West Bengal still has large tracts of forest lands left. In the North, there are elephants and rhinos in forests guarded by State Forest Department personnel for wild life protection. In the south, there are tigers being similarly protected by the State. In south-west, the forests are not all wild life forests and hence some of these forests on the state borders with other states like Orrisa and Jharkhand, have recently been the route of murderous guerilla invasion by Maoist communists driven out by from their forest hideouts by the special police force of the nearby Karnataka State.
The Maoist invaders had been building up a strong base among the poor tribal folks living in abject poverty in lands untouched by development efforts undertaken during the last 33 years by the CPM-led left front government. On top of this, the tribal people had been complaining of police atrocities on them for long. Their agitating against depreivation and injustice meted out of the ruling political party and the government has yielded further repression by the State. They had also been threatened by the Maoists: if they did not extend support to the Maoists in their war against the State Government they would be killed, looted by the Maoists. For the last five months or so, these areas (like Jhargram, Lalgarh, and Gidni) have become battle field for the State Police Forces with reinforcements from the Indian Government’s sub-military forces and the Maoists. The Maoists have been kidnapping or killing al most everyday, policemen or CPM party workers. The life of the tribal and other citizens in these areas have become intolerable.
It seems that these Maoists, being regarded as communist brethren, have enjoyed the indulgence of the communist government of West Bengal for too long a period helping them toconsolidated their position to free these areas from the administration of the State Government. The Maoists are posing a great threat to the lives of common citizens of West Bengal by their violence and reign of terror, though they are operating from their hideouts in deep forests.
The protected animals of the State Government-guarded forests are increasingly turning Maoists. In the recent months, herds of elephants have been destroying crops of the farmers and their property, besides killing people. A few days back, a frustrted rhino which had lost his mate to another stronger rhino, had come out of the woods and threatened farmers in their fields. In the Sunder ban islands in the south, protected tigers had been repeatedly straying out of their forest habitat and invading the villages killing both people and their cattle. However, these animals could not be attacked or killed even if they had acted like the Maoist terrorists. They would to be cazoled or driven back to the forests: forest department personnel would use trained elephants and beating of drums to get the wild elephants back to forests while in the Sunderbans tigers were fired with sleep-inducing shots from a distance, given medical treatment on boats and shipped back to the forest islands uninhabited by humans..
What if the State had considered the Maoists as wild life to be protected? They could be driven back to the forests of Karnataka from where they had originated. I should know no one could do that.
The Government of India does not seem to know how to deal with the Maoist terrorism, nor does the State Government know. The political parties or the intellectual elitein general have no answer to the human and animal Maoist terrorism. What all of them have to say is that the Maoists are wayward people whose hearts must be won through dialogue for peace along with policeman fighting them when they attack the police, by weaning the poor tribal folk away from the Maoist influence and captivity thru' economic development efforts which would take quite a while before these poor people get two meals a day and have some regular productive employment, and, of course, by criticizing the opposition parties and certain intellectuals who are encouraging the Maoists to cause trouble to the ruling political party and the State Government.
Entire West Bengal is fast emerging a lively place of tourism with special attraction of adventurous wild life safari combined with periodic circuses in the people's meetings in the capital city, addressed by ring masters and clouns/ jokers. For trailers, visit Bengali TV channels - Star Ananda, 24 Ghanta, Tara Bangla News, Kolkata Din Rat and of course Akash Bangla with its evening Kurukshtra Serial.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Is West Bengal entertainment changing!
The public entertainment scenario inWest Bengal has been changing – this period is likely to be a long circus with clouns and ring masters with their roaring wild animals at their best, roaming around every nook and corner of the State.
Change started off soon after 2006 when the CPM led left front returned to power with massive majority. The CPM rapidly became the most arrogant and courageous oppressor in public as a mark of respect to the mandate. The Chief Minister thought that the mandate game him to authority to dictate what would go on in cricket, book fair and film festival. The CPM thought they can beat up any one who would not listen to their commands, whether they are poor farmers or intellectuals. The CPM party can actively support their important members’ relatives to throw off people out off their houses, demolish those houses and construct apartments for sale to make money. Land can be grabbed by sending goons. The police was only to support the party members. The police thought that so long as they lick the boots of the Party commanders, they can continue to collect bribes from the truck drivers and decide which girl and which boy cannot live together even after their marriage. The weak Congress needed leftist support to continue rule India and therefore had to listen to what the CPM General Secretary said but also to the demands of the West Bengal Chief Minister. So far as West Bengal is concerned the Communist Party Dictatorship Raj of the proletariat, resembling the Communist Raj in China and Leninist-Stalinist Russia, had been at last established. Now, the next step was to dislodge the Congress alliance rule by withdrawing support and try to get a fully CPM dependent and controlled non-BJP, non-Congress alliance Government in India.
This change also meant change in CPM’s support base. Not all goons can be accommodated: some had to be favored and some others left out. All in the so-called intellectuals can get favor: those who find fault with directives of the Party will lose favor. The number of disgruntled in dictatorship grows from the beginning: in response to heightened oppression, the disgruntled soar and combine. They seek an alternative dictator who would favor them rather than those favored by the CPM. Mamata was the natural choice: a person who had shown resistance to be cowed down even by the most powerful in the land. Earlier her dictatorship cost her party to loose many opportunities to gain to her party. Now, the ever growing size of the disgruntled oppressed with CPM oppression and discrimination was giving her an opportunity to come back.
Fighting oppression is the way out of the clutches of the extant oppressor and a way to establishing a new oppressor who would oppress the previous oppressor. The process of fight is tit-for-tat: driving out the oppressor party activists from different localities in the same way the oppressor drove out others by violence and terror, by murder, by organizing public demonstrations and strikes. Congress which had become very weak in West Bengal over the years was destined to become further insignificant in a state when Communist Party Dictatorship Raj oppression has been established. For the Congress, the only chance of cutting the CPM to size at the national level lied in the success of Mamata. So the national leaders of the Congress formed alliance with Mamata’s Trinamool and has seen tremendous success since then in, not making the Congress a great popular party in West Bengal, but in drubbing the CPM at the polls and in putting the CPM state leaders under stress fighting the rising popularity of Mamata in the State. The CPM is largely continuing with its strategy of violence and political murders but is unable to win all the time since the Trinamool has got the disgruntled goons of the CPM flocking to support Mamta, if for nothing, to take revenge on CPM for its discrimination against them.
The CPM or the Trinamool may win the polls in 2011 in the State. Yes, the CPM can if the Congress finds Mamata to be a bigger headache than the CPM and breaks the Congress-Trinamool alliance just before the polls; besides Mamata’s dictatorship in Trinamool may soon cause dissensions as in the past and Trinamool may just disappear in thin air if Mamata, say, decides to take Sannyas (renunciation). If none of these parties get overwhelming majority the violence that we see today will continue. If either the Trinamool or the CPM gets landslide victory, the oppression will continue: violence will be replaced by the silence of the burning ghat (crematorium/ graveyard) for a while and then some form of Maoist or leftist opposition to oppression will grow again.
Civilized democracy is unlikely in West Bengal even in the decade of 2010s. The politicians here see their future only in being able to dictate whatever they want, being able to distribute favors to their loyal followers, being able to enable their relatives and friends to make money, being able to abuse police to oppress whomever they do not like, being able to waste public money for their own comfort and publicity, being able to get a road, if not an area, named after the name when they are no more. All these attributes are consistent only with violence and terror as tools to acquire and retain State power.
Only the people of West Bengal can change their lives. The Election Commission is the only friend they have. They should vote without allowing the politicians to know which way they are going to go each time an elections is held: the results of polls should show clearly that they penalize the politicians who win the battles violence, who shows tendency to be dictatorial, who get arrogant if they get too many votes, who tries to interfere in sports, cultural activities and marriages and love between adult citizens, who abuse the police, who cannot make government employees work, and who often seek pardon from the citizens for mistakes. When the politicians go for door to door campaigns, the voters will do well to ask them questions on these issues and make their stands clear on these issues in their election promises.
Change started off soon after 2006 when the CPM led left front returned to power with massive majority. The CPM rapidly became the most arrogant and courageous oppressor in public as a mark of respect to the mandate. The Chief Minister thought that the mandate game him to authority to dictate what would go on in cricket, book fair and film festival. The CPM thought they can beat up any one who would not listen to their commands, whether they are poor farmers or intellectuals. The CPM party can actively support their important members’ relatives to throw off people out off their houses, demolish those houses and construct apartments for sale to make money. Land can be grabbed by sending goons. The police was only to support the party members. The police thought that so long as they lick the boots of the Party commanders, they can continue to collect bribes from the truck drivers and decide which girl and which boy cannot live together even after their marriage. The weak Congress needed leftist support to continue rule India and therefore had to listen to what the CPM General Secretary said but also to the demands of the West Bengal Chief Minister. So far as West Bengal is concerned the Communist Party Dictatorship Raj of the proletariat, resembling the Communist Raj in China and Leninist-Stalinist Russia, had been at last established. Now, the next step was to dislodge the Congress alliance rule by withdrawing support and try to get a fully CPM dependent and controlled non-BJP, non-Congress alliance Government in India.
This change also meant change in CPM’s support base. Not all goons can be accommodated: some had to be favored and some others left out. All in the so-called intellectuals can get favor: those who find fault with directives of the Party will lose favor. The number of disgruntled in dictatorship grows from the beginning: in response to heightened oppression, the disgruntled soar and combine. They seek an alternative dictator who would favor them rather than those favored by the CPM. Mamata was the natural choice: a person who had shown resistance to be cowed down even by the most powerful in the land. Earlier her dictatorship cost her party to loose many opportunities to gain to her party. Now, the ever growing size of the disgruntled oppressed with CPM oppression and discrimination was giving her an opportunity to come back.
Fighting oppression is the way out of the clutches of the extant oppressor and a way to establishing a new oppressor who would oppress the previous oppressor. The process of fight is tit-for-tat: driving out the oppressor party activists from different localities in the same way the oppressor drove out others by violence and terror, by murder, by organizing public demonstrations and strikes. Congress which had become very weak in West Bengal over the years was destined to become further insignificant in a state when Communist Party Dictatorship Raj oppression has been established. For the Congress, the only chance of cutting the CPM to size at the national level lied in the success of Mamata. So the national leaders of the Congress formed alliance with Mamata’s Trinamool and has seen tremendous success since then in, not making the Congress a great popular party in West Bengal, but in drubbing the CPM at the polls and in putting the CPM state leaders under stress fighting the rising popularity of Mamata in the State. The CPM is largely continuing with its strategy of violence and political murders but is unable to win all the time since the Trinamool has got the disgruntled goons of the CPM flocking to support Mamta, if for nothing, to take revenge on CPM for its discrimination against them.
The CPM or the Trinamool may win the polls in 2011 in the State. Yes, the CPM can if the Congress finds Mamata to be a bigger headache than the CPM and breaks the Congress-Trinamool alliance just before the polls; besides Mamata’s dictatorship in Trinamool may soon cause dissensions as in the past and Trinamool may just disappear in thin air if Mamata, say, decides to take Sannyas (renunciation). If none of these parties get overwhelming majority the violence that we see today will continue. If either the Trinamool or the CPM gets landslide victory, the oppression will continue: violence will be replaced by the silence of the burning ghat (crematorium/ graveyard) for a while and then some form of Maoist or leftist opposition to oppression will grow again.
Civilized democracy is unlikely in West Bengal even in the decade of 2010s. The politicians here see their future only in being able to dictate whatever they want, being able to distribute favors to their loyal followers, being able to enable their relatives and friends to make money, being able to abuse police to oppress whomever they do not like, being able to waste public money for their own comfort and publicity, being able to get a road, if not an area, named after the name when they are no more. All these attributes are consistent only with violence and terror as tools to acquire and retain State power.
Only the people of West Bengal can change their lives. The Election Commission is the only friend they have. They should vote without allowing the politicians to know which way they are going to go each time an elections is held: the results of polls should show clearly that they penalize the politicians who win the battles violence, who shows tendency to be dictatorial, who get arrogant if they get too many votes, who tries to interfere in sports, cultural activities and marriages and love between adult citizens, who abuse the police, who cannot make government employees work, and who often seek pardon from the citizens for mistakes. When the politicians go for door to door campaigns, the voters will do well to ask them questions on these issues and make their stands clear on these issues in their election promises.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
When the Ruled Blame the Ruler
What do the citizens expect from the Ruler? Many things. And, they no that the Ruler may not be able to give all that they expect. But one thing that they always expect as the minimum from the Ruler is that their lives and property are protected by the Ruler against onslaughts by third parties like the enemy across the border, the fellow citizens and the Ruler's employees. If there is an military aggression from across the border, citizens would still support the native ruler for a while even giving lives to protect the country. But if the aggression is from a fellow citizen or by a foreign intruder, the ruled just do not blame the fellow citizen or the foreign intruder: they also blame the country's Ruler for failure in the duty of the Ruler to protect the citizens if such incidents happen every other day routinely.
This is what politicians of West Bengal do not seem to realize. Common citizens are not bothered about who carries out the killings and looting of property - whether the Islamic terrorists from within or outside or the Maoists or the local rogues or hooligans: they simply see this as the failure of the Ruler. No body likes to be ruled by a weak Ruler who repeatedly and continuously fails to protect lives and property. This is what is happening to the Ruling Left-front or CPM Government in West Bengal.
For all the killings and murders and other acts of crime perpetuated by the goons, professional criminals, political opponents of the CPM and the extremist (Maoists/ Naxalites), the common citizens are not going to be sympathetic to CPM Rulers: they would think that the Ruler is weak, incapable and not trustworthy. By criticising the opposition parties and Maoists, CPM will only lose popularity if they cannot stop all these violence that is a regular affair in West Bengal. And,so long the CPM continues to ignore a Governments basic duty of providing peaceful living conditions for the common citizens, the opposition, the Maoists, the criminals, the Islamic terrorists from abroad will continue to take the advantage of a weak and weeping government that talks loud, blames others and achieves nothing but progressively rising trend in violence, killings and chaos in the State.
A government that looks like a coward and weak is not going to gain popularity by talking big about development, support to weaker sections, power to Panchyats, lofty ideologies and struggle against imperialism and capitalism. If one is concerned about his life and property at stake despite the existence of a Ruler, he / she is not going to listen to ideological speeches and call for communist revolution in the name of Marx, Lenin or Stalin or Mao.
With less than 24 months to go to the next election, CPM cannot afford to lose time in achieving success in eradicating armed Maoists from the State and drastically reducing political violence and murders in the State. Heroes become popular and win elections: people does not vote massively in favour of a Ruler defeated by the Maoists repeatedly and unable to reduce incidence of political murders and violence. Citizens know that the opposition can have an agitation program: they do not cheer Ruling parties that run agitation against the oppression of the Government by the opposition parties, the Maoists, terrorists and criminals. A Ruling party must get back the image of a strong hero to get back their popularity.
Weak governments does not get sympathy: they become sources of tragic entertainment as the following incidents show: Vedic Village Killings, the killing of policement in the police station by the Maoists, the kidnappiung of a police officer by the Maoists, the halting of the Rajdhani Express train on the track for two hours by some 500-1000 persons, the agitation of the primary teachers who lost jobs as their training by Government acknowledged
training institutes failed to meet standards, and aso on. CPM must soon find some way out of the vicious circle in which they have trapped themselves in.
This is what politicians of West Bengal do not seem to realize. Common citizens are not bothered about who carries out the killings and looting of property - whether the Islamic terrorists from within or outside or the Maoists or the local rogues or hooligans: they simply see this as the failure of the Ruler. No body likes to be ruled by a weak Ruler who repeatedly and continuously fails to protect lives and property. This is what is happening to the Ruling Left-front or CPM Government in West Bengal.
