Nidhu Bhusan Das
I’m a Marxist.
Is it?
Very much.
Where’s your beard?
Is it necessary to have a beard to be a Marxist?
Marx’s bearded. I’ve seen his photo.
Karat, Yechuri, Bhattacharyya, Bose, Konar et al are not bearded, yet Marxists.
You see, they have scored good marks, and you know to-day marks are marx as pictures are pix.So, they are Marxists.
What do you mean?
Karat and Yechuri are JNU alumni, Bhattacharyya’s alma mater is Presidency College, Kolkata.Besides, and he’s two times Chief Minister and long serving state Home Minister. Bhattacharyya, Bose and Konar are superb in letting out streams of invectives against the opposition. Have you heard them speak?
Yes, they declaim and gesture like protagonists in an Elizabethan Revenge Play and win the claps of the neo-proletariats. This is their score.
Who are neo-proletariats?
Oh! You don’t know? Well, they are red capitalists, their henchmen.Anti-Marxists or reactionaries call the henchmen lumpen proletariat. They play a glorious role in keeping the Marxists in power. They are sharp shooters, can make and use bombs. They are an important feature of a ruling Marxist procession and meeting. They are expert in impersonating, booth jamming and rigging polls. They can keep the voters indoors, spare the people of the trouble of coming to the polling booths. All the votes of such people go in favour of Marxists candidates. At least the opposition has such allegations.
The opposition is reactionary.
So, the Chief Minister Bhattacharyya and Chairman Bose call the lady at the head of the opposition a liar and the oppositoion led by her indisciplined and trouble-monger.
Is it true the lady was once mortally wounded by a Marxist street fighter? His name’s Alam?
It’s correct and also right in all senses. Let me clarify. She was in the right against the left led by the Marxists and it was right for the left to try to annihilate her. Also, in the Marxist dispensation Marxists street fighters are allowed the right to do so. In such cases, the constitutional right to life is suspended. No case is filed for such attack.
Well, I am enlightened. Now what will the Marxists do to face the Assembly polls in
2011? Do they believe a change is on the card, as the lady in the opposition claims?
Marxists believe only in Marxism, nothing short of it. Marxism thrives only when the party is in power. So, they will try to retain power. Marxists could be Machiavellians to accept that the end determines the means.
You’re a Marxist because you understand the Marxists.
You’re correct. I know the Marxists around me and their modus operendi.I don’t know what is there in the Das Capital and the Communist Manifesto.That doesn’t matter.
Choreographed Violence
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Witness the dance of violence in West Bengal. You will find it reasonable to believe it is meticulously choreographed. Since the Lokshabha polls the spate of violence continues unabated. No let up appears to be in sight. Bloodshed has been routine. Governance is virtually absent. Constitutional machinery has been rendered ineffective. Government is in place sans governance. An alarming situation prevails. Right to life has ceased to exist. We have an elaborate arrangement for democratic rule in the absence tolerance. The discourse of violence and invectives has replaced debate, dialogue and discussion. Terror looms large ahead of the Assembly polls.
The reason is obvious. We have democracy on the lip and disregard for the demos i.e., the people and their free will. We are afraid of the free and fair expression of people’s will at the hustings. So, we intimidate people, terrorize them with a view to preventing them from the expression of their free will. Yet we boast of our democracy. It is ironical, and we are not ashamed. Coercion and terror cannot be in use to the degeneration of democracy if the ruling party acts in earnest to prevent such misadventure. In fact, the ruling party is often found to use such methods to cling to power where informed and educated public opinion is sought to be relegated to insignificance and the government seeks to be the guardian of the public mind.
Our Chief Minister seems to be more loyal to the party than to the Constitution he was sworn- in to protect. He is in the habit of hurling invectives at the leader of the main opposition, the party which has thrown the toughest challenge in about three decades and a half of their rule during which the economy, education and healthcare and work culture have nosedived. Those accused in murder cases are at large, and the police cannot trace them if they belong to the ruling Marxist party. The Chief Minister is vociferous when he digs at the opposition blames it for all evils, and is tight-lipped even when his cabinet colleague is seen leading a procession of party men armed with bombs and staves.
This being the scenario, the ruler may wield power but loses authority. This is a precarious situation in the state. The rule of law is at stake when the ruler loses authority and the dictum of the Constitution that all are equal in the eye of law is not followed.
Witness the dance of violence in West Bengal. You will find it reasonable to believe it is meticulously choreographed. Since the Lokshabha polls the spate of violence continues unabated. No let up appears to be in sight. Bloodshed has been routine. Governance is virtually absent. Constitutional machinery has been rendered ineffective. Government is in place sans governance. An alarming situation prevails. Right to life has ceased to exist. We have an elaborate arrangement for democratic rule in the absence tolerance. The discourse of violence and invectives has replaced debate, dialogue and discussion. Terror looms large ahead of the Assembly polls.
