Bengali Choice: Between Evils

Recently, the West Bengal Chief Minister and his State CPM party chief have been trying to convince the Bengal citizenry that the State has been witnessing the great disaster of murder and terror with the rise of the Evil Force organised under the Mamata  Bannerji's Trinamool Congress. They have advised that the Evil forces are so strong that the State Police cannot contain them and the citizens need to fight the evil forces. The only choice left is to rally behind the CPM or face death.
People have been dying for the last so many months in West Bengal as the Police and the CPM have been trying to fight the Evil Forces that have gripped the State since the debacle of the CPM at the last Parliamentary Elections in 2008.
Bengal has not been fortunate to be the part of the Kingdom of Ram and hence have no idea of what Ram Rajya was. The only read and heard about the Rule of the Saintly Monarch Ram. Emperor Ashoka had not ruled Bengal as part of his Kingdom: so they do not know what a Good force is.  Bengal had been ruled by Muslim Rulers and they were evil forces. Then a more organised Evil ruled the State after Lord Clive set the flag of the British in India. Independence in 1947 brought relief as the Evil Force of the British left the country and the Congress Party gained electoral majority to establish their democratic government in West Bengal. Soon, some great intellectuals found that that the Congress was also an Evil for the citizens and they organised the Communist movement to get rid of that Evil. It took thirty years before the Evil of Congress Rulers ended and the Good force of communists took control of the State. Since then 34 years of golden period for West Bengal citizenry passed without any problem. All of a sudden the Evil Forces gained strength in the form of Trinamool Congress and the State is at Crossroads again.
This happens to West Bengal again and again: the citizens have only to choose between two Evil Forces rivals. It is now between the Trinamool Congress and the CPM.
The CPM has already tested positive in terms of significantly EVIL content. For over thirty four years it has generated promoter raj, killed the slogan of "Do it Now'. driven industries away from the State, build up a huge government debt, forced poor farmers to sell land for the benefit of middle-class townships and industries, established dictatorship of the communist goons in different localities, destroyed the medical and academic quality, encouraged Maoist terrorists to establish their zamindaries in the far flung areas of the State and finally drove all Evil forces to organise themselves into the opposition party called Trinamool Congress led by a single lady!! what more evil could CPM deliver to the State.
So, in the next elections the fight would be between the old evil of CPM and the reconstituted evil of CPM-deserters call Trinamool Congress. The evils in West Bengal have finally divided themselves: one of old loyal CPM evil who benefited and the other of CPM evil deserters choosing to unite under a lady for the first time in West Bengal. By definition, therefore, after the elections, West Bengal will have the Rule of Evil irrespective of which parties win. A democracy of evil Bengalis, by the evil Bengalis and for the evil Bengalis. Maybe when two evils fight more or less evenly matched, both the winner and the loser will be forced to shed their evil content and character. That is the only hope.
Some people say Mamata may be good but the people around her are all evils. As if the CPM has an evil leadership surrounded by good people. It is hard to specify any politician or political party activist as anything other than evil of some measure. So, it does not matter to the electorate: they will just divide themselves according to their perception about where the evils lie.

Learning Violence & Terror in Schools & Colleges: The Democratic Choice

Democratic exploitation needs a culture of violence. Unless you practice violence you cannot get hold of all pervasive State power to oppress and exploit the common citizens of democracy and abuse them to benefit the political party and the politicians elected to continue democratic exploitation. If you are in power, you launch violence to scare citizens away from supporting any opposition political party. If you want to grab power, you as opposition party must be capable of organizing counter-violence to scare away citizens from further support to ruling political party. And, violence must be exercised before the elections so that citizens without political support stay away from polling booths and citizens with political support can be assured of no risk of being affected by counter-violence by rival political parties and vote for the party which has established their terror without any opposition in the territory concerned.. Thus before the elections democratic political parties must establish their unofficial zamidaries in different areas so that most areas are controlled by the terror of one or the other political party, and only a few remains for violent battle grounds for the political parties.


Even before the elections, the capturing of territories by political parties settle who is going to win the elections. The Communist Party of India Marxist or CPI(M) or simply CPM led left front in West Bengal has been in power for the last 34 years on the relatively greater capability of capturing territories through violence in most of the areas, thus ensuring that they get the votes they want to win the elections.

The Election Commission of India has been trying to eliminate the intensity and spread of violence during the elections and offer a peaceful climate for fair and manipulation free elections for the last 10- 15 years and has been increasing successful but not yet been able to eradicate violence for access to democratic power of the State in many areas. The partial success or failure of the Election Commission in curbing the impact of political violence on citizens access to free and fair elections and on election results is due to the fact that most violence takes place much before the election day.

So, violence continues to be an important instrument of securing votes to get into power.

But, how does one organize violence. The political leaders themselves cannot get directly involved in physical violence except occasionally and in dire need. So, the political system has to have a process of organising violence without the political leaders directly participating in violence so that leaders can remain free to enjoy the fruits of power brought through violence by their supporters and recruited muscle men. Over the last 50 years the leftists have perfected the process of democratic violence organisation and processes. The other parties where they have to fight the CPM and the leftists also adopts the same strategy of winning first the violent political battles in various territories before they can hope people to cast their votes in their favour.

In West Bengal, this violence strategy was practiced in selected cases. Little known people got through to win elections in the early 1950s with the help of leaders of criminal gangs. The criminals proficient in murders, looting and extortion worked for selected leaders before and during elections against payment of large sums of money to force voters to come to booths and vote for the political leader who commissioned them to terrorise the voters and capture polling booths and stamp the ballot papers as per their desire. But this was not an efficient method for a political party for various reasons and risky for even a single political leader.

The strategy of violence to power developed in a more organised and professional manner during 1970-1990, with the cues from the dissident Naxal groups in the late 1960s and 1970s. The Naxals were, just as the Current Maoists are, breakaway communists. The Naxals of the 1960s were dissatisfied with the slow progress of the communist movement to bring the communist revolution to the fore and capture State power and also with the addiction of the elderly, non-adventurous gentlemen type leaders' ambition to capture State power through democratic elections and keeping the date of the Communist Revolution of the Soviet or Chinese style at bay for indefinite period. The young Naxalites in the city of Kolkata wanted immediate recognition as famous revolutionary leaders which the CPM old guards denied because they sensed that that they could win the elections given the public frustration over the incompetent Congress Rule that allowed other States in India to march ahead in economic development at the cost of the State of West Bengal in the name of balanced development. The ruling Congress Govt. fought the armed Naxals with armed police, but the CPM had to hold its territories of influence by fighting the Naxals on the streets with the help of recruited cadres of musclemen. That was the begging of the leftists' conscious effort to induct and foster violence capability within their political organisations.

By the end of the 1970s, the violence capability strength of political parties had considerably increased and just needed a link to the State security administration network. With the home/ police department under ministers, it was just a matter of time for political parties to build up a virtually unbeatable violent terror cadre to ensure that the political party wins each and every election through political terror and violence to nip all opposition forces in the bud. The rogue ruffians and criminals were as much part of the organisation as were the police and administrative forces. They had to be coordinated by the loyal party leaders at various levels. Not everyone can be leader capable and trained to deal with the effective implementation of the strategy of violence and terror. The leaders had to be groomed from their young stage. The political parties recognized the need to converted all their trade union units and their student units into centres of breeding leaders capable of dealing with the violence-terror strategy. The schools, colleges and universities became the nursing ground for future political party leaders. As a potential leader you must not merely be a follower of the party's professed ideology, but lead and expand student organisations and take active part in violence with appropriate links with the local police to remain unaffected and provide protection to the supporters and recruits deployed in the violence and terror actions. As you go up the ladder with success your active involvement in terror and violence would reduce but given the grass-root level experience and networking, you should be still in remote control of the violence and terror activities of the party in territories you are made responsible for. When you are about to join the higher levels of party leadership and ministerial positions, you must have a clean record and appear as a peace-loving, honest gentlemen with no connections with any criminal activity. But you continue to have remote control over the violence-terror establishment of the party.