For all the killings and murders and other acts of crime perpetuated by the goons, professional criminals, political opponents of the CPM and the extremist (Maoists/ Naxalites), the common citizens are not going to be sympathetic to CPM Rulers: they would think that the Ruler is weak, incapable and not trustworthy. By criticising the opposition parties and Maoists, CPM will only lose popularity if they cannot stop all these violence that is a regular affair in West Bengal. And,so long the CPM continues to ignore a Governments basic duty of providing peaceful living conditions for the common citizens, the opposition, the Maoists, the criminals, the Islamic terrorists from abroad will continue to take the advantage of a weak and weeping government that talks loud, blames others and achieves nothing but progressively rising trend in violence, killings and chaos in the State.
A government that looks like a coward and weak is not going to gain popularity by talking big about development, support to weaker sections, power to Panchyats, lofty ideologies and struggle against imperialism and capitalism. If one is concerned about his life and property at stake despite the existence of a Ruler, he / she is not going to listen to ideological speeches and call for communist revolution in the name of Marx, Lenin or Stalin or Mao.
With less than 24 months to go to the next election, CPM cannot afford to lose time in achieving success in eradicating armed Maoists from the State and drastically reducing political violence and murders in the State. Heroes become popular and win elections: people does not vote massively in favour of a Ruler defeated by the Maoists repeatedly and unable to reduce incidence of political murders and violence. Citizens know that the opposition can have an agitation program: they do not cheer Ruling parties that run agitation against the oppression of the Government by the opposition parties, the Maoists, terrorists and criminals. A Ruling party must get back the image of a strong hero to get back their popularity.
Weak governments does not get sympathy: they become sources of tragic entertainment as the following incidents show: Vedic Village Killings, the killing of policement in the police station by the Maoists, the kidnappiung of a police officer by the Maoists, the halting of the Rajdhani Express train on the track for two hours by some 500-1000 persons, the agitation of the primary teachers who lost jobs as their training by Government acknowledged
training institutes failed to meet standards, and aso on. CPM must soon find some way out of the vicious circle in which they have trapped themselves in.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Circus Party Entertainment Opportunities Lost
The entertainment quality of Bengali drama seem to be deteriorating despite the guidance of 21st Century cultural guru Chief Minister of West Bengal and the recent revolutionary entry of the Bengal lady Railway Minister of India in to cultural activities of West Bengal from reciting poems, singing songs, drawing/ paintaing, dedicating tube stationas to the names of past film hero, freedom fighter hero and others, and honouring novelists, film persons and others who have fallen from the State Government's favour. Lot of entertainment opportunities for the people in the City of Kolkata, West Bengal’s capital, and the state were just frittered away.
The state Trinamool leader, Partha (Arjun in the side) along with three his colleagues reached the Chief Minister’s Office in the Writers Building (State Government’s headquarters) reportedly demanding that the police arrests the Chief Minister who is also the minister responsible for the Government’s police department. An excellent beginning of for a drama! By the time Partho reached the Chief Minister (CM) Office at about 1-30 PM. He probably missed by seconds or minutes to hold back the Chief Minister from going home for lunch at his residence. So he waited for CM’s scheduled return to office at 4 PM. The writers at the Buliding who seldom write had sensed a great drama and thronged the corridors, but the officers like the Home Secretary probably instructed all entries to the Building closed, preventing the inflow of Press Cameras. CM returned as scheduled, entered his office under police security cordon and ordered that the opposition leaders loitering around his office be thrown out. The police arrested them and shifted them to the Presidency Jail lawns for a few hours and then let them go home. The news of the arrest of the Trinamool leaders led to the announcement of Trinamool squatting for 20 to 40 minutes at different road crossings all over the city in phases during 5PM to 7PM. The vehicular traffic came to a grinding halt soon and the people had to wait in the cars, cabs and busses for hours together. Many people missed their flights including the state Home Secretary scheduled to go to Mumbai, no one could reach hospital in time, and the office employees returning home from office got stranded on the roads. The Trinamool Chief , the Indian Minister for the Railways, who has been so very sympathetic to the needs of the railway passengers and has been taking various measures comfort, convenience and reduction in travel-time of railway passengers, expressed her apology for the unavoidable incident causing suffering to the people traveling by road. She probably meant that the incident was caused by the action of the Chief Minister who had ordered her party leaders to be arrested in front of his office and thrown out. The Chief Minister defended his action by saying that he could not allow his office premises to be used by the opposition party for their circus. Partho retorted that the CM himself was a great political joker and dreamt that one day his party would be able to pay back the CM in the same coin. Most people returned home with a delay of about 3 hours during which the families at home saw the live coverage of the jammed roads on the TV.
The players in the drama could have greater sense of dramatics. Partho, having missed the opportunity to stop the CM for going to residence for lunch, should have immediately gone back and quietly returned at 4.30 PM along with some more press cameras. The CM instead of returning to office at 4 PM could have come back to office at 6-30 PM. The Home Secretary should have ordered most writers in the office complex to leave office sharply at 5 PM. The CM could have ordered for the oppositions leaders to be arrested and removed at around 6-45 PM. Then the Trinamool could have organized their program of squatting at road crossings at around 7-15 PM beginning with the stage of the dramatic circus and then spreading in rings every 15 minutes to reach the outskirts of the city by 8-45 PM. This would have ensured that there was hardly any traffic congestion during the peak hours and most people would have returned home early to enjoy live and repeated replay of the dramatic circus on the TV during the evening of the Friday. They could have seen the acrobatics of the players and clowns in the circus. The long three day week-end with Diwali fireworks could have started with great entertainment.
An opportunity was great entertainment was missed a night earlier also. A reporter and camera man of a TV channel followed the Railway Minister quietly in the cover of the darkness of the night while she was conferring, probably secretly with some of her close associates, at the residence of a well-known artist (popularized by the media as one of the prominent members of the group of intelligentsia not officially recognized as appropriate intelligentsia group by the CPM, the ruling political party in the State). The Railway minister and her associates suspected attempts to kill her, threatened the lady reporter, snatching away her mobile and complained to the Police who whisked away the TV channel staff to the police station, detained them for interrogation and finally let them off after a few hours. The TV channel team in this case seemed to be one without adequate experience. They could have had more than one mobile and kept them connected on-line with the studio so that reinforcement of reporters and camera men could have arrived on the spot of the drama in short time along with other TV channel staff. The people could have seen the drama of gagging press freedom outside the house of a prominent intellectual elite of the State, who apparently had been dropped suddenly a few years back from the patronage of the ruling party and the CM who also is the minister of culture in the State.
It is deplorable that the political actors and TV channels miss such great opportunities of entertainment value creation.
The state Trinamool leader, Partha (Arjun in the side) along with three his colleagues reached the Chief Minister’s Office in the Writers Building (State Government’s headquarters) reportedly demanding that the police arrests the Chief Minister who is also the minister responsible for the Government’s police department. An excellent beginning of for a drama! By the time Partho reached the Chief Minister (CM) Office at about 1-30 PM. He probably missed by seconds or minutes to hold back the Chief Minister from going home for lunch at his residence. So he waited for CM’s scheduled return to office at 4 PM. The writers at the Buliding who seldom write had sensed a great drama and thronged the corridors, but the officers like the Home Secretary probably instructed all entries to the Building closed, preventing the inflow of Press Cameras. CM returned as scheduled, entered his office under police security cordon and ordered that the opposition leaders loitering around his office be thrown out. The police arrested them and shifted them to the Presidency Jail lawns for a few hours and then let them go home. The news of the arrest of the Trinamool leaders led to the announcement of Trinamool squatting for 20 to 40 minutes at different road crossings all over the city in phases during 5PM to 7PM. The vehicular traffic came to a grinding halt soon and the people had to wait in the cars, cabs and busses for hours together. Many people missed their flights including the state Home Secretary scheduled to go to Mumbai, no one could reach hospital in time, and the office employees returning home from office got stranded on the roads. The Trinamool Chief , the Indian Minister for the Railways, who has been so very sympathetic to the needs of the railway passengers and has been taking various measures comfort, convenience and reduction in travel-time of railway passengers, expressed her apology for the unavoidable incident causing suffering to the people traveling by road. She probably meant that the incident was caused by the action of the Chief Minister who had ordered her party leaders to be arrested in front of his office and thrown out. The Chief Minister defended his action by saying that he could not allow his office premises to be used by the opposition party for their circus. Partho retorted that the CM himself was a great political joker and dreamt that one day his party would be able to pay back the CM in the same coin. Most people returned home with a delay of about 3 hours during which the families at home saw the live coverage of the jammed roads on the TV.
The players in the drama could have greater sense of dramatics. Partho, having missed the opportunity to stop the CM for going to residence for lunch, should have immediately gone back and quietly returned at 4.30 PM along with some more press cameras. The CM instead of returning to office at 4 PM could have come back to office at 6-30 PM. The Home Secretary should have ordered most writers in the office complex to leave office sharply at 5 PM. The CM could have ordered for the oppositions leaders to be arrested and removed at around 6-45 PM. Then the Trinamool could have organized their program of squatting at road crossings at around 7-15 PM beginning with the stage of the dramatic circus and then spreading in rings every 15 minutes to reach the outskirts of the city by 8-45 PM. This would have ensured that there was hardly any traffic congestion during the peak hours and most people would have returned home early to enjoy live and repeated replay of the dramatic circus on the TV during the evening of the Friday. They could have seen the acrobatics of the players and clowns in the circus. The long three day week-end with Diwali fireworks could have started with great entertainment.
An opportunity was great entertainment was missed a night earlier also. A reporter and camera man of a TV channel followed the Railway Minister quietly in the cover of the darkness of the night while she was conferring, probably secretly with some of her close associates, at the residence of a well-known artist (popularized by the media as one of the prominent members of the group of intelligentsia not officially recognized as appropriate intelligentsia group by the CPM, the ruling political party in the State). The Railway minister and her associates suspected attempts to kill her, threatened the lady reporter, snatching away her mobile and complained to the Police who whisked away the TV channel staff to the police station, detained them for interrogation and finally let them off after a few hours. The TV channel team in this case seemed to be one without adequate experience. They could have had more than one mobile and kept them connected on-line with the studio so that reinforcement of reporters and camera men could have arrived on the spot of the drama in short time along with other TV channel staff. The people could have seen the drama of gagging press freedom outside the house of a prominent intellectual elite of the State, who apparently had been dropped suddenly a few years back from the patronage of the ruling party and the CM who also is the minister of culture in the State.
It is deplorable that the political actors and TV channels miss such great opportunities of entertainment value creation.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Three Cheers for Three Parties from Siliguri
In Siliguri Municipal Elections the CPM lost hands down despite beinmg the ruling party for over two decades. Trinamool- Congress Alliance won overwhelming majority and were expected to control the municipality for the next five years.
But Trinamool and Congress fought among themselves over the selection of the Mayor of the Siliguri Corporation. They could not come to an understanding till the final day and both filed separate candidates for the Mayor post. Trinamool assumed that since they and the Congress had equal number of elected councilors in the corporation this time, there would be a tie and in the event of a tie on voting on the Mayor election, there would be a toss of coin to decide the winner as per the provisions of the law.
The Congress wanted to be smarter. They issued a written statement seeking support from all the councillors including those of the Trinamool and the CPM.
CPM thought they could be even more clever. On the penultimate night, hey asked and got from the Congress a special letter to their district committee requesting CPM to support Congress candidate for the Mayor and other posts.
Naturally, Congress got the Mayor post along with other posts. But the State and national Congress leaders were in shame that the Congress won with CPM support after they had gone to the polls in alliance with the Trinamool with the common objective of throwing out the CPM party and they succeeded as the people got an opportunity to vote for a change. The
state and national leaders denied any knowledge of the penultimate day late understanding between Siliguri level Congress and the CPM. They played down the mistake at the local level and reaffirmed their commitment to the Trinamool-Congress alliance to throw CPM ou of office in the next State elections due in 2011. A Congress MLA from North Bengal who was a member of the joint alliance committe for poll coordination in Siliguri resigned from the post of Vice President of West Bengal Congress against the Siliguri district Congress Committee's secret deal for support from the CPM when there were alternative solutions. The Congress satisfied their greed for powers in Siliguri believing that this power could help them influence the electorate in 2011 in their favor. They also could send a message that Trinamool cannot be the dictating partner in all cases as the Trinamul leader has been behaving. But they lost face in public for cheating and seeking CPM votes.
The CPM gets applause for their smart move to cash in an opportunity to ceate a divide between the Trinamool and the Congress. But they also lost face in public admitting thereby that they are afraid of Trinamool and treat the Congress as the B team of the CPM as had been repeatedly alleged by Trinamool before they entered in to an alliance with the Congress before the Parliamentary elections. Their argument: they wanted to ensure that some Mayor is elected soon rather than allow the municipality to suffer from the lack of a settlement between the Congress and the Trinamool on the Mayor post. This is not tenable as the toss of a coin would have settled the issue even if they had not participated in the Mayor elections as they had earlier indicated to do.
TRINAMOOL also lost face: they could not succeed in negotiations with the Congress and being too demanding a partner in an alliance. They also lost power in Siliguri municipality.
It is a great lose-lose-lose game that the three parties played. They should get some special award for being so insensitive to the adverse image they create in the minds of the public with their actions.
Now, Congress will try again to appease Trinamool leader Mamata with good words and some concessions. The CPM will have to explain to the public about its curious behavior of supporting the Congress whom they consider as pro-American just because of the fear of Trinamool. Trinamool may get some sympathy because of cheating by the Congress and the childish trick of the CPM but it has to explain to the public as to how credible is the Congress-Trinamool alliance. By voting for the Trinamool-Congress Alliance is the public going to invite a change to chaos of alliance infighting?
Our political parties are only as smart as their brains can permit. They need to be rated against ideal benchmarks and goaded to improve their quality, competence and maturity. They are not only making themselves laughable stock but also putting the great intellectual Bengali race to shame.
What of the future of the Trinamool-Congress Alliance? It will continue despite further frictions in Bi-elections till the State elections are over in 2011. CPM will have ample opportunities to weaken the alliance coordination and establish that a rule of Trinamool and Congress is not the desired change that people should support: people of West Bengal would be better under CPM's rule of arrogance, oppression, corruption, inefficiency and development by words rather than action. The destiny of West Bengal is to suffer either way,
But Trinamool and Congress fought among themselves over the selection of the Mayor of the Siliguri Corporation. They could not come to an understanding till the final day and both filed separate candidates for the Mayor post. Trinamool assumed that since they and the Congress had equal number of elected councilors in the corporation this time, there would be a tie and in the event of a tie on voting on the Mayor election, there would be a toss of coin to decide the winner as per the provisions of the law.
The Congress wanted to be smarter. They issued a written statement seeking support from all the councillors including those of the Trinamool and the CPM.
CPM thought they could be even more clever. On the penultimate night, hey asked and got from the Congress a special letter to their district committee requesting CPM to support Congress candidate for the Mayor and other posts.
Naturally, Congress got the Mayor post along with other posts. But the State and national Congress leaders were in shame that the Congress won with CPM support after they had gone to the polls in alliance with the Trinamool with the common objective of throwing out the CPM party and they succeeded as the people got an opportunity to vote for a change. The
state and national leaders denied any knowledge of the penultimate day late understanding between Siliguri level Congress and the CPM. They played down the mistake at the local level and reaffirmed their commitment to the Trinamool-Congress alliance to throw CPM ou of office in the next State elections due in 2011. A Congress MLA from North Bengal who was a member of the joint alliance committe for poll coordination in Siliguri resigned from the post of Vice President of West Bengal Congress against the Siliguri district Congress Committee's secret deal for support from the CPM when there were alternative solutions. The Congress satisfied their greed for powers in Siliguri believing that this power could help them influence the electorate in 2011 in their favor. They also could send a message that Trinamool cannot be the dictating partner in all cases as the Trinamul leader has been behaving. But they lost face in public for cheating and seeking CPM votes.
The CPM gets applause for their smart move to cash in an opportunity to ceate a divide between the Trinamool and the Congress. But they also lost face in public admitting thereby that they are afraid of Trinamool and treat the Congress as the B team of the CPM as had been repeatedly alleged by Trinamool before they entered in to an alliance with the Congress before the Parliamentary elections. Their argument: they wanted to ensure that some Mayor is elected soon rather than allow the municipality to suffer from the lack of a settlement between the Congress and the Trinamool on the Mayor post. This is not tenable as the toss of a coin would have settled the issue even if they had not participated in the Mayor elections as they had earlier indicated to do.