The reason is obvious. We have democracy on the lip and disregard for the demos i.e., the people and their free will. We are afraid of the free and fair expression of people’s will at the hustings. So, we intimidate people, terrorize them with a view to preventing them from the expression of their free will. Yet we boast of our democracy. It is ironical, and we are not ashamed. Coercion and terror cannot be in use to the degeneration of democracy if the ruling party acts in earnest to prevent such misadventure. In fact, the ruling party is often found to use such methods to cling to power where informed and educated public opinion is sought to be relegated to insignificance and the government seeks to be the guardian of the public mind.
Our Chief Minister seems to be more loyal to the party than to the Constitution he was sworn- in to protect. He is in the habit of hurling invectives at the leader of the main opposition, the party which has thrown the toughest challenge in about three decades and a half of their rule during which the economy, education and healthcare and work culture have nosedived. Those accused in murder cases are at large, and the police cannot trace them if they belong to the ruling Marxist party. The Chief Minister is vociferous when he digs at the opposition blames it for all evils, and is tight-lipped even when his cabinet colleague is seen leading a procession of party men armed with bombs and staves.
This being the scenario, the ruler may wield power but loses authority. This is a precarious situation in the state. The rule of law is at stake when the ruler loses authority and the dictum of the Constitution that all are equal in the eye of law is not followed.
Serve the People to Earn
Serve the People to Earn
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Our MPs are great .They are born to serve the people, selflessly.They are all for the welfare of the people. They do not take a single step without an eye on the people. They cry hoarse in the Parliament, sometimes create pendamonium, all for the benefit of the people. They are persons of conscience, and educated enough to read the mind of the people. They are good communicators, and masters of code mixing and code switching to win the hearts of the people who are assumed to be wise, able to choose wisely their MPs in general elections. Wise people’s choice must be wise and the chosen ones are, no doubt, wise. So, our MPs are wise, educated and persons of conscience.
MPs are politicians with mass following. They are social engineers, can rally people and mould public opinion in favor of them. They are speech wizards and can sway the people with oratory and also lung power when reason is not enough to argue a point. They are simply brilliant, shining stars in the firmament of Indian democracy, the largest in the world. They are the luminaries, and make us proud.
We wonder how they can go on thinking round the clock for the benefit of the people. It is because of their tireless, ceaseless and selfless endeavour that we have many things to be happy with, like mega cities, shopping malls, 24 X 7 TV news channels studded with their faces, gleaming.
They are our leaders – guides, philosophers and friends. We understand their well being means our welfare. They are our faces, faces of India and these rosy faces masquerade our penury, if any. Some reactionaries, deliberately, try to tarnish our image contending that we have people below the poverty-line. They talk about the slum dwellers, landless peasants, locked out factory workers.
In fact they are idlers, worthless people, and cannot take opportunities provided by our politics. Our politics need muscle power and money power to sustain democracy through elections. We need camps of armed goons, gory clashes to capture territories and retain them to win elections, if media reports are to be believed. The idlers can well be active in the political process and the money power used in it may make them happy. They should learn from the MPs who are always busy and active, and, thus, earn participating in the muscle flexing. In soccer, players of a team earn hefty amount playing against another. We have many parties vying for MP seats and the idlers can work for these parties and earn. Parties need workers and those who work for them can earn, legitimately.
In the current monsoon session of the Parliament, the salary of an MP has been enhanced more than three-fold. Other benefits have also been increased substantially. So what! They deserve more, given their sacrifice for the nation.Lalu Prasad Jadav, the messiah of the poor and the backward is right when he seeks Rs. 80,001 as monthly salary for an MP, which is one rupee above the maximum salary of drawn by a bureaucrat. Why should a bureaucrat earn more than a politician? A politician is a talent while a bureaucrat is fed with books. We may do without bureaucrats but we cannot conceive our democracy sans politicians. So, we should support the pay hike for the MPs, bask in their fortune and say: ‘Hurrah! We have been rewarded. It’s time to celebrate. We are happy when our MPs are benefited because they are ours.’
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Our MPs are great .They are born to serve the people, selflessly.They are all for the welfare of the people. They do not take a single step without an eye on the people. They cry hoarse in the Parliament, sometimes create pendamonium, all for the benefit of the people. They are persons of conscience, and educated enough to read the mind of the people. They are good communicators, and masters of code mixing and code switching to win the hearts of the people who are assumed to be wise, able to choose wisely their MPs in general elections. Wise people’s choice must be wise and the chosen ones are, no doubt, wise. So, our MPs are wise, educated and persons of conscience.
MPs are politicians with mass following. They are social engineers, can rally people and mould public opinion in favor of them. They are speech wizards and can sway the people with oratory and also lung power when reason is not enough to argue a point. They are simply brilliant, shining stars in the firmament of Indian democracy, the largest in the world. They are the luminaries, and make us proud.
We wonder how they can go on thinking round the clock for the benefit of the people. It is because of their tireless, ceaseless and selfless endeavour that we have many things to be happy with, like mega cities, shopping malls, 24 X 7 TV news channels studded with their faces, gleaming.