This matured state of violence and terror based political democracy had been reached by 1995 or so. But not all parties are equally strong in this regime and hence only the best gets elected to power. The formation of Trinamool Congress was probably based on this recognition of the highly evolved mechanism of democratic politics in West Bengal. It has made substantial progress in acquiring the qualities needed to wrest power in a State accustomed to politics based on violence and terror. And, no wonder, it has continued to win elections in the State at Parliamentary, panchyat and municipal elections. Now they are about to fight for the State elections. Before that the college student elections must be won to provide the party with potential future leaders who can deal with the strategy of violence and terrorism on a comparable footing with the ruling political parties. The outbreak of violence in recent weeks at different colleges are nothing but the preparation by the political parties for the State Assembly elections in 2011. After a long time, the State will witness an election where major rival parties are more or less matched by their violence-terror strength/ potential. This may be the beginning of the end to violence-terror strategy of politics in West Bengal and the parties may soon be in search of alternative strategies to get into and retain State power. Or, am I dreaming? This may be just the beginning of heightened political terror and violence before the state of despair after Kurukshtra with all parties and the society nursing grave wounds and losses to life and property.

Squaring Economists' Traingle: Tangled Skien of Bengal State Finances

West Bengal State Government finances are reportedly in dire straits.  Three brilliant Bengali economists of Kolkata, the State Capital, seems to agree. Though the senior most, Dr. Ashim Dasgupta, the Finance Minister of the State for the last 20 years or so, is optimistic that the situation is managable, the other two economists have expressed grave concerns over the State's Finances.  Dr.Abhirup Sarkar of the Indian Statistical Institute interviewed by the widely circulated Bengali language daily exposes the weakness of the defence of the Finance Minister and holds the State Government for profligate spending and irresponsible borrowing together with incompetency in revenue collection despite high growth rate in the State's gross Domestic Product that have brought the State government to near bankruptcy forcing the government to withhold or delay payments to creditors, impose restrictions on future spending and raise the rate of State Value added tax on certain goods/ services. Dr. Sugata Marjit of the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences points to the failure of the State Government to improve revenue buoyancy and blamed the State's Finance Department for not willing to listen to expert advice for years together and thereby landing the State into a bankruptcy situation. Both these economists have found that the argument of the Finance Department that the delayed release of funds by the Central government had led to the grave situation as untenable and misleading. Both have found the management of the finances of the West Bengal Government poor compared to even Andhra Pradesh which also had a high debt burden comparable to West Bengal. Both the economists have expressed concern that the new government that would get elected to form the next Government in West Bengal in a few months' time would face an uphill task to bring the State finances to balance.
With the state elections due shortly, the opposition  has taken the opportunity of publicising the the idea that CPM is in pursuit of a  deliberate policy of handing over a treasure less coffer along with unserviceable and unsustainable levels of  high debt obligations to the successor government in 2011 since the CPM is now convinced of its greater chance of losing the State elections due to its poor performance in almost every area of governance from industrialisation to forcible land acquisition by the State from the poor farmers and others without giving them proper compensation, continued political murders in the State, inability control Maoists terrorism,  treating ruling party supporters and loyalists as higher class citizens than other citizens, inability to use Central government assistance for employment of people below the poverty line, police support to rich father-in laws to harrass son in laws,  use of ministerial power to favour suppotive officials and party colleagues in allotment of government acquired land or favour loyalists government supply contracts, low productivity of government employees, etc.
The political fighting will continue and accentuate as the state elections draw nearer. But the truth about the current state and future prospects of the State's finances remain hidden in the triangle of three sides represented by the three economists developed in the same city of Calcutta. Squaring up this triangle needs a deeper insight of the crux of the governments tripod of problems of (a) liquidity (government unable to pay bills)), debt-trap (inability to service debt obligations and interest expenditure prempting over 60% of the revenues) and structurally deficient poor revenue responsiveness to rise in State Domestic Product (inelastic tax and other revenues in relation to the growth in income generated within the State): this needs a detailed analysis of the budgetary information. This does not seem to be happening. Dr. Dasgupta and his department provides scanty and selective information for defence while Dr. Sarkar and Dr. Marjit depend largely on the Reserve Bank of India survey studies.

West Bengal intellectuals have already started appearing to outsiders as inadequately smart and good at wasting time in debates that are in the nature of hide and seek play over factual information and meaningful analysis of the reality about the State's finances and the efficiency and effectiveness of the functioning of the government's finance, revenue collection, expenditure planning and control, debt and liquidity management departments.

To answer the question ' how is it that West Bengal Government' has to resort to  emergency borrowings crossing the normal limits of ways and means advance ' overdraft facility of the Reserve Bank of India on many more number of days in a year as compared with most other States?', we need analysis of daily time series data on daily cash inflows and outflows on major heads and the Finance Department's cash flow forecasting techniques: maybe the governments' capability to analyse statistics and use of statistical methods are inadequate or the officials just do not care to manage cash inflows and outflows because the RBI's last resort facility is available at a nominal additional cost that is borne by the taxpayers. We need to know how much and where value added activities remain to attract tax. The state government is yet to link the PAN number of Income Tax Department to professional Tax account and allow professional tax payment by self-employed professionals to the State Government's designated bank account through any bank of the taxpayer's choice: why does the Government has to take taxes through its designated tax collection office counters only?  The pharmacy, drug stores, grocer shops, stationery shops most often sell wares without any receipt and they do not install computer-based credit/ debit card/ cash transactions recording. Most restaurants and  footpath hawker shops also in the same state. The malls have started using them and the government does not like malls to compete and take away the business of unorganised retailers. So, the State government has deliberately allowed the tax base to stagnate despite growth of value addition in the unorganised sector. This policy has nothing to do with socialism or interest of common man or poor income of unorganised units.
Consider just the fish/ mutton/ chicken vendors in different markets. The price of fish per kg ranges from Rs 120 to Rs 300 in Kolkata.  An average fish seller in Kolkata would sell 25- 30 kgs of fish per day. His annual sales turnover would be in the range of  Rs 18 to Rs 20 lakhs and value addition at least 30%. That means the Government is prepared to lose Rs24,000 annually per fish seller by not imposing a concessional VAT rate of 4% on fish. Just consider the loss with lakhs of fish sellers in organised market places throughout the State. Oh, fish is an essential food item for the Bengali's: how can it be taxed. We know that an average fish seller has to pay more than Rs24,000 to local political ruffians including forcible subscriptions to political parties and puja committees. No exception there on the ground that fish is a food item! Now add all the sellers of mutton, chicken, beef, rice and calculate the loss to the State exchequer at a VAt rate of say just 1%. The point is not about taxing food items but our knowledge about what the State Finance Department has considered as eligible and ineligible for VAT or sales tax.
The point is different. We need information and analysis on these aspects. Dr Sarkar and Dr. Margit may not have such information readily available to them. What about expenditure planning? Does the State Finance Department publish projections of expenditure on already committed heads like salaries to teachers, government officers and police, the pension payments and interest payments, etc for the next five years. I know Budgets are for one year: but the State Finance Departments exists for ever. They must be doing this five/ ten year projections on a rolling basis every year at the time of budget formulation. If not that is sad. If yes, such information must be easily accessible for analysis by Dr. Sarkar and Dr. Marjit. Such projections and the basis of such projections have zero confidentiality significance and must be in the public domain. There is no clear cut debt management, liquidity management and expenditure control management policy release to the public by the State Finance Department. In its absence what judgement Dr Sarkar and Dr Marjit can make about the desirability, prudence and effectiveness of these policies. If the auditor of the West Bengal's financial accounts comment that because of not implementing the FRBM (Fiscal Responsibility & Budget Management) Scheme of debt and interest relief by the Central Government to the State Governments, the West Bengal government has lost Rs 500 crore or so annually, the State Finance Department points out that by deferring the implementation of using the FRBM facility to 2011 the State would make larger gains of Rs1000 crore per year from 2011. Maybe this is correct. But the calculation is not in the public domain for Dr Marjit and Dr Sarkar to analyse and assess. In the absence of all information and projections as well as well articulated policies of the State government, the economic debates within the Economists' Triangle is not of much use. The State and its citizens must have complete information on the past trends and future outlook of West Bengal's State Finances analysed by experts outside the Government and know what are the problems and their critical significance as well as get to know from the experts the alternative solutions or solution time path of short-term and long-term actions that would secure West Bengal's State Finances a normal log-term health and permanently cure the sickness. Time is running out.  Economist Triangle debate of hide & seek will not do. We have to squarely and comprehensively deal with West Bengal government's financial sickness, irrespective political party affiliations and ideologies.
Maybe we are unnecessarily concerned. Dr. Dasgupta is an experienced finance minister, besides being a brilliant economist.  He has led the expert committee of finance ministers to suggest the framework of implementing the Goods & Services Tax (GST).  He may know exactly how beneficial would be the impact of introduction of GST on West Bengal's future revenue buoyancy. He may know how large the positive impact of FRBM debt and interest relief facility will be on West Bengal's State Finances from 2011-12 onwards. But that is not enough. Because Dr. Margit and Dr. Sarkar need access to the same knowledge and information in this regard to make their own assessment. The projections of the State Finance Department for the next two/ three years along with the assumptions they are based on should be in the public domain. We can not just go on debating to prove that Bengal does not suffer from poverty of intellect. Sharing complete information including projections and associated assumptions can only help squaring up the triangle of economists.

