In Bengali language, there are some sayings that now appear to be most appropriate to Bengali's of Bengal (West of Bangladesh) in West Bengal.
One is 'Mukheno Maritong Jagot' meaning 'Winning the World with Speech'. Bengali's are disappointed that the World Cup Cricket 2011 match between England and India would not be held at Eden Gardens as scheduled because the ICC (International Cricket Control) Board's inspecting team found that the renovation under way at the Eden Gardens is not up to the mark and beyond schedule to be declared fit for holding the World Cup Match. The cricket loving people, the expert commentators, the celebrity cricket fans, the sports journalists and even expert construction engineers - all have opened their mouths to win the battles with their speeches. The CAB (Cricket Association of Bengal) officials are under attack. The Secretary has offered to resign for the failure. The President, Mr. JagmohanDalmia, a former President of both the Board for Cricket Control of India (BCCI) as well as the International Cricket Control Board is highly embarrassed. After a few years of struggle to come back and get elected as President of CAB, he has suffered a major set back now. The CAB has been unable to win the world with Bengali-tradition speeches and get the World Cup Matches for Eden Gardens. The only hope is the 31st January inspection by the ICC: the experts believe that there is no way that the renovation can be completed to the satisfaction of the Inspectors on 31 January 2011. Mr. Dalmia is not appearing so cheerfully optimistic now. Just a day to go.
It is ironic that Mr.Sharad Power is the ICC President now. He had difficulty to dislodge Mr. Dalmia form Cricket Control Board of India and could succeed in the second attempt after lot of networking against Dalmia. It is unlikely that Mr. Power would come to the rescue of Mr. Dalmia's Eden Gardens now even if he had such powers and influence to override the ICC Inspecting Team's decision.
Meanwhile, the battle of words continues in the newspapers and TV Programs: and all of them have won because the CAB is not able to and cannot defend. The lesson is clear. One can win the battle by speech if the enemy or rival is so weak as not to appear in the battlefield. Bengali's will take long time to realize that Mukhe Jogot Mara Jaayenaa/ You can not win the World by speeches or shouting.
But there is another saying: 'Stage-e mere debo' or ( I will do the job fine when I will have to act finally in the stage and there is no need to plan, prepare and rehearse'). In line with this saying, the CAB did very little to plan, prepare, monitor and evaluator progress of the renovation of stadium and meet the specifications of the ICC. That is very normal in Bengal ( in fact very normal in the whole of India). Everything is taken casually and professional management methods are considered as meant for school children and not relevant for adults. Rather, a crises is allowed to develop and last minute efforts are made to solve the crisis after the deadline is over. Such crisis management is the challenge Bengali's wait to take up, CAB was ding just that following the traditions of Bengal. They will manage everything at the stage.
The stage management act has started. The final stage management is of course done by politicians. Pranab Mukherjee, Indian Finance Minister, has already been approached by CAB to talk to his cabinet colleague Sharad Power, the ICC Board President, to ensure that Bengal is not deprived of the opportunity of hosting the England-India match schedule on 27 Feb at Kolkata. Mukul Roy, a Bengali minister of the Government of India has also been approached to use his influence on Sharad Power. This time the West Bengal Chief Minister, a great cricket lover (does not matter whether he had ever played cricket) is too late to enter the crisis management stage and no one now really counts on him because unlike in the past the Ruling Government at the Centre does not depend on Buddhadev's CPM support in the Parliament.
So, what is the situation at midnight of 29-30 August? Everyone knows that in the next 15 days the Eden Gardens stadium will be perfectly ready meeting all specifications of the ICC to hold the match scheduled on 27th February. And, the Eden Gardens would be ready at least 15 days ahead of the match. There is not really a great task ahead: rather it is a very mundane small task that remains to be done by CAB at the Eden. And, the ICC does not really need the Eden to be ready two months or even 20 days ahead of the match. The ICC deadlines are merely bureaucratic, artificial deadlines. The BCCI has ample experience of managing international tournaments and ICC has no reason to browbeat BCCI with a report of its technical inspectors. Moreover, browbeating India would not help ICC to ensure its survival: without India World Cup Cricket is unviable.
So, irrespective of whether or not, ICC tries to browbeat CAB or BCCI, the ICC technical teams next visit to Eden Gardens would be shifted to February 5 from January 31. And, on February 5, the ICC Inspectors have to justify that the Eden Gardens is not really ready to hold the February 27 match. CAB might make this difficult for the inspecting team. BCCI and CAB would have still stage managed the show!
But the media is absolutely clear that the 27th February match will definitely be shifted. And, they knew it before CAB received the email from ICC. Was it a plan to get CAB, Dalmia and Eden Gardens into an embarrassment?
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Bengali Addiction to Buddhi-freeism
There is considerable amount of depressive pain the TV viewers and Newspaper readers in West Bengal: the daily killings and armed fights among political party cadres all over the State are no longer a merely political issue or law & Order issue; they are becoming an unbearable agony among the common citizens of West Bengal. The people have become sick listening to the daily silly debates among political party leaders, educated elite, journalists and intellectuals about who is/ are to be blamed, who started it all at first or who should take the initiative to stop all this nuisance. Frustrated by all this, my wife inquired " Why can't Buddhadev Bhattacharyya and CPM declare that in the interest of peace, they will not contest in the 2011 State Assembly Elections and allow Trinamool and Congress to get elected uncontested and rule for the next five years? They can come back after five years if the people of Bengal finds Trinamool Congress as much useless and oppressive as the CPM has been, if not more.
