In Defense of Democracy & Thanks Occam’s Razor!!

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I think it is the season for self-criticisms!

I have done it once one way (see earlier post on Nandigram: What movement? Why?) and now I have to do it again – this time the other way.

I have received a comment on my last post from Occam’s Razor which I have lifted from the comment section and brought here together with my response as a separate post.

Many thanks to Occam’s Razor not only for the comment but also for putting me back on track. Thanks OR! Please see my self-criticism after your comment. I am sorry, I was being too partisan and somewhat unreasonable and I say this with full sincerity and without a trace of sarcasm – please do not misunderstand me and read on to check out my sincerity!

Here is Occam Razor’s comment:

Who are you and what have you done to the blogger named Arjun Sen?
Such an eloquent defense of Bengal’s elite ruling party! Sir Karat couldn’t have done better.

A few observations:

1. Agree with you on almost everything you wrote about industrialization/globalization… But, in India, and especially in West Bengal, I do not know who decides what path industrialization should take. Where are the economists and planner? Or are we to trust Buddhababu to know best about everything – be it cricket or cinema or industrial growth?

2. You gloss over the role of people like Lakshman Seth – yet, feudalism is in fact very much the way of life in parts of India including Bengal. How do you explain the enormous power that people like Lakshman Sheth wield?

3. Let us assume that you are right, and the people of Nandigram acted first, without any provocation. What was the government doing for all this time? Why didn’t it take steps to control the law and order situation the way a government should but instead let their cadres and goons go on a rampage? (Guns or no guns, you are not, I hope denying, that the CPM men are actually in Nandigram now and have driven the others out. How they could do that without guns is a question that you need to address also – but let’s ignore even that for now)
Let me tell you why the CPM did things the way they did – because, how else could they send a message to the folks out there that they have the ultimate power? So that come election day (the Panchayat elections are coming, right), people know how to behave…

4. I cannot count the number of people who counter with a “Mamata is so much worse” each time someone critiques the CPM. Which does nothing but to illustrate the plight of Bengalis caught between a rock and a hard place. Yes, we know that Mamata is everything you say and worse. She actually serves a useful purpose for the CPM, I think. They couldn’t have asked for a better performance had she been on their payroll.

5. Which does not make the CPM a party of angels. Are we to forget Benoy Konar’s role in Sainbari? Are we to forget Marichjhapi, the Anandamargis, Keshpur-Garbeta… or did the media make all this up as well?

6. The CPM is so arrogant that the CM does not even need to keep up a pretense of governing…. ‘paid back in their own coin?” Is that his role as the CM? To pay people back in their own coin? Why on earth do we need a govenrment then?
7. Are you not concerned about the gradual erosion of civil rights in the city? People protesting Nandigram (rightly or wrongly) deserve to be taken to jail? People attending the film festival have to show every piece of document they are carrying lest there be anti-CPM leaflets in there? What happened to freedom of speech?

8. I am sorry, but your point about Tapashi Malik is opportunistic conjecture in the same level as the claim being made in the internet that Muslims killed Rizwanur because he was ready to convert… Whether I agree with you or not, I usually admire your attempt to create a logical dialogue – and this was not worthy of your blog. I think you need to take your own advice and turn a critical eye – towards the CPM.

9. Oh and before someone accuses me… I am not a Maoist. For that matter, I am not an anything-ist.

My self-criticisms & self-defense:

You are absolutely right Occam’s Razor!! 100% right! I am losing myself in all this madness. On all points I cannot agree with you more. With certain qualifications of course. But before I respond to your specific points here is my general self-criticism and self-defense.

My problem is when politics gets polarized one is forced to take a stand. And when you do that you cannot always afford to maintain total and absolute neutrality and stick to pure reason – unreason dialectically creates its own unreason – violence needs to get countered by violence – killing and arson gets countered by more killing and arson and so on.

I admit I too fall victim to this phenomenon as I am just an ordinary human being very much made of the same dialectical matter that constitutes this universe. This is not an excuse for unreason but a frank admission that I am no saint and I am no God. My justification for any unreason that you may have seen in my recent posts is: all is fair in love and war!

I know that to people like you who probably live outside West Bengal or who are not that aware of the recent political history of this state, this may not seem to you a good enough justification but please try to understand that people like me are terrified of both the Congress or the TMC-BJP combine coming to power. Unless you know what this terror is you cannot understand our love for the CPI(M) however bad and hateful the party may be in your eyes.

