This is a 'rationalist' and 'humanist' website. This blog is purely for educational and informational purposes. Debashis is associated with Rationalists' and Humanists' Forum of India and is not connected to any political organisation.
Question Time Didi, organised by CNN-IBN at the Town Hall on Friday evening, was meant to be a platform for Mamata Banerjee to field questions from a cross-section of Calcuttans on the eve of her completing one year as chief minister. But less than 12 minutes and five questions into the event, Mamata stormed off, accusing some students of being “Maoists and CPM cadres”.
Taniya Bhardwaj, a Presidency University student whose question about the conduct of some of her ministers prompted Mamata to take off her lapel microphone and leave, writes a letter to her chief minister via The Telegraph:
Taniya Bhardwaj asking the question. Picture by Pradip Sanyal
Sorry Ma’am, but I am not a Maoist.
That is what you, the most important person in Bengal, labelled me at the CNN-IBN question-answer session on Friday at the Town Hall.
What exactly did I do to deserve this honour? I just asked you a question.
I had gone to the Town Hall on Friday just over a year after attending the CNN-IBN Battle for Bengal panel discussion at the same venue on April 21, 2011, and then a few days later, voting for change.
This is what I had written on April 28, 2011, in The Telegraph: “Changeathon 2011 is the most anticipated in recent history…. What makes it particularly exciting is the prospect of a revamped Calcutta ‘in 200 days’, the large number of fresh faces contesting the elections, the renewed hope for industrialisation…. I will vote with my fingers crossed — hoping for paribartan in the truest sense. And when I head to the polling booth, it won’t merely be a voting room, but more like a ‘changing room’.”
I had also written: “We want change, but are scared that we will move from a frying pan to a burning stove. Call me a sceptic, but I don’t see either political party as a positive alternative for Bengal.”
Sadly, a year later, you have proved — on national television — how right I was.
What did I do to earn the label of a Maoist and a CPM cadre from you?
I merely asked you whether affiliates of your party, specifically minister Madan Mitra and Arabul Islam, who wield power should act/should have acted more responsibly.
I, like many others, was greatly disturbed when Madan Mitra pronounced his own judgement on a rape victim before the police were done investigating. The Arabul Islam case, of course, is still making headlines.
I asked you what had been on the minds of most people around me, people who had voted for paribartan. Is this what we expect of our leaders? The ones who set examples and who people follow. This is all that I wanted to know.
What I got to know, instead, was that in Bengal today, asking a question can be equivalent to a Maoist act.
You also spoke of democracy. The answers you gave to the questions you took before mine were sprinkled with words like “people”, “democracy”, “Bengal”. But one of the most important features of a true democracy, which I have learnt as a student of political science, is the freedom of expression. This freedom means to be able to express oneself, to be able to question, to not have to mince words out of fear of authority, to be able to enjoy a chuckle or two at a cartoon about important public figures.
Sadly, there seems to have been a dramatic failure of this aspect of the democratic machinery in the state. And just like I won’t become a Maoist simply because you called me one, the state too won’t epitomise democracy unless it is truly democratic in all spheres.
All said and done, what you did was in haste, and it made me the centre of attention. And as you stomped off in fury, you automatically assumed the role of the spoilsport. Had you stayed on and heard us out, many of us would have left the Town Hall honestly believing that you are “a Chief Minister with a Difference’’. Instead….
You have spoken of the brain drain from Bengal so many times. I hold offers from the University College London and the School of Oriental and African Studies to study development and administration. I too will probably leave, and now you know the reason why.
After a woman was raped at midnight at Park Street of Kolkata on 5 February 2012, a ‘Blame the Victim’ theory had been going around over some state-sponsored news media. At first, the victim was harassed, offended and ill-treated by the police. Then on Wednesday (16 February, 2012) CM Mamata Banerjee said that the woman who had lodged the rape complaint with Park Street police station had “fabricated the story”. She said, “It was a fabricated story to malign the government.”