They are our leaders – guides, philosophers and friends. We understand their well being means our welfare. They are our faces, faces of India and these rosy faces masquerade our penury, if any. Some reactionaries, deliberately, try to tarnish our image contending that we have people below the poverty-line. They talk about the slum dwellers, landless peasants, locked out factory workers.
In fact they are idlers, worthless people, and cannot take opportunities provided by our politics. Our politics need muscle power and money power to sustain democracy through elections. We need camps of armed goons, gory clashes to capture territories and retain them to win elections, if media reports are to be believed. The idlers can well be active in the political process and the money power used in it may make them happy. They should learn from the MPs who are always busy and active, and, thus, earn participating in the muscle flexing. In soccer, players of a team earn hefty amount playing against another. We have many parties vying for MP seats and the idlers can work for these parties and earn. Parties need workers and those who work for them can earn, legitimately.
In the current monsoon session of the Parliament, the salary of an MP has been enhanced more than three-fold. Other benefits have also been increased substantially. So what! They deserve more, given their sacrifice for the nation.Lalu Prasad Jadav, the messiah of the poor and the backward is right when he seeks Rs. 80,001 as monthly salary for an MP, which is one rupee above the maximum salary of drawn by a bureaucrat. Why should a bureaucrat earn more than a politician? A politician is a talent while a bureaucrat is fed with books. We may do without bureaucrats but we cannot conceive our democracy sans politicians. So, we should support the pay hike for the MPs, bask in their fortune and say: ‘Hurrah! We have been rewarded. It’s time to celebrate. We are happy when our MPs are benefited because they are ours.’
Challenges to Print Media
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Advent and use of new technology has been the cause of evolution of mass communication.Orature evolved into literature with the invention of writing. Literature spread and has been increasing in volume with the invention and upgradation of printing technology. What began as DIURNA, a handwritten bulletin in Rome Before Christ, is now the capital-intensive newspaper industry across the globe. Now we live in the age of media convergence following the addition of electronic and satellite technologies. What agitates our mind to-day is if the print media will lose ground to the electronic media. The apprehension has been that TV and internet are likely to spell doom for the print media. The print media has been able to face and fight challenges so far introducing new features like colour photos, news analyses and also going for convergence. All major newspapers to-day have electronic or web versions. Besides, newspaper groups like The Times of India have also launched TV news channels to retain the audience base and also to expand it with an eye on augmented profit.
How long will the newspapers and magazines will be able to hold sway vis-à-vis the overwhelming presence of TV, the gradual transformation of the Internet into a mass medium with more and more people turning netizens and the growing campaign for a paperless digital world, particularly when environmental considerations demand priority and environmentalists cry foul of deforestation.
Emerging ground realities, though a few, suggest all is not well in the print media world. Over the last two decades, two international newsmagazines NEWSWEEK and TIME have lost ground in circulation. NEWSWEEK sold over three million two decades ago and in 2009 the sale came down to 1.9 million. TIME dipped from 4.2 million to 3.3 million during the period. The shrink is attributed to ruthless news cycle, competition from TV, blogs and social media.
Electronic media like TV and Internet have an edge over the print media. They are instant media capable of presenting news as it is breaking and updating the same from time to time. The audio-visual aspect of TV coupled with animation is attractive to the viewers while Internet offers scope for reading on the computer monitor and having printed version. Blogs and social media available on the net have made the digital world more participatory, exciting and interactive. We are not sure how the print media will hold on in the emerging situation.
Advent and use of new technology has been the cause of evolution of mass communication.Orature evolved into literature with the invention of writing. Literature spread and has been increasing in volume with the invention and upgradation of printing technology. What began as DIURNA, a handwritten bulletin in Rome Before Christ, is now the capital-intensive newspaper industry across the globe. Now we live in the age of media convergence following the addition of electronic and satellite technologies. What agitates our mind to-day is if the print media will lose ground to the electronic media. The apprehension has been that TV and internet are likely to spell doom for the print media. The print media has been able to face and fight challenges so far introducing new features like colour photos, news analyses and also going for convergence. All major newspapers to-day have electronic or web versions. Besides, newspaper groups like The Times of India have also launched TV news channels to retain the audience base and also to expand it with an eye on augmented profit.
How long will the newspapers and magazines will be able to hold sway vis-à-vis the overwhelming presence of TV, the gradual transformation of the Internet into a mass medium with more and more people turning netizens and the growing campaign for a paperless digital world, particularly when environmental considerations demand priority and environmentalists cry foul of deforestation.
Emerging ground realities, though a few, suggest all is not well in the print media world. Over the last two decades, two international newsmagazines NEWSWEEK and TIME have lost ground in circulation. NEWSWEEK sold over three million two decades ago and in 2009 the sale came down to 1.9 million. TIME dipped from 4.2 million to 3.3 million during the period. The shrink is attributed to ruthless news cycle, competition from TV, blogs and social media.