TRINAMOOL also lost face: they could not succeed in negotiations with the Congress and being too demanding a partner in an alliance. They also lost power in Siliguri municipality.
It is a great lose-lose-lose game that the three parties played. They should get some special award for being so insensitive to the adverse image they create in the minds of the public with their actions.
Now, Congress will try again to appease Trinamool leader Mamata with good words and some concessions. The CPM will have to explain to the public about its curious behavior of supporting the Congress whom they consider as pro-American just because of the fear of Trinamool. Trinamool may get some sympathy because of cheating by the Congress and the childish trick of the CPM but it has to explain to the public as to how credible is the Congress-Trinamool alliance. By voting for the Trinamool-Congress Alliance is the public going to invite a change to chaos of alliance infighting?
Our political parties are only as smart as their brains can permit. They need to be rated against ideal benchmarks and goaded to improve their quality, competence and maturity. They are not only making themselves laughable stock but also putting the great intellectual Bengali race to shame.
What of the future of the Trinamool-Congress Alliance? It will continue despite further frictions in Bi-elections till the State elections are over in 2011. CPM will have ample opportunities to weaken the alliance coordination and establish that a rule of Trinamool and Congress is not the desired change that people should support: people of West Bengal would be better under CPM's rule of arrogance, oppression, corruption, inefficiency and development by words rather than action. The destiny of West Bengal is to suffer either way,
Rating Political Parties for Annual Puja Awards
Politicians are invited to innaugurate Durga Puja Mondols in Kolkata and elsewhere. During the Puja days so many ratings and awards are announced for Durga idols, Puja Committees and Puja beauties and etc. It is now time to publish rankings and awards for politicians and political parties at local and the state levels.
The Corporate houses, TV channels and newspapers can combine to raise funds to organize such ranking and awards by taking the help of credit rating agencies and other experts. My previous posting had indicated how this can be organized on a firm footing. The Duraga Puja Awards can be organized on similar lines. As a guide for rating political parties, they can get some clues from the approach outlined below.
Political parties need to be rated against desirable attribute benchmarks, irrespective of whether they are in the ruling government or in the opposition and irrespective of whether they are national or provincial, regional or local parties or even banned/ underground parties.Intellectuals should develop a broad range of criteria with sub-criteria. Political parties can submit information to the Rating agencies on all aspects of their mission, operations, support, base and performance. Even if they do not submit required by rating agencies the rating agency itself can collect required information as far as possible and rate them. Such rating should be done for base year and thereafter updated every month based on latest developments and information. Each criteria and each sub criteria will have appropriate weights and measured in a scale of 0 ( zero, the lowest) to 10 (the highest).The broad criteria could include:
1. Objectives with sub-criteria as relevance of objectives to civilized society, clarity in expression of objectives, consistency among objectives and the relative priority of the objectives, quantification and measurable property of objectives (vague objectives could be given low points),
2. Organisational Strength: number of members, number of active members, educational background of the top 10 functionaries/ officials), the number of whole-time members and their emoluments and benefits, the quality of inner party democracy, etc.
3. Leadership Capability & skills: educational and professional attainments of the top 10 or top 5% of the officials/ functionaries, the closeness and accessibility to the members and the public at large, quality of the written documents of the party available to the public in terms of content, clarity of content and effectiveness of communication, quality of public speaking of the top 10 leaders, the quality of debating and negotiating skills of the top 10 leaders, the gender composition of top leadership, the team spirit and co-ordination among top 10 leaders, etc.
4. Knowledge: The depth of knowledge of the top 10 leaders at each level in international political and economic relations, in economics and finance, in social and religious issues as also in general sciences and technology as relevant to the common citizens, competence in high school mathematics.
5. Societal Orientation: Exposure to and familiarity with the lives (style, habits, preferences, aspirations and difficulties / concerns) of the people of different economic and social strata among the top 10 leaders at national and local levels.
6. Negative Baggage: criminal record, record of failure in academic examinations, corruption, promotion of relations and loyal, loan servicing record, income tax records, connections with criminals/ Mafia,illness record, abuse of power, law violations record - both for the 10 top leaders and the party functionaries at all levels in general.
7. Income - Expenditure and Assets and liabilities record of the Party - whether certified by competent auditors/ auditors report thereon, income and expenditure in cash and through bank cheques etc, etc.
8. Performance: in terms of protecting/ rescuing people under threat or actual oppression/ extortion, non-violent and non-disruptive campaigns conducted ( call of bandhs/ strikes/ processions with adverse effect on national production activities earning negative points), performance in terms of participation in debates and attendance in parliament/ legislative/ civic bodies, etc.
9. Electoral Performance: percentage of votes polled in national/ regional and local elections, percentage of seats won to percentage of seats contested, etc.10. Use of technology: visitor-friendliness, content, updating, and responsiveness to inquiries in respect of websites, use of mobiles. emails and Internet in part-offices, use of audio-visual computer technology in party meetings, etc.
The above are just illustrative criteria and sub-criteria.Let political parties demonstrate their knowledge, skills, apptitudes, intellect, governance standards, social responsibility, transparency standards, and civilized behaviour through scientific evaluation by independent rating agency. Let them compete to earn good rating instead of formng oligarchic cartels to exploit the people with mere lecture-bajis. Let them face the electorate continuously and not just durng election campaign elections in democracies.
Durga Puja Annual Political Awards can help promote some measure of accountabilty and transparency among politicians and political parties because almost the entire population of West Bengal tracks whatever happens in West Bengal during the Puja celebrations.
The Corporate houses, TV channels and newspapers can combine to raise funds to organize such ranking and awards by taking the help of credit rating agencies and other experts. My previous posting had indicated how this can be organized on a firm footing. The Duraga Puja Awards can be organized on similar lines. As a guide for rating political parties, they can get some clues from the approach outlined below.
Political parties need to be rated against desirable attribute benchmarks, irrespective of whether they are in the ruling government or in the opposition and irrespective of whether they are national or provincial, regional or local parties or even banned/ underground parties.Intellectuals should develop a broad range of criteria with sub-criteria. Political parties can submit information to the Rating agencies on all aspects of their mission, operations, support, base and performance. Even if they do not submit required by rating agencies the rating agency itself can collect required information as far as possible and rate them. Such rating should be done for base year and thereafter updated every month based on latest developments and information. Each criteria and each sub criteria will have appropriate weights and measured in a scale of 0 ( zero, the lowest) to 10 (the highest).The broad criteria could include:
1. Objectives with sub-criteria as relevance of objectives to civilized society, clarity in expression of objectives, consistency among objectives and the relative priority of the objectives, quantification and measurable property of objectives (vague objectives could be given low points),
2. Organisational Strength: number of members, number of active members, educational background of the top 10 functionaries/ officials), the number of whole-time members and their emoluments and benefits, the quality of inner party democracy, etc.
3. Leadership Capability & skills: educational and professional attainments of the top 10 or top 5% of the officials/ functionaries, the closeness and accessibility to the members and the public at large, quality of the written documents of the party available to the public in terms of content, clarity of content and effectiveness of communication, quality of public speaking of the top 10 leaders, the quality of debating and negotiating skills of the top 10 leaders, the gender composition of top leadership, the team spirit and co-ordination among top 10 leaders, etc.
4. Knowledge: The depth of knowledge of the top 10 leaders at each level in international political and economic relations, in economics and finance, in social and religious issues as also in general sciences and technology as relevant to the common citizens, competence in high school mathematics.
5. Societal Orientation: Exposure to and familiarity with the lives (style, habits, preferences, aspirations and difficulties / concerns) of the people of different economic and social strata among the top 10 leaders at national and local levels.
6. Negative Baggage: criminal record, record of failure in academic examinations, corruption, promotion of relations and loyal, loan servicing record, income tax records, connections with criminals/ Mafia,illness record, abuse of power, law violations record - both for the 10 top leaders and the party functionaries at all levels in general.
7. Income - Expenditure and Assets and liabilities record of the Party - whether certified by competent auditors/ auditors report thereon, income and expenditure in cash and through bank cheques etc, etc.
8. Performance: in terms of protecting/ rescuing people under threat or actual oppression/ extortion, non-violent and non-disruptive campaigns conducted ( call of bandhs/ strikes/ processions with adverse effect on national production activities earning negative points), performance in terms of participation in debates and attendance in parliament/ legislative/ civic bodies, etc.
9. Electoral Performance: percentage of votes polled in national/ regional and local elections, percentage of seats won to percentage of seats contested, etc.10. Use of technology: visitor-friendliness, content, updating, and responsiveness to inquiries in respect of websites, use of mobiles. emails and Internet in part-offices, use of audio-visual computer technology in party meetings, etc.
The above are just illustrative criteria and sub-criteria.Let political parties demonstrate their knowledge, skills, apptitudes, intellect, governance standards, social responsibility, transparency standards, and civilized behaviour through scientific evaluation by independent rating agency. Let them compete to earn good rating instead of formng oligarchic cartels to exploit the people with mere lecture-bajis. Let them face the electorate continuously and not just durng election campaign elections in democracies.
Durga Puja Annual Political Awards can help promote some measure of accountabilty and transparency among politicians and political parties because almost the entire population of West Bengal tracks whatever happens in West Bengal during the Puja celebrations.
Puja Awards and Ranking for Political Parties, Governments and MPs and MLAs
The TV channels and corporate houses give lot of awards to people in different fields. They also rate and rank various Durga Puja Awards to Puja idols, Puja sites (Mandaps) and decoration, Puja lighting and Puja Beauties (Sundaris). It is time now to rank and give awards to political parties, MLAs, MPs and governments including local governments like municipal corporations, District Boards and gram pachayats for their performance and competence and integrity. Since Political Regimes Sans Vibrant Political Rating is equal to Medieval Monarchy, Kolkata can take lead in modernizing Indian politics to the requirements of the 21st century.
One of my friends with considerable experience in relevant fields and highly imaginative and analytical mind had prepared some notes on rating/ ranking of elected representatives in terms of performance against their own set goals. That more and more Indians are thinking on similar lines for improving the quality of democracy augurs well for the utility and relevance of Indian democracy to the country’s future citizens.
If democracy has to have any meaning and purpose in this twenty-first century, there has to be an independent non-official market for at least four different types of political ratings:
(a) Rating of each Government: comparison of actual performance with three benchmarks: with promises/ goals, comparison with governments of other countries/ states/ regions/ localities, comparison with ideal standards.
(b) Rating of each political party on similar benchmarks as also over time for the same political party,
(c) Rating of each elected representative, and
(d) Rating of each legislative body like the Parliament or the Senate on a half-yearly rolling basis.
With regard to (d), it is necessary to point out that the institutions of legislative bodies or the Chief of State are definitely constitutionally sacrosanct, but no individual legislative body or individual Chief of the State or any individual government or any particular elected representative with given tenure is any more sacrosanct than the individual citizen. Even the Parliament's own performance and procedures should be subjected to independent rating without any fear of Parliamentary retaliation through resolution or action by the Parliament.All the four ratings are equally important, even if they may be somewhat inter-related. Without these ranking systems in place, democracies, republics and communist regimes are actually inferior form of political system than monarchies of the medieval or ancient times.
My friend suggested that the rating of elected representatives be done under the aegis of the Election Commission. He was worried about how an independent rating agency could compel the people it rates to provide data. If the rating agency does not get data then how does it rate?I would not like to rely merely on the Election Commission or Official Agencies. Such Rating should be done by one or more independent non-political bodies using experts who affirm that they do not either support or are against any political party, government or elected representative anywhere in the world. If there are multiple agencies doing the same job political ratings, this should be rather welcome. Transparent free market for providing rating services is what is required - no Govt., no elected representative, no political party can go to court against any such rating so long as the detailed process of rating is made transparent and worksheets are available to the public within 24 hours of any rating announcement.It is better for the citizens to rely on the market development of credible rating. Initially, no political party or government would like to provide data. But there is lot of data available in the newspapers, electronic media, the election commission, the parliamentary/ legislative bodies' records, the party manifestos, press releases, party newspapers and websites. These can be used in the rating model. For some parameters and variables, estimates can be used. and, for some other parameters, low scores would be used because of the non-cooperation of the parties in providing information despite requests made to them. Then the ratings are published along with complete partywise worksheets with notes on information/ estimates the rating model has used.
Once these are published at regular intervals in newspapers and Internet sites, some parties will contest the rankings on incorrect information and methodological issues. These criticisms have to be responded with revised ratings. Once the political parties get drawn into debates over rating, they would get trapped because they have to accept the information used or release correct information available to them. These become accessible to scrutiny in the public domain.
Politicians change parties and are also in power struggle within their parties. The confidants of such politicians may turn out to be a good source of information. Once these debates start, public will become more aware of political parties activities, secret trades, and other bad things. This will generate a pressure on parties to become transparent and give disclosures.
A well-thought out strategic game has to be there with the rating agencies: the release of information, use of estimates, the use of secret sources, moves to attract information, moves to create public pressure on releasing the True information, use of investigative journalists reports, the response to criticisms, the credibility of the model and its robustness (sensitivity) to small errors or large errors in information used, the credibility of experts of who make judgments on relative weights and analysis of the inconsistency between actions and policies of party as revealed through their speeches and behaviour, etc.The task is not going to be easy in the beginning: but becomes easier and easier with time after the first few rounds of data collection, analysis, and estimation work are over.
Who will fund this? Any group of non –government voluntary agencies and Civil Society Foundations could provide funds. Or, retired, wealthy businessmen could provide funds. In an era of globalization, an international foundation operating from an advanced country can do this if it has resources. If Wall Street Journal can monitor what is happening in rural areas of emerging developing countries, organizing the development and implementation of such political ratings would be rather simple affair for an international association of newspapers and magazines as also universities.
If we were to do this by Law, it will not happen. If we want Government to do this it will be another mockery. In the US, some left-minded people ran a TV channel only on Democracy for a few hours in a day with donations - it probably did not survive beyond a year. On the other hand TV serials based on what goes on in the political parties: these channels get lot of public viewer ship and commercial advertisement s- of course they run the risk of sudden death because of the arm-twisting by the powers that be. But some succeed. But the ultimate test of political ratings would have to be the thousands, millions and billions of the citizens of different countries and localities.Success does not come from mere ex-ante guarantees/ risk mitigation strategies: success comes through using such strategies, dynamically changing them to fight the obstacles.
This posting is a kind of lecture-bazi. But hopefully this posting will generate alternative ideas to the people who would like to keep their controls of legislative bodies, elected representatives, political parties and governments: on this Mahtma Gandhi Birthday, I may be incapable of making hard work, making sacrifice and practicing Satyagraha: but there may be millions who can practice what Gandhi preached to domesticate the wild animals that the philosophers of the World have created in the form of political parties so that people really control political party behaviour rather than become the victims of political party behaviour.
I think the Puja organisers and TV channels can take the lead. They can fund credible independent rating committees and based on their findings announce awards for the MPs, MLAs, Councilers, Mayors, Panchyat Pradhans, District Boards, Panchyats, Municipality Boards, Ministers and the Governments of States where Durga Puja is popular. Let there be annual political awards. Those who do not get award in one year can try to improve and compete for the prize next year.
One of my friends with considerable experience in relevant fields and highly imaginative and analytical mind had prepared some notes on rating/ ranking of elected representatives in terms of performance against their own set goals. That more and more Indians are thinking on similar lines for improving the quality of democracy augurs well for the utility and relevance of Indian democracy to the country’s future citizens.
If democracy has to have any meaning and purpose in this twenty-first century, there has to be an independent non-official market for at least four different types of political ratings:
(a) Rating of each Government: comparison of actual performance with three benchmarks: with promises/ goals, comparison with governments of other countries/ states/ regions/ localities, comparison with ideal standards.
(b) Rating of each political party on similar benchmarks as also over time for the same political party,
(c) Rating of each elected representative, and
(d) Rating of each legislative body like the Parliament or the Senate on a half-yearly rolling basis.