Landscams to Jyotinagar: Yet another tool of democratic exploitation

West Bengal has seen continuous exploitation of the citizens by the practising democratic politicians in the State. In the 1960s, communist democrats looted water bodies that were used by fish farming. Since then West Bengal which was self sufficient in fish became a big importer of fish and fish prices has since then been rising fast every year. The citizens suffered and the democratic politicians, their cadres and loyal fish traders made and is making lots of money. Fish trade is a gig unorganised sector activity that contributes to the State's domestic product but very little accrues to the State Exchequer from this economic activity - there are many such booming unorganised sector activity in West Bengal that pay unofficial levies of the ruling party or other political party politicians through their musclemen collectors and police but virtually no official tax to the State Government which lives on borrowing for decades.


After they came to power in 1977, the communist government and their democratic cadres grabbed most water bodies, filled them up and sold the land to to loyal supporters or themselves promoted housing complexes to make money. The common citizens suffered: inadequate roads, no rain harvesting resulting in depletion of underground water tables at a rapid rate, lower fish production.

The successive elections that the communists won only strengthened their legitimacy of democratic exploitation. Farmers and poor people were evicted from their lands and forced to sell their lands to State government agencies of party supported housing promoters. The Singur, Nandigram episodes aew well known and the exploited people rallied behind Mamata Banerjee, the current Indian Railway Minister and her political party Trinamool Congress to protest against such exploitation. The usual debate among the intellectuals mostly divided by the patronage they seek from different political parties continues but the elite intellectuals of West Bengal never condemned democratic exploitation by political parties by grabbing land and water bodies. Intellectuals are busy getting the little benefits that they can get from the political parties they seek patronage from. Increasing levels of honesty has not been the a great common characteristic of the Bengali intellectuals in the last five or six decades.

The latest debate is about how the West Bengal Government owned Housing Infrastructure & Development Corporation (HIDCO) activity in Rajarhat or New Town or JyotiNagar (named after the recently deceased Jyoti Badu the former Communist leader who ruled the State as the Chief Minister for 23 years or so). HIDCO has planned a beautiful new city in Rajarhat or JyotiNagar (it was named New Town in order for Jyoti Basu to leave this World so that it can be suitably renamed after him) - a city that is beautiful and fast developing. Mamata Banerjee now unearths the fact that was well-known but never discussed in public or intellectual meets: the fact is that the party cadres and their musclemen forced farmers and poor inhabitants of a very large tract of land, vegetation, tress and water bodies to sell these properties to HIDCO. The intellectuals are again battling in debates: some wants us to believe that all the landowners sold their land to HIDCO willingly and the prices they received for their land was market price. These intellectuals do not seem to have brains enough to understand what willingness to sell is and what market and market price are. Willingness to sell comes when there is competitive bidding for purchase by many buyers. The only purchaser was HIDCO: how could everybody become willing to sell just when only a single buyer available around wished to buy? Market for land in agricultural areas was non-existent because of the laws introduced by the Governments in the country and the State after Independence. We just don't need a market of a few transactions here and there ; we need competitive and transparent market for land. This was absent. Where is the question of market price. One fool said that the market price was nothing but the average price of a few land exchange transactions that took place in the recent past in nearby areas of any specific plot land being purchased by HIDCO. Communists do not understand what competitive markets are: unfortunately Karl Marx himself did not know what market mechanism is. It is silly that communists who are supposed to be the friends of the poor and the weak justifies their HIDCO's purchase of land in Rajarhat at the so-called market price.

The communists and their intellectuals have to fight this out because the State elections are due in a few months. Mamata Banerjee has chosen this Rajarhat Land grabbing issue for the same political reason of making the people realize what democratic exploitation HIDCO did in Rajarhat. All these politically motivated fighting is normal before the elections. But Bengali intellectuals have not come out clean as yet. They are still reluctant to say the Truth: the State should not be a monopoly purchaser where there are many potential sellers because this gives the State to become fascist and exploit the citizens in the name of democratic rights of the State and the politicians. Intellectuals are used to begging for State patronage: they cannot say that the Government should not be monopoly buyer becomes then the Government and politicians cannot patronage the intellectuals with small benefits like a position here and a piece of land/ flat at concessional price there.

Long live Bengali intellectuals with their slavery to the State and politicians. The Surplus Value of  Enlightened Lands are build on democratic exploitation of political power.

Crisis of Learned(?) Bengalis: Freedom or Slavery for Survival

By 2005, it was becoming increasingly clear that one must be a slave (chamcha or courtier for flattery) in the land of democratically elected government in West Bengal or be prepared to lead a life as secong-grade citizens subject to oppression by dictatorial whims of the democratically elected government and the ruking political party. This was all the more true in the case of learned and talented persons of which there was no dearth in West Bengal given the accepted defnition of learned person adopted by West Bengal. After, Buddhadev Bhattacharyya became Chief Minister for the second term, any person who would like to remain connected to cultural activities (mainly, film fare, book fair, singing, concert, theatre and stage acting, dance performance, local TV channel operation and TV programming, game of cricket, etc, had only one choice: accept Buddhadev Bhattacharyya as the Father of Bengali culture and please him with wahtever he wants the person to do or forget being involved in culture or cricket. The choice was between slavery and freedom. The tremedous growth in the size of the learned persons however meant that the Governments favors would get thinly distributed over a larger number of slaves. Those 'lerned slaves who enjoyed favor for some years had to remain unfavoured slaves for a while so that other slaves can get a chance to enjoy State favor. Some learned or talented persons who had benefited earlier found that the economics of slavery unattractive. Suddenly they realiszed that it would be far more economic to break the chain of slavvery and support the oppostion political party.

They worked out an alternative scheme. They would now start criticising the ruling party and the Government while supporting the opposition party. The opposition party was only too happy to provide them support for their newly created forum of civil societty in exchange political protection. Once you are close to some top leaders of the opposition parties, the ruling party and the Government find it difficult to harras you much.

One by one, a number of prominent, rather popular stage and film actors, painter/ sculpturer, novelists and writers, singers, economits, historians, social scientistsnewspaper editor/ columnist, human rights activists, environmentalists, lawyers and others became vocal in condemning various oppressive acts of the Government and the ruling party. All these men and women were left-oriented and remain so even now but was unable to tolerate the CPM dictatorship over their professional lives. They are openly favoring Mamata Banerjee's Trinamul Congress to win the next elections in West Bengal and comwe to power in the state in 2011. But these learned community as yet limited membership and largely reluctant to be identified with any ideology of any political party. They want their freedom back through their movement for civil society.
The larger group of learned men have either become aloof or are keeping mum and keeping their fingers crossed over a possible change in West Bengal's political regime. Some others are of course either committed communists or unable to discontinue CPM flattery in the interest of their business.

Learned Community in West Bengal will never get back their glories: India is not a place for talented persons with desire for individual freedom and West Bengal is unlikely to cultivate talents in any case.

Intelligentia to Intellectualism to Learned Society

Now West Bengal has a divided Learned Community (they use the term 'Biddwajon' now rather than Buddhijeebee). This Learned Community, rather communities, replaced the earlier Intellectual Community that existed prior to 1970s. Intellectualism in West Bengal however had earlier replaced the Intelligentia community of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and the early Nineteenth centuries. Prior to that it had been the rule of Pundit Community. These communities - Pundits, the Intelligent, the Intellectuals and the now Learned- shares a common trait: their perceived superiority over other Bengalis in terms of their brain.