Electronic media like TV and Internet have an edge over the print media. They are instant media capable of presenting news as it is breaking and updating the same from time to time. The audio-visual aspect of TV coupled with animation is attractive to the viewers while Internet offers scope for reading on the computer monitor and having printed version. Blogs and social media available on the net have made the digital world more participatory, exciting and interactive. We are not sure how the print media will hold on in the emerging situation.
Change in West Bengal : Diagnosis and Prognosis
Change in West Bengal: Diagnosis and Prognosis
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Is West Bengal poised for a change for the better? Is a socio-economic rejuvenation in the offing? These are the questions agitating every critical and curious mind in the state even as a political change is underway. On the political front, the opposition and those who feel they have been in a claustrophobic situation under a virtual dictatorial regime see a new horizon emerging with hope. Those who believe there has been enough of democracy and a lot of progressive measures benefiting the common people since the regime change in 1977 apprehend bad days are ahead in case the present regime is thrown out in the 2011 Assembly elections.
What has led to the change underway? The trend for change is loud and clear – maybe cataclysmic in the sense that after the resounding victory of the Left Front in the in the Assembly polls in 2006 a sudden reversal set in and the 235 -30 arithmetic started to work the other way round. Ms Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress (grassroots congress) resurrected from a moribund state in the wake of the dismal showing (won only 30 seats against 235 of the Left Front) in the Assembly polls. The events of Singur and Nandigram were the immediate cause for the reversal. Mamata won the public trust and emerged redoubtable leading the resistance of the rural folks against atrocious measures of the government.
Now, the Marxists in the state after about three decades and a half are most likely to be voted out in 2011.They romped to power in the eastern Indian state in 1977 riding the Janata wave raised by Jayprakash Narayan against the Emergency of Mrs. Indira Gandhi which brought the first non-congress government at the centre of the largest democracy of the world.Janata experiment soon failed and in the mid-term polls to the Lok Sabha (the lower house of Indian parliament) Congress under Mrs. Gandhi returned to power in 1980.Marxists remained secured on the saddle of West Bengal politicizing the bureaucracy, the institutions and even social relations. In the process they monopolized power. What the former Governor of the state Mr. Gopal Krishna Gandhi on 9 November 2007 in a press release from Kolkata Raj Bhavan termed ' territorial assertion' and consequent intimidation in Nandigram of East Midnapore is perceived to be true of the whole of West Bengal. It helped establish the Marxist fiefdom in the state and the results of elections to different bodies including the state Legislative Assembly seemed to be foregone conclusions for a long time till the panchayet polls after Singur - Nandigram episode which catapulted Mamata and her Trinamool Congress to the centre stage of state politics as Ms Banerjee with her rebel and good Samaritan image could knock on the mass psyche and inspire people to fight against the totalitarian-like dispensation of the left under CPI-M.
The lone voice of sustained protest against the ' misrule ' of the Left Front led by the Marxists (CPI-M) has been of Ms Banerjee, their albatross, and is the catalyst for the political change. She came of a humble family of Kolkata and does not have political pedigree like many leaders in South Asia e.g., Aung Sang Suu Kye of Myanmar, Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, late Benajir Bhutto of Pakistan.
She started her political career with Congress (I) in 1970s and soon came to be a firebrand leader with rebel image which the people of Bengal nourish and worship as found in the case of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.Mamata's popularity is unparalleled. She won it through her relentless struggle against injustice coupled with her clean image. Her life style is simple and she speaks the language of the people and her rhetoric consists in the intonation, pitch and nuances that mark her articulation. After a series of ups and downs, Mamata appears to be steps away from the Writers' Buildings, the seat of West Bengal Government. Her parent party, Indian National Congress, reasserts that she is the leader of their opposition alliance going to the polls to unseat the Left Front. Meanwhile, a couple of ministers, including the Industries Minister Nirupam Sen,while speaking at the Assembly sessions, appeared to have sounded valedictory notes, reported leading Kalkata dailies.
Mamata began her legislative career winning against Marxist stalwart Somnath Chatterjee at Jadavpur (Kolkata) Lok Sabha constituency in 1984 and became one of India's youngest parliamentarians ever. She lost her seat in 1989 in an anti -Congress wave. She returned to the parliament in 1991 winning the South Kolkata constituency which she retains till to-day with waxing popularity for selfless service, a rare phenomenon in Indian politics now. She boosted her rebel image resigning ministership more than once and could not remain with the Congress which could not go with her all - out offensive against the left ‘misrule’.
In 1996, Mamata alleged Congress was behaving like a stooge of the CPI-M in West Bengal and broke away from it the next year to form All India Trinamool Congress which quickly emerged as the primary opposition to the long-standing Left Front government in the state. Her party won nine Lok Sabha seats in the next general elections, a spectacular performance. In 1999 she joined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and became the Railways Minister. She walked out of NDA in 2001 and allied with Congress for the state Assembly elections amidst speculation that the alliance could unseat the Left Front.However, this move failed to yield result.
