School Children's Right to Political Activity: Bengali Philosophy

Since the early 1960s, children in Kolkata have exercised their right to be part of political process.b During our secondary / higher secondary school days, exercising such rights were fun. We were kind of volunteers and slogan munchers during municipal election days with free snacks and thrill offered by elders supporting rival contestants about whom we knew nothing and might not have seen them except in the poster paintings. And, of course students' strikes against American cruelty in Vietnam war meant freedom form classes soon after the school hours commenced, though we did not care about what was Vietnam beyond guessing that the Americans are nothing but demons classified as capitalist and imperialist,

By the time one reached class IX, one would hear some friends boasting of their political consciousness and awareness of terms like 'dialectical materialism', 'class struggle' and 'communist revolution'. Most such friends however were poor in studies in the school, very weak in both English and Mathematics. Those with strength in mathematics and English or physically well built to excel in sports or National Cadet Corps training, did not get attracted to the fashion of joining politically conscious groups.

Some of them who became politically conscious in the school later in life became leaders of political parties and even ministers with their relatives making tons of money through various kinds of businesses like supply of building materials, house building construction firm partners, and the like. The commercial attractiveness of the business of politics increased over the years, especially for those who had difficulty in continuing with their studies for various reasons. As the political business industry grew and became profitable, it needed sustained supply of politically conscious school students to be recruited so that they can be properly brain washed and imparted training in lecturing public meetings, in organising processions, in creating fear among the citizens not willing to pay fees to escape extortion and in conducting armed warfare as specialist fighter groups to deal with similar groups of rival political parties.

Thus supply of school going children for political party training has become an universally accepted political philosophy in West Bengal (and elsewhere in India).  This is especially true of leftist parties whether Marxists, Leninist or Maoists. The rapid expansion in the number of schools and school going children made it easier to recruit future political activists and leaders at young age. Recently, one party, brought a bus near a school and asked the students coming to the school to board the bus to attend the political parties' student wings meeting being held a few miles away. A teacher of the school it seems gave the impression to the students that the school and the parents have tacitly approved such an outing for the students. Students were offered food and brought back in the bus to the school in the evening for them to return home. Meanwhile, the anxious parents gathered at the school worried about the temporary political abduction of their children by the political party. The school authorities retorted that the children did not report to class and willingly boarded the bus that took them to attend the meeting else where.

The TV channels and Newspapers covered the incident in full detail raising a great controversy over the children being abducted by a  political party's student wing that criticised the TV channels of giving undue publicity to the incident  as this was a very common practice of political parties to facilitate school students' exercise of their fundamental right to become politically conscious. None of the political parties condemned the incident: they said forcing students to attend such meetings is no good but they needed to be lured into attending such meetings as students from class IX onwards need to get exposure to politics so that they can contribute to democracy as they grow up.

Based on a complaint by a parent, the Court has asked the State Government to investigate and submit its report to the court as the incident as reported in the press appeared to be case of torture of children through abduction.

West Bengal intelligentsia and political parties are now in faced with an intriguing position.  The Indians get the right to cast votes in elections at the age of 18. Most students even up to the class XII are below 18.  Then, when do the students start getting exposure arranged by the political parties and their student wings? Let us say that a 16 year old may be considered eligible for the benevolence of political party initiative to spread political consciousness. At that age most students are in class X.  So, how can students  of class X have the absolute right to bunk classes for the political exposure? How can taking such students on a political meeting outing be thought of as torture?

The politically conscious intelligentsia is right: a child has the fundamental right to participate in political activity and undergo political exposure as soon as it is born. But children are children and not adults: the parents or guardians are responsible for their acts. In fact many children get their political brainwashing at home by the parents, relatives and neighbours. The problem is elsewhere: the schools do not have the right to allow their students as a group be picked up from near school premises by political parties for any political activity without an explicit permission by respective parents/ guardians of each student: rather the schools have the obligation to immediately report to the police and parents for such unauthorised political abductions. Nor do political parties have the right to take children for political outing without the explicit permission of the concerned parents/ guardians. If political parties cannot organise taking permissions individually from guardians, that is there problem: they cannot escape the law against abduction of children from the school or from the roadside.

Intelligentsia is against child labour and child abuse: isn't luring children for political exposure a kind of child  abuse and child labor exploitation. If the children are to provided the exposure to political consciousness and activity, these should be organised in the same way as the schools organise visits to the zoos, circuses, museums, book fairs and film festivals with proper authorisation from the concerned guardians individually and with written undertaking to protect the safety and health of the children submitted to the police and the guardians by those who wish to take the responsibility of children visiting meetings of political parties and their wings. We may need to have appropriate and comprehensive laws to deal with crime against children. For any untoward happening adversely affecting the children during the course of attending such meetings, the organises of the meeting should also be subject to criminal liability.

I know no one will agree.