Democracy then

Terrified by the Congress? Because we know what they did under Siddhartha Ray during the Naxalite movement. I do not think anybody in Bengal and in his right senses will ever let them come back to power at least as long as the present generation of voters who were witness to the Naxalite movement and know what the Congress did then continue to constitute a critical and significant section of the voters.

We know how many young, often brilliant, idealist students, young boys and girls, many of them just out of school were murdered by Congress leaders like Siddhartha, Priyoranjan, Subrata, Somen and that too some of them with their own hands! No one will forget! No one will forget the police murder of Saroj Datta in the maidan – first released from a police van and then shot down in cold blood from behind. A murder witnessed by the great matinee idol Uttam Kumar! No will forget the Baranagore killings! The tortures in jail! The raids of the CRPF! The list is endless!

And then followed the dark days of the Emergency. The draconian new laws. The arrests of innocent people and their incarceration without trial. The forcible family planning of Sanjay. The totalitarianism of Mrs G. And the role played by these Congress stalwarts from Bengal.
The democratic credentials of these Congressmen are non-existent whatever they may say now. Too many people are still living whose fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters or other kith and kin were murdered by Congress goons led by these leaders or killed or tortured and maimed for life by the police of Siddhartha Ray’s goverment. Too many people fell victim  to the whims of Congressmen during the Emergency. Nandigram is a joke compared to those days!

And then the relief provided by the Left Front government of 1977.

The victims of Siddhartha Ray and Mrs G will never forget the dark nights of the late sixties and the early seventies and then the sunrise in 1977 after the victory of the Left Front. And they will never let the Congress come back to power again as long as they have any democratic say in the matter despite all the dark nights that they literally suffered in the early days of the Left Front government due to power cuts.

As for the TMC-BJP – their fascism is on display everyday so there is little to say about that.

Rabid rightists may want the Congress (or the TMC-BJP combine) to come back to power but ultimately most people in Bengal are Leftists at heart despite their confusions, the constant anti-Left propaganda which they have to suffer from the media day in and day out and despite their trials and tribulations due to the arrogance and insensitivity of the CPI(M).

They know it is a matter of life and death – the CPI(M) and the Left Front despite warts and all represents life or at least a hope and possibility of life while the Congress, TMC-BJP represent the black hand of certain death. Hence, the CPI(M)’s rule for the last 30 years.

However much we may try to find some reason to denigrate the LF’s electoral victories, the fact remains they are in power through free and fair elections – those who deny it are simply doing it to justify their repeated defeats at the hustings.

There may be people with horrible experiences of being denied the opportunity to vote, name struck off voters list and so on. Some are stories fabricated by the media and some are true incidents in the early part of Left rule – the first two or three elections. But the people overlooked and perhaps even welcomed such rigging because the alternative was the Congress of the murderous Siddhartha or the Hitlerite Indira.

If the CPI(M) did fully rig elections in those days, it had and still has my fullest support because at that time the overriding sentiment was anything but the Congress and if to defeat the Congress the CPI(M) has to rig elections, so be it, but keep out the Congress at any cost.

My experience since I attained voting age in 1978 and the experience of all the people I personally know, however, is that at least we have been voting without fear or favor, without coercion or threats and to that extent at least we can vouch from personal experience that there is democracy, peace and political stability in this state ever since 1977.

At least my name was never cut off from the voters list although for a fairly long time I must have been very suspect in the eyes of the cadres as I was a journalist in the bourgeoisie Press plus I used to write for the Indian People’s Front mouthpiece Alternative and was known to be close to the Maoists.

Also,  in those days I was an open critic of parliamentary democracy. In fact, I had once or perhaps twice even boycotted elections when I was sure at least Sid Ray’s Congress was not coming to power – I now do not remember which elections but at all other times I have voted Left Front. So no denial of democracy for me personally under Left Front rule. And there are so many like me who have been enjoying the power of democracy and the privileges of peace without let or hindrance ever since 1977.

For the people, the transgressions of the CPI(M)  and its faults were a small price to pay  for the gains after 1977. And the CPI(M)’s fascism? Pales into insignificance when compared to what we had suffered for a decade before 1977. No comparison at all. To us the CPI(M) is by far the most democratic party in the world!