Before the British came, for quite a long period, the Sanskrit Brahmin Pundits framed the rules for the society. They were the repositories of all knowledge: only men conversant with valuable knowledge scripted in Sanskrit in the holy scriptures, grammar, epics and literature, ayurveda (medicine), number counting, astronomy, astrology and Kamasutra (sexology): women were seldom allowed to be educated. The pundits did not have much knowledge about technology and manufacturing: this knowledge was with the people who were treated as lower caste in the social system by the Pundits, and were called Kamars (who bent and melted iron in the hearths and fabricated iron or metalic utensils, tools, agricultural implements, weapons and the like), the Kumors (who tirned earten clay into utensils, toys, idols and the like), the Majhis (who knew how to deal with boats in the river), the Tanttis (who knew how to spin yarn from cotton and then weave cloth), the Majhis (who knew how ro give boat rides acroos rivers even during storms), the  Chutors (carpentaers who knew how to make wooden implements, cart wheels and furniture), the Shaykras (who fabricated  golden and silver jwelleries), the Kolu-Telis (who knew how to extract edible oil from various seeds) and the like.
Many of the Brahmins with knowledge of the scriptures, literature, astrology and medicine were considered outcast because they had been treating poor patients from lower castes in distant places by visiting their homes.
The Learned Pundits were apparently very useful to the Bengali society: they claimed that they knew about God and were God's special emmissaries, besides being trustworthy and capble managers of the estate and accounts of the rulers and adviser-cum-administrator cum controller of the rulers' subjects. Sometimes they were also rulers themselves. If one is a desecdant of a Brahmin family, he would autmatically be recognised as a Pundit and normally he would at least know the following: Sanskrit language, Mantras for worshipping God, a bit of astrology and a magical power to cause a percieved danger to others by simply cursing them. It was the period of Dynastic Learned Community.

With the British rule spreading its tentacles from Bengal, rather Calcutta as the epicentre, the Pundits were soon in great trouble. Some Brahmins and non-Brahmins got employment in the British Government offices and commercial firms and soon English education would start. The young generations of the relatively affluent or educated families got the taste of the new ways of thinking about life and society; they got an exposure to the new areas of knowledge including modern science and the book-printing technology that the Portugese, the French and the British brought with them.  These young minds exposed to the Western thoughts and knowledge of the universe and the society, would soon start questioning the authority of the traditional Pundits and their knowledge and wisdom. Raja Rammohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Bankim Chnadra Chattopadhyya, Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, Keshab Chandra Sen, Michael Madhusudhan Dutta, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyya, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Achharya Prafulla Ghosh are some of the stalwarts of successive generations who represented the urge and ethos of freedom of knowledge and its applications. The traditional Bengali learned Pundit Community starded yielding slowly but surely the honorable place of Bengal's brain to the Wester- education exposed Inteegentia.
But all men and women were not part of the Intelligentia. The highly educated, talented persons were the core of the Intelligentia along with certain rich households who appreciated the Intelligentia and patronized them. The Bengali Bhadolok, however poor in gray cells, were also part of the Intelligentia if they had been able to effectively patronize or  if they had been keen followers of the intelligent and learned stalwarts, some of whom emerged as leaders or pathfinders or institutions by themselves: they were accepted as social reformers, or recognised as great philosophers or scientist or poets or novelists. Both the intellectuals and the psedu-intellectuals along with their fans formed the Intelligentia until the 1920s and the 1930s.

After the first World War and as the British found it difficult to manage India as a colony, the Intellengtia started weakening. More Bengalis than  there were available intelligent, talented and learned men and women, became impatient of being ignored as mere followers. They aspired to become leaders and be recognised as great. This led to the birth and growth of Intellectualism.  The urban centres and Kolkkata in particular would soon become full of intellectualsd, it would be difficult to find a non-intellectual, non-learned resident in the city of Calcutta.

What did the Bengal Intellectual Community look like in the early 1950s to 1960s: the self appointed members of this group were mostly democratic, socialist minded, believed in the magical power of the State to do wonders in terms of economic properity, economic equity, social justice, building a bhadolok civil society. They were mostly in the profession of selling labor services to government and banks and other commercial firms, or politically conscious (!) factory workers, trade union activists, virtually all government officers and low profile comany executives in the public and private sectors, the doctors, engineers, and accountants who were involved in cultural activity clubs, the newspaper editors, columnists and reporters, the film makers and film artists, the actors and actors on the stage and in the movies, the script-writers and directors of movies and plays, the poets, the novelists, the sculptors, the painters and virtually all the politically conscious students, etc. This was a great inclusive period of Intellectuals slowly developins as a Learned Community. But there were exclusions of course. Who were not in the Learned Community? The businessmen- small or big, most of the top bossess of companies and industrialists, most of the students who performed well in studies and examinations, those who would go for higher studies abroad, the murders, crinminals, the domestioc / household servants, the village-based members of the richer agricultural households, the farmers and the rural manual laborers, the magicians, the palmists, the temple priests, the teachers who simply taught but had no influence over the people in the locality, the bus conductors and drivers unless they had become leaders of trade unions, and almost all scientists and technogists.

And, then came the most explosive era. The thirtyfive years between 1970-2004, especially after the CPM-led Communist Party of India (Marxist) led Government began their long-journey, Bengal saw the advent of Learned Commmunity replacing the Intellectualism: it has  witnessed both inclusive and exclusive growth of West Bengal's brain. It became fashioable to become a member of this Learned Community rather than being a mere inteelectual: the criteria for inclusion was also made more popular for people to meet with. The minimum necessary qualification was simplified: anyone who can lecturer or discuss with others fluently at least in a mix of Bengali and English words but is a communist or has a leftist leaning or their active fans and supporter with some belief or faith in the terms like Marx, Lenin, Stalin, bourgeiose, surplus value, labor exploitation, dialectical materialism, class conflict, bandhs, gheraos, 'cholchena- cholbena' slogan, loyal or looking for favors from the State government, was given social acceptance as a member of the Learned Community. Learned Community members had at least one obligation: he/ she must participate in the debates and discussions on what is happening in West Bengal either at a tea-stall, or during a bus-jouney or at the party-fiice or while playing cards in the evening and attend political party meetings and rallies at least once in a year. This made it easier for a majority of the rural folk, the teachers, the criminals, the scientists, the technologists and even businessmen to become members of the Learned Community.
But there was always a distiction between high profile, elite learned members and ordinary learned members. The ordinary members of the learned community are the base of learned community: they must at least vote for the CPM or any of the left parties in the election to retain their membership of the Learned Community of West Bengal. So, between 39% to 47% of West Bengal citizens with voting rights became or retained their Learned Community Status after each Lok Shabha or Assembly (Bidhan Sabha) or Municipal or Panchyat elections. Those residents of the State who could not enrol their names in the Election Commsion lists, either because they were not allowed or because they were not yet 18 years old were of course Indian of non-learned background along with those who did not vote for the left. Now, nobody is a fool to check who has voted for whom. You need only to declare that you have voted for the CPM or the left or if you are underaged you must demonstarte your support to the CPM and the left. This simple method helped the membership of of the Learned Community to cross 50% of the population. West Bengal is the only State which can boast of more than half of its population with Learned Person Status.
What about the Elite class.? They seldom came to cast their votes in elections saying that they were busy with their urgent work. These are the highly talented people in education, sports, culture, medicine: they also included artists, painters, stage and cine actors and actresses, novelists, poets, columnists, TV anchors, experts in economics, sociology, political affairs, comparative literature and history, science and technology commentators, singers, film directors, businessmen, etc. Very busy people. They could not be expected to be party members or activists or voters. But if they chose to be a party members or supporter or activists, they would be welcome and given special attention as Elite Learned Person of West Bengal with various benefits like Committee positions etc. What about others who could not afford such close association with the CPM or the left? They have to attend functions organised by the CPM or the Government like book fairs, film fairs, cultural shows and share the platform with the CPM leaders. They are required to praise the CPM leaders and say something against the BJP and the Congress and the Trinamul Congress. They must be vocal about the poor status of minority communities and backward caste and tribes in the rest of Inmdia. They must praise the CPM led government for its great achievements in the field of  education, social justice, law and order, electricity supply, agricultural and land reforms, memorandum of understanding with foreign and outside the state investors for investment in West Bengal, the grand success in the exyension of health services and the revolutionary panchayat raj. If they do all these they will not only get the official status of being a learned men but also enjoy state patronage for advertisements, sponsorship, land allotment, police support and the like. For long talented men and women were ignored by the society. This post-1980 scheme offered by the CPM party and government attracted all most all talented persons to join the lucrative scheme, though initially some had to struggle because some ministers thought that certain talents were inappropriate culture (Apo-Sanskriti) till the CPM defined apo-Sanskriti is one that is opposing CPM's policies and practices. The scheme was so attractive, even persons of dubious talents took the benefit just as the smart fly-by- night operators in certain businesses do: make money within a short period and vanish.

The process came to its height in the 2004 Assembly elections:  CPM and the left sweeped the polls driving out all opposition parties as representatives of the Below the Learned Line citizens.
Too many cooks spoil the broth. Too many learned persons of dubious quality in a society breeds disaster. Empty vessels sounds much. Fools live in Paradise. West Bengal had by that time reached the peak of incompetence in India. resembling the rule of the jungles where wild animals enjoy their lives.
Something had to give in. What? We explore next.