WB Chief Minister of a Different Class

A large section of educated elite in West Bengal expresses lot of discomfort with the first women chief minister’s spontaneous, unpredictable decisions, extraordinarily simple life style, down-to-earth focus on result-oriented actions and rather unsophisticated expressions and communication. The good old days of protracted decision making, well-groomed attire and appearance as also the verbose expressions of communication have disappeared all of a sudden. The elite is unable to keep pace with the smartness and mass popularity of Mamata Bannerjee: even before they begin analyzing one of her decisions and comprehend her straight to the point communication, they find flooded with more decisions and communications awaiting their attention. Bengal elite had long lost the skill of speedy thinking required to make sense of a series of Mamata’s decisions, actions and communications storming the State environment during the last three months.

Not that the Bengali elite has the guts to undermine educational qualifications of Mamata: probably the second chief minister of West Bengal to have a  master degree (the ony other chief minister with a master degree was Dr. Prafulla Chandra Ghosh); she is the third chief minister with a degree in Law and the only chief minister with a degree in education, besides authorship credit of more than a dozen of books.  Mamata can sing, paint, draw sketches and quote easily from Tagore and Nazrul. She walks and talks with the speed comparable to the speed of some of the super fast trains she introduced when she was the Railway minister (she has served as Minister in the Govt. of India: the only other chief minister who served the Union Cabinet was Sidharta Shanker Roy). The slow and lethargic minds of the Bengali elite therefore have difficulty in playing down her educational and intellectual background: naturally, Mamata appears to them as whimsical, rough and unsophisticated and they are unable to see the Bengali Bhadramahila in her as they used to see Bengali Bhadralok (gentlemen) in the seven chief ministers who led the West Bengal before her.

A case in point is Mamata’s refusal, at the eleventh hour, to accompany the Indian Prime Minister during his visit to Bangladesh because she did not want to a party to support the proposed agreement on sharing of Teesta waters between West Bengal and Bangladesh: she complained of provisions in the final draft of the proposed agreement not being in conformity with the provisions she had agreed to earlier with the Govt. of India representatives who came to discuss the agreement with her. The Prime Minister sensibly took the decision to defer the signing of the Teesta Water Sharing agreement. Mamata enhanced her image as a courageous leader, capable of outsmarting seasoned diplomats and administrators and protecting the interest of Bengal. At the same time she forced Congress in the State to realize the folly of sharing water in exchange for nothing and denied CPM of an opportunity to cut into her market share of popularity.

The Bengali elite criticized Mamata of being whimsical and insensitive to India’s international image. The fact is that they did not understand the sophisticated thinking that explained Mamata’s behaviour: they never perceived the following:
(a) It is only because of the courage emanating from honesty and transparency that Mamata declined to take the responsibility of what was essentially Govt. of India’s decision on what West Bengal should sacrifice in terms of Teesta waters to please Bangladesh. Congress would have had difficulty in dealing with criticism from the people of north Bengal who depend on Teesta waters. Prime Minister had to realize even if too late in the day that he could not fire the shot keeping the gun on Mamata’s shoulders. So, he deferred signing the agreement. Bengali elite could not understand this piece of sophistication in Mamata’s thinking.

(b) In an environment of increasing water scarcity in India, West Bengal being the affected party should have been involved in the process of negotiations with the Bangladesh on not only sharing of water of Teesta but also on items to be included on duty-free imports from Bangladesh for West Bengal is offering not only a large, proximate market but also a great passage for exports from Bangladesh. Some one with real courage could have brought this home to both the Govt. of India and Bangladesh. This is the first time that a chief minister of West Bengal has demonstrated such courage: West Bengal is an integral part of India but not a colony of India! (Contrast this with the colonial type of exploitation of West Bengal through coal price and freight equalisation and coal and steel distribution control exercised by Govt. of India in the name of balanced economic development in India at the cost of West Bengal’s industrialization: no chief minister of West Bengal had shown courage stand up against such colonial exploitation of West Bengal).

As subsequent press reports and TV debates hav3e indicated, the implications of sharing of Teesta water with Bangladesh has not been studied in detail and there might have bee a hurry on the part of the Govt. of India to go beyond international understading understanding in rehard to cross-border river water sharing to show generousity to Bangladesh only at the cost of north Bengal districts. And, most importanly, the draft agreement was not based on a broaders perspective of Ganges water sharing arrangements of West Bengal with the states upstream Ganges and no concrete assuance to bring water from Brahmaputra through centrally funded  channels to raise water flows in West Bengal. The govt. of India seems to be treating West Bengal as one of its colonies for exploitation.

Mamata is sophisticated enough to demand quick and quality thinking on all issues and problem-solving from the Elite class and keeps on her fingertips the numerous actions points on which she needs to chase and follow-up with the ministers and bureaucrats and associated elite class for implementation of decisions and projects in time. It will take a lot of time for the Bengali elite to understand the radical change underway and sharpen and power their brains to remain relevant. Of course, they can just hope that Mamata’s high speed train crashes as the weak, rusted bureaucracy and systems collapse under strain. Then, Bengalis can remain comfortable with their slow-speed brain-using capability.