She returned to NDA and the cabinet in January 2004. In the general elections the same year her
party could retain only one parliamentary seat which she won. This was a major setback for the party.Trinamool’s bad patch continued when the party in 2005 lost the control of Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the next year its strength in the state Assembly decreased to 30,less than half the seats they had won in 2001.Fortune began to smile upon her after Singur – Nandigram and Trinamool Congress has now the winning streak.
Mamata’s political career graph began to rise again in 2006 when the Left Front Government ignored the fact that an edge of only one percent vote helped them win 235 Assembly seats, and embarked on an aggressive industrialization policy. The programme for massive acquisition of farmland for proposed industrial projects against the will of farmers and the main opposition turned the tables on the Left Front government. Back in October 2005, Mamata protested against the industrialization policy of the government. They vehemently opposed the acquisition of farmland at Howrah and other places including Nandigram for Indonesia-based Salim Group who ,claimed the government, pledged a large investment in West Bengal. The protest continued in Singur where for Tata Nano Car project fertile farmland was acquired forcibly without consent of the owners and share-croppers who were subjected to police atrocities. Renowned social activist of Narmada Movement fame Medha Patkar also supported the agitating farmers and share-croppers of Singur.Mamata went for a prolonged hunger strike against the acquisition bid at Dharmatola, Kolkata.
In the process a coalition of different sections of the people, including the intellectuals emerged against the steam rolling policy of the government. The government failed to win the support of the people for its industrialization progamme because during the long rule of the Left Front traditional industry in the state nosedived, many shutters were downed following the aggressive trade unionism of the left, precisely CITU, the trade union arm of CPI-M.Besides, it was this government which barred the entry of IT in the state for a long time.
Without taking the opposition into confidence and winning popular support the government proceeded with its plan to acquire land in Nandigram for a chemical hub supposed to be set up by the Salim Group and the people of the country saw the atrocities of the police on the people unwilling to part with their agricultural land for a hazardous and ecologically perilous industrial project. On 14 March 2007 the powerful police of the state government shot dead 14 villagers who were against land acquisition for the chemical hub. What the Governor of the state Mr. Gandhi said in anguish on the incident in his immediate reaction in a statement brings out the unnecessary cruelty meted out to the people :’ The news of deaths by police firing in Nandigram this morning has filled me with a sense of horror. The thought in my mind – and all sensitive people now is – ‘Was this spilling of human blood not avoidable? What is the public purpose served by the use of force that we have witnessed today?’ The Nandigram atrocities alienated the left from the intellectuals of the state who came out into the open and marched in Kolkata for peace. Subsequently a large section of them called for political change through ballots. Litterateur of international fame Mahasweta Devi, a number of thepsians,poets,film makers and stars of undisputable merit are now on the side of Mamata.Evidently, the process of change has set in.
Allegations of police excesses and highhandedness in the state against people who dare go against the wishes of the left-in-the-cradle-of-power are many. Chief Minister Mr. Buddhadev Bhattacharyya is also the Police Minister of the state. His police once dragged Mamata out of the Writers’ Buildings and prevented her from entering Singur when they were in atrocious action against the villagers, and dragged Medha Patkar out as she was among the helpless villagers under attack.
Thanks to Buddhadev and his party, they paved the way for Mamata’s comeback and alienated personalities like Medha.Their reversed policy scared and enraged the rural mass that formed the solid left base. The left could successfully demonstrate their antipathy to the big landlords as they had done in the erstwhile Soviet Union after the Revolution of 1917 to the kulaks. They won the heart of the rural mass, inter alia, through Barga Operation and regular panchayet (local government) activities. In the process, they demonstrated their blindness to the fact that India and, as such, West Bengal is a class society and the Constitution of the country guarantees rights to all without discrimination. Mikhail Gorbachov, hopefully, realized the unsustainability of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and, therefore, brought in Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika whereby people found the scope for free expression and action.If the political space is monopolized the ultimate results could be disastrous. The mighty Soviet Union melted away,the dictatorships of the proletariat collapsed in east Europe like houses of cards.West Bengal is in India which,after all,is a vibrant democracy that cannot allow dictatorship to survive in any form.
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Is West Bengal poised for a change for the better? Is a socio-economic rejuvenation in the offing? These are the questions agitating every critical and curious mind in the state even as a political change is underway. On the political front, the opposition and those who feel they have been in a claustrophobic situation under a virtual dictatorial regime see a new horizon emerging with hope. Those who believe there has been enough of democracy and a lot of progressive measures benefiting the common people since the regime change in 1977 apprehend bad days are ahead in case the present regime is thrown out in the 2011 Assembly elections.
What has led to the change underway? The trend for change is loud and clear – maybe cataclysmic in the sense that after the resounding victory of the Left Front in the in the Assembly polls in 2006 a sudden reversal set in and the 235 -30 arithmetic started to work the other way round. Ms Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress (grassroots congress) resurrected from a moribund state in the wake of the dismal showing (won only 30 seats against 235 of the Left Front) in the Assembly polls. The events of Singur and Nandigram were the immediate cause for the reversal. Mamata won the public trust and emerged redoubtable leading the resistance of the rural folks against atrocious measures of the government.