With regard to (d), it is necessary to point out that the institutions of legislative bodies or the Chief of State are definitely constitutionally sacrosanct, but no individual legislative body or individual Chief of the State or any individual government or any particular elected representative with given tenure is any more sacrosanct than the individual citizen. Even the Parliament's own performance and procedures should be subjected to independent rating without any fear of Parliamentary retaliation through resolution or action by the Parliament.All the four ratings are equally important, even if they may be somewhat inter-related. Without these ranking systems in place, democracies, republics and communist regimes are actually inferior form of political system than monarchies of the medieval or ancient times.
My friend suggested that the rating of elected representatives be done under the aegis of the Election Commission. He was worried about how an independent rating agency could compel the people it rates to provide data. If the rating agency does not get data then how does it rate?I would not like to rely merely on the Election Commission or Official Agencies. Such Rating should be done by one or more independent non-political bodies using experts who affirm that they do not either support or are against any political party, government or elected representative anywhere in the world. If there are multiple agencies doing the same job political ratings, this should be rather welcome. Transparent free market for providing rating services is what is required - no Govt., no elected representative, no political party can go to court against any such rating so long as the detailed process of rating is made transparent and worksheets are available to the public within 24 hours of any rating announcement.It is better for the citizens to rely on the market development of credible rating. Initially, no political party or government would like to provide data. But there is lot of data available in the newspapers, electronic media, the election commission, the parliamentary/ legislative bodies' records, the party manifestos, press releases, party newspapers and websites. These can be used in the rating model. For some parameters and variables, estimates can be used. and, for some other parameters, low scores would be used because of the non-cooperation of the parties in providing information despite requests made to them. Then the ratings are published along with complete partywise worksheets with notes on information/ estimates the rating model has used.
Once these are published at regular intervals in newspapers and Internet sites, some parties will contest the rankings on incorrect information and methodological issues. These criticisms have to be responded with revised ratings. Once the political parties get drawn into debates over rating, they would get trapped because they have to accept the information used or release correct information available to them. These become accessible to scrutiny in the public domain.
Politicians change parties and are also in power struggle within their parties. The confidants of such politicians may turn out to be a good source of information. Once these debates start, public will become more aware of political parties activities, secret trades, and other bad things. This will generate a pressure on parties to become transparent and give disclosures.
A well-thought out strategic game has to be there with the rating agencies: the release of information, use of estimates, the use of secret sources, moves to attract information, moves to create public pressure on releasing the True information, use of investigative journalists reports, the response to criticisms, the credibility of the model and its robustness (sensitivity) to small errors or large errors in information used, the credibility of experts of who make judgments on relative weights and analysis of the inconsistency between actions and policies of party as revealed through their speeches and behaviour, etc.The task is not going to be easy in the beginning: but becomes easier and easier with time after the first few rounds of data collection, analysis, and estimation work are over.
Who will fund this? Any group of non –government voluntary agencies and Civil Society Foundations could provide funds. Or, retired, wealthy businessmen could provide funds. In an era of globalization, an international foundation operating from an advanced country can do this if it has resources. If Wall Street Journal can monitor what is happening in rural areas of emerging developing countries, organizing the development and implementation of such political ratings would be rather simple affair for an international association of newspapers and magazines as also universities.
If we were to do this by Law, it will not happen. If we want Government to do this it will be another mockery. In the US, some left-minded people ran a TV channel only on Democracy for a few hours in a day with donations - it probably did not survive beyond a year. On the other hand TV serials based on what goes on in the political parties: these channels get lot of public viewer ship and commercial advertisement s- of course they run the risk of sudden death because of the arm-twisting by the powers that be. But some succeed. But the ultimate test of political ratings would have to be the thousands, millions and billions of the citizens of different countries and localities.Success does not come from mere ex-ante guarantees/ risk mitigation strategies: success comes through using such strategies, dynamically changing them to fight the obstacles.
This posting is a kind of lecture-bazi. But hopefully this posting will generate alternative ideas to the people who would like to keep their controls of legislative bodies, elected representatives, political parties and governments: on this Mahtma Gandhi Birthday, I may be incapable of making hard work, making sacrifice and practicing Satyagraha: but there may be millions who can practice what Gandhi preached to domesticate the wild animals that the philosophers of the World have created in the form of political parties so that people really control political party behaviour rather than become the victims of political party behaviour.
I think the Puja organisers and TV channels can take the lead. They can fund credible independent rating committees and based on their findings announce awards for the MPs, MLAs, Councilers, Mayors, Panchyat Pradhans, District Boards, Panchyats, Municipality Boards, Ministers and the Governments of States where Durga Puja is popular. Let there be annual political awards. Those who do not get award in one year can try to improve and compete for the prize next year.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Quality of Indian Democracy: Transparency, Accountability, Disclosure and Governance
Tech- & Media Savvy Politicians But Parties?
India is the largest democracy in India with long six decades of existence: it's Governments, corporations and individuals are bound by laws and regulations are required to follow practices that makes them accountable for performance and.transparent with lot of disclosures. India is also a country which takes justified pride in the use and development of information technology, especially software, mobile and the Internet. Her politicians are also technology savvy and media savvy. The use of SMS, e-mail, websites, blogs and mobiles is widespread among politicians. Many politicians enjoy participating in TV programs telecasting live or recorded debates, discussion and interviews on political, social and economic issues – local, national and international.
Yet, when we come to the individual political parties, the standards of content, up-dating, visitor-friendliness and transparency in web sites are extremely poor, though some are much better than others. I have observed the following:
1. Some even do not have contact us or feedback buttons for visitors.
2. Those which have feedback or contact us buttons may not bother to respond to comments or queries from visitors.
3. The content lacks any specific articulation of macro-economic management or economic activity structure (presumably, the parties do not have any such economy vision or do not have adequate knowledge of economics beyond some out-dated or fashionable economic terms.
4. There is no overall or indicator specific performance report of the party over decades and years: the party websites do not give performance targets in respect of the coming year/s.
5. There are no disclosures on compliance with laws and regulations.
6. There is no data on number of members of different categories: district-level/ local level secretaries of functionaries and their contact numbers or addresses.
7. There is absolutely no information on income, expenditure and assets / liabilities. No audited accounts are posted.
8. The highest level governing bodies of some parties with elected representatives mostly from one or two states have more members from States with zero elected representative seats in the Parliament. For example, in CPM Politburo the Bengali leaders with roots in West Bengal or Tripura, where the party has the overwhelmingly dominant support of the people and contribute to dominating share in the Party’s seats in the Parliament, are in absolute minority.
9. There is no information on women representation, minorities reservation, OBC Reservation in the party’s official hierarchy.
10. There is no information on the academic qualifications and experience of the party functionaries or the salaries, allowances and other benefits.
11. There is no information on inter-related party transactions.
12. For months there is no new posting on some of the party websites
How do future citizens or even the current citizens, especially the senior citizens choose among parties? What are the accountability of the party’s and their managers?
What quality of democracy can a country enjoy and be proud of in the 21st century of high technology, transparency, governance and accountability for performance and resource use even so many things are missing?
Some people interested in democracy, governance and civil society must find out the facts and the Truth before they comment on the political parties activities based merely on media reports and sporadic, impressionistic personal visit surveys in some pockets here and there.
India is the largest democracy in India with long six decades of existence: it's Governments, corporations and individuals are bound by laws and regulations are required to follow practices that makes them accountable for performance and.transparent with lot of disclosures. India is also a country which takes justified pride in the use and development of information technology, especially software, mobile and the Internet. Her politicians are also technology savvy and media savvy. The use of SMS, e-mail, websites, blogs and mobiles is widespread among politicians. Many politicians enjoy participating in TV programs telecasting live or recorded debates, discussion and interviews on political, social and economic issues – local, national and international.
Yet, when we come to the individual political parties, the standards of content, up-dating, visitor-friendliness and transparency in web sites are extremely poor, though some are much better than others. I have observed the following:
1. Some even do not have contact us or feedback buttons for visitors.
2. Those which have feedback or contact us buttons may not bother to respond to comments or queries from visitors.
3. The content lacks any specific articulation of macro-economic management or economic activity structure (presumably, the parties do not have any such economy vision or do not have adequate knowledge of economics beyond some out-dated or fashionable economic terms.
4. There is no overall or indicator specific performance report of the party over decades and years: the party websites do not give performance targets in respect of the coming year/s.
5. There are no disclosures on compliance with laws and regulations.
6. There is no data on number of members of different categories: district-level/ local level secretaries of functionaries and their contact numbers or addresses.
7. There is absolutely no information on income, expenditure and assets / liabilities. No audited accounts are posted.
8. The highest level governing bodies of some parties with elected representatives mostly from one or two states have more members from States with zero elected representative seats in the Parliament. For example, in CPM Politburo the Bengali leaders with roots in West Bengal or Tripura, where the party has the overwhelmingly dominant support of the people and contribute to dominating share in the Party’s seats in the Parliament, are in absolute minority.
9. There is no information on women representation, minorities reservation, OBC Reservation in the party’s official hierarchy.
10. There is no information on the academic qualifications and experience of the party functionaries or the salaries, allowances and other benefits.
11. There is no information on inter-related party transactions.
12. For months there is no new posting on some of the party websites
How do future citizens or even the current citizens, especially the senior citizens choose among parties? What are the accountability of the party’s and their managers?
What quality of democracy can a country enjoy and be proud of in the 21st century of high technology, transparency, governance and accountability for performance and resource use even so many things are missing?
Some people interested in democracy, governance and civil society must find out the facts and the Truth before they comment on the political parties activities based merely on media reports and sporadic, impressionistic personal visit surveys in some pockets here and there.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Durga Puja in Bangladesh
Bangladeshis may be more secular than what some fundamentalists there make the World believe. The Durga Puja celebrations in Bangladesh is organised by the minuscule minority Hindus but participation by the Muslims as also others actually contribute to the affection, love, fun and gaiety to the Durga Puja there. The ATN TV news shows how large number of politicians and common people of different religious faith participate and enjoy the celebrations in Durga Puja organised in temples and elsewhere. This speaks for the inherent tolerance and love among the Bengalis in general.
In the UK, the Durga Puja celebrations attract people from different communities -Hindus originating from different parts of India and the people of different faith residing there.
Despite the violent religious fundamentalism and religious war mongering by some in different parts of the World, the common people are for harmony and peace. The genetic evolution in the 21st century will help eradicate the religious hatred among the people.
The Supreme Creator of all has his own way of making different parts of his Creation intermingle and come together as much as his own way of splitting them: the fission and the fusion continues. Fusion may dominate in this century. In technology, convergence of information technology, communications and telecommunications is spreading wonders. Globalization in the past two decades has lifted millions out of poverty and the convergence of various political ideologies in dealing with world economic crisis is reflected in the way G20 meetings are held in 2009. The confluence of faiths in the Creator will bring an era of peace for a while.
In the UK, the Durga Puja celebrations attract people from different communities -Hindus originating from different parts of India and the people of different faith residing there.
Despite the violent religious fundamentalism and religious war mongering by some in different parts of the World, the common people are for harmony and peace. The genetic evolution in the 21st century will help eradicate the religious hatred among the people.
The Supreme Creator of all has his own way of making different parts of his Creation intermingle and come together as much as his own way of splitting them: the fission and the fusion continues. Fusion may dominate in this century. In technology, convergence of information technology, communications and telecommunications is spreading wonders. Globalization in the past two decades has lifted millions out of poverty and the convergence of various political ideologies in dealing with world economic crisis is reflected in the way G20 meetings are held in 2009. The confluence of faiths in the Creator will bring an era of peace for a while.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Tragedy of the Arrogance of Ignorance & Incompetence
An young man of 19 was reported missing in Kolkata Police Station X. The information was circulated to Police Hdqrs and all police stations in the State within hours. Within a few hours another person of age around 32 was found dead with signs of injury besides a railway track near the same Police Station X. This information was circulated within hours among all police stations. Since no one identified the dead in reasonably time, he was cremated by the Police. After 24 days the parents of the missing youth could trace their son to the dress in which the dead body was found.
This tragedy occurred in a State that boasts of caring for the common man, of high growth of information technology industry, of source of talented and honest manpower and of visionary, honest and capable ruling party leadership supported by committed cadres.
Had the photographs of all reported missing persons and unidentified dead bodies recovered along with some other details were available on an website of the Kolkata Police, the matching would have been possible even by the bereaved family within a few hours through appropriate sorting. But Kolkata Police is constrained by poor motivation to discharge the responsibility, poor technology usage and a Minister who possess poor managerial and leadership quality.
Two years back the Leader sought to ignore the possibility of high-level policemen being connected to harassment of an adult young Muslim man and his adult Hindu wife at the instance of a case filed by the man's father-in-law who wished that the marriage of her daughter had not taken place. The police minister never insisted that all such interrogations of suspected criminals be video-taped compulsorily for easy investigations later if required. He had poor vision of the direction in which the police should advance in technology and motivation for carrying out the work for which police forces has been recruited.
On the other hand, arrogance that what his police does is most of the time a perfect model of quality to the service of the people, has only made the police less efficient, effective and careful in the discharge of their duties.
The politicians must now learn to vastly improve their capabilities for holding on to public offices: getting votes makes on the representative of the people but do not impart in you the capabilities to manage and lead the people and resources the government gets to use. There will be neither "Development" nor " Change" unless the State's politicians change and develop themselves to substantially upgrade their inherent managerial and leadership qualities. Managing and leading political parties is not enough of an exposure or indicator to managing and leading governments. The 21st century is going to be vastly different from the previous century for the politicians who wish to run governments.
This tragedy occurred in a State that boasts of caring for the common man, of high growth of information technology industry, of source of talented and honest manpower and of visionary, honest and capable ruling party leadership supported by committed cadres.
Had the photographs of all reported missing persons and unidentified dead bodies recovered along with some other details were available on an website of the Kolkata Police, the matching would have been possible even by the bereaved family within a few hours through appropriate sorting. But Kolkata Police is constrained by poor motivation to discharge the responsibility, poor technology usage and a Minister who possess poor managerial and leadership quality.
Two years back the Leader sought to ignore the possibility of high-level policemen being connected to harassment of an adult young Muslim man and his adult Hindu wife at the instance of a case filed by the man's father-in-law who wished that the marriage of her daughter had not taken place. The police minister never insisted that all such interrogations of suspected criminals be video-taped compulsorily for easy investigations later if required. He had poor vision of the direction in which the police should advance in technology and motivation for carrying out the work for which police forces has been recruited.
On the other hand, arrogance that what his police does is most of the time a perfect model of quality to the service of the people, has only made the police less efficient, effective and careful in the discharge of their duties.
The politicians must now learn to vastly improve their capabilities for holding on to public offices: getting votes makes on the representative of the people but do not impart in you the capabilities to manage and lead the people and resources the government gets to use. There will be neither "Development" nor " Change" unless the State's politicians change and develop themselves to substantially upgrade their inherent managerial and leadership qualities. Managing and leading political parties is not enough of an exposure or indicator to managing and leading governments. The 21st century is going to be vastly different from the previous century for the politicians who wish to run governments.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Shun Old Strategies to win elections
Political parties are created to allow some people to acquire power required to influence the lives of the common citizens and earn prestige, status and money. The method is to announce promises to improve the economic and social conditions and lure and or force voters to vote for particular parties or abstain from voting against.
This democracy has been a utter failure despite all its successes in bring about peace, justice and economic growth of West Bengal for more than forty years.
Let the political parties behave with maturity now. Let them not do the following;
a. Stick to power when they are not able to make rapid progress in economic development and providing peace to the people.
b. Try to win the favour of electorate by agitations/ movements that disrupt civic life, economic transactions, movement of people and goods, education and productive activities.
c. Continue with political murders and political violence to retain or capture areas for control over the electorate
d. Make citizens politically conscious
Instead let them do the following:
d. help each and every citizen to get their voter identity cards
e. help each citizen affected go to courts against police and anti-social / terrorist group atrocities
f. help each citizen to express each citizen to express their points of view without fear
g. help citizens to go to consumer courts against unfair practices by retailers to cheat the consumers
h. conduct surveys of electorates as to what they want in terms of solution to their problems.