Exit In Pain or Out of Frustration!

In our adoloscent days, we used to get the impression that politics and political parties were mostly the domain of two groups (a) erstwhile-freedom fighting Congress Party men and women, most of whom had no potential to earn a decent livelihood without being in the ruling party and the goons or musclemen they used to oppress the weak and (b) middle class left-oriented, socialist persons who could not succeed in secondary and higher education, often strong in Bangali language/ literature but with poor quality science or mathmatical brain motivated by aspiration to become popular and  / or   motivated by a duty to lead the weak and the oppressed, in particular, the factory or transport workers, clerks and the very small farmers oppressed by rural rich and their bulging followers among the middle class, blue and white collar employees including the members of Hindu families displaced/ driven out from East Pakistan (Bangladesh after India assisted freedom from Pakistan). A few of these political were clean and honest and so dedicated to the cause of their parties and ideologies that they sacrificed their middle class comforts and lived on very little food and shelter that they could manage.  Frankly speaking, many of us were disappointed that politics in India is led by such poor quality brains or such corrupt persons. We also thought that it was a great disaster that only poor brains, ruiffians and job shirkers were the supporters of these political leaders. Politics was all about staying in power by the Congress Party and its useless ministers starting from Jawharlal Nehru and the opposition by the various socialist parties, the Communist Party of India and the Jan Sangh which had more educated leaders but very poor quality supporters. It was clear that we have had to live in this environment and suffer the rest of our lives under their oppression and foolish governance.
By the time we went to the higher secondary school, it was becoming clear that the Congress Party was failing the country and messing up all things. In the elections many thought that the Socialist and the communists could give an effective opposition to the oppressive and poor brain Congress leadership. Non-Congress parties were slowing winning more and more seats in legislative bodies.
The 1962 War with China exposed the gross incompetence of the big speech mouths of the Congress Party leadership. It also gave a thrust to the Communists. They thought that they would win the hearts and minds of the Indians. Communists could not spread and they got increasingly divided into factions depending how quickly they could get hold of political power in at least some parts of India. The socialists also got divided. Indians, particularly, the less educated and the middle class, always want to become leaders. One  party can have x number of leaders but in the party there are 3x or 4x members who want to lead. So, the party's had to split. So, the 63 year old nation has so far been led by hundreds of leaders at the national level and many thousands of leaders at the state level.

One such leader was Kanu Sanyal who came into prominence when we were in the undergraduate and post-graduate classes in the mid- or late 1960s. Not many brilliant students of Kolkata's best colleges including the Presidency College could convince the CPI (M) leadership that they were better leaders both in terms of organisational capability, brain quality and leadership quality as compared to the traditional studet leaders who came from run of the mill undergraduate colleges. The CPM had difficulty is giving more or equal importance to these budding scholar students of prestigious undergraduate colleges and universities. So, these students searched an way out for getting ino limelight. The Naxalbari movement attracted them: they found Charu Mazjumder and Kanu Sanyal of the terrorist variety of communism an advetures launching ground. These included many students from reltively high middle-class or rich families. Most of them, however, would after a few years of romance with terrorism including figting with guns in villages and urban streets killing small businessmen, rich agricultural property owners, police men and CPM party activists trying to protect their turf among the voters, would get heavy dressing from the police after the Congress Government forced itself into power in the State of West Bengal. Later many of them would get themselves rehabilated by fleeing to other states or t the US for higer educaton. Meanwhile, education suffered the most severely during 1966- 1975. They had coined the most offensive of the slogans for our young Indian minds: "Chairman Mao of China was Our Chirman".

Kanu Sanyal, (1929 – March 23, 2010)  announced the formation of the original CPI (ML) on Vladimir Lenin's birthday in 1969 at a public rally in Kolkata.  The left-sympathetic media in West Bengal portrayed him as a "great revolutionary" and compared him to the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Jatin Das, largely because of his charisma and his public showmanship, such as his displays of "wealth-renunciation" and his publicity campaigns where he tried to identify with the proletariat. How this publicity was financed was however not an issue to the so-called politically conscious pseudo- intellectual electorate. Sanyal believed in highly secretive and cabalistic group who would periodically surface to commit acts of terrorism such as political assassinations and armory raids. Sanyal actively solicited help from the communist regime in neighboring China to further his goals. After the failure of the Naxalite uprising, Sanyal went into hiding. The death of his colleague Charu Majumdar was followed by the breakup of the Naxalite movement. Apparently, Sanyal abandoned violent means and accepted parliamentary practice as a form of revolutionary activity. He was eventually cornered and arrested in August 1970. News of his arrest sparked of region-wide violence by the radical communists. CPI(ML) cadres destroyed property, raided and attacked educational institutions, and engaged in rioting.]For seven years Sanyal was imprisoned in a jail in Visakhapatnam Andhra Pradesh in the case known as the Parvatipuram Naxalite Conspiracy case.He was convicted in the Parvatipuram Conspiracy Case, by the Sessions Judge.

Sanyal was released from jail in 1977, following the shift of government in India as well as in West Bengal. Jyoti Basu, the new CPI(M) chief minister, personally intervened to ensure Sanyal's release. By the time of his release, Sanyal had publicly repudiated the original strategy of armed struggle of the CPI(ML).
After his release Sanyal rallied his supporters and formed the Organising Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (OCCR). In 1985 Sanyal's faction along with five other groups, merged to form the Communist Organisation of India (Marxist-Leninist). Sanyal became the leader of COI(ML). On January 18, 2006, Sanyal was arrested along with other fellow agitators who were also protesting against closures of tea gardens in the region for disrupting a Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express train at the New Jalpaiguri Railway Station in Siliguri, North Bengal.

On 23 Mar 2010, he was found hanging at his residence at Seftullajote village, 25 km Siliguri (West Bengal) from where Naxal Movment began under his leadership. The 81-year-old Sanyal was suffering from old-age related ailments. At the time of his death he was general secretary of a new CPI(ML), formed by merger of several splinter groups of the original party.

With a body in great pain due to old age and  mind was frustrated by the life-long failure, a Maoist has every reason to quit.  Chairman Mao failed the Indian Communist Revolution. China is no longer Maoist. India's Home Minister PC Chidambaram has committed to clearing of Maoists from the Indian soil in 1913. Some other 'ists' will replce them. Long Live Communist Revolution.

Low Quality Democracy= Low Quality Life

Some one said democracy is the rule 'of the people, by the people and for the people'. What happens if the people are idiots? It gets one the rule' of the idiots, by the idiots and for the idiots  What happens if the people are of low quality in terms of brain power, education, competence, efficiency, productivity, scientific and technological innovation? One gets the rule of' the uneducated, unproductivity, inefficient, incompetent, backward and low quality brains.
The number of countries under democracy is very large today. But most of them has succeeded in ensuring low quality life for the citizens. West Bengal is only one of the many illustrations. West Bengal electorate has voted to power a Communist Party (Marxist)-led Leftist coalition for the last three decades. Earlier their was the Congress Government in this State which ruled for 25 years. All these governments have largely been incompetent and dismal failures. Democracy ensures low quality governments. The political parties that contest and win elections are led by very low quality persons (there are of course a few exceptions in that there were / are few politicians who wee/ are competent and have more than average quality brain. The political party workers and supporters are overwhelmingly of low qualitry brains. Democracy is the rule of numbers. If most people are of low quality brains, the politicians are only expected to be of low quality brains. When you have low quality brains rule a State, it is only natural that citizens will enjoy only low quality life. For months, political murders are continuing unabated, Maoist terrorists are killing policemen and innocent people along with low-level leaders and workers of political parties that participate in democracy. The ministers and bureacrats only admit of failures and promises to improve: they are incapable of anticipating troubles or planning for exigencenies or even visualising the consequences of their incompetence and low-quality brain induced actions on the citizens' lives. Recently, just 40 or so armed Maoists attacked a camp of the State armed forces, killing half of the personnel deployed in the camp to fight the Maoists and wounding some more.
The State's bureacrats' are unperturbed by this incident: they say that the Maoists attacked when their forces were not ready enough and they had no information that the Maoists were going to attack in this manner. Their political bosses are busy arranging gun-salute in honor of the departed para-military personel. The ruling party complains of inadequate co-ordination of the joint State-Central forces deployed to contain the Maoists. The elite debating personalities come on TV to condemn such attacks by the Maoists on the hapless State forces taking rest in the camp. Some are accusing the police forces of oppressing the common people in the Maoist-terrorist infested localities while failing to deal with the Maoists. There is concern over human rights violation by the State police forces. Some great thinkers among them talk about neglect of economic development of the areas where people had no choice but to support the Maoist terrorits. Some complain that the Maoists are getting weapons from China. Some low-brained experts comment that the Maoist terrorism can not be solved militarily: the solution has to be political.The ruling communists party is running out of explanation for what is happening: only option left is to blame all this on the US CIA. But no one has the brain-pwer and competence to design and deliver an effective solution.