I thought to myself before I could respond to her: she was making an excellent, practical suggestion that the CPM Politburo meet currently in deliberations in Kolkata should consider with all seriousness.
Mr. Buddhadev Bhattacharyya has been Chief Ministers for 10 years now and CPM has ruled the State like an undiputed and arrogant dictator for the last 34 years. Is that not a sufficiently long period of time for Buddha and CPM to be proud of and become worthy of setting up a new example in the annals Democratic Politics by voluntarily giving away powers to the opposition? Great Parties and political leaders create history by establishing new Great practices that others seek to emulate. Would Buddhadev and the Karatic -Yeuchurian rise to the occasion and choose to be in the opposition, not at the Centre where they make their presence felt by shouting rather than securing sending their MPs in number enough for being recognized as an All-India Party, but in the State where they have established an overwhelming presence for long?
I replied to my wife: 'Buddhadev and CPM are not be confused as Gautama Buddha and Buddhism. They are not seeking Nirvana for themselves but committed to the lofty ideals of industrial regeneration of West Bengal and socio-economic equity. They cannot halt their revolution for a period of Five years. '
My wife said, ' But a five year period of volunteering in the opposition will give the CPM greater strength from weeding out bad elements, reviewing their own past policies/ performance dispassionately and setting examples and standards for opposition parties in Indian democracy. That would be great contribution and service to the West Bengal economy and political framework'.
I am sure everyone would understand her logic as well as her objective. She thinks that this is the only real solution to the problem of political violence and daily killings of young and the old throughout the State. Obviously, the value of 2000 political murders annually is not Rs. 2 lakhs (compensation offered by the Government per death) x2000 = Rs. 40 crore (government spend much more on killing mosquitoes and other insects). When a thousand people get killed on the streets and and political battlegrounds around the armed forts in villages, millions of families get on the brink of being turned into cattle for slaughter. If Buddhadev and CPM are of any worth to the citizens of West Bengal, they should immediately disassociate from the responsibility of governing the State to demonstrate that here is a person and a political party which can sacrifice its power in favour of the opposition to cool down tempers and put an immediate end to the unending episode of political killings and the reign of terror.
The simple fact is that Buddhadev and the CPM cannot do what may be a practical solution to the problem that the humanity in West Bengal is groaning under. After all, who are the people who are using modern weapons to kill others in West Bengal? They are all the products of the flourishing armed rowdyism that CPM and its leaders have been cultivating for a long period of time to establish the dictatorship of CPM in the political governance, economic activities and social-cultural life in West Bengal. Who are the Bengali Maoists killing people, ordinary people and CPM-supporters/ activists in Jungle areas? They are mostly former CPM cadres / supporters who could not win in the inner competition within the CPM to gain powers enough to corner material benefits. The individual CPM-nurtured rowdies/ rogues who failed in the competition with other rowdies nursed in the same nurseries to get adequate allocation of terrorise to exploit people or get into positions of State power to get the collaboration of the CPM-infiltrated police stations that were looking for other political umbrellas to continue their struggle to get a piece of tower to exploit citizens for their living. They joined the Trinamool Congress and the Congress to fight for their survival.. When rowdyism is the strategy to get hold of and remain in political power, rowdyism becomes an attractive vocation for more and more young men and women. CPM cultivated this strategy and allowed arms to flow to them. But the number of rowdies required to establish complete dictatorship of a single party in the State is not infinite but fairly limited. On the other hand, the supply of rowdies is far greater and all of them cannot be given adequate opportunities to prosper and hence the ranks of the frustrated and disgruntled rowdies were bound to swell and flow in to alternative platforms.
What we see today is nothing but the effect of breeding and utilizing rowdyism in the State by the CPM. It is difficult for CPM to appreciate this. The poverty of vision, honesty and intellectual brain power of the CPM is as well-known and as matching of the poverty of these qualities among any other political party in the country. The sound of empty vessels and the poor achievements of the parties in 34 years or 63 years are evidence enough for the level of poverty in vision, honesty and brain-power and no amount of speeches in public meetings can hide this Truth any longer.
So, CPM cannot get rid of its dependence on muscle power, brain-less rowdyism and embedded rowdyism cannot allow CPM to just throw away power into the hands of Trinamool or Congress. Rowdies can prosper only with the collaboration of State power: they must therefore determine who gets elected to power. All rowdies cannot get accommodated in a single party. So, many parties must have adequate share of competent rowdies who can conduct terror and political killings. They cannot give up their territories without armed combats as the preparation for fighting elections. The elections will be held with security granted by the Election Commission. But before and after elections rowdies will settle their scores, defend and augment their territories for exploitation.
Bengali's will not get a respite from the depressing environment of political murders for years to come, except for a minor relief interval during the elections.