As we go to the 2011 elections in West Bengal, let the political parties stop fighting and trying to demonstrate their popularity and support. Instead let them work together to take quick decisions on importing potatoes, on throwing out criminals, anti-socials and corrupt elements from party membership and affiliations, land allocation to Wipro, Infosys and other industrial and transportation projects, and on improving services in hospitals and municipalities and govt. offices.
Let them severe all connections with any sports, cultural and religious activities. Let them severe relationship with school and college student unions and employee unions in sectors that are connected with emergency services.
Let them not create chaos and disruptions in the normal life of the people in any way. Let them not abuse the democratic right to protest, right to influence voters, right to recruits youth and students for party work, right to mobilize people to attend their meetings.
In this modern era of television, cable TV, Internet, mobiles, Sms, etc let the political parties give up their habit of using crude method like bandhs, agitations, gheraos, public meetings, armed mafia, shouting with micro-phones in street corners.
Even with only modern technologically efficient and economically cost effective methods, the political parties can win and lose elections. Why use old, obsolete, painful, environmentally polluting, destructive and socially highly costly methods of political business activity?
This democracy has been a utter failure despite all its successes in bring about peace, justice and economic growth of West Bengal for more than forty years.
Let the political parties behave with maturity now. Let them not do the following;
a. Stick to power when they are not able to make rapid progress in economic development and providing peace to the people.
b. Try to win the favour of electorate by agitations/ movements that disrupt civic life, economic transactions, movement of people and goods, education and productive activities.
c. Continue with political murders and political violence to retain or capture areas for control over the electorate
d. Make citizens politically conscious
Instead let them do the following:
d. help each and every citizen to get their voter identity cards
e. help each citizen affected go to courts against police and anti-social / terrorist group atrocities
f. help each citizen to express each citizen to express their points of view without fear
g. help citizens to go to consumer courts against unfair practices by retailers to cheat the consumers
h. conduct surveys of electorates as to what they want in terms of solution to their problems.
As we go to the 2011 elections in West Bengal, let the political parties stop fighting and trying to demonstrate their popularity and support. Instead let them work together to take quick decisions on importing potatoes, on throwing out criminals, anti-socials and corrupt elements from party membership and affiliations, land allocation to Wipro, Infosys and other industrial and transportation projects, and on improving services in hospitals and municipalities and govt. offices.
Let them severe all connections with any sports, cultural and religious activities. Let them severe relationship with school and college student unions and employee unions in sectors that are connected with emergency services.
Let them not create chaos and disruptions in the normal life of the people in any way. Let them not abuse the democratic right to protest, right to influence voters, right to recruits youth and students for party work, right to mobilize people to attend their meetings.
In this modern era of television, cable TV, Internet, mobiles, Sms, etc let the political parties give up their habit of using crude method like bandhs, agitations, gheraos, public meetings, armed mafia, shouting with micro-phones in street corners.
Even with only modern technologically efficient and economically cost effective methods, the political parties can win and lose elections. Why use old, obsolete, painful, environmentally polluting, destructive and socially highly costly methods of political business activity?
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Yet Another Election in favour of Change
The Trinamool-Congress combine has ousted the CPM 27-year Rule in North Bengal's Siliguri Municipal Corporations.
Leftists continue to argue that this is because their opposition parties have formed a coalition front and that there has been negative fall-out of certain mistakes by the State's ruling CPM-led Government and the CPM in neglecting to keep in touch with the poor and the weak by allowing some vested interests and corrupt, selfish and greedy people to infiltrate the Party and the Government. The leftist also suggest that the people wants a change but really do not know whether this change is for the better or worse: they will soon come to realize the truth.
These arguments are the usual childish reasoning adopted by politicians who swear in the name of democracy but are essentially fascist power-seekers for making money and enjoying privileges.
1. Had the opposition partied not form coalition CPM would have continued rule means that CPM enjoyed ruling so long despite most of the electorate being against them. Children speak of their weakness as their strength. So long the CPM argued that the State's electorate is largely communist minded was thus a false claim.
2. Admission of negative fall-out of mistake of losing touch with the poor and the weak is another proof that communists are not necessarily friends of the poor and they can oppress the poor for the benefit of the rich or the corrupt. The history will record one more that the communists oppressed the poor and the weak at least after 2004.
3. Admission that some corrupt and greedy individuals/ sections within the party have been able to misdirect the communist party implies that the corrupt and the greedy are more talented and skilled than the so-called genuine communists who leads the party.
4. To say that the citizens will later realize that they have voted for a change for the worse is an admission of the poor status and image that the electorate enjoys in the minds of the communists in West Bengal. People would never know what is good for the people: so they should always vote for the communists. That is the concept of democracy that the communists accept: people are democratic only if they vote for the communists.
All of a sudden the political consciousness and intelligence that the CPM had overt the last 33 years inculcated among or imparted to the citizens of the State vanished.
Writing on the wall is clear. History shows this. Oppression and injustice creates fear as well as resentment. At some point resentment becomes much stronger than the fear of the ruler's wrath. People seek change not necessarily for the better but may retort by at least changing the oppressor.
Oppressors are always there in the population to combine together for getting hold of the political power. One group or the other will oppress. But people may not like to be oppressed by the same faces, especially if they shout over the top of the roof that they are oppressive and injust. Democracy or no democracy, the oppressed will exercise their choice to be opressed by different rulers rather than accepting the oppression of the same ruler. If that gives them a brief period of reduced oppression and lower measure of injustice, that's simply a bonus. Hopes of political parties and politicians bringing about justice and not interfering with individual citizen's liberty, enterprise and freedom have long been burried.
West Bengal may change the oppressors after 35 years - that itself may be record period of tolerance. West Bengal may not change the oppressors in 2011 to create a better record. That is immaterial. Citizens now know better than in 2004 about the intrinsic worth of political parties and politicians - communists or not:that is a great progress for the oppressed citizens.
Leftists continue to argue that this is because their opposition parties have formed a coalition front and that there has been negative fall-out of certain mistakes by the State's ruling CPM-led Government and the CPM in neglecting to keep in touch with the poor and the weak by allowing some vested interests and corrupt, selfish and greedy people to infiltrate the Party and the Government. The leftist also suggest that the people wants a change but really do not know whether this change is for the better or worse: they will soon come to realize the truth.
These arguments are the usual childish reasoning adopted by politicians who swear in the name of democracy but are essentially fascist power-seekers for making money and enjoying privileges.
1. Had the opposition partied not form coalition CPM would have continued rule means that CPM enjoyed ruling so long despite most of the electorate being against them. Children speak of their weakness as their strength. So long the CPM argued that the State's electorate is largely communist minded was thus a false claim.
2. Admission of negative fall-out of mistake of losing touch with the poor and the weak is another proof that communists are not necessarily friends of the poor and they can oppress the poor for the benefit of the rich or the corrupt. The history will record one more that the communists oppressed the poor and the weak at least after 2004.
3. Admission that some corrupt and greedy individuals/ sections within the party have been able to misdirect the communist party implies that the corrupt and the greedy are more talented and skilled than the so-called genuine communists who leads the party.
4. To say that the citizens will later realize that they have voted for a change for the worse is an admission of the poor status and image that the electorate enjoys in the minds of the communists in West Bengal. People would never know what is good for the people: so they should always vote for the communists. That is the concept of democracy that the communists accept: people are democratic only if they vote for the communists.
All of a sudden the political consciousness and intelligence that the CPM had overt the last 33 years inculcated among or imparted to the citizens of the State vanished.
Writing on the wall is clear. History shows this. Oppression and injustice creates fear as well as resentment. At some point resentment becomes much stronger than the fear of the ruler's wrath. People seek change not necessarily for the better but may retort by at least changing the oppressor.
Oppressors are always there in the population to combine together for getting hold of the political power. One group or the other will oppress. But people may not like to be oppressed by the same faces, especially if they shout over the top of the roof that they are oppressive and injust. Democracy or no democracy, the oppressed will exercise their choice to be opressed by different rulers rather than accepting the oppression of the same ruler. If that gives them a brief period of reduced oppression and lower measure of injustice, that's simply a bonus. Hopes of political parties and politicians bringing about justice and not interfering with individual citizen's liberty, enterprise and freedom have long been burried.
West Bengal may change the oppressors after 35 years - that itself may be record period of tolerance. West Bengal may not change the oppressors in 2011 to create a better record. That is immaterial. Citizens now know better than in 2004 about the intrinsic worth of political parties and politicians - communists or not:that is a great progress for the oppressed citizens.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
What Ails West Bengal
West Bengal seems to be always failing to live up to her potential or promise or even those basic justifications for her pride for exemplary record in peace, culture, food, transport, idealism, sacrifice for the weak and civic sense.
All this has gone. Potatoes prices have gone up exorbitantly. So, Government has arranged a method of rationing that makes people to buy some rotten potatoes that would not have otherwise been sold at all. The Administration is fighting without success killings all over the state in political violence and Maoists-class of communists' murder program to annihilate other communists. Culture is gone except that which goes on with the Durga Puja Celebrations. The banned auto-rickshaws still ply to partly meet the shortages of buses after the police started seizing buses of more than 15 years old that were killing the Kolkata citizens to death spreading obnoxious elements through their nostrils and eyes. The communists wants Rail movements also to inflict suffering to the passengers and therefore are organizing obstruction on railway tracks for something or the other. Sacrifice for the poor has long been at traditions with political leaders of all genre enjoying their progressively wealthy lives while the poor are being looted of their land either by Govt. diktat or by politician supported land Mafia.
Idealism is at cross roads. The communist chief minister has fallen sick, reported due to mental fatigue. That is natural for any non-criminal, honest person who has failed to govern the state and cause its economy to get into a sustained high growth path. He has also presided over the CPM's debacle at the lections at local, panchyat, municipality and Parliamentary elections. The CPM party's central leaders who have no political following anywhere in the country and depended on the electoral successes of the West Bengal CPM unit to continue their political upmanship in Delhi, the country's capital are now pointing to the great failure of CPM leadership in the State.
A gentleman with a reasonable degree of conscience would have normally given up his positions in the Government and the Party. But a communist can never do that: a communist is supposed to be dedicated to the Party's cause even after he has been thrown out from the Party. That is why communists are not to nurse conscience. If they do, they will suffer mental agony and become ill.
For three decades, the CPM participated in democracy bringing lot of benefits to its cadre and their families through lucrative material supply, construction and other State-aided small businesses. It has also brought benefits to local businessmen who never would be able to compete outside West Bengal. It distributed lands to the poor to increase its strength of supporters but very little to lay the foundations of sustainable agriculture. The CPM established a reign of terror that would force people to vote for them or else. But suddenly the Party finds that they are fast losing their feet on the ground. It all started with some incidents in Midnapore districts, got fueled in Nandigram and Singur, gathered momentum with Government interfrerence in Cricket and State protection to high-handedness of loyal policemen in the Rizawan case. The more these events exposed the fascism caracteristic of cummunists, the more the communists became arrogant and more their weaknesses got exposed. More and more people wanted a chanmge even if for the sake of change of the face of the ruling oppressors.
Communists never believe in electoral democracy that is not controlled by the Party Bureaucracy's Leadership. They were all the time fooling the people of West Bengal and India that they are wedded to India's Parliamentary Democracy till the dictatorship of the proletariat is one day established: how and when - neither the CPM ever though of nor the people cared to ask. Such fooling of people in the name of political consciousness can continue for some time and not for long. It seems to be ending now.
CPM has now to choose between Democracy and Communism. The Thurs alternative is to step out or get forced out of ruling the State of West Bengal and become opposition party to drive West Bengal into another period of lawlessness, driving businesses, capital, talent and resources out of West Bengal.
For West Bengal it would have been better had West Bengal CPM unit delinked itself from its All-India CPM and successfully persuaded Mamata Banerjee to head both the Party and the Government in West Bengal. That would have revived both the CPM and West Bengal.
All this has gone. Potatoes prices have gone up exorbitantly. So, Government has arranged a method of rationing that makes people to buy some rotten potatoes that would not have otherwise been sold at all. The Administration is fighting without success killings all over the state in political violence and Maoists-class of communists' murder program to annihilate other communists. Culture is gone except that which goes on with the Durga Puja Celebrations. The banned auto-rickshaws still ply to partly meet the shortages of buses after the police started seizing buses of more than 15 years old that were killing the Kolkata citizens to death spreading obnoxious elements through their nostrils and eyes. The communists wants Rail movements also to inflict suffering to the passengers and therefore are organizing obstruction on railway tracks for something or the other. Sacrifice for the poor has long been at traditions with political leaders of all genre enjoying their progressively wealthy lives while the poor are being looted of their land either by Govt. diktat or by politician supported land Mafia.
Idealism is at cross roads. The communist chief minister has fallen sick, reported due to mental fatigue. That is natural for any non-criminal, honest person who has failed to govern the state and cause its economy to get into a sustained high growth path. He has also presided over the CPM's debacle at the lections at local, panchyat, municipality and Parliamentary elections. The CPM party's central leaders who have no political following anywhere in the country and depended on the electoral successes of the West Bengal CPM unit to continue their political upmanship in Delhi, the country's capital are now pointing to the great failure of CPM leadership in the State.
A gentleman with a reasonable degree of conscience would have normally given up his positions in the Government and the Party. But a communist can never do that: a communist is supposed to be dedicated to the Party's cause even after he has been thrown out from the Party. That is why communists are not to nurse conscience. If they do, they will suffer mental agony and become ill.
For three decades, the CPM participated in democracy bringing lot of benefits to its cadre and their families through lucrative material supply, construction and other State-aided small businesses. It has also brought benefits to local businessmen who never would be able to compete outside West Bengal. It distributed lands to the poor to increase its strength of supporters but very little to lay the foundations of sustainable agriculture. The CPM established a reign of terror that would force people to vote for them or else. But suddenly the Party finds that they are fast losing their feet on the ground. It all started with some incidents in Midnapore districts, got fueled in Nandigram and Singur, gathered momentum with Government interfrerence in Cricket and State protection to high-handedness of loyal policemen in the Rizawan case. The more these events exposed the fascism caracteristic of cummunists, the more the communists became arrogant and more their weaknesses got exposed. More and more people wanted a chanmge even if for the sake of change of the face of the ruling oppressors.
Communists never believe in electoral democracy that is not controlled by the Party Bureaucracy's Leadership. They were all the time fooling the people of West Bengal and India that they are wedded to India's Parliamentary Democracy till the dictatorship of the proletariat is one day established: how and when - neither the CPM ever though of nor the people cared to ask. Such fooling of people in the name of political consciousness can continue for some time and not for long. It seems to be ending now.
CPM has now to choose between Democracy and Communism. The Thurs alternative is to step out or get forced out of ruling the State of West Bengal and become opposition party to drive West Bengal into another period of lawlessness, driving businesses, capital, talent and resources out of West Bengal.
For West Bengal it would have been better had West Bengal CPM unit delinked itself from its All-India CPM and successfully persuaded Mamata Banerjee to head both the Party and the Government in West Bengal. That would have revived both the CPM and West Bengal.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Party Quality & Democracy Outlook
Indian democracy in now fully exposed by the quality of her political parties who preached to the Indian citizens for the last sixty years that the poltical parties constitute an important pillar of Paliamentary democracy. That pillar seems to be crumbling. The main opposition party, BJP, is in doldrums for absolutely insignificant reasons. One Late Mr. Jinnah's deeds and attributes seem to be an important part of the existence of of the BJP. Jinnah is dead long: but he still haunts BJP leaders like Advani and Jaswant Singh and the entire party. How does it matter to India now what Mr. Jinnah was all about? It matters to BJP? There is no leader in BJP who can lead the party. A President is without support, the senior most leader after Bajpayee, former Prime Minister, is old and does not know what to do, several younger generation leaders (close to 60 or more in age) fighting to get the post of the party President or the Leader of the opposition parties in the Parliament. While the ruling party, the Congress Party, remains vibrant, BJP seems to be sick and fit for hospitalisation for rest and recuperation before getting through a major surgery. This does not bode well for Indian democracy. Democracy needs vibrant opposition parties to be effective democracies.
