded by looters after her home was stormed. There is a sadistic pleasure in stripping power from a woman. The videos enacting indignity for Mamata are sentencing her to a digital walk of shame. It’s what the scales of mob justice demand.
The attacks on Modi were much more restrained. “It is Modiji’s benevolence that he wins by holding elections,” was the Hindi text on more than one reel.
Not all the chatter was about the two political giants, however. A stray video featured two Leftists rubbing tobacco, assuring each other that one day, god willing, they would return to power.
“Communists and bhagwan pe bharosa??” wrote a commenter, following it with four crying emojis.
(Edited by Janaki Pande)