When wolves attack goats and cows, the low brained creatures get killed. Democracy does not help democratic goats. Less democratic dogs can defend themselves better. More democratic monkeys may do that even better than dogs. Low-quality brains can only deliver low quality democracy - whether of the capitalistic or communist or socialist or religious variety.
Empty vessels sound much. Empty brains talk and lecture more. Since low quality brains seldom understand what is meant by high quality brains, they depend on vocal power and number power. Low quality brains are seldom ashamed by their failures and shoddy performance. Long live low quality brains around the World!!!

Jyoti Basu lives in History - 02

Dreams of Chief Minister Jyoti Basu
What could have been Jyoti Basu's dream when he assumed office as Chief Minister of West Bengal? There could have been three dreams: (a) establish that the communists can rule better than others in a Parliamentary democracy, (b) to bring greater relief and justice to the poor and the exploited in West Bengal, (c) to take his party, the CPM to progressively greater heights, (d) to enable CPM to become an important political party at the national level and enable the party to capture power to rule entire India one day.

Realizing the Dreams

He showed some promise in achieving the objective (a) initially, but miserably failed as the CPM under his nearly 24 years of Chief Minister, established itself as an oppressive, unjust and incompetent party to provide any better governance to West Bengal than what other parties did elsewhere in India. With regard to objective (b), there was some success: land reforms and panchayat raj as also protecting industrial labor from police repression through connivance with the employers. But his rule also added woes and inflicted sufferings to the poor people in West Bengal. All education institutions deteriorated in the quality and standards, educations has become farce, rural health became an avenue for wastage of public money on spurious and sub-standard drugs, non-available doctors, non-functioning medical equipment, careless and rough Para--medical staff. Corruption in Government offices became rampant and engulfed the panchyati system, police became servant of the CPM party. Democracy had been eliminated. A few sentences or paragraphs cannot describe fully the disasters of Jyoti Basu's rule and their impact on social, economic, cultural and political life of West Bengal: several books may need to be authored to comprehensively narrate how Jyoti Basu's rule contributed to West Bengal's all-round degradation. Talk about his being a good administrator would seem to be pure and simple fairy tales. Yes, he had such traits as would an effective and good leader would like to possess good leader: calm and cool even under the worst of situations, love, affection and care for the people, followers and those at his command, decency and respect towards political opponents, agility, decisiveness, simplicity and straight forwardness.  Honesty, integrity and sacrifice were only personal to him: but he lived with, worked with, tolerated and led many dishonest, greedy and intellectually low quality and low caliber associates and colleagues. He had not been seen to withdraw sopport or act against those who reportedly used his name and cover to make money through dishonest actions. He was possibly a person who never thought it appropriate to take a view on personal integrity and honesty of other persons.

With regard to lift his party to strength and importance, he certainly fulfilled his dream. CPM had become an important regional party that could exert an influence on national politics and the Indian Parliament after the BJP came into prominence. But CPM has so far failed to become a real National Party with an effective all-India presence. CPM's role in national politics became one of somehow stopping BJP from forming Government at the Centre by supporting non-BJP parties in the name of secularism (meaning anti-Hinduism). CPM (and the entire left) has shown no greater intellectual capability than the run-of-the-mill parties like Lalu Prasad's party in Bihar or Mayawati's party in Uttar Pradesh. Such parties along with other leftist parties have shown no knowledge or expertise in national policies on economic, international relations, external security and eradication of corruption and inefficiency. The only slogans that CPM had depended on were: anti-Hinduism, anti-Americanism, anti- big business and anti-talent. CPM has become another political party that cheats people, oppresses critics, encourages corruption and inefficiency, wastes public money and thinks that they have no accountability for their failures.
 Jyoti Basu's Party did develop a very large active cadre at different levels: the cadre has been very strong physically incutting down all opposition and gatherring votes in elections by fair or foul means. The CPM cadre has weakend over the decades in terms of quality: honesty and integrity as well as modesty and decency: its quality of intellect and grasp of technological ans scientific progress only deteriorated because of the distaste for academic brilliance and specialised expertise. That this maybe true of many political parties is only a consolation.

With regard to the dream of becoming an accepted National leader, Jyoti Basu nearly achieved the National Premier position but for his party that did not like the idea. After he voluantarily gave up the position of power in the party, his advice on supporting the Congress at the national level was ignored: General Secretary Karat replaced him as CPM's National Leader. Jyoti Basu accepted majority view as a democrat even if he had an opposing view: Karat overuled the majority sentiment to throw of the Speaker of the Lokshava from the party. Jyoti Basu might have been the last democrat in the communist party.

Dreams that failed to attract Jyoti Basu

It is doubtful that Jyoti Basu had any idea of how to make poor people rich: surely he had little education or experience in this. He became a poor person from being the son of an wealthy physician's son. He did not make himself rich by using the position of chief minister (though as a person without jealousy, he did not mind his poor party and the poor colleagues in the party becoming rich in terms of money). He might not have any idea of how he could make West Bengal a prosperous State. For nearly two decades, he failed to provide power to homes and factories, while his administration allowed electricity theft by goons. He knew not how to create power capacity except by promising to build power on blood donations!
As the party became rich, as a whole-timer dependent on the party's dole out, his standard of living might have improved: but that's pure accident - he did not seek the comforts of life: a puritan communist or a Hindu religious Sadhak would have done the same as he did.

He did not have a dream that his party would have only clean, honest member-activist and also a large number of academically/ intellectually strong member-activists. So, the question of his realizing such dream does not arise. There were many such possible dreams Jyoti Basu could have had as the Chief Minister of West Bengal and a political party leader in India: make Bengalis the most educated and competent in various technological and scientific fields, make West Bengal the hub of industrial revolution in India, make West Bengal self-sufficient in Fish, make West Bengal sweets like Rossogolla or Sarbhaja or Mihidana the most sought-after desert in other parts of the country and the World, make smuggling across the Bangladesh border impossible, enable universities in West Bengal to rank among the best in the World, make government employees in West Bengal the most efficient in the World, make Hindus in India believe that communists are not going to make a fun of Hindu religion, convince all Indian states that octroi duties are harmful to India, and the like. These were not possibly his dreams. Even if he had such dreams, his party would not have shared his dream: they could have objected to such forward thinking as they had done by resisting the use of computer technology in West Bengal for two decades because of their sheer ignorance that they had though reflected both high-level intelligence and profound Marxism.


Jawaharlal Nehru had picked up socialism from London and Jyoti Basu communism. Their not vision and competence failed to lift a nation from illiteracy, dependence, poverty and backwardness in science and technology. Successive generations did not find in them an attractive role models for them. Like Nehru, Jyoti Basu began and ended as a leader of a low/ poor quality followers as they did not aspire to become a leader of vibrant, productive, skilled, educated, enterprising followers.

Potential Political BharatRatna may not shine in History of  West Bengal

It might be difficult for Bengalis to forget Rabindranath and Netaji Subhas, or even Sourav Ganguly and Satyajit Ray: it was rather easy for Bengalis to forget Bidhan Chandra Roy. Jyoti Basu may not be remembered by even the communists of Bengal after two more elections. Jyoti Basu, along with Promode Dasgupta and MN Roy will live in history of Bengali communist adventure for a while.
The idol of a honest, simple-living personality, willing to sacrifice personal interest for the common interest, remaining truly democratic and behaving as decent gentleman as a Bengali Bhadolok is what Jyoti Basu represented throughout his life. But that idol is long dead in West Bengal political and social life. Bengalis may not care to revive that icon from history.

As for a lift to a higher social, economic and technological plane from the depth of complete mess that West Bengal is currently in, the state may turn its back from history and look ahead to the future for a competent, visionary leader to arrive.

Jyoti Basu Lives in History - 01

Around mid-day of 17th January 2010, Jyoti Basu breathed his last at the age of 96. Since then the Bengali TV channels telecast the news and the reactions of various people including leaders of various political parties and celebrities from different walks of life. On 18th January, the morning newspapers published articles on Jyoti Basu, his life, personality, achievement and failures. It was very interesting and absorbing to listen to or reading the assessments.