West Bengal is suffering from the continuing illness of the ruling party, the CPM. It's explicit aggressiveness and arrogance has turned into mew mews of the cat: it's musclemen cadre is in quandary. It's party leadership does not seem to be in control of the party. Incident after incidents are taking place that progressively darkens the image of the party that was thought to be clean, disciplined and pro-poor. The Chief Minister skips two national party meetings. His ministers are fighting among themselves to share the blame of corruption in land deals. Gone are the days of announcement of industrial investment MOUs, inauguration of film festivals, book fairs, cultural events and flyovers. Gone are the days of deciding who will lead which sports bodies. Maoists continue to hoodwik the CPM and the state police forces. High court orders continue to embaras the Government. Natural calamities like drought, stroms, heavy rains and floods cause affected opeople to get angry with the CPM government for inefficient relief operations and corruption in relief administration. Too many problems one after the other seem to be attacking CPM and making its leaders and cadres: overwheled they seem to bein total disarray> Sickness is fast spreading from the brains to the throats, arms, feet and rest of the body CPM.
And, this is bad for the citizens of West Bengal. Democracy is not producing results for the State. Gone are the industrialisation hopes. Shortage of potatoe has been compensated by ministerial assurances that have little meaning Transport continues to be a problem in the State Capital. Educational institutions are in distress. Government seem to be failing in every area of governance.
CPM needs to be revived if West Bengal wants to benefit from Democracy. Earlier democracy was throttled because there was hasrdly any opposition. Now the opposition party, Trinamool has gained considerable strength. But the ruling party has weakened to become sick. When will West Bengal have the good luck to enjoy effective and vibrant democracy that can shun violence?
We can only hope that entertainment will be replaced by performing democracy in West Bengal, though for the last 60 years democracy has shown very little performance beyond what Bengali's call lecturebaji and lok thakano.
West Bengal is suffering from the continuing illness of the ruling party, the CPM. It's explicit aggressiveness and arrogance has turned into mew mews of the cat: it's musclemen cadre is in quandary. It's party leadership does not seem to be in control of the party. Incident after incidents are taking place that progressively darkens the image of the party that was thought to be clean, disciplined and pro-poor. The Chief Minister skips two national party meetings. His ministers are fighting among themselves to share the blame of corruption in land deals. Gone are the days of announcement of industrial investment MOUs, inauguration of film festivals, book fairs, cultural events and flyovers. Gone are the days of deciding who will lead which sports bodies. Maoists continue to hoodwik the CPM and the state police forces. High court orders continue to embaras the Government. Natural calamities like drought, stroms, heavy rains and floods cause affected opeople to get angry with the CPM government for inefficient relief operations and corruption in relief administration. Too many problems one after the other seem to be attacking CPM and making its leaders and cadres: overwheled they seem to bein total disarray> Sickness is fast spreading from the brains to the throats, arms, feet and rest of the body CPM.
And, this is bad for the citizens of West Bengal. Democracy is not producing results for the State. Gone are the industrialisation hopes. Shortage of potatoe has been compensated by ministerial assurances that have little meaning Transport continues to be a problem in the State Capital. Educational institutions are in distress. Government seem to be failing in every area of governance.
CPM needs to be revived if West Bengal wants to benefit from Democracy. Earlier democracy was throttled because there was hasrdly any opposition. Now the opposition party, Trinamool has gained considerable strength. But the ruling party has weakened to become sick. When will West Bengal have the good luck to enjoy effective and vibrant democracy that can shun violence?
We can only hope that entertainment will be replaced by performing democracy in West Bengal, though for the last 60 years democracy has shown very little performance beyond what Bengali's call lecturebaji and lok thakano.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Vedic Fire Spreads: Politics' Credibility In Search for Rescue
So, the shooting over a disputed penalty and angry crowds putting a small section of the Vedic Village resort has indeed proved to be an event pregnant with promising entertainment value creation. As if none at all - the political parties, the State Government and the police - were remotely aware of the operation of the land and construction mafia throughout West Bengal before the media started gathering public opinion and facts after the fire in the Vedic Village. After all the victims of land grabbing reported formally to the police in the past! And, the police cannot act suo motto and prevent crime: they can investgate and take action after a crime has been committed and reproted to them. Poor small landowners are therefore to be blamed: they need to be careful especially police cannot deal with cases where the evidence of crime does not get created.
Individual political parties claimed no connection with the mafia people but they claim other parties have links with the mafia. Therefore, instead of referring to land/building mafia political leaders and cadres, the media refers to the operators as political-party mafia guest / accommodated ( X or Y rajnaitik dal aashrito). Thus, the message is clear that the political parties are clean: only mafias have taken advantage of the political parties, their leaders and ministers by colluding with the certain sections of the administration, businessmen and the police. Now, that all parties have cleared themselves off the alleged wrong-doings, investigations must start: all the political parties have started demanded thorough and independent investigations. So, the Chief Minister has given instructions to start impartial and unbiased investigations and expedite the process of booking the wrong-doers. The conclusions of investigations are clearly obvious: no political leaders, no political party and high-level bureaucracy can be found to be wrong-doers: they are only victims out of their ignorance or their association with the public in general (they never know who is a bad person or not and yet they have the need to meet everyone possible to extend their help). The investigations will be several fold now against each alleged crime: shooting by gangsters in the football field killing one, arson and vandalism in Vedic Village resort (Vedic Village is the sufferer here), the storage of illegal arms in Vedic Village compound or other areas which Vedic Village can say that the arms storage go-down (garrison of the mafia) as not really owned by them, the people who helped Gaffar, the mafia don, to escape, the people who forced small land owners to sale their land to Gaffar or the Vedic Village through intimidation and/or at gun point, the people responsible for giving large tract of Government land at low prices to Vedic Village, the people who organized or supported illegal or anti-social activities being conducted within the premises of the Vedic Village, and the policemen concerned who have failed to investigate and take appropriate actions against land mafia operation in the Rajarhat area and areas around Vedic Village.
The Vedic Village started operation at decade back and mafia operation may have started 15 years back. Naturally, so many investigations may take time enough for the public to forget these issues. The conclusions can be anticipate: no political party and leader is implicated, nor are the high officials in the bureaucracy: some individuals in the public, some mafia operators, some innocent people who were among the crowds that invader Vedic Village and put it on fire will be charge sheeted and then the Court cases will take their own time. Land grabbing business through mafia mechanism being so lucrative, this may continue.
All this is what the politicians hope. They are right insofar as the investigation issues now being raised are concerned. But the complex web of corruption, manipulation and money-making that political party activity, legislative activity and political administration activity in the last 60 years have caused to create, no one can predict at what frequency scandals and image-breaking incidents will occur in future. If a small football tournament game dispute can give rise to such great entertainment, the credibility of West Bengal’s hi-fi political consciousness can witness repeated attacks from unpredictable sources.
So, entertainment outlook appears highly interesting, positive and stable.
In the backdrop of all these, India is marching ahead. Women are in focus; Mamata earned award for the Railways’ contribution to sports and appreciation for the commendable work she has done for the Government during its first 100 days of rule, Mayavati has told her supporters not to raise money on the occasion of her next Birthday, and Sushma Swaraj is almost set to win the post of BJP President ship or Parliament’s Opposition Leader. And, of course, The Telegraph Education Foundation has done all proud by honoring exceptional women in different spheres of life. Just visit http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090830/jsp/frontpage/story_11427767.jsp The Telegraph Kolkata of 30 August 2009..
The battle over political party rule in colleges does not seem to be over yet. Taxing students’ family income is not a business that will be given up so easily. Besides, there are privileges to be fight for: getting promoted after failing to score in the examinations at Jadavpur University. The Colleges and University Chiefs are having tough time: all are awaiting the CPM-alleged politically-biased Governor’s initiative to rescue them and academic studies from doldrums.
Individual political parties claimed no connection with the mafia people but they claim other parties have links with the mafia. Therefore, instead of referring to land/building mafia political leaders and cadres, the media refers to the operators as political-party mafia guest / accommodated ( X or Y rajnaitik dal aashrito). Thus, the message is clear that the political parties are clean: only mafias have taken advantage of the political parties, their leaders and ministers by colluding with the certain sections of the administration, businessmen and the police. Now, that all parties have cleared themselves off the alleged wrong-doings, investigations must start: all the political parties have started demanded thorough and independent investigations. So, the Chief Minister has given instructions to start impartial and unbiased investigations and expedite the process of booking the wrong-doers. The conclusions of investigations are clearly obvious: no political leaders, no political party and high-level bureaucracy can be found to be wrong-doers: they are only victims out of their ignorance or their association with the public in general (they never know who is a bad person or not and yet they have the need to meet everyone possible to extend their help). The investigations will be several fold now against each alleged crime: shooting by gangsters in the football field killing one, arson and vandalism in Vedic Village resort (Vedic Village is the sufferer here), the storage of illegal arms in Vedic Village compound or other areas which Vedic Village can say that the arms storage go-down (garrison of the mafia) as not really owned by them, the people who helped Gaffar, the mafia don, to escape, the people who forced small land owners to sale their land to Gaffar or the Vedic Village through intimidation and/or at gun point, the people responsible for giving large tract of Government land at low prices to Vedic Village, the people who organized or supported illegal or anti-social activities being conducted within the premises of the Vedic Village, and the policemen concerned who have failed to investigate and take appropriate actions against land mafia operation in the Rajarhat area and areas around Vedic Village.
The Vedic Village started operation at decade back and mafia operation may have started 15 years back. Naturally, so many investigations may take time enough for the public to forget these issues. The conclusions can be anticipate: no political party and leader is implicated, nor are the high officials in the bureaucracy: some individuals in the public, some mafia operators, some innocent people who were among the crowds that invader Vedic Village and put it on fire will be charge sheeted and then the Court cases will take their own time. Land grabbing business through mafia mechanism being so lucrative, this may continue.
All this is what the politicians hope. They are right insofar as the investigation issues now being raised are concerned. But the complex web of corruption, manipulation and money-making that political party activity, legislative activity and political administration activity in the last 60 years have caused to create, no one can predict at what frequency scandals and image-breaking incidents will occur in future. If a small football tournament game dispute can give rise to such great entertainment, the credibility of West Bengal’s hi-fi political consciousness can witness repeated attacks from unpredictable sources.
So, entertainment outlook appears highly interesting, positive and stable.
In the backdrop of all these, India is marching ahead. Women are in focus; Mamata earned award for the Railways’ contribution to sports and appreciation for the commendable work she has done for the Government during its first 100 days of rule, Mayavati has told her supporters not to raise money on the occasion of her next Birthday, and Sushma Swaraj is almost set to win the post of BJP President ship or Parliament’s Opposition Leader. And, of course, The Telegraph Education Foundation has done all proud by honoring exceptional women in different spheres of life. Just visit http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090830/jsp/frontpage/story_11427767.jsp The Telegraph Kolkata of 30 August 2009..
The battle over political party rule in colleges does not seem to be over yet. Taxing students’ family income is not a business that will be given up so easily. Besides, there are privileges to be fight for: getting promoted after failing to score in the examinations at Jadavpur University. The Colleges and University Chiefs are having tough time: all are awaiting the CPM-alleged politically-biased Governor’s initiative to rescue them and academic studies from doldrums.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Mamata's Show Amidst Fights Everywhere
The CPM has been rather quiet after Governor's letter to Biman Bose: maybe pusuing the strategy of questioning the neutrality of the Governor was yielding more bitter fruits than sweet ones. CPM has therefore shifted to the strategy that worked about half a century back: the one that brought many like Subhas Chakraborty to become leaders. Blame the ultimate devil and crook responsible for whatever bad happens in this World: America. Biman Bose has found out that America is giving money to Mamata's Trinamul to organize killing of CPM leaders, supporters and members in the various districts and places that use to be their strongholds. And, anti-Americanism slogan-based movement that does not affect the Americans in any way, has been the traditional route to political leadership and ministerial or public representative power, influence and comfortable materialistic life for many leftist leaders in India. Even the recently deceased Subhas Chakrabarty rose to great heights through that route. With the demise of this popular and influential leader, whom the party declined to admit to the National Politburo, CPM has got an opportunity to rediscover this route for young people and therefore organising many Subhas Memorial events and gatherings What was easy to sell during the dark days of Communist Russia and China may not sell now! America seems to be so foolishly squandering its resources all over the places including targeting a political party concentrated largely in West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala by not giving them money but to their upstart rival!!
The new strategy of the joint Center-State Armed Police Operation against the Maoist terrorists in Lalgarh has not yet shown any result: but the State Government may not be in a hurry to get results. They probably want the operation to continue till the endof December 2009.
The colleges have become the battling ground of CPM and Trinamul. Both claim that the other party is responsible for the violence. Many parents of fresh serious entrants to undergraduate courses may be repenting for not considering the financially more expensive option to send their children to study in the colleges in other states like Karnataka, Maharshtra and Delhi. But college student unionism is the incubator of political leaders of the future. How can we expect political parties to leave the battlegrounds in the undergraduate colleges in a province that boasts of high politically consciousness?
Trinamul has naturally been trying to wrest the control of student unions in colleges. Why would CPM's SFI yield to them so easily? So, fights will continue. Bengal's most most popular celebrity politician -cum - minister who has helped thousands of people in difficulty was the Late Subhas Chakraborty: he rose from the ranks of being a student leader in undergraduate colleges and is the role model for many aspiring future political leader-cum- minister of the future.
But it was Mamata's week in Kolkata. Her party won the two state legislature seats where there were elections last Sunday. As the results came out, she was meeting the local industrialists along with Railway officials in an afternoon session. The show was reportedly brilliant in all aspects. She established her credentials as a result-oriented economic administrator, a promising manager of a large commercial organization like the Railways, as a visionary political leader of West Bengal who not only cares for but in a position to effectively contribute to the growth of agriculture and industry in West Bengal, a champion of industrialists who care to share problems with her and who are willing to invest in the Railway's land bank areas she has thrown open for setting up industries as a model of public-private partnership and a close follower of the activities of industrialists in so far as their individual industrial activities are concerned. She has shown her eagerness to help the industrialists all out if they respond promptly. The industrialist, as is expected generally of them, has spoken high of her performance during the meeting. But industrialist in West Bengal, as are the political community and the bureaucracy are genetically sloth in their actions to produce results by exploiting opportunities that come their way suddenly: they are used to investing months paying several courtesy visits to political leaders and ministers to get favor or even what they are entitled to.
Mamata also arranged a special meeting to honour celebrities in the sphere of cinema and literature: people thronged there also. Mamata has stepped up her efforts to enthuse the Kolkata denizens with the inaugural ceremony of the first phase extension of the City's Metro (tube-rail) network. Public in large numbers thronged the ceremonies. It is hard to believe that politically conscious denizens of Kolkata including a large number of the City's film stars would participate in such Railway ceremonies.
The Railways did not invite the State Chief Minister, Buddhadev Bhattacharyya, to these inaugural ceremonies, though the State borne one-third of the cost of the Metro expansion project that has just been completed. The new transport minister in the State who joined to fill in the vacancy created by Subhas Chakrabarty, just 48 hours before the first inaugural ceremony, did not attend the function because of late invitation. The ruling CPM party is sore about all this: the neglect of the State Chief Minister, the not very warm manner of extending invitation to the State's new Transport Minister, the participation of Trinamul supporters in Railway events and naming of the new metro stations and an old one without consulting the State Government. One of the stations has been named after the most popular legendery matinee idol Uttam Kumar, while others have been named after some of the greatest patriots of Bengal of the early 20th century (Khudiram, Suryac Sen,Kazi Nazrul Islam). The self-proclaimed and CPM-accepted sole cultural custodian (not of Cricket at the moment) of West Bengal, Buddhadev Bhattacharyya, the Chief Minister is obviously unhappy at the intrusion of Mamata as a rival in the cultural space of West Bengal. He has blurted out at the advertisement of the naming of the metro stations as a Tamasha or dramatic joke on the great personalities of Bengal.