We can recall when Anita Dewan, an officer with the UNESCO, was brutally raped and murdered by a gang of CPI(M) goons at Bantala in the year 1990, then West Bengal’s former Chief Minister Jyoti Basu had remarked that such things occur so often.
There was also a denial about the involvement of CPI(M) ruffians in the rape and murder of Tapasi Malik at Singur. After the brutal rape and murder of Tapasi, CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose and his party comrades blamed the victim and stated that “it was just a fabricated case against the CPI(M)”. Tapasi’s charred remains were recovered from the “Tata Nano factory site” in Singur on December 18, 2006. “We knew that both Suhrid Dutta and Debu Malik will get bail in Tapasi Malik murder case as the entire allegation was absolutely wrong. It was just a fabricated case against the CPI(M) duro to malign our image,” Biman Bose told reporters on February, 2009. (Surprisingly, that was quite similar to the statement of Mamata Banerjee on the Park street incident !).
But at that time, the opposition leader and TMC Chief Mamata told that the “CBI has been under pressure for some time now”. Has she forgotten that?
Even after so-called ‘Change’, regrettably Radharani Ari and other victims of Nandigram (allegedly raped and sexually abused) and many raped, injured and molested women have not got justice in Jangal Mahal, the location of the historic tribal movement and women’s resistance against the repression by the police, military and party cadres’ (both “Harmads” and “Bhairavs”).
Last year on 14th October, just one day before Mamata Banerjee made the speech in Jhargram, joint forces and police forces went to the house of Sushen Singha, a resident of village Shushnijobi, area Shimulpal under Belpahari PS to arrest him. At that time Shushen was not at home. The police and the joint forces found his wife Sibani Singha in the house and humiliated and raped her. Unable to bear such indignity, Shibani consumed poison to end her life. She was taken first to Belpahari Block health centre and then admitted to Jhargram hospital in an unconscious state. The Jhargram SP, Gaurav Sharma refused to hand over the medical report to the members of the victim’s family. Thanks to the efforts of the physicians, Shibani could regain her consciousness and on her complaints her family members registered an FIR at the Jhargram SP’s office when the Belpahari PS refused to do so on flimsy grounds.
Do we remember what Mamata Banerjee stated publicly then? She stated that “whenever the policemen entered into the villages for investigation, the charge of rape was leveled against them”. What did it imply? It implied that the state’s police forces can do whatever they like and that they would get protection from her side even if they molest or rape. Had she totally forgotten in the year 1998 she was dragged out of the Writers’ Buildings by the police forces under the previous left front regime for bringing the rape case of Champala Sardar to the fore?
Had she failed to recall what happened on 7 January 1993? Mamata Banerjee was then a Union Minister and youth Congress(I) leader in West Bengal. She went to the Writers’ Building with a hearing and speech-impaired girl, who had been raped and was pregnant. Mamata claimed that the rapist was a CPI(M) cadre. She led a 3 hour protest demonstration in front of the Chief Minister ’s chamber. Eventually she was violently thrown out and arrested, some members of the press manhandled, and the Press Corner demolished thereafter. Then Mamata Banerjee vowed she would never return to the Writers’ Building – And she returned only as Chief Minister, 18 years later. The rape victim gave birth to a child brought up in a Home.
On 12th January, 2012 Mamata Banerjee gave an award of Rs 500,000, named “Vivek Puroskar” in the name of Vivekananda, to 7 villages in Jangalmahal which according to her have “showed courage to resist the ‘Maoists’ and help the government bring back peace”. This was nothing but a direct attempt by the present government to encourage vigilantism of the “Salwa Judum” variety as these 7 villages are the places where the “Jana Jagaram Mancha” (locally called the Bhairab Bahini) organized by the TMC have established their strongest foothold. This organization that regularly terrorizes villagers by beatings, threats of false arrests and holding off access to developmental schemes, and forces them to act as informers for the security forces, has established itself in Jangalmahal with state patronage over the last 8 months. Interestingly, one of the villages in this list is Radhanagar, where the vigilante force was originally the CPI(M)’s harmad bahini, organized by the local CPI(M) leader Prasanta Das, who is one of the main accused in the Sonamukhi rapes. He is currently absconding. Remarkably, another village on the same list is Netai, where 9 villagers were killed by firing from another set of the same Harmads. It suggests that the TMC government has no problem in awarding both the ‘Harmads’ and the ‘victims of the Harmads’, as long as it dovetails with the states objective of bringing back “peace” to Jangalmahal. And Mamata has declared that there will be more such awards. We should remind ourselves that Salwa Judum also meant “peace hunt”.