Now, the Marxists in the state after about three decades and a half are most likely to be voted out in 2011.They romped to power in the eastern Indian state in 1977 riding the Janata wave raised by Jayprakash Narayan against the Emergency of Mrs. Indira Gandhi which brought the first non-congress government at the centre of the largest democracy of the world.Janata experiment soon failed and in the mid-term polls to the Lok Sabha (the lower house of Indian parliament) Congress under Mrs. Gandhi returned to power in 1980.Marxists remained secured on the saddle of West Bengal politicizing the bureaucracy, the institutions and even social relations. In the process they monopolized power. What the former Governor of the state Mr. Gopal Krishna Gandhi on 9 November 2007 in a press release from Kolkata Raj Bhavan termed ' territorial assertion' and consequent intimidation in Nandigram of East Midnapore is perceived to be true of the whole of West Bengal. It helped establish the Marxist fiefdom in the state and the results of elections to different bodies including the state Legislative Assembly seemed to be foregone conclusions for a long time till the panchayet polls after Singur - Nandigram episode which catapulted Mamata and her Trinamool Congress to the centre stage of state politics as Ms Banerjee with her rebel and good Samaritan image could knock on the mass psyche and inspire people to fight against the totalitarian-like dispensation of the left under CPI-M.
The lone voice of sustained protest against the ' misrule ' of the Left Front led by the Marxists (CPI-M) has been of Ms Banerjee, their albatross, and is the catalyst for the political change. She came of a humble family of Kolkata and does not have political pedigree like many leaders in South Asia e.g., Aung Sang Suu Kye of Myanmar, Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, late Benajir Bhutto of Pakistan.
She started her political career with Congress (I) in 1970s and soon came to be a firebrand leader with rebel image which the people of Bengal nourish and worship as found in the case of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.Mamata's popularity is unparalleled. She won it through her relentless struggle against injustice coupled with her clean image. Her life style is simple and she speaks the language of the people and her rhetoric consists in the intonation, pitch and nuances that mark her articulation. After a series of ups and downs, Mamata appears to be steps away from the Writers' Buildings, the seat of West Bengal Government. Her parent party, Indian National Congress, reasserts that she is the leader of their opposition alliance going to the polls to unseat the Left Front. Meanwhile, a couple of ministers, including the Industries Minister Nirupam Sen,while speaking at the Assembly sessions, appeared to have sounded valedictory notes, reported leading Kalkata dailies.
Mamata began her legislative career winning against Marxist stalwart Somnath Chatterjee at Jadavpur (Kolkata) Lok Sabha constituency in 1984 and became one of India's youngest parliamentarians ever. She lost her seat in 1989 in an anti -Congress wave. She returned to the parliament in 1991 winning the South Kolkata constituency which she retains till to-day with waxing popularity for selfless service, a rare phenomenon in Indian politics now. She boosted her rebel image resigning ministership more than once and could not remain with the Congress which could not go with her all - out offensive against the left ‘misrule’.
In 1996, Mamata alleged Congress was behaving like a stooge of the CPI-M in West Bengal and broke away from it the next year to form All India Trinamool Congress which quickly emerged as the primary opposition to the long-standing Left Front government in the state. Her party won nine Lok Sabha seats in the next general elections, a spectacular performance. In 1999 she joined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and became the Railways Minister. She walked out of NDA in 2001 and allied with Congress for the state Assembly elections amidst speculation that the alliance could unseat the Left Front.However, this move failed to yield result.
She returned to NDA and the cabinet in January 2004. In the general elections the same year her
party could retain only one parliamentary seat which she won. This was a major setback for the party.Trinamool’s bad patch continued when the party in 2005 lost the control of Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the next year its strength in the state Assembly decreased to 30,less than half the seats they had won in 2001.Fortune began to smile upon her after Singur – Nandigram and Trinamool Congress has now the winning streak.
Mamata’s political career graph began to rise again in 2006 when the Left Front Government ignored the fact that an edge of only one percent vote helped them win 235 Assembly seats, and embarked on an aggressive industrialization policy. The programme for massive acquisition of farmland for proposed industrial projects against the will of farmers and the main opposition turned the tables on the Left Front government. Back in October 2005, Mamata protested against the industrialization policy of the government. They vehemently opposed the acquisition of farmland at Howrah and other places including Nandigram for Indonesia-based Salim Group who ,claimed the government, pledged a large investment in West Bengal. The protest continued in Singur where for Tata Nano Car project fertile farmland was acquired forcibly without consent of the owners and share-croppers who were subjected to police atrocities. Renowned social activist of Narmada Movement fame Medha Patkar also supported the agitating farmers and share-croppers of Singur.Mamata went for a prolonged hunger strike against the acquisition bid at Dharmatola, Kolkata.
In the process a coalition of different sections of the people, including the intellectuals emerged against the steam rolling policy of the government. The government failed to win the support of the people for its industrialization progamme because during the long rule of the Left Front traditional industry in the state nosedived, many shutters were downed following the aggressive trade unionism of the left, precisely CITU, the trade union arm of CPI-M.Besides, it was this government which barred the entry of IT in the state for a long time.