After all relativity rules and the people’s experience is ruled by their sense of comparison. Hell before 1977. Heaven after 1977. That is what defines the CPI(M) in the minds of the people of West Bengal – something that no one else will understand except those Bengalis and non-Bengalis living in Bengal who had experienced it all – both Hell and Heaven!

A small digression

 [Just as an aside, but which will help to clarify many things that non-Bengalis and even many younger Bengalis often fail to appreciate, let me share with you a personal experience.

Even as late as the mid-nineties when Siddhartha stood for LS elections from Bahrampore in Murshidabad district, I managed to convince my editor despite his utter reluctance to let me do any writing at all (he is too insecure) to allow me to cover the constituency in the days leading up to the elections as I wanted to contribute my bit to Siddhartha Ray's defeat. Remember I was a Maoist sympathizer and probably still is to some extent if only they cut out their false belief in violence. Anyway, Bahrampore happens to be my in-laws home town and I leveraged that telling my editor that I had deadly contacts which I actually did thanks to my in-laws and which Mr Editor could not refute.

Anyway, I trooped off to Bahrampore and there I was helped by Maoists (my literally deadly contacts) - not the LF candidate who was the main contender - to get an absolutely accurate figure of the number of votes by which Siddhartha would lose.

Maoists of all shades - and at that time there were still some 21 different CPI(M-L) groups in the country who have now united under the single tag of Maoists - had congregated at Behrampore to ensure Siddhartha's defeat.

I was given lead figures for each of the seven Assembly constituencies and the pre-election defeat figure that I wrote in my paper turned out to be accurate within 1,000 votes after the elections and actual counting of votes.

I, or rather the Maoists, had predicted Siddhartha's defeat by 52,000 votes together with break-up of lead figures Assembly constituency-wise which I included as a Table in my report. He actually lost by 51,000 votes if I remember correctly.

I mention this anecdote to give an idea of the terror Siddhartha was, and I suppose still is. The Maoists forgot all their ideological underpinnings and despite their differences displayed exemplary unity to give their full support to their other main bete noire, the CPI(M), just to ensure that Siddhartha loses. In fact,  all shades of red united fully and there was true Left unity - something quite unbelievable under normal circumstances - just to defeat Manu the Monster, Manu being Siddhartha's pet name.

I share this with you dear readers just so that you can understand some of the deep-rooted fear psychosis that many Bengalis still suffer from due to events that happened nearly 40 years ago and why we cannot think of any alternative to the CPI(M), the party that brought back normalcy, peace and democratic governance to this state after years of terrifying trauma.

The days of the Naxalite movement have made many of us think of the CPI(M) as the only democratic party in the world in a very very unreasonable way that those who have not experienced those terrifying days will never understand. I appreciate your angst Occam's Razor when you talk of Bengalis being stuck between a rock and a hard place but there is a history behind that which you have to understand.]

Democracy Now

Coming back to our story, as far as I am concerned the very fact that a completely marginalised Opposition (one single seat less for the TMC would have meant no legally recognized Opposition party in the state’s current legislative assembly and in fact that is what had actually happened but then I think the CPI(M) relented and let them have that one seat through a by-election if I remember correctly) can still often bring the state to a complete halt, can completely disrupt the normal processes of development and industrialization, can capture an entire area comprising several administrative blocks and declare a state within a state, can still hog almost the entire political space in the media and get it (the media) to work for it as its running dogs, can still as good as completely destroy and disrupt a major international film festival which took months to organize, all provide ample proof that there is still very much a a fully fit and functioning democracy in this state.

Or else, from where does the almost non-existent Opposition get so much power? If there is no democracy then how can this motley bunch of morons and goons cause so much harm to the people of the state by almost halting the process of development and industrialization, by giving the state a bad name at the national and international level and thereby spoiling the state’s investment climate just when investors are at last coming back to this state, by frequent bandhs and work disruptions and by closing down even the IT industry which cannot survive unless it is allowed to work 24X7?

And all this despite the state’s electorate having made them a completely marginalized Opposition through democratic processes? Can you imagine how much fascist such an Opposition has to be to completely disregard the people’s verdict and mandate and do so much harm to the interests of the state? Which non-democratic state will allow such a free hand to the Opposition despite its total lack of people’s support? Yes, such disruptions are possible in dictatorships where the Opposition has the people’s support and it manages to launch a movement close to an insurgency, but where else?