This also reminds us that on Republic Day, Ankit Garg, a Chhattisgarh cadre police officer who is accused of sexually torturing Soni Sori, was awarded the Police Medal for Gallantry.
We can also remember, after Nandigram bloodbath, Lakshman Seth, CPI(M) MP said “We have broken the backbone of the inhabitants of Nandigram. There will be no further resistance there.” (Reported in Dainik Satesman, Kolkata, of April 27, 2008) Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee also showed no remorse over Nandigram carnage. On November 10, 2007 after another barbarous slaughter, when CPI(M) “liberated” the villages that were being controlled by the Bhoomi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee (BUPC) in Nandigram, Buddhadeb said in uncharacteristic defiance: “They (BUPC) have been paid back in their own coin.”
On April 5 2009, former CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee admitted on the floor of the Assembly that over 60,000 girls have been trafficked out of the state in just four short years (between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2008). Out of this, 11,406 are minor girls and 18,681 are children, (i.e. below 10 years). But Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee refused to blame the police for this, and instead praised them for recovering 20,681 girls and children.
And now in spite of being the Chief Minister and the Home Minister of the State, without giving enough time for a thorough police investigation, Mamata Banerjee stated that the Park Street incident was contrived and intended to malign her government. The Minister of State for Transport and Sports, Mr. Madan Mitra, also made offensive public comments about the private lifestyle of the complainant and alleged that the complaint was fabricated to extort money. On 16th February, the present CM’s remark came minutes before police commissioner R K Pachnanda’s press conference where he said that police would “impartially” investigate the case.
Can we ever expect any “Impartial” investigation and “Impartial” judgment from such an atrocious, authoritarian, patriarchal and demonic state?
I am glad finally the victim girl won her battle after her commendable courageous and pertinacious fight for justice and the culprits involved in the Park Street rape case were found out and arrested.
But what about those rape victims and physically assaulted poor women in Jangal Mahal, Nandigram and Singur? Who will raise their voices of protest for protection of their women’s rights and dignity? When will those tortured and sexually abused women get justice? Why ‘Star Ananda’, ‘24 Ghanta’ and other news media who wholeheartedly supported the Anglo-Indian woman and pressurized the police and government to take legal actions are quite silent on rape and violence on poor women in Jangal Mahal? Who will protest against state’s war on people? Who will condemn the ongoing state terrorism in Jangal Mahal? Who will secure lives of those tribal and rural women?
The answer is blowin’ in the wind… …
By: Debashis
General Secretary, Rationalists’ and Humanists’ Forum of India
Fear has crept into them, Robeson…
The collective roar of the people has put fear into them,
The intensity of our solidarity has put fear into them,
The power of our defiance has put fear into them…
(This is an excerpt from a legendary song by Hemango Biswas. The song is old but immortal. It inspires.) Ora Amader Gaan Gaaite Dyay Na (Click here to see in youtube)
Perhaps the most gruesome attack in their history is afoot on the people of Jangalmahal in Bengal. Mamata Banerjee is leading this concerted attack. Benedictions and help are being showered on her from across the whole spectrum of ruling class political parties: from BJP to CPM.
These people in Jangalmahal have little to live on. At times they starve and die. More fortunate people steal even a part of the quota of rice thrown at them at times. Statistics and news are made of them. And when they attempt to assert their right to livelihood and dignity, when they attempt to create an egalitarian democratic order for themselves, Mamata plan to put them in place with sophisticated satellite-assisted guns.