Without taking the opposition into confidence and winning popular support the government proceeded with its plan to acquire land in Nandigram for a chemical hub supposed to be set up by the Salim Group and the people of the country saw the atrocities of the police on the people unwilling to part with their agricultural land for a hazardous and ecologically perilous industrial project. On 14 March 2007 the powerful police of the state government shot dead 14 villagers who were against land acquisition for the chemical hub. What the Governor of the state Mr. Gandhi said in anguish on the incident in his immediate reaction in a statement brings out the unnecessary cruelty meted out to the people :’ The news of deaths by police firing in Nandigram this morning has filled me with a sense of horror. The thought in my mind – and all sensitive people now is – ‘Was this spilling of human blood not avoidable? What is the public purpose served by the use of force that we have witnessed today?’ The Nandigram atrocities alienated the left from the intellectuals of the state who came out into the open and marched in Kolkata for peace. Subsequently a large section of them called for political change through ballots. Litterateur of international fame Mahasweta Devi, a number of thepsians,poets,film makers and stars of undisputable merit are now on the side of Mamata.Evidently, the process of change has set in.
Allegations of police excesses and highhandedness in the state against people who dare go against the wishes of the left-in-the-cradle-of-power are many. Chief Minister Mr. Buddhadev Bhattacharyya is also the Police Minister of the state. His police once dragged Mamata out of the Writers’ Buildings and prevented her from entering Singur when they were in atrocious action against the villagers, and dragged Medha Patkar out as she was among the helpless villagers under attack.
Thanks to Buddhadev and his party, they paved the way for Mamata’s comeback and alienated personalities like Medha.Their reversed policy scared and enraged the rural mass that formed the solid left base. The left could successfully demonstrate their antipathy to the big landlords as they had done in the erstwhile Soviet Union after the Revolution of 1917 to the kulaks. They won the heart of the rural mass, inter alia, through Barga Operation and regular panchayet (local government) activities. In the process, they demonstrated their blindness to the fact that India and, as such, West Bengal is a class society and the Constitution of the country guarantees rights to all without discrimination. Mikhail Gorbachov, hopefully, realized the unsustainability of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and, therefore, brought in Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika whereby people found the scope for free expression and action.If the political space is monopolized the ultimate results could be disastrous. The mighty Soviet Union melted away,the dictatorships of the proletariat collapsed in east Europe like houses of cards.West Bengal is in India which,after all,is a vibrant democracy that cannot allow dictatorship to survive in any form.
LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION
We use spoken and written language to speak out our mind,to communicate or share our feeling,emotion,attitude,knowledge,perception etc. with others.the spoken language is phonological realization of the message while the written one is orthographic realization of the same.
Now,from the obove, it is evident language involves organization of phonemic and other elements, and is,therefore,a recognized structure.A phoneme-level understanding may make it clear.CAT is a phonemic organization,a sound image. Now, if we replace phoneme C by B , R, S,F ,we get BAT,SAT,RAT,FAT respectively.The change of the initial phoneme yields different sound images. It means there is a case of change in organization or structure.Phonemic organization is the smallest possible linguistic structutre.There are phrase,clause and sentence level structures in language.These structures are the reflection of the speech habit of a speech community. A language has two predominant forms - standard and dialect. We shall, here, deal with the structures of the standard form.
Phrase A phrase is a group of words without a finite verb.It yields partial meaning e.g., on the table, by him,about the matter.
Sentence : A sentence is a group of word which, having a finite verb,gives complete sense e.g., We use language for communication.
Clause : A clause is a sentence within a sentence e.g.,I know that he is a doctor(complex and combination of two sentences -' I know' and 'He is a doctor'),
I know him and he is a doctor(combination of two sentences -' I know him' and 'He is a doctor' ).
We express different feelings ,attitudes etc when we speak.So,we have different types of sentences in respect of our expression and articulation.We have thus Statement,Question,Desires and Exclamation. Their forms are different.
Language is,therefore,a structured tool of communication. We communicate because we are social beings ,and social life is shared life. That communication and language are for each other is evident when we consider the basic oral and aural nature of the two. In case of language someone speaks and someone hears.In communication,there is a communicator and there is a receiver - the person communicated to.The communicator is also known as ENCODER(who encodes the message into linguistic signs,and the receiver is known a DECODER (who decodes the message ).The communicator/ encoder in oral communication encodes the message phonologically and delivers the same to the receiver/decoder for decoding. In written communication the message is delivered orthographically to the receiver who is a reader.Radio is an example of oral and aural communication in which the oral and aural nature of language is realized.In case of TV communication a new dimension is added to the oral and aural nature of language.Books,newspapers represent communication through orthographic realization
Now,from the obove, it is evident language involves organization of phonemic and other elements, and is,therefore,a recognized structure.A phoneme-level understanding may make it clear.CAT is a phonemic organization,a sound image. Now, if we replace phoneme C by B , R, S,F ,we get BAT,SAT,RAT,FAT respectively.The change of the initial phoneme yields different sound images. It means there is a case of change in organization or structure.Phonemic organization is the smallest possible linguistic structutre.There are phrase,clause and sentence level structures in language.These structures are the reflection of the speech habit of a speech community. A language has two predominant forms - standard and dialect. We shall, here, deal with the structures of the standard form.