There are also no communal riots of the type that happened in Gujarat or Delhi, no curbing and threatening of creative activity and freedom of speech, dress, thought and what have you as in Shiv Sena or BJP ruled states and no rule of parochial regional parties. There is also no complete criminalization of the polity as in Bihar, Jharkhand or UP despite the existence of the Sukurs and the Laxman Sheths who according to the CPI(M) are needed to fight fire with fire.

I can go on to list all that is good and positive in West Bengal which the rest of the world never gets to know because of a mealy mouthed and totally anti-people media in the state – but despite the media’s best efforts they have failed to fool all the people, at least the majority of the people even for some of the most important times – the time of elections.

You will not understand why for us – we the people of West Bengal – the Left Front despite all its ills is still our one and only choice, unless you come and live here for some years. Because the picture you get of Bengal from outside Bengal is a distorted picture that has no connection to actual ground realities.

It is a picture painted by the media and I have worked for two of the top media houses in this country for a combined period of 17 years and I know as an insider and a relatively senior journalist how they go about deliberately twisting the truth to churn out anti-Left Front propaganda day in and day out. That is why I am so rabidly anti-media because I know what they routinely do from first hand experience and I know how to catch them at their own game.

As a news editor one of my responsibilities was to assess news value as well as the accuracy of reports being filed and published. So I have picked up a few techniques by which I can assess which report is accurate and which is a lie simply by reading it.

I was forced to participate in that CPI(M)-bashing process despite my constant attempts to undermine it from inside and when I gave them the first opportunity they weeded me out and now I have only this blog to write but no newspaper or magazine or electronic media because they are afraid of taking me back. But then, now I can write freely with nobody to curb my freedom of speech nor anybody to force me to write what I do not want to write. Nobody to gag me.

Of course, I do not know how long I can carry on without any regular employment but I will not run away from the battlefield and I will write and fight till my last breath. I have survived for 4 years in these conditions and it will not be easy to shut me up.

As a result of the Goebellian propaganda and rumour and canard mongering of the media and the Opposition, even so-called educated and literate intellectuals have become buddhujibis (people who live by their foolishness as opposed to buddhijibis who live by their intellect – if you know Bengali you can better appreciate the play of words) who took to the streets yesterday protesting in the most hypocritical and opportunistic manner possible.

But even here the media’s role is shameless. The Telegraph, ABP, TOI and HT have screamed in today’s editions that all the great “buddhijibis” were there in the procession yesterday and only a few small fry will be there today in the CPI(M)-sponsored procession. But when I also read Ganashakti I found that the exact opposite was about to happen and is in fact happening even as I write and watch TV every now and then to keep up with what is happening. Only the scum – the buddhus were there yesterday. I will wait for tomorrow’s edition before I decide whether to write more on this or not. But the shamelessness of these Goebbel clones is terrifying.

Polarized Politics

Anyway, all this media propaganda has not fooled the people of West Bengal who value their democracy (they will never forget the late sixties and early seventies – the immediate period before the LF came to power) and they defend it with all their might – braving inclement weather, braving all kinds of hindrances and difficulties put up in the name of ensuring free and fair elections and despite constant attempts by the Right Reaction to defeat the Left Front in the elections through all kinds of fascist methods – Goebellian propaganda, cooked up and deliberately created issues when non exist, rumour and canard mongering and of course, the use of violence.

If you have any respect for democracy and government by elections then you have to respect the verdict of the people of West Bengal. Anybody who does not do so is either falling victim to the Goebellian propaganda of Right Reaction or is part of that reaction itself or does not believe in democracy at all.

You can’t have the cake and eat it too – either elections are free and fair or they are not. Since there is now no scope (after the last elections in this state which was very well covered by the national and international media) for anybody to claim that the last elections at least were not free and fair and that people were forcibly stopped from voting, there was booth capturing, there was manipulation of the voter’s list, etc. you have no option but to accept the people’s verdict given through free and fair elections. After that you cannot at the same time say that this is not a democratic process of government formation and the CPI(M) and the LF did not win fairly.

Hence, when politics is so polarized between life and death, between truth and mistruth, between the liberal Left and the rabid Right, between democracy and open, blatant fascism, you have to take a stand. I have taken a stand and if I have indulged in some unreason to defend this democracy that the Left Front has given us all these 30 years despite whatever faults it may have, I plead guilty.

