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.
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