Non-violence Buddhism is not meant for Buddhi-free bullet-powered political cronyism. The rest of India wonders when the Bengali addiction to brain-free, dishonest rowdyism in socio-economic life.
I thought to myself before I could respond to her: she was making an excellent, practical suggestion that the CPM Politburo meet currently in deliberations in Kolkata should consider with all seriousness.
Mr. Buddhadev Bhattacharyya has been Chief Ministers for 10 years now and CPM has ruled the State like an undiputed and arrogant dictator for the last 34 years. Is that not a sufficiently long period of time for Buddha and CPM to be proud of and become worthy of setting up a new example in the annals Democratic Politics by voluntarily giving away powers to the opposition? Great Parties and political leaders create history by establishing new Great practices that others seek to emulate. Would Buddhadev and the Karatic -Yeuchurian rise to the occasion and choose to be in the opposition, not at the Centre where they make their presence felt by shouting rather than securing sending their MPs in number enough for being recognized as an All-India Party, but in the State where they have established an overwhelming presence for long?
I replied to my wife: 'Buddhadev and CPM are not be confused as Gautama Buddha and Buddhism. They are not seeking Nirvana for themselves but committed to the lofty ideals of industrial regeneration of West Bengal and socio-economic equity. They cannot halt their revolution for a period of Five years. '
My wife said, ' But a five year period of volunteering in the opposition will give the CPM greater strength from weeding out bad elements, reviewing their own past policies/ performance dispassionately and setting examples and standards for opposition parties in Indian democracy. That would be great contribution and service to the West Bengal economy and political framework'.
I am sure everyone would understand her logic as well as her objective. She thinks that this is the only real solution to the problem of political violence and daily killings of young and the old throughout the State. Obviously, the value of 2000 political murders annually is not Rs. 2 lakhs (compensation offered by the Government per death) x2000 = Rs. 40 crore (government spend much more on killing mosquitoes and other insects). When a thousand people get killed on the streets and and political battlegrounds around the armed forts in villages, millions of families get on the brink of being turned into cattle for slaughter. If Buddhadev and CPM are of any worth to the citizens of West Bengal, they should immediately disassociate from the responsibility of governing the State to demonstrate that here is a person and a political party which can sacrifice its power in favour of the opposition to cool down tempers and put an immediate end to the unending episode of political killings and the reign of terror.
The simple fact is that Buddhadev and the CPM cannot do what may be a practical solution to the problem that the humanity in West Bengal is groaning under. After all, who are the people who are using modern weapons to kill others in West Bengal? They are all the products of the flourishing armed rowdyism that CPM and its leaders have been cultivating for a long period of time to establish the dictatorship of CPM in the political governance, economic activities and social-cultural life in West Bengal. Who are the Bengali Maoists killing people, ordinary people and CPM-supporters/ activists in Jungle areas? They are mostly former CPM cadres / supporters who could not win in the inner competition within the CPM to gain powers enough to corner material benefits. The individual CPM-nurtured rowdies/ rogues who failed in the competition with other rowdies nursed in the same nurseries to get adequate allocation of terrorise to exploit people or get into positions of State power to get the collaboration of the CPM-infiltrated police stations that were looking for other political umbrellas to continue their struggle to get a piece of tower to exploit citizens for their living. They joined the Trinamool Congress and the Congress to fight for their survival.. When rowdyism is the strategy to get hold of and remain in political power, rowdyism becomes an attractive vocation for more and more young men and women. CPM cultivated this strategy and allowed arms to flow to them. But the number of rowdies required to establish complete dictatorship of a single party in the State is not infinite but fairly limited. On the other hand, the supply of rowdies is far greater and all of them cannot be given adequate opportunities to prosper and hence the ranks of the frustrated and disgruntled rowdies were bound to swell and flow in to alternative platforms.
What we see today is nothing but the effect of breeding and utilizing rowdyism in the State by the CPM. It is difficult for CPM to appreciate this. The poverty of vision, honesty and intellectual brain power of the CPM is as well-known and as matching of the poverty of these qualities among any other political party in the country. The sound of empty vessels and the poor achievements of the parties in 34 years or 63 years are evidence enough for the level of poverty in vision, honesty and brain-power and no amount of speeches in public meetings can hide this Truth any longer.
So, CPM cannot get rid of its dependence on muscle power, brain-less rowdyism and embedded rowdyism cannot allow CPM to just throw away power into the hands of Trinamool or Congress. Rowdies can prosper only with the collaboration of State power: they must therefore determine who gets elected to power. All rowdies cannot get accommodated in a single party. So, many parties must have adequate share of competent rowdies who can conduct terror and political killings. They cannot give up their territories without armed combats as the preparation for fighting elections. The elections will be held with security granted by the Election Commission. But before and after elections rowdies will settle their scores, defend and augment their territories for exploitation.
Bengali's will not get a respite from the depressing environment of political murders for years to come, except for a minor relief interval during the elections.
Non-violence Buddhism is not meant for Buddhi-free bullet-powered political cronyism. The rest of India wonders when the Bengali addiction to brain-free, dishonest rowdyism in socio-economic life.
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