But why pick the Fraulein as a person? After all, there are strings above that control her song and dance, her chappal and muri (see note 1), her theatrics upon the stage and in front of TV cameras. The strings of the Jindals, of the CII, of the ubiquitous multinational capital….
Well, the primary reason is that she is the sole guru of her gang. Open any issue of “Jaago Bangla” (which reads like a serialised hagiography of the Netri by a set of sycophants) and Mamata Banerjee (and mostly only Mamata) is splashed everywhere. Her apparent jealousy of her subordinates is legendary– while she is a cabinet minister, nobody else in her party should get a cabinet-rank post in the Centre so that she can continue to dwarf them! “I made him a minister”, “I put her in that place of chief”…she speaks only in such terms. She, not the people of the locality, is supposed to check the performances of her ministers. People’s rebellion, a glorious people’s rebellion spanning over nearly five years, overthrew the oppressive Left Front government and as a byproduct she succeeded in grabbing the seat of power (why this unfortunate outcome had to occur is a matter of a separate analysis) as happens with a classic fascist takeover. That is why she, the big boss–Mamata, must bear the brunt.
Mamata has come to the forefront of leading the open war against her own people in Jangalamahal. Apart from the military machinery supplied by her chums in the Centre she is attempting to reinforce her private gang of killers in Jangalmahal using government money as dole to the hapless poor there (see note 2).
(And it beats plain thought that her mafia lieutenants picked up the name “Jana Jagaran”–a straight lift from Mahendra Karma’s first stillborn version of Salwa Judum–does evil indeed have a common banal pattern?)
Of course, the Maoist communist activists working in Jangalmahal are picked up as an excuse for exhibiting her gangsterism. They are indiscriminate killers and criminals: shriek the mainstream media and Mamata. This baffles plain thought. Forget the communist activists–like genuine revolutionaries almost everywhere else in the world, they are simply shot at sight in “encounters”. But even the activists of the Peoples’ Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), are either killed or are thrown into jail with false cases and kept there for years as `preventive detainees’, their family members are beaten up and threatened and so on…. If these workers for the people’s movement decided simply to gain by committing crimes with the assurance that the police wouldn’t touch them, wouldn’t they rather have joined the CPM in the previous government so that they could amass capitation money by setting up fake medical colleges built using covert extortion? Or, wouldn’t they rather have flocked to the Trinamool Congress now so that Mamata could descend on a police station as benediction personified and annul their arrest for a crime.
Click the link below for an account of this extraordinary incident.
“When Mamata shouted at senior policemen “
Perhaps having to kill an incorrigible informer of the state or a local goon-leader becomes unavoidable simply to survive when all routes to justice and freedom are blocked? Otherwise you yourself have to face the fate of a Lalmohan Tudu?
And plain thought gets perplexed by the incessant acrobatics of the different avatars of state agents about having a dialogue with the Maoist revolutionaries. “This is at bottom an issue of development, not a law-and-order problem”: come the sage statements–be it from CPM, or Trinamool; “we have to fight them politically”. Then the penny drops–that fighting the communist rebels “politically” is an euphemism for what the Nazis did against the communists: build a gang of strom-troopers, terrorize a locality, ally with the state defence forces to murder these communist activists physically or kidnap them and put them in prison. (Fraulein, as usually, excels in this hypocrisy–while touting about “political fight” against the maoist revolutionaries, she issues her supari-killer-like threats in the same breath to even academics who uphold that very revolutionary politics intellectually.) When the communists resist back comes the snivelling: “Look they are not interested in dialogue…they are–oh so violent”. And when the communists offer concrete plans of mutual ceasefire for a serious dialogue with the state, the agents of the state drum up a by now hackneyed bit of disingenuity : “Ohhh…they are feigning interests in dialogue because they want to regroup and acquire reinforcement…look, how clever…”. And the state simultaneously shoots the very spokesperson or the leaders of the revolutionaries. The bottomline for the Indian state is quite clear–we shall kill, we shall torture to our heart’s content and we shall shout also that we are simply forced into such sins by the oh-so-evil revolutionaries: you-talk-you-lose-we-kill-we-win.