We, the people of West Bengal will not give up our democracy – Didi may try, the Maoists may try, all shades of confused individuals and hypocrites – radical or less radical – may try but we the people of West Bengal will not give up our democracy that we so deeply love with all our body and soul.

And although I do not believe in the politics of revenge, in times of political polarization, it is war and the only thing that matters then is to defeat the forces of right reaction and if that requires fighting fire with fire, mistruth with mistruth, unreason with unreason, so be it.

Self-criticism: Admitting unreason 

But once things cool down a bit as it has cooled down now and all the mistruths are getting exposed – mistruths about the absence of Maoists at Nandigram – now Maoists have themselves admitted they were there; mistruths about hundreds of people killed and raped – now it is coming out that only a few got killed and that too only those who were murderers and had earlier bloodied their hands by killing CPI(M) supporters, policemen and worst of all 13 innocent women and children by using them as human shields while cowering and shooting from behind them at policemen on March 14 ; mistruths about refugees who had been driven out of their homes and hearths – now the people will get to know who the real refugees were and who are now the false refugees who will try to create some more trouble by deliberately refusing to go back to their homes to spread canards about some imagined CPI(M) terror that the media will play up ad nauseum, and so on – we can afford to admit our own unreason.

So now let me go ahead and admit my unreason point by point:

Point 1:

I am as much in the dark about who actually decides the path of industrialization as you are. There are many ministries, many departments, many bureaucrats, many economists, the national level Planning Commission and state level State Planning Boards. But from the little that I have come to know from the media and in the course of my interactions with ministers in the Left Front government as a journalist I can say in brief that in West Bengal the only positive aspect of industrial policy that I have been able to see is an attempt to think in terms of a hub and spoke approach. A central main unit that is linked to many ancillaries and auxiliaries.

Other than this one single positive aspect that can be called an “industrial policy” there seems to be no one to really work out proper policies because if there were then we would not have had Singur or Nandigram. We would have had a proper land acquisition and industrial policy that the people would have welcomed. We may have been able to avoid the sustained drought of industrial projects that we have witnessed for the last 30 years. We may have succeeded in giving to the world a truly new, democratic and yet communist approach within the womb of a capitalist framework to industrialization and development without having to kow tow to global monopoly capital for whatever trickle of investments that are coming in and that too at terms laid down by global capitalism and imperialism.

But unfortunately that is not the case and what we have witnessed so far is a mindless approach. As for environment etc., there is some lip service but I don’t think anybody takes environment and related issues too seriously in line with the practice in the rest of the world. Although again this communist government could and can give a model of sustainable development and industrialization that others around the world can emulate.

But as you have rightly guessed there is no truly alternative industrial policy that one expects from a communist government. Nor do I think they are willing to listen to people who may give them some new and alternative approaches that could be show-cased around the world as a truly communist and new approach.

Please see my interview with the West Bengal IT minister Dr Debesh Das in my other blog www.bengalit.wordpress.com. It will give you an idea of the approach the LF is trying to adopt with regard to the IT industry. As for other industries if you want my views you will have to give me some more time so that I can start posting on the other blogs that I have launched but unable to service – the general blog is www.bengalinfo.wordpress.com. Due to shortage of time I am unable to write regular posts in these two blogs yet but I hope to rectify that sometime in the future although I cannot say when. I now have to spend too much time writing nonsense to somehow earn a living.

Points 2 & 3:

Again I agree with you fully and if you go through my post on Terrors of Tomorrow you will realize that I have written exactly what you have mentioned in Point 3. In that post I have also talked about people like Lakshman Sheth without mentioning him by name but I agree with you on point 2 as well. In an earlier post I had mentioned by name and wrote about a lower level CPI(M) Mahila Samity leader regarding her despicable views about the Rizwanur murder just to point out that you don’t have to go up to the level of Laxman Seth – these people are now there at almost every level of the party.

But then on second thoughts I think what the CPI(M) did by sending in their own goons instead of central forces is better. With the CPI(M) using BUPC hostages as a human shield they have managed to keep down the death toll to less than 10 as far as I have been able to gather so far from the media (after screening the blatant lies about “hundreds and thousands” and looking for actual deaths reported and confirmed by different sections of the media including that section that does not lie routinely and standardly) and as far as I have been able to make out all these were gun wielding armed people. Not unarmed innocent villagers or women and children. The actual death figure may be a little higher (but certainly no more than 12/13 at most) – I don’t know as I have no independent means to verify.