In the shadow of the British
He was no ordinary man. He studied in English medium in the schools (Loreto Convent and St Xaviers where his name was shortented from Jyotiridra to Jyoti by his father) and graduated with major in English form the Presidency College at the age 21 in 1935 and proceeded to London to study Law. Stories say he initially tried to become an ICS (Indian Civil Service) officer. He became a barrister in 5 years before returning to India. No one has said yet how he financed his stay and studies as also his politically-oriented activities (l in London. His father, a doctor who practiced medicine, might have been rich enough ( doctors were/ and are generally rich in India) to fund his adventures in London. The investment in his advanced professional study in London was a private investment. How much did that investment yield in return may be difficuult to assess. But the father was disappointed by Jyoti not agreeing to his suggestion to practice law and carry on political activity simultaneously when Jyoti returned to India in 1940 having qualified as a barrister, registered with the Calcutta High Court but did not practice and chose to be a full time CPI-party worker (wholetimer).

Jyoti Basu returned to India apparently with three attachments: (a) communism, (b) parliamentary democracy and (c) law. He did or could not practice law as his profession, but was respectful of law and lawyers. He turned his other two attachments into his profession. He joined the Communist Party of India (CPI), helping the leaders who went underground for fear of fear of being arrested by the ruling British Government, driving such leaders to safer havens in his own car, organising trade union for railway employees to become a trade union leader (in the same way a new member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) would have done). He was probably against the party's strategy of inviting police attrocities and bringing the tortured masses to the fold of the Party. As a disciplied party member with democractic beliefs, he had accepted the accept the majority view. When Hitler's Germany attacked Soveit Russia, the CPGB withrew all labor agitations and supported the British Government: the CPI followed suit. Jyoti Basu suspended workers' agitation to help the British Governmenmt in the Second World War even when the Indian National Congress led by Nehru was unwilling to lend support to the British Government in the World War II unless the British granted Independence to India. Gandhi would soon lunch his " British, Quit India" movement and the Congress was more interested in negotiating Indpendence for India at a time when the British was struggling to save themselves from Hitler's threat. The Indian communists were more interested in saving the Soviet Union with the help of the capitalist economies and get the ban on the communist party lifted and their leaders freed from the threat of being imprisioned.

Sacrificing for the poor

Jyoti Basu would have liked this because he could work for the poor and the down-trodden only through a legitimate, lawful party. He also worled for the relief work for the poor people affected by famine and needing medical treatment. This would help increase his popularity among the common people and make his party more acceptable to the common people.
In 1946 got elected to the State Legislative Assembly thru's the railway workers' constituency to become a democratic parliamentary leader. He would soon became the Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal.

I could not find any evidence, apart from the appreciation and affection he had received from Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, the second Chief Minister of West Bengal after India became Indeoendent, to rate him as a AAA parliamentary democratic politician. As a college student I heard him lecture in Bengali Language in mass meetings organised by his party. His speeches were extempore, very interesting to listen to for the layman but did not have any intellectual appeal. He used to narrate stories of his interaction with India's National-level leaders which appeared to me very close to story-telling by grand parents to their grand sons and grand daughters. The art of story telling he mastered had a mass appeal no doubt. Besides being the Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal State Assebly, Jyoti Basu played an important role in the development of the CPI at the national level. Although CPI's militant role in Andra Pradesh was not to his liking, he accepted the majority decision and when that strategy failed he was instrumental in getting a change in the party's leadership and successfully taking up with Nehru, the first Prime Minister of Independent India, the issue of securing release of large number of party workers imprisioned for their violent activities. Jyoti Basu's future would lie with a party that would do things that are lawful and that would through parilamentary process bring about changes in legislation to benefit the common people. It would appear that his pragmatism was linked to what is possible through parilamentary democracy, something in which his belief had grown probably during his five years stay in London.

Dedication to Party Pays

Perhaps emboldened by the successfu Chinese aggression of India in 1962 when the Soviet Union did nothing to help India, and with Kruschev openly criticising Stalin and the Russian -Chinese relations started souring (probably because Chairman Mao's party continued to follow Stalinism), the Communist Party of India (CPI) split. Those who were with the revisionism of Krushchev's Russia remained in CPI. Those agains Russian Revisionism and were in support of Chinese Communit Party found in 1964 a new party: the Communist Party of India (Marxists) or CPI (M) or CPM for short. Jyoti Basu, according to some old CPI members, was expected to be with the original CPI, given his CPGB connection and pro-Soviet stance. But Jyoti Basu became one of the founding leaders of the CPM. It was a remarkable decision. Most of members and supporters in West Bengal considered Jyoti Basu as their leader and most of the Indians who would go into the CPM were mainly from West Bengal. Most senior leaders remained in the CPI. It was a boon to Jyoti Basu. He bacame the undisputedly one of the few senior leaders of the new party - the CPM. And, this CPM was prepared to continue to participate in parliamentary democracy till such time they were able to create conditions that would bring India's mixed economy capitaliststic socialism to a grinding halt when they would launch Revolution to capture State power. This dream might not be realised soon: that would offer Jyoti Basu to continue with his attachment to Parliamentary Democracy Politics as the undisputed leader of CPM in West Bengal.

Sharing Power

He was not a theoretician: no body has said anything about his lectures and articles on Marxism, though he edited the People's Democracy for a while. He had no problem in leaving the party organizational matters to theoreticians and activists. He would have liked to be the face of CPM in democratic parliamentary politics while the party activists could prepare the people for the communist revolution and arrange votes for him and others who would get into the State legislative assembly and the national Parliament. The scheme worked well all through-out. Party supplied him all the democratic agitations he needed to organize against the ruling Congress Governments in the State and at the Centre. But he had to sacrifice life comfort's for quite a while. In the legislative party. he was the unopposed leader of Opposition. It did mean considerable pecuniary sacrifice. Large part of what he used to get as allowances for being a member of the legislative assembly went to the Party. He had to manage his family (wife and a son) with meagre income. Of course, he had his own house, probably inherited. He did not draw any part of his allowances as the Leader of the Opposition: this special allowance was arranged for him by the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy. At some stage, therefore, he had to let out the first floor of his house to some one: the rental income would help run his family.

His democratic revolution went apace: his party was happy burning trams when the tram fare was increased by one paise, organising strikes in factories big or small, troubling educational institutions by organising strikes to protest agains of all things American onslaught in Vietnam. Industries started closing down in the face of violent and long strike by workers under the leadership of the CPM trade union leaders.

After the Chinese withdrew unilaterally from the 1962 aggression, the pro-Chinese radical elements in the CPI resolved to create conditions for the communist revolution. Industries needed to be closed down through strikes so as to convince the common man that mixed economy capitalistic socialism must go to improve the lot of the poor workers. As industries closed down in West Bengal, unemployment here would increase. All for the better. More poor would now become CPM members, party workers and supporters. People would in this way get ready for the Communist Revolution. The Congress Party was fast losing credibilty and support. But having tasted power for long and used to benefits of rising corruption that Nehru's socialism and command economic planning gave rise to. The more the Congress Party lost popularity, the greater was the tendency of the Congress Party to use strong arm techniques against the opposition party in West Bengal, namely CPM. The more the Congress did this, the more the people willsynmpathize with andsupport the CPM. The Congress in West Bengal started disintegrating. A new party Bangla Congress came into being.

Lady Luck Smiled at last

Opportunities were emerging for Jyoti Basu to advance his political career. In 1967, the Congress lost power in the State as the United Front of opposition parties secured majority in the Assembly. He became the Deputy Chief Minister of the United Front Government of assorted partiesAfter 21 years of plaing in the opposition, Jyoti Basu could get a chance to be in the Government in 1967 for the first time. He was on the right track, but would need to wait further to form his Government. Earlier, the fiirst step to Communist Revolution was to organize masses against the bourgeoise capitalist-boot-licking Government of Nehru's socialistic economy with the public sector in commanding heights: the Congress government was actually running a capitalist economy and needed to be overthrown through defeat in democratic elections. Now that the CPM joined the State Government along with a set of non-Congress parties, the CPM could look forward to capturing State power in West Bengal. But that was not easy. First, those of the communists who were dreaming about the impending revolution, especially the young students in the colleges and universities with brilliant academic record, were disappointed that their Party became part of a coalition ministry in West Bengal. While Jyoti Basu thought that this was an opportunity to show the massess that the communists can rule the country better than others, the revolutionaries thought this as a betrayal. These young people deserted CPM in anger and joined various communist terrorist groups who termed them as Marxist-Leninist, Maoist or Naxalities. They started killing and looting the people, especially the village rich and CPM workers. CPM would soon need to recruit members or supporters who could fight armed gurellia warfare with the communist terrorists. At least one close friend who joined the CPM fighting squad at that time had to flee West Bengal soon and spoil his career and life. That was the beginning of CPM's initiation into murder, corruption and crime politics.