By the way, what kind of things do these Maoist revolutionaries talk about when they sit down to a serious dialogue with the representatives of the state power?
This report is on that infamous dialogue with the Andhra Pradesh Government in 2004 which that state government utilized to track down some of these communist organizers and later let loose the governmental greyhounds on them. In that dialogue, the communists not only upheld the demands of landless peasants and dalits etc, they had strikingly clear and concrete plans: they demanded, e.g., “an enquiry into these illegal encroachments”–grabbing of agricultural land in the vicinity of Hyderabad in favour of big capital–“and to redistribute the land to the landless and homeless urban poor” (see also note 3).
That may be one reason why the Mamata frets and fumes at any real possibility of dialogue with the Maoist revolutionaries. What if these communists demand in that dialogue, like their 2004 comrades, that all those posh palaces on the grabbed land of Rajarhat (on which the Fraulein shed many a pre-election tear) be confiscated and given to the homeless poor? She wants to force a bloody battle on the people instead.
Her very recent Bhairav Bahini in the context of this battle provide unintended comical effects. One would expect better from her than building a bubble around Jagori Baskey (as a proof of revolutionaries being converted by her call), only to be pricked the very next day even by the mainstream media. Rebel trophy with a riddle (The Telegraph) Jagari was nabbed by cops in January 2010 (Hindustan Times)
Blood is dripping out of the body of Bengal (see note 4). How much blood, o Mamata Banerjee, does finally give you diarrhoea?
***
Notes:
note 1: While some of the Fascist dictators display their lives of pomp and splendour openly, some others, most notably Hitler himself, liked to create an aura of plain living and honesty around themselves (see, e.g., Richard Grunberger (1971): A Social History of the Third Reich, Penguin). Our home-grown Fuehrer seems to have chosen the second path.
note 2: An attractive feature of such “special” operations is that the expenses for such operations are not audited Presumably, governmental thieves, thus, have a special love for such operations.
note 3: A relatively sophisticated attempt at undermining the Maoist movement in India may run along the following line: the movement is successful only as a “resistance” movement but has failed as a force for fundamental social transformation. The success of the movement (which the underminers fail to deny), it can be argued, is built on relatively ad-hoc resistance to episodes of plunder perpetrated by the state in favour of big capital, not on a planned struggle against well-defined class-enemies identified through proper class-analysis and thus, it may be claimed, that the practice of these revolutionaries, at its most successful, seems to be at variance with their stated theoretical understanding.
The remarkable set of demands during the Andhra talks provides a fitting answer to such putative claims. What this shows is that in its programme of democratic revolution, resistance to people getting uprooted owing to land-grab (and thus losing the right to security of livelihood) followed naturally from the more “basic” goals of landless and poor peasants’ achieving security of property rights–in land and other productive inputs. Therefore, the struggle against the so-called primary accumulation of capital by the CPI (Maoist) seems to be not an appendage to but a well thought-out, natural and integral part of its broad agenda of democratic revolution.
“There are indications that the immediate manifestation of this theoretical projection would be in the form of struggles and strikes against the corporatisation of agricultural land. The specific demand for redistribution of land in Andhra Pradesh during the talks last year had this dimension. Jharkhand, where the National Democratic Alliance government is busy signing memorandums of understanding with industrial houses such as the Mittals, the Jindals and the Tatas for mining and related activities, could well become the next major naxalite target”
note 4: This is from a memorable poem by Joy Goswami written in the context of the people’s revolt in Nandigram. This is, sadly, still relevant.
Did The Dreaded Rebel Surrender Before The Assembly Elections?
Was She Kept In A Safe House Near Kolkata?
Jagori Baske’s dramatic surrender before chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday has only added to the mystery that has surrounded the dreaded Maoist for most of her life.
When exactly did she surrender? Was it before the last assembly polls? Did Kolkata Police play a crucial role? How were Jagori and her husband, Maoist comrade Rajaram Soren, clad in crisp battle fatigues if they were on the run for months? And what is the role of renegade Maoist Gurucharan Kisku alias Marshall, Jagori’s mentor?