If the CRPF had, however,  gone in first, instead of the CPI(M) goons, then, in reality, hundreds would have died because we know how they carry out such operations – they simply massacre indiscriminately and they would not have used human shields to keep down the death toll.

They would have actually used automatic weapons and simply mowed down anyone in their path innocent or not, armed or unarmed, men or women or children – they have no mercy and they are trained to kill and kill efficiently. Just think about the Naxal period or J&K, or north-east and I am sure you will agree. Thank God that now fewer people have died.

But there is absolutely no doubt that the party could have done a lot of things peacefully to tackle first Singur and then Nandigram but it did not do so due to arrogance and the power analysis you have given and which I have elaborated upon in my post Terrors of Tomorrow. That it is the CPI(M) which must be ultimately blamed for all the tragic deaths at Singur and Nandigram has now been echoed by someone as venerable as Dr Ashok Mitra (see next point).

Points 4-6:

I agree with you on all these points as well except to say that if you speak about specific instances such as Ananda Margis or Marichjhapi etc then I have to point out that whatever the world knows is whatever the media has reported and that means the truth behind the killings and the motives or exigencies behind the killings or what those who were killed were doing has not been reported, instead whatever has been reported is nothing but one-sided misreporting blaming only the CPI(M).

But to the extent that the killings are a fact, all I can say is they should not have happened and whatever the exigencies, the party should have found out more peaceful and democratic ways to tackle the situation or should have ensured that the administration dealt with the matter in ways that could have avoided the killings. As for arrogance etc I have already written about and admitted that.

Also, despite having said all that I have said in my initial comments, I think I agree with author Sunil Ganguly, who, while writing (in the Ananda Bazar Patrika of today, November 15) against the madness and right reaction represented by the procession of buddhujibis yesterday has suggested that perhaps it is better if the Left Front is forced to sit in the Opposition benches for some time.

Even someone like Dr Ashok Mitra (a CPI(M) finance minister in a couple of previous Left Front governments and a very well-known economist) again writing in the ABP a day earlier (Nov 13) had expressed almost similar angst as I had done in my post Terrors of Tomorrow and almost reiterating the same points and same criticisms that I had made against the CPI(M) though in a far better way. Nobody will ever think twice to say that Dr Mitra is any day a much stauncher and more loyal party man than an outsider and basically non-political (despite my recent political writing) supporter of the Left Front such as me. And again I must reiterate that I fully agree with his views.

Despite my sense of terror at the thought of the carnage and state-wide repression that will happen once the LF is replaced by the TMC, Congress or BJP (and which the world will never get to know because it will be blacked out by the media although then hundreds and thousands will really be killed and raped unlike now when the numbers are in tens or twenties), perhaps it is more important that the party cleanse itself and rectify itself before it becomes worse than the very Opposition that we are so terrified about.

Point 7:

While I agree that there is arrogance and there was mishandling in the arrest of the 60 intellectuals I do not think the police were looking for anti-CPI(M) leaflets because I can go and distribute democratic anti-CPI(M) leaflets inside Writers Building (that is, provided they are not Maoist leaflets or anything like that) and I can take you along if you wish, while I do it. I will distribute leaflets criticizing the CM and the CPI(M)’s arrogance and give one copy to the CM’s personal secretary and nobody will stop me because it is routinely done by state government employees who belong to unions controlled by Opposition parties.

Even right now you can go into any government office in West Bengal and see anti-government posters stuck on almost all walls – if that is not freedom of speech, I do not know what is. This is a matter of fact and not debate or rhetoric and something that can be checked out any day. Unless, of course, Didi does not call a bandh on that particular day and her goons make such checking physically impossible.

But before all that I will ask you what is your source of the information that the police were looking for anti-CPI(M) leaflets? The media? Ha! In that case one more big fat lie. But if the police were going through all bags etc it is because if they do not then TMC goons can easily do something horrid with international guests around. People who can smash up property within the state Assembly or who use women and children to face an advancing police column and allow them to die can easily plant a bomb inside an auditorium without any qualms and kill hundreds of people.

