KOLKATA: Social media has erupted in laughter and, largely, sniggers over CPM’s decision to change its Facebook and Instagram display picture. The new photo — where blue skies and white clouds form the backdrop of a yellow hammer-and-sickle — has reminded almost every commenting netizen of the favourite colours of Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, CPM’s nemesis, inviting thousands of comments and trolls. Almost as glaring is the complete absence of even a speck of red on the new display photo.
CPM Bengal unit’s Instagram ID, “cpimwb”, has 81,300 followers. There were 13 comments and nine forwards on this platform regarding the image change. The Facebook page, which has 4,67,000 followers, drew 1,100 comments and 448 shares.
The change from the iconic red prompted several netizens to jump to their own humour- and poison wit-laced conclusions. “Firbe na aar se firbe na (It will not return),” a particularly caustic comment — from Soumik Das of Madhyamgram, drawn from a popular Bangla song by the band Cactus — sought to capture the party’s situation in Bengal.
CPM held Bengal in its iron grip from 1977 to 2011. It was still the major opposition party in 2016, when it won 26 seats in the assembly and 19.7% votes. But, since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the party has consistently polled low double-digit or single-digit percentages, getting only 5.7% of votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Party senior Sujan Chakraborty, a central committee member, sought to play down the controversy. “It was just a change in the look of the logo,” he said. “Change of a display picture in social media is nothing new for any individual or organisation. In the last few years, we have changed the logo eight times.”
He also reminded everyone “not to read too much into the changed DP, as our flag remains a vibrant hue of red and we are not wavering from our commitments to end exploitation of man by man”.
Satarup Ghosh, a CPM state committee member, was more blunt in his reaction: “We don’t think the sky, or its allusion, is patented by Trinamool,” he said. Ghosh also said the party was happy at the new DP being being shared “more by Trinamool supporters”. “You don’t see anything other than the hammer and sickle on Facebook now. Our purpose is served,” he said.
The red flag was first adopted by the Jacobins during the French Revolution, as a symbol of their willingness to die as martyrs to the cause. Gradually, the red flag stood for socialism, communism and revolution. CPM’s red flag has a crossed hammer and sickle in white at the centre.
Blogger Anirban Hati of Beliaghata pointed out how former Kerala chief ministers E K Nayanar and EMS Namboodiripad alleged Arundhati Roy of being factually incorrect in her book “God of Small Things”, where Roy had used the phrase “the red has bled away” in the context of a faded flag on the roof of Comrade Pillai’s house. “Decades later, the Left have no hard-line left,” Hati wrote. Netizen Sandip Ghosh wrote that the background fit “Didi’s favourite colour. Fish fry and Mutton Kasa will be on the menu again.”