Let us piece together the chain of events that led to the most sensational surrender of a Maoist leader in Bengal.
It all started more than an year ago – July 2010, when the Left Front government announced its rehab offer for Maoists. For officers on the field, the instruction was clear – the government had heeded to their request for a surrender package and they had to show results. But getting a Maoist top gun to surrender was easier said than done.
Marshall was the first choice. A Dalma squad leader and one of the first Maoist recruits, he was named in the 2003 ambush of seven policemen in Bandwan but had been dumped by the rebels in 2007 for his reported “ideological deviation”.
He was itching to get back at his former comrades after being shown the door. He first came in contact with the Jharkhand government-sponsored anti-Maoist forum and later with an IPS officer in West Midnapore (this officer is now with Kolkata Police).
Marshall was ready to work for police – and he did – but he was surprisingly reluctant to accept the surrender proposal.
Wily that he is, Marshall sensed that his steadfast refusal may trigger a bitter conflict with his police “handlers”. Police, too, realised that they were the only ones protecting him from his former comrades, who were baying for his blood. Marshall then played his trump card. He assured his handlers of a prized catch – Jagori, the feared guerrilla he had groomed.
Jagori had been fiercely loyal to Marshall ever since she left her home in Purulia’s Bakdoba village as a 16-year-old. Even in the Maoist fold, she had to pay a price for her devotion to her mentor even after he was expelled. Despite her “brilliance” in guerrilla tactics, her party didn’t hesitate to throw her out for her continued relation with Marshall.
Deserted by her party and hounded by police, Jagori was in dire straits with her month-old infant when Marshall once again surfaced in her life offering help.
“Jagori never indulged in anti-party activities, ever, but she could never completely alienate herself from Marshall. It was a tough dilemma. We were contemplating taking her back in 2009,” a senior Maoist leader had told some time ago. This leader has been “missing” for the past year but if sources are to be believed, he is recuperating from a critical ailment in a police “safe house.”
This isn’t new to Bengal. It’s said another elderly Maoist ideologue was cared for in a police safe house until he died of a chronic ailment.
Marshall, on his part, was well aware of the extent to which he could cash in on the Jagori bait. He held on to her in such a manner that it led to a delicate and protracted “negotiation” which continued for more than 11 months. Whether Jagori gave herself up to police or whether Marshall tipped police of her movements may always remain a mystery.
Incidentally, Jagori’s comrade-in-arms Shova Mandi was intercepted by police in March 2010 on National Highway-6. She was then headed for Midnapore for treatment on a motorcycle with her husband Kamal Mahato. Mandi officially “surrendered” in August 2010.
Sources said that after initial counseling, Jagori reportedly stayed in a safe house on the outskirts of Kolkata, ringed by a police camp. She might have been debriefed by some Kolkata Police officers before being handed to the custody of the IB, say sources.
Maoists are usually very prompt in alerting the media should any of their cadres goes missing for a certain period. In Shova’s case the rebels had issued one such statement long before her surrender. But in Jagori’s case, there was no such statement. The dreaded rebel had been expelled and given up for good by her comrades.
Jagori’s surrender may be the most dramatic yet, but it won’t be the last. It wouldn’t be surprising if in the next few days another Maoist couple – both of them feared squad members – also surrender. Negotiations are on to pull them in, say sources.
By: Debashis
General Secretary, Rationalists’ and Humanists’ Forum of India
Courtesy: The Times of India
This is meant to be a political piece. So, ideally this should be a sequence of logical steps–like the proof of a mathematical result. However, the absurdity in contemporary Kolkata under the Fraulein makes one cry out utterances as in absurd drama.
Nevertheless we begin with the definitions, as in Mathematics. Political goon is well-known–much too well-known–as being often nearly synonymous with the real political practices under the veneer of our venerated parliamentary democracy. Didi–the Fuehrer (with a bit of apology to the Germans for this bad grammar), of course, is Mamata. Gurudev – Rabindranath was the son of one of the richest landlords of the nineteenth century Bengal who, cushioned by the enormous rentier income in his family, created epoch-making literature in Bengali. While he managed to give astonishing expressions to almost every kind of emotion and feeling — even hunger and armed resistance against oppressors.Mussolini for a university he used to run. Now, quite some years after his death he has become a victim of an unfortunate infatuation of the Didi which is breeding much comedy and some unpleasantness.