Phrase A phrase is a group of words without a finite verb.It yields partial meaning e.g., on the table, by him,about the matter.
Sentence : A sentence is a group of word which, having a finite verb,gives complete sense e.g., We use language for communication.
Clause : A clause is a sentence within a sentence e.g.,I know that he is a doctor(complex and combination of two sentences -' I know' and 'He is a doctor'),
I know him and he is a doctor(combination of two sentences -' I know him' and 'He is a doctor' ).
We express different feelings ,attitudes etc when we speak.So,we have different types of sentences in respect of our expression and articulation.We have thus Statement,Question,Desires and Exclamation. Their forms are different.
Language is,therefore,a structured tool of communication. We communicate because we are social beings ,and social life is shared life. That communication and language are for each other is evident when we consider the basic oral and aural nature of the two. In case of language someone speaks and someone hears.In communication,there is a communicator and there is a receiver - the person communicated to.The communicator is also known as ENCODER(who encodes the message into linguistic signs,and the receiver is known a DECODER (who decodes the message ).The communicator/ encoder in oral communication encodes the message phonologically and delivers the same to the receiver/decoder for decoding. In written communication the message is delivered orthographically to the receiver who is a reader.Radio is an example of oral and aural communication in which the oral and aural nature of language is realized.In case of TV communication a new dimension is added to the oral and aural nature of language.Books,newspapers represent communication through orthographic realization
MAHANANDA
A THREAT: MAHANANDA CONTAMINATION
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Mahananda, the daughter of Darjeeling Himalayas is under threat. Human
settlements, cattle sheds on the river bed, human and cattle excrements, remains of funeral pyres, carcasses, sewage of towns are serious threat to the rainfed river. One expert in a recent seminar organized by Save Mahananda Committee at Siliguri presented alarming data about the presence of contaminants in the Mahananda river along the stretch in Siliguri sub-division.He said two-thirds of the water along the stretch are liquid pollutants. A large amount of the sewage of the burgeoning Siliguri Corporation is emptied into the river which bifurcates the town and is it’s main source of water. If immediate steps are not taken to bring back the health of the river, he said, people of Siliguri and contiguous area will be amenable to different serious water borne diseases.
Mahananda has her origin inChimli,Kurseong. She in her course of descent from the hills runs through a subterranean area and comes into sight after a journey of four miles. She alters her route at Siliguri and enters adjacent Jalpaiguri district.She has a catchment area of more than 25,000 sq km.She has three tributaries-Trinai, Ranochondi and the Chokor-Dauk pair. In her downhill course Balasun also joined the Mahananda system.The river gains international status entering Bangladesh. She flows through North Bengal, Bihar and Banladesh,re-enters India at Malda and turns again to Bangladesh to join the Ganges which is rechristened as Padma. Siliguri and Malda are two important urban settlements on the bank of the river.
The river in its Siliguri stretch remains a lean channel with little water flowing most of the year except during the monsoon.The bed has risen over the years with tons of boulders and pebbles rushing downhill with rain water and depositing along the stretch.The rate of siltation has increased with two more bridges built on the river between Airview More and Naukaghat,two points within a crow’s flight.
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Mahananda, the daughter of Darjeeling Himalayas is under threat. Human
settlements, cattle sheds on the river bed, human and cattle excrements, remains of funeral pyres, carcasses, sewage of towns are serious threat to the rainfed river. One expert in a recent seminar organized by Save Mahananda Committee at Siliguri presented alarming data about the presence of contaminants in the Mahananda river along the stretch in Siliguri sub-division.He said two-thirds of the water along the stretch are liquid pollutants. A large amount of the sewage of the burgeoning Siliguri Corporation is emptied into the river which bifurcates the town and is it’s main source of water. If immediate steps are not taken to bring back the health of the river, he said, people of Siliguri and contiguous area will be amenable to different serious water borne diseases.
Mahananda has her origin inChimli,Kurseong. She in her course of descent from the hills runs through a subterranean area and comes into sight after a journey of four miles. She alters her route at Siliguri and enters adjacent Jalpaiguri district.She has a catchment area of more than 25,000 sq km.She has three tributaries-Trinai, Ranochondi and the Chokor-Dauk pair. In her downhill course Balasun also joined the Mahananda system.The river gains international status entering Bangladesh. She flows through North Bengal, Bihar and Banladesh,re-enters India at Malda and turns again to Bangladesh to join the Ganges which is rechristened as Padma. Siliguri and Malda are two important urban settlements on the bank of the river.
The river in its Siliguri stretch remains a lean channel with little water flowing most of the year except during the