The second problem was that Congress was nursing wounds and would try to come back with the help of the Government of India, still in the hands of the Congress. And, political violence was the only alternative left. The two united front Governments in which Jyoti Basu was the Deputy Chief Minister did not last long due to internal conflicts and Congress manipulation. The Congress came back to power in an election that was marked by considerable violence. So, the two coalition governements that Jyoti Basu served as deputy Chief Minister lasted for 11 months and 12 months respectively. Before the Congress cam back to power in 1971. Jyoti Basu's younger friend Siddhartha Shankar Roy, a well-known lawyer who qualified in London as a barrister six years after Jyoti Basu did, became the Congress Chief Minister in West Bwengal in 1972. The light of the lamp of Congress in West Bengal became brighter just before it was about to finally burn out. The people of West Bengal was totally fed up with the corrupt, manipulative and inefficient Congress Governments. The voted for the leftists. That would not however change he distiby of West Bengal.

Jytoti Basu became the Chief Minister of WestBengal in 1977 at the age of 63. The CPM was the dominant partner of the Left Front Government. All sorts of leftist parties like Forward Block, CPI, Revolutionary Socialist Party were the partners of CPM. Jyoti Basu's dream at last has succeeded: a communist government in a bourgiose, capitalist economy became possible.

For & Against: Violence & Religion

Recent debates in the media show show that most citizens, especially the elite and intellectuals who speak are against violence and murder that is going on in West Bengal. The political parties, except the Maoist and terroists parties spek out against violenec and murder, though the CPM and Trinamul continue to accuse ech other of violence and murder. Common citizens cannot say who s murdering whom but they witness the violence and force beinf used by the workers of these two parties on the streets and educational institutions. So, Gandhi's non-violence remains on paper: Trinamul and CPM will fight it out through violence for ever till one party gets decimated. CPM has risen through violence, rukled through violenec and committed to violence in evry sphere. Trinamul knows that no supporter would come to deal with CPM's violence by practicising non-violenec and offer to get beaten up or murdered. There is no problem recruiting supporters who would commit violence and murder at the behest of the parties. There is a large number of muscle-men whose livlihood is dependent on violence committed independently and on behalf of the politicl parties. Some of them stay with one or the other party for long. Bu most of them change sides depending on which party gives support/ protection to or disctrimiates against which muscleman/ mafia to make money or discriminates against i the matter of distribution of favor. These self-employed small businessmen enganged in making thier livlihood and enjying prosperity by using and providing violence creation skills are an influntial constituency of socio-political life and some of them have strong nexus with the politicians and politicised part of administration. The growth of these constiuency began in a smll way prior to 1960, but was fostered by the rivalry between the CPM and the Naxalites- Moists in the late sistes and seventies. Some of the most popular politicians of West Bengal rose  their political career and ensured luxurious living through the cultivation, manipulation and control of this spcial group of self-employed violence professionals. CPM cannot live without them- no opposition party can get some share of the political spoils at the cost of citizens without nurturing good relationship with these men (so far women are not seen prominently in politically-connected gangsters. While the reality s that the democracy in West Bengal is so dependent on the operation of these gangsters, it is surprising that the intellectuals, elite classes and many common citizens speak against violence and preach for peace. The reason is simple they themselves are unable to become violence as they lack this skill. But to make themselves believe that they have a real solution to offer and implement they argue that poverty, unemloyment and socio-economic ineqialoities is the cause of all these violence and they want someone ( not known who - maybe God, though many such people think God does not exist and proud of their special talents in music, literature, performing arts, realty show entertainment and journlism prefessions.  They look like dumb people and addicted to wdows' crying.  They think that they are doing a great job being voclly against violence including violence perpretated by the ruling politicl party and the not-so strong opposition parties with smaller access to violence-creation resources.
The political leaders care a fig for them and want them to stop speaking against political violence in general: each political leade wants these people to speak against political violence of their rival parties only. Violence and murder is a foundation of Indian political parties for existence and sharing the political looting of the income and wealth created by the masses toiling in factories, farms and service occupations.
However, violence is just one pillar. There is another pillar of Indian politics. That is the elections: nothing should trnish the religious immage of the political parties. Except for BJP, no political party wants to identify with any particular religion or religion at all. The Congress started cultivating the image of secularism since Independence and particularly after Indira Gandhi came into power: almost all other non-BJP parties, except some regional parties, followed suit. Over the years, it has become clear that political secularism has only to do with cultivating Muslim electorate and no other religion. Benefits of Minority Commission and  expenditure on Minorities largely flow to the muslims. Buddhists and Christians do not complain because large percentage of them belong to the Dalits and SC/ ST segment who have benefits flowing from reservation policy (another pillar of Indian democracy: Indian political parties have perfected the art of 'divide & rule' policy of the erstwhile British Rulers). Parsees, perhaps the smallest minority do not appear to bother. The Jains and Sikhs are left out. The different religios factions like Vaishanavites, Sivaites, Tantriks, Brahmohs and such other religious communities somehow failed to recognize themselves as belonging to separate religions and accepted the notion that they were simply Hindus as defined by the British and the Indian intelligentia trained by the British. So, the heteregenous religious groups become majority because they are clubbed together arbirarily and cleverly to create a majority so that minorities can be cultivated on a religion basis while the forcibly clubbed together Hindus can be divided by some caste system.

One of the most-used fooling technology of Indian political parties is the slogan of secularism. No one in India knows what it means. Each political party and leader may have its/ his/ her own interpretation to suit their needs for practising 'divide & rule policy'.
Congress and socialist parties seem to think that there are two religions Hindiusm and Islam and secularism means Islam has to be protected from Hinduism (probably because Islam was imported into India only much later in historical time): this helps in didive and rule.
The BJP seems to thinks that most non-Hindus in India are decendants of Hindus converted into other religions long ago by foreign rulers/ missionaries and they want these people back to their original religion. They seem to consider Islam as a religion of other nations and those Indians who do not join the Hindutva social culture are suspect spies, stoogaes and friends of foreign nations. Only Hindutva culture is secularism and protection of the rights of the people belonging to Hindu religion is as much much part of Secularism as protecting the rights of people of other religion provided they accept Hindutva culture, according to the BJP, is a secular culture. Unfortunately, few christians or muslims, even if they are decendantd of Hindus forced or lured into conversion by foreign rulers or their missionaries, would buy into the BJP idea of secularism. Nordo thay have any such concept of secularism other than the protectionof their religion and State support to such minority religions. How long will such religions remain minor in India while they remain major internationally by head count.
The Communists have a different view of secularism: religion is an evil addiction of human beings (addiction to alcohol is much better than religion) and should be abandoned to pave the way for secularism. It seems that those who are poor and large in number from the point of view of getting votes, may be treated as secular even if they practice a particular religion provided they hate at least one other religion. Thus, Muslims may be treated by the Communists as secular by definition. So, are the communists who have given up their inherited religion but hate at least Hindu religion. Recently, General Secretary Karat has clarified the CPM position: now it seems that the members of the party who practices different religions are secular. But those CPM party leaders who attend religious ceremonies/ festivals and parties could lose their secular tag. This kind of secularism of different levels appears to be a highly innovative political philosophy.  This is understandable: most Indians may not practice their own religion as per their scriptures but believe in God and have faith in one or the other religious preachers and offer prayers to some God in some temples or in the Church or the Mosque or Gurudwara. If the CPM leaders say that all this God worshipping is a mere addiction and a social evil, they would not be able to recruit supporters or members. So, admitting members and supporters from different religious faiths has to be part of communist secularism. But to become a secular leader in the CPM one has to drop faith in God and stay away from religious festivals and ceremonies (CPM leaders may now  decline to accept invitation to religiously secular Iftekar parties associated with Iftekar or Ram Nabami/ Bijoya Dasami!).
Political parties and leaders will do all kinds of non-sense to fool the citizens to win their support so that the leaders can enjoy this material world as much as they can. Their supporters who get some favor or the other at the cost of public money would raise the solgan: Long live Indian political hypocracy of religious secularism and of socialistic peace through violence and murder.