May 13, 2011 is a memorable day for Bengal. Sadly perhaps, the day may turn out to be almost as memorable as the ascendancy to power in the ’30’s Germany of a bad painter who used to shout out nonsensical prejudices. Some Fuehrers are alike — scheming egomaniacs usurping outcomes of people’s anger and then cheating them, living ostensibly frugal lives, spewing bullshit in speeches, painting bad pictures and raising gangs of goons.
After decades of chicanery and subjugation against them even in the ‘so-called independent’ India, the people of Jangalmahal in Bengal rose up in 2008 against the state power. Their line of action followed Rabindranath — there was voluntary and democratic participation in the villages and faced with the relentless torture of the state power–that of the governmental ‘joint forces’ and the NGOs of Harmads — they did not deter from armed resistance, as Rabindranath advised at times. They even gave away lives fearlessly, again quite in correspondence with Rabindranath’s vision. The snakes breathing out poison–the Left Front Government, a chummy Chidambaram in Delhi, and their expensively armed gangs — used conventional weapons of repression like beating and killing people as well as throwing people into jail indiscriminately (as well as a bit non-conventional ones like shitting into wells for drinking water in Jangalmahal villages not quite welcoming to them).
People were angry all over Bengal. The resulting long and persistent rebellion of the masses will inspire generations. Fraulein Fuehrer came to power. Several times before the election, she demanded the withdrawal of joint forces from Jangalmahal and releasing the political victims–the prisoners–of the erstwhile regime.
The story thenceforth is quite straightforward. Her gangs of goons are proliferating quite healthily all over Bengal. They are proving themselves almost as efficient in extorting money from the villagers and the common people and in intimidating them as their brethren in CPIM were. Some of these CPIM lumpens just have changed sides. Then, in the time-honoured tradition of the Congress party, these Trinamool gangs are having bloody fights among themselves almost everyday over the share of the loot.
The Fraulein, of course, has declined to do the two simple things that the common people of Jangalmahal demanded most — releasing these prisoners and withdrawing the joint forces.
And the Fuehrer she is, a magnificent plan of creating 10,000 storm-troopers out of the poor youth of Jangalmahal is afoot, perhaps to blossom her Bhairav Bahini in Jangalmahal and hopefully to develop a full-fledged civil war.
In her recent speeches–what emerged out of the rants she made–it is evident that like the celebrated goddess in one of Rabindranath’s plays, she is dreaming of a thorough-going bloodshed in Jangalmahal (as well as in Kolkata perhaps where some internet-using truant ‘intellectuals’, she suspects, take up the cause of the deprived people in Jangalmahal and elsewhere, much to her chagrin). The drama should unfold soon. She has won hearty approval from the West Bengal governor and the chums in the ruling class. Jindals should be loving it.
True, a celebrated song of Rabindranath asks for getting beaten more and more. The infatuated Didi has been faithfully ensuring that for quite some time now.
It is yet to be seen whether she also spurns the most recent opportunity (of October 04) of arriving at a just solution in Jangalmahal leading to fruitful peace there.
Incidentally, in a candid interview on September 24 in Star Ananda (snippets here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD5ez2KvRm8), a Bengali news channel, the Fuehrer conjured up a novel named “Kadambini” which she imagined was written by Rabindranath. She was improvising a reference to a sentence she quoted out of context and the sentence concerned was written by the unfortunate Rabindranath in a short story called “Jibito o Mrito”. Media largely suppressed this new piece of occasional buffoonery by the Fraulein in the otherwise sinister interview where she thundered about impending police action in the state.
Not all political goons have intellectual pretensions. Only some have.
By: Debashis
General Secretary, Rationalists’ and Humanists’ Forum of India
RATIONALIST DEBASHIS 