While this was going on, the Tamasha of the Home Department, under the Chief Minister continues with the CPM itself alleging failure of the State police in arresting violence by the Trinamul Congress. No body knows where from arms find their free way into the hands of increasing number of anti-socials and criminals who not only participate in violent political murders but also shoot an innocent driver of a school bus for not stooping tyhe bus and allowing them to abduct a girl student going to school in the bus (the driver however is promised a gallantry award by Buddhadev for his heroic act. And, in the evening today gun shots and bombs kill and injure people after a disputed penalty award in a 20-minute football tournament semi-final in Rajarhat, a place ruled by ruffians involved in land sales forced on poor farmimg households and construction activities and where massive arsenal were recovered by police twice early this year. The drama at Rajarhat is unfolding with Trinamul claiming the person killed in the incident was their supporter and foreign and domestic tourists getting trapped in a lovely and luxurious tourist resort named Vedic Village when the angry mob who chased the armed ruffians to take shelter in the Vedic Village over which the ruffians had established control over quite some time and put a section of the resort's property under fire. Yet another Tamasha Drama is unfolding in an area where the State's police, as in so many other areas of the State, has failed to clean up the illicit arms and their users - adding much feathers to the cap of the State's extremely gentleman and culturally enthusiastic Chief Minister. Let us see what more of entertainment is in store after the prisoners had some good time feeding sleep-inducing sweets to or hoodwinking policemen to escape to their freedom and eight monkeys of foreign origin got abducted from the Calcutta Zoo, taking advantage of most people getting busy with Mamata's shows, Subhas mourning and battles in the colleges and football ground and tourist resorts, largely forgetting the anxieties over so many menaces like the Ayela storm, the Lalgarh Maoist terrorism and the swine flue.
The new strategy of the joint Center-State Armed Police Operation against the Maoist terrorists in Lalgarh has not yet shown any result: but the State Government may not be in a hurry to get results. They probably want the operation to continue till the endof December 2009.
The colleges have become the battling ground of CPM and Trinamul. Both claim that the other party is responsible for the violence. Many parents of fresh serious entrants to undergraduate courses may be repenting for not considering the financially more expensive option to send their children to study in the colleges in other states like Karnataka, Maharshtra and Delhi. But college student unionism is the incubator of political leaders of the future. How can we expect political parties to leave the battlegrounds in the undergraduate colleges in a province that boasts of high politically consciousness?
Trinamul has naturally been trying to wrest the control of student unions in colleges. Why would CPM's SFI yield to them so easily? So, fights will continue. Bengal's most most popular celebrity politician -cum - minister who has helped thousands of people in difficulty was the Late Subhas Chakraborty: he rose from the ranks of being a student leader in undergraduate colleges and is the role model for many aspiring future political leader-cum- minister of the future.
But it was Mamata's week in Kolkata. Her party won the two state legislature seats where there were elections last Sunday. As the results came out, she was meeting the local industrialists along with Railway officials in an afternoon session. The show was reportedly brilliant in all aspects. She established her credentials as a result-oriented economic administrator, a promising manager of a large commercial organization like the Railways, as a visionary political leader of West Bengal who not only cares for but in a position to effectively contribute to the growth of agriculture and industry in West Bengal, a champion of industrialists who care to share problems with her and who are willing to invest in the Railway's land bank areas she has thrown open for setting up industries as a model of public-private partnership and a close follower of the activities of industrialists in so far as their individual industrial activities are concerned. She has shown her eagerness to help the industrialists all out if they respond promptly. The industrialist, as is expected generally of them, has spoken high of her performance during the meeting. But industrialist in West Bengal, as are the political community and the bureaucracy are genetically sloth in their actions to produce results by exploiting opportunities that come their way suddenly: they are used to investing months paying several courtesy visits to political leaders and ministers to get favor or even what they are entitled to.
Mamata also arranged a special meeting to honour celebrities in the sphere of cinema and literature: people thronged there also. Mamata has stepped up her efforts to enthuse the Kolkata denizens with the inaugural ceremony of the first phase extension of the City's Metro (tube-rail) network. Public in large numbers thronged the ceremonies. It is hard to believe that politically conscious denizens of Kolkata including a large number of the City's film stars would participate in such Railway ceremonies.
The Railways did not invite the State Chief Minister, Buddhadev Bhattacharyya, to these inaugural ceremonies, though the State borne one-third of the cost of the Metro expansion project that has just been completed. The new transport minister in the State who joined to fill in the vacancy created by Subhas Chakrabarty, just 48 hours before the first inaugural ceremony, did not attend the function because of late invitation. The ruling CPM party is sore about all this: the neglect of the State Chief Minister, the not very warm manner of extending invitation to the State's new Transport Minister, the participation of Trinamul supporters in Railway events and naming of the new metro stations and an old one without consulting the State Government. One of the stations has been named after the most popular legendery matinee idol Uttam Kumar, while others have been named after some of the greatest patriots of Bengal of the early 20th century (Khudiram, Suryac Sen,Kazi Nazrul Islam). The self-proclaimed and CPM-accepted sole cultural custodian (not of Cricket at the moment) of West Bengal, Buddhadev Bhattacharyya, the Chief Minister is obviously unhappy at the intrusion of Mamata as a rival in the cultural space of West Bengal. He has blurted out at the advertisement of the naming of the metro stations as a Tamasha or dramatic joke on the great personalities of Bengal.
While this was going on, the Tamasha of the Home Department, under the Chief Minister continues with the CPM itself alleging failure of the State police in arresting violence by the Trinamul Congress. No body knows where from arms find their free way into the hands of increasing number of anti-socials and criminals who not only participate in violent political murders but also shoot an innocent driver of a school bus for not stooping tyhe bus and allowing them to abduct a girl student going to school in the bus (the driver however is promised a gallantry award by Buddhadev for his heroic act. And, in the evening today gun shots and bombs kill and injure people after a disputed penalty award in a 20-minute football tournament semi-final in Rajarhat, a place ruled by ruffians involved in land sales forced on poor farmimg households and construction activities and where massive arsenal were recovered by police twice early this year. The drama at Rajarhat is unfolding with Trinamul claiming the person killed in the incident was their supporter and foreign and domestic tourists getting trapped in a lovely and luxurious tourist resort named Vedic Village when the angry mob who chased the armed ruffians to take shelter in the Vedic Village over which the ruffians had established control over quite some time and put a section of the resort's property under fire. Yet another Tamasha Drama is unfolding in an area where the State's police, as in so many other areas of the State, has failed to clean up the illicit arms and their users - adding much feathers to the cap of the State's extremely gentleman and culturally enthusiastic Chief Minister. Let us see what more of entertainment is in store after the prisoners had some good time feeding sleep-inducing sweets to or hoodwinking policemen to escape to their freedom and eight monkeys of foreign origin got abducted from the Calcutta Zoo, taking advantage of most people getting busy with Mamata's shows, Subhas mourning and battles in the colleges and football ground and tourist resorts, largely forgetting the anxieties over so many menaces like the Ayela storm, the Lalgarh Maoist terrorism and the swine flue.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Argumentative Bengali Pastime: Divert Attention From Facts
Economics Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen, a Bengali philosopher with practical interest and involvement in the cause of social Justice, wrote a book about the Argumentative Indian and the great value of being argumentative to the vibrancy of democracy. As a Bengali, what I am doing now to test his thesis with regard to the argumentative Bengalis, of which he and I are two specimen sharing the same surname of Sen with initials of A and B, respectively signifying possibly the intellectual quality class, is itself an instance of the argumentative Bengali.
On 6th August this year, the Governor of West Bengal, Gopal Krishna Gandhi, a respected intellectual himself, and probably inflected by the Bengali strain of the Argumentative virus,after having lived in this land for over four years now, issued a Press Release (it can be seen in the web site of the Raj Bhavan of West Bengal, courtesy National Informatics Centre; yes, Raj is a word Indians, brought up on childhood stories of ancient and medieval Rajas and Maharajas including the recent incarnations like Raj Kapoor, Raj Babbar, Raj-anikanth, Raj-iv, Raj Kumar and of course Maharaj Sourav Ganguly, to name a few). The Press Release has provided yet another opportunity to the Bengalis to engage themselves in their favorite pastime of argumentation violence while they continue to suffer loss of life and property on account of their physical political violence game they have been emotionally engaged in over the past two months and more. The ruling political party in West Bengal seems to have the most vocal argumentative leaders: they have criticised Governor Gandhi of losing his political neutrality considering the content and timing of his Press Release. Among their leftist group partners, the CPI has also criticised the Governor through their Bengali leaders. The Trinamul and the Indian National Congress parties' leaders in the state has criticised the CPM burst out against the governor. Bengali intellectuals and television viewers have engaged in debates over the issue in interactive TV programs in a handful of Bengali channels (Bengalis patronage as many as score of Bengali channels that beam their programs here).
Even the elderly constitutional Law expert, Sidhartha Sankar Ray, former Union Law Minister, former Congress Chief Minister of West Bengal and a former Governor of Punjab during one that state's turmoil period, gave an interview on the issues pertinent to the debate over the Governor's Press release, while enjoying the relaxed atmosphere in his home and the comfort of informal attire of a red T-shirt and half pants. The Governor Gandhi has written letters to the CPM State General Secretary and the CPM Chief Minister giving an account of his actions in the past that upholds his political neutrality and duty as the Governor, the Constitutional Head of the Government of West Bengal.
What did the Governor say in his Press Release of 6th August? The first three sentences are a quotation of 1919-vintage on the need to eradicate worship of force of all forms and its relevance to West Bengal ninety years later. The next three sentences makes three statement of facts of unabated destructive political violence in West Bengal since the second-half of May 2009. No political party or ideology is mentioned or suggested in these 6 sentences. The next two sentences are statement of facts that three delegations, one each of Trinamul Congress, Indian National Congress and the ruling Left Front, meeting him in the recent past and appealing him to do something to stem the political violence.
In the ninth sentence he wonders why violence does not stop when all the political formations have the same objective of stemming violence. Next he gives an answer he believes is right: those who can act are not doing so. He goes on to say in the eleventh sentence that the fires of fear, agony of bereavement and rage is burning in the political life of the state. In the next three sentences he says what the duties and responsibilities of political leaders in the state are: they should tell their followers and supporters to stop these fires, to ensure that none provokes or gets provoked into further violence, and to identify the violent within their organizations and let them be dealt with by the law.
In the fifteenth sentence, Gandhi expresses his confidence that the State, meaning his Government will swiftly check the phenomenon of illicit arms, bring perpetrators of violence to account and instill confidence among the people that their security is not linked to their politics.
In the sixteenth sentence, the Governor makes another statement of fact: that the Left Front delegation that met him on 5th August had asked him " to extend necessary cooperation to the State Government in all possible ways for the protection of life, property and democratic rights of the people of the State". The next sentence he says that he has done so in the past and that he considers that this is his duty again and again. In the final eighteenth he expresses his belief that "all of us must do our duty". (http://rajbhavankolkata.gov.in/WriteReadData/Bulletins/press%20release%206%20aug.pdf).
Such a simple Press Release could be a source of debate for the argumentative Bengalis! The political parties had met the Governor to do something. The Governor has informed the people at large of his own concern as well as the concern of all political parties over unabated, destructive political violence and what the political leaders in the state must do to stem this violence. He has also felt confident that the State/ his Government will also do the necessary things. He has informed that he has been doing his duty and will continue to do so and expects everyone to do so. What is controversial in all these? The political parties themselves initiated their action to meet and discuss with the Governor in delegation. He has responded to them in a reasonable manner as the Governor himself and on behalf of his government.
Why should the political leaders start discussing the Press Release and debate over it whether they should agree or disagree with the Governor or whether they approve of his action to issue a Press Release. The simple reason is that the Press Release tells the Truth and emphasises the only way the violence can end: the political leaders must act to stop violence and counter-violence and stop the worship of violence by some members and supporters of their parties. This is what the political parties do not like to do together in coordination: No joint political party teams in sensitive areas to stop violence and protect all people irrespective of political affiliation. They continue to visit affected areas only to protect their own supporters and members and address their own rallies: No joint political rallies for peace and identifying of the perpetrators of violence. Let people not think about all this by reading the Governors Press Release: so make it controversial and divert people's attention away from the Governor's Press Release to what the political leaders comment on the Governor's Press Release.
CPM has an additional reason to divert the attention of the people from the Governor's Press Release. The Left Front has been mentioned twice in the Governor's Press Release: once, along with two other party delegations visiting the Governor to urge him to do what he can do stop this violence. This reference was OK and neutral. Why did the Governor mention of the Left Front delegation for the second time; this is evidently discriminatory. But the Governor had no choice. While the other parties did not ask the Governor to cooperate with the Government, the Left Front delegation asked the Governor to cooperate with his own Government. And, the Governor has leaked that out in the public, besides urging all to do their duty as the Governor continued to do his duty. This is another explosive truth about the political leaders advising the Governor to cooperate with his own Government and themselves not committing to do their part of the duty. Such a statement should not be read by the public. The only way to do that is to raise a controversy and let people get busy listening to them only rather than get to know what actually the Governor has stated in his Press Release.
Good entertainment for the argumentative, politically-conscious and logic-free hair-spliting Bengalis of West Bengal.
On 6th August this year, the Governor of West Bengal, Gopal Krishna Gandhi, a respected intellectual himself, and probably inflected by the Bengali strain of the Argumentative virus,after having lived in this land for over four years now, issued a Press Release (it can be seen in the web site of the Raj Bhavan of West Bengal, courtesy National Informatics Centre; yes, Raj is a word Indians, brought up on childhood stories of ancient and medieval Rajas and Maharajas including the recent incarnations like Raj Kapoor, Raj Babbar, Raj-anikanth, Raj-iv, Raj Kumar and of course Maharaj Sourav Ganguly, to name a few). The Press Release has provided yet another opportunity to the Bengalis to engage themselves in their favorite pastime of argumentation violence while they continue to suffer loss of life and property on account of their physical political violence game they have been emotionally engaged in over the past two months and more. The ruling political party in West Bengal seems to have the most vocal argumentative leaders: they have criticised Governor Gandhi of losing his political neutrality considering the content and timing of his Press Release. Among their leftist group partners, the CPI has also criticised the Governor through their Bengali leaders. The Trinamul and the Indian National Congress parties' leaders in the state has criticised the CPM burst out against the governor. Bengali intellectuals and television viewers have engaged in debates over the issue in interactive TV programs in a handful of Bengali channels (Bengalis patronage as many as score of Bengali channels that beam their programs here).
Even the elderly constitutional Law expert, Sidhartha Sankar Ray, former Union Law Minister, former Congress Chief Minister of West Bengal and a former Governor of Punjab during one that state's turmoil period, gave an interview on the issues pertinent to the debate over the Governor's Press release, while enjoying the relaxed atmosphere in his home and the comfort of informal attire of a red T-shirt and half pants. The Governor Gandhi has written letters to the CPM State General Secretary and the CPM Chief Minister giving an account of his actions in the past that upholds his political neutrality and duty as the Governor, the Constitutional Head of the Government of West Bengal.
What did the Governor say in his Press Release of 6th August? The first three sentences are a quotation of 1919-vintage on the need to eradicate worship of force of all forms and its relevance to West Bengal ninety years later. The next three sentences makes three statement of facts of unabated destructive political violence in West Bengal since the second-half of May 2009. No political party or ideology is mentioned or suggested in these 6 sentences. The next two sentences are statement of facts that three delegations, one each of Trinamul Congress, Indian National Congress and the ruling Left Front, meeting him in the recent past and appealing him to do something to stem the political violence.
In the ninth sentence he wonders why violence does not stop when all the political formations have the same objective of stemming violence. Next he gives an answer he believes is right: those who can act are not doing so. He goes on to say in the eleventh sentence that the fires of fear, agony of bereavement and rage is burning in the political life of the state. In the next three sentences he says what the duties and responsibilities of political leaders in the state are: they should tell their followers and supporters to stop these fires, to ensure that none provokes or gets provoked into further violence, and to identify the violent within their organizations and let them be dealt with by the law.
