There can be no better evidence of the state of education in West Bengal than the fiery speech by the Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member and heir apparent Abhishek Banerjee at a college ground in Medinipur last week in which he expounded on the importance of Raja Ram Mohun Roy. Only, while highlighting the stalwart’s effort to rid 19th century society of the evil of sati, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s favourite nephew got his facts all mixed up.

“Had it not been for Ram Mohun Roy," he thundered to the mostly young audience, “if your mother or mine died today, our fathers would have had to jump into the burning pyre with them!" Internet humour is always lightning fast with repartee so there was the inevitable riposte, “Is he talking about Sati Pratha (Custom) or Pati Pratha (Husband Custom), punning on the fact that Sati is also considered the ideal wife. But there are far more serious questions.

For instance, did the honourable MP know so little about the horrific practice and one of the greatest social reforms in Bengal that he thought the abolition of sati in 1829 led to men being saved from immolation on their spouses’ pyres, not women? He was not reading from a teleprompter, so his faux pas cannot be blamed on some ignoramus on his speech-writing team either. Unless he had been wrongly briefed before the event, the ignominy is entirely his.

Even more intriguingly, all the TMC notables sitting on the dais behind Banerjee, listening intently to every word he was saying, showed no sign of surprise or consternation at his novel inversion of the cruel practice of sati. So, was Banerjee informed about his disastrous boo-boo afterwards........

© News18