People who know they have been democratically shut out and shut up by the people and perhaps for ever have no other option but to resort to Hitlerian tactics like burning the Reichstag or smashing up the Assembly or blowing up an auditorium full of national and international film personalities and film buffs. The police have to be careful while such events are on which is the main reason why the police had to arrest the buddhujibis looking for cheap publicity and demanding like morons to cancel a prestigious international event in the city that had taken months to plan and organize.

And quietly – don’t tell anyone – just between you and me – had I been one of the policemen locking up those buddhujibis I would have used my police baton to good effect and checked out just for fun how it feels (and what the reaction is) to shove it up one of those fat bums for their anti-people act of giving Kolkata and West Bengal such a bad name for no reason and when after so many years we are (or should we say “were” after all this vandalism) poised to see some real rapid development!

Point 8:

You may be absolutely right since quite frankly I don’t know what the truth really is but I still feel the CPI(M) had nothing to gain but a lot to lose by that murder if they did it. It was absolutely foolish and moronic if the CPI(M) actually did it apart from the inhumanity of it all. Also, I will stand by my distrust of the CBI because there have been far too many instances not only in WB but elsewhere in the country where their role has appeared thoroughly politically motivated. The most famous case, of course, is the Bofors gun deal which should leave no doubts in the minds of anybody about the so-called neutrality and truthfulness of the CBI.

Democracy Tomorrow

So, in conclusion, please try to understand Occam’s Razor the kind of fear that I, and I suppose the majority of Bengalis, suffer from – compared to the Congress or the TMC-BJP, the CPI(M), despite all its fascism, is probably the only democratic party in the world to us. To many this would appear a highly unreasonable stand but it makes sense to those who were witness to what the Congress did some 40 years back (see PMaitra’s comment) and who can now see what the TMC-BJP is doing today.

For us, whenever we see the CPI(M) threatened by Right Reaction or even the extreme Leftism of the Maoists, we have to close ranks and defend the CPI(M) – we have to forget all the arrogance, the fascism, the insensitivity to the people, the idiocy, all the things for which level-headed people like you, Occam’s Razor, do not like the CPI(M).

And, when this is combined with the Goebellian anti-CPI(M) propaganda of the media – the blatant mis-truths, partial and one-sided reporting, the misreporting, the attempt to see only the faults of the party without seeing the faults of the Opposition, when they see only the guns of the CPI(M) but not the guns of the BUPC and when on top of that the intellectuals also join in this one-sided and highly irresponsible anti-CPI(M), anti-government and anti-West Bengal political agenda, we have no choice left – we have to gloss over the faults of the CPI(M), we have to take a stand in favor of the party and we have to adopt the philosophy of all is fair in love and war.

Reason then may sometimes get laced with a little unreason. But now that the present crisis seems to have blown over – the media will cry hoarse for sometime but will again fall in line because they have to serve another master, the global monopoly capitalist; the buddhujibis have got themselves marked and tainted for life so that the people will never be fooled by them again,; and, normalcy returning to Nandigram so there will be peace again, we can again be reasonable and critical of the CPI(M) as we should be till the party again goofs up somewhere and creates another Nandigram. Then again we, the progressive people of West Bengal, will have to rally round the party once again, forget our grouses against the party and once again give it support in the times of its crisis.

But perhaps time is really running out for the party. Any day the proportion of the people who think of the party as the most democratic party in the world in a very very unreasonable way because of their haunting memories will fall below that critical limit due to death and natural attrition. That’s the time from when that crucial majority will begin to elude the party.

I know so many young friends who are leftist at heart but hate the CPI(M). They will have no compunctions voting for the Right or they may even boycott the elections and thereby unintentionally give the Right that elusive majority and the end of CPI(M) rule will be upon us.

Change is the only absolute in life. Either the party will wake up and change its ways and continue to stay in power, or, its support base will change and the party will be thrown out of power. Only time will tell what the future holds for us – those hapless Bengalis caught between a rock and a hard place!

Meanwhile, we, the people of West Bengal, will continue to suffer from schizophrenia – party supporter one day, party critic the next. We shall dance to the tunes composed by the Opposition, sung by the buddhujibis and orchestrated by the media!

And we shall hope and wait and stand long. Silently singing in our mind’s voice those immortal lines of Led Zepplin:

And its whispered that soon
If we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn
For those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter!!

P.S. The media has buried Rizwanur. Long live Rizwanur!!

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Filed under Politics, nandigram, rizwanur rehman

Tags: Politics, nandigram, rizwanur rahman