In the fifteenth sentence, Gandhi expresses his confidence that the State, meaning his Government will swiftly check the phenomenon of illicit arms, bring perpetrators of violence to account and instill confidence among the people that their security is not linked to their politics.
In the sixteenth sentence, the Governor makes another statement of fact: that the Left Front delegation that met him on 5th August had asked him " to extend necessary cooperation to the State Government in all possible ways for the protection of life, property and democratic rights of the people of the State". The next sentence he says that he has done so in the past and that he considers that this is his duty again and again. In the final eighteenth he expresses his belief that "all of us must do our duty". (http://rajbhavankolkata.gov.in/WriteReadData/Bulletins/press%20release%206%20aug.pdf).
Such a simple Press Release could be a source of debate for the argumentative Bengalis! The political parties had met the Governor to do something. The Governor has informed the people at large of his own concern as well as the concern of all political parties over unabated, destructive political violence and what the political leaders in the state must do to stem this violence. He has also felt confident that the State/ his Government will also do the necessary things. He has informed that he has been doing his duty and will continue to do so and expects everyone to do so. What is controversial in all these? The political parties themselves initiated their action to meet and discuss with the Governor in delegation. He has responded to them in a reasonable manner as the Governor himself and on behalf of his government.
Why should the political leaders start discussing the Press Release and debate over it whether they should agree or disagree with the Governor or whether they approve of his action to issue a Press Release. The simple reason is that the Press Release tells the Truth and emphasises the only way the violence can end: the political leaders must act to stop violence and counter-violence and stop the worship of violence by some members and supporters of their parties. This is what the political parties do not like to do together in coordination: No joint political party teams in sensitive areas to stop violence and protect all people irrespective of political affiliation. They continue to visit affected areas only to protect their own supporters and members and address their own rallies: No joint political rallies for peace and identifying of the perpetrators of violence. Let people not think about all this by reading the Governors Press Release: so make it controversial and divert people's attention away from the Governor's Press Release to what the political leaders comment on the Governor's Press Release.
CPM has an additional reason to divert the attention of the people from the Governor's Press Release. The Left Front has been mentioned twice in the Governor's Press Release: once, along with two other party delegations visiting the Governor to urge him to do what he can do stop this violence. This reference was OK and neutral. Why did the Governor mention of the Left Front delegation for the second time; this is evidently discriminatory. But the Governor had no choice. While the other parties did not ask the Governor to cooperate with the Government, the Left Front delegation asked the Governor to cooperate with his own Government. And, the Governor has leaked that out in the public, besides urging all to do their duty as the Governor continued to do his duty. This is another explosive truth about the political leaders advising the Governor to cooperate with his own Government and themselves not committing to do their part of the duty. Such a statement should not be read by the public. The only way to do that is to raise a controversy and let people get busy listening to them only rather than get to know what actually the Governor has stated in his Press Release.
Good entertainment for the argumentative, politically-conscious and logic-free hair-spliting Bengalis of West Bengal.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Who would Return Peace to West Bengal?
The Governor of West Bengal has expressed concern at the political violence and killing in West Bengal and urged politicians to restore peace. The political parties have declined to accept his advice. On the contrary, the Ruling Left Front has criticised the Governor of having biassed opinion against the CPM and blamed the Trinamul, the leading opposition political party in the state, for all political violence against the ruling party supporters and members. The Trinamul and the Congress parties blame the ruling CPM party led Government including its police and the CPM party for all political violence. Both sides claim that they are the victims of violence. The Home Minister of Government of India has also expressed concern over the political violence in West Bengal.
So far no one has come forward to stop political violence. The citizens do not know, who will return peace to West Bengal. One of the greatest entertainment in democracy is currently on show with political parties shouting over the roof top that they are so dedicated to the cause of the common people who continue to suffer political violence.
Their only hope is that the current competition of organizing big rallies by the CPM and the Trinamul would one day settle the issue as to which party enjoys the support of the majority of the politically conscious citizens and get reflected in the elections due in 2011 with the party with dominant muscle power able to cow down the other parties to peace. Just like two lions fight for the territory and lionesses, the political parties here will fight and then the citizens will vote for the stronger lion. For now ‘ Rajay Rajay Juddho Hoi, Ulu Kagrar Pran Jaye’ meaning ‘The Lords fight and the people die”. The democratic oligarchies will use violence to prove to the people who is stronger and then accept the winner by voting for the winner in fear.
Meanwhile, Bengali life promises to be full of entertainment with more work off days due to strikes over pay-hike agitation, rise in food prices, fewer public transport vehicles on road, new trains to travel, Sourav Ganguly conducting a TV quiz competition serial, the masks and Tamiflu rush to protect against "Swine flu" spreading fast in India on its course to cover the predicted one third of the World population, the Puja round the corner and Winter holidays soon to follow. Entertainment opportunities galore for the Bengalis.
So far no one has come forward to stop political violence. The citizens do not know, who will return peace to West Bengal. One of the greatest entertainment in democracy is currently on show with political parties shouting over the roof top that they are so dedicated to the cause of the common people who continue to suffer political violence.
Their only hope is that the current competition of organizing big rallies by the CPM and the Trinamul would one day settle the issue as to which party enjoys the support of the majority of the politically conscious citizens and get reflected in the elections due in 2011 with the party with dominant muscle power able to cow down the other parties to peace. Just like two lions fight for the territory and lionesses, the political parties here will fight and then the citizens will vote for the stronger lion. For now ‘ Rajay Rajay Juddho Hoi, Ulu Kagrar Pran Jaye’ meaning ‘The Lords fight and the people die”. The democratic oligarchies will use violence to prove to the people who is stronger and then accept the winner by voting for the winner in fear.
Meanwhile, Bengali life promises to be full of entertainment with more work off days due to strikes over pay-hike agitation, rise in food prices, fewer public transport vehicles on road, new trains to travel, Sourav Ganguly conducting a TV quiz competition serial, the masks and Tamiflu rush to protect against "Swine flu" spreading fast in India on its course to cover the predicted one third of the World population, the Puja round the corner and Winter holidays soon to follow. Entertainment opportunities galore for the Bengalis.
Monday, August 3, 2009
End of an Era in Transport & others
Subhas Chakrabarty, a veteran CPM leader and the Transport Minister of West Bengal is no more. West Bengal has lost a very popular leader of common people and a great political organiser. A devoted follower of Jyoti Basu variant of communism in a parliamentary democracy, Subhas started his political career as a student in my home town in Dum Dum. One of my classmates was a close relative of this charasmatic figure who could defy Communist Party dictatorship whenever he chose to in the recent past. He was loved by millions of people and he loved people.
Since I find the entire concept of communism illogical. irrational and based on jealousy and hatred, I cannot offer him a Red Salute. I do pray to God: May the departed soul rest in peace. He was a remarkable Bengali of the third quarter of the twienty century West Bengal.
Today is not one for entertainment in Kolkata Monitor.
Since I find the entire concept of communism illogical. irrational and based on jealousy and hatred, I cannot offer him a Red Salute. I do pray to God: May the departed soul rest in peace. He was a remarkable Bengali of the third quarter of the twienty century West Bengal.
Today is not one for entertainment in Kolkata Monitor.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Of Fights & Kills to Power
West Bengal is making considerable progress towards the provincial elections due in 2011. The fights between so-called supporters of Trinamul Congress and Congress on the one hand and the CPM on the other continues in this state with reported killing/ murder of over 100 people in the last two and half months since the Indian Parliamentary Election results were declared. The ruling party in the state, CPM, complains of a Trinamul Congress sponsored terrorist movement to destabilise the state Government, while the Trinamul cries over their suffering due to armed retaliation of the CPM cadre to avenge CPM's landslide defeat to Trinamul in the Parliamentary elections last May. Trinamul complains of police remaining inactive and even conspiriong to help CPM supporters to oppress Trinamul supporters, CPM admits of its failure to control to the police for ensuring safety of CPM supporters attacked by the Trinamul ones. The police itself has become solely busy in investigation of each of these almost daily incidents of fight and killing rather than achieving success in eradication of political violence: some incidents they think are due to family feuds rather than political vendetta. People know the fights are between local money-making / economic vested interests and the aspiring vested interests, between the existing oppressors and the potential oppressors.
Even as the CPM governments' police with the assistance of Government of India's special para-military forces are engaged in joint campaign against the extremist Maoists in the tribal belt of Lalgarh, there are no signs of the Government being in control even after seven months of operation. The Congress high command would prefer and support Trinamul to be in the forefront of a war against CPM hegemony and bullying: if these two parties become violent fighters, Congress would be able to offer the option to peace and governance to West Bengal residents.
CPM would not so easily give up its taste for power to rule: though Budhhadev Babu, the CPM Chief Minister in the state has suddenly become somewhat quiet, the CPM leaders from outside the state have joined the party committee meetings in Kolkata where the Government is reportedly under attack for its failure to protect the party supporters and provide health services to the rural areas. The party may have to take a cleaning up stance: reforming the few wayward leaders who have deviated from the path of working for the people to a path of working for themselves and thereby antagonise the people in many areas against the party. The CPM will, of course, endeavour to show that they are removing the bad elements from the party, but it will be difficult to shake up the cabinet, the administration and the party machinery to qucikly enhance transparency, speed up delivery of efficient civil governance and implement economic development initiatives that the Party may promise. Mamta's allegation that the CPM Government does not even know how to work for and deliver results may become increasingly difficult to disprove with cosmetic ministerial changes that the CPM effected today by keeping sick and ailing ministers in place and not inducting new and young blood capable of producing quick results to the people. Mere speeches and manifestos will not be as effective in mobilising votes as they were in the past. Party agitation against economic policies of the Indian Government may not cut much ice on the electorate given the CPM government's record of delivering results in West Bengal. CPM would need a complete overhaul of its strategies, functioning and deployment of human resources if it has to gain back its credibility and image among the masses. Mere participation in fighting and killing will not be adequate. The recommendations of the arm-chair CPM theoreticians from outside the State (Prabhat Patnaik, Karat and Yechuri) for going back to the old-days of anti-American-ism, class struggle agitations may not produce the desired results within the less than two year period to elections in West Bengal. The Muslims will alss soon recognise that they cannot protect their interests by choosing one or the other party: they have to protect their interests within each party: pulling minority votes en masse through gimmicks is unlikely to be a good part of an effective electoral strategy for any political party in future.
This is a fast evolving game of implementing strategies and counter-strategies. CPM may need more time to recover their lost ground to fare better in the state elections in 2011. The Trinamul and the Congress may like and force CPM to increasingly fail to deliver the minimum governance in the state so that the CPM government resigns to save face and calls for elections earlier than wait till 2011. CPM may never like to resign to get fresh mandate soon given the considerable erosion in their vote mobilisation in the recent parliamentary and municipal elections. They may also fear the positive image being built up by Mamata, the Trinamul Chief and the Railway Minister of the Congress-led Government at the center, implementing a series of people-friendly, popular measures like introduction of exclusive women's trains for the first time in the state and more trains within the state, besides stepping up employment-oriented railway investments in West Bengal. CPM may prefer a strategy that forces the Trinamul and the Congress to use the Government of India's powers to dislodge the CPM government from power in West Bengal. That may give CPM a chance to ride a possible sympathy wave for CPM to win back voters. However, although the Congress and the Trinamul may pursue the strategy of making governance and policy implementaion increasingly difficult for the CPM government and embarrass them for clinging to power and for not resigning on their own despite non-performance, they are not likely to be in a hurry to dislodge the CPM government in the state using the Union government's special powers to do so under the Constitution. This strategic game may continue to be played out possibly till 2011: who will blink first and when, no one can predict.
Meanwhile, more loss of life and messy civil life disruptions like the sudden breakdown of public transport in the greater metropolitan areas of Kolkata and Howrah may have to be endured by the highly intelligent and politically conscious denizens of the State. One can, however, be confident of the tolerance capability of the inhabitants of this leftist fashioned society. They will again rise to the occasion to absorb sufferings as the two armies in the Kurukshetra's war of justice did millenniums ago. How can you expect intelligent citizens to shed their addiction to political consciousness and recapture the power they had abdicated to the people engaged in the low-risk, high-return business of politics!
Even as the CPM governments' police with the assistance of Government of India's special para-military forces are engaged in joint campaign against the extremist Maoists in the tribal belt of Lalgarh, there are no signs of the Government being in control even after seven months of operation. The Congress high command would prefer and support Trinamul to be in the forefront of a war against CPM hegemony and bullying: if these two parties become violent fighters, Congress would be able to offer the option to peace and governance to West Bengal residents.
CPM would not so easily give up its taste for power to rule: though Budhhadev Babu, the CPM Chief Minister in the state has suddenly become somewhat quiet, the CPM leaders from outside the state have joined the party committee meetings in Kolkata where the Government is reportedly under attack for its failure to protect the party supporters and provide health services to the rural areas. The party may have to take a cleaning up stance: reforming the few wayward leaders who have deviated from the path of working for the people to a path of working for themselves and thereby antagonise the people in many areas against the party. The CPM will, of course, endeavour to show that they are removing the bad elements from the party, but it will be difficult to shake up the cabinet, the administration and the party machinery to qucikly enhance transparency, speed up delivery of efficient civil governance and implement economic development initiatives that the Party may promise. Mamta's allegation that the CPM Government does not even know how to work for and deliver results may become increasingly difficult to disprove with cosmetic ministerial changes that the CPM effected today by keeping sick and ailing ministers in place and not inducting new and young blood capable of producing quick results to the people. Mere speeches and manifestos will not be as effective in mobilising votes as they were in the past. Party agitation against economic policies of the Indian Government may not cut much ice on the electorate given the CPM government's record of delivering results in West Bengal. CPM would need a complete overhaul of its strategies, functioning and deployment of human resources if it has to gain back its credibility and image among the masses. Mere participation in fighting and killing will not be adequate. The recommendations of the arm-chair CPM theoreticians from outside the State (Prabhat Patnaik, Karat and Yechuri) for going back to the old-days of anti-American-ism, class struggle agitations may not produce the desired results within the less than two year period to elections in West Bengal. The Muslims will alss soon recognise that they cannot protect their interests by choosing one or the other party: they have to protect their interests within each party: pulling minority votes en masse through gimmicks is unlikely to be a good part of an effective electoral strategy for any political party in future.
This is a fast evolving game of implementing strategies and counter-strategies. CPM may need more time to recover their lost ground to fare better in the state elections in 2011. The Trinamul and the Congress may like and force CPM to increasingly fail to deliver the minimum governance in the state so that the CPM government resigns to save face and calls for elections earlier than wait till 2011. CPM may never like to resign to get fresh mandate soon given the considerable erosion in their vote mobilisation in the recent parliamentary and municipal elections. They may also fear the positive image being built up by Mamata, the Trinamul Chief and the Railway Minister of the Congress-led Government at the center, implementing a series of people-friendly, popular measures like introduction of exclusive women's trains for the first time in the state and more trains within the state, besides stepping up employment-oriented railway investments in West Bengal. CPM may prefer a strategy that forces the Trinamul and the Congress to use the Government of India's powers to dislodge the CPM government from power in West Bengal. That may give CPM a chance to ride a possible sympathy wave for CPM to win back voters. However, although the Congress and the Trinamul may pursue the strategy of making governance and policy implementaion increasingly difficult for the CPM government and embarrass them for clinging to power and for not resigning on their own despite non-performance, they are not likely to be in a hurry to dislodge the CPM government in the state using the Union government's special powers to do so under the Constitution. This strategic game may continue to be played out possibly till 2011: who will blink first and when, no one can predict.
Meanwhile, more loss of life and messy civil life disruptions like the sudden breakdown of public transport in the greater metropolitan areas of Kolkata and Howrah may have to be endured by the highly intelligent and politically conscious denizens of the State. One can, however, be confident of the tolerance capability of the inhabitants of this leftist fashioned society. They will again rise to the occasion to absorb sufferings as the two armies in the Kurukshetra's war of justice did millenniums ago. How can you expect intelligent citizens to shed their addiction to political consciousness and recapture the power they had abdicated to the people engaged in the low-risk, high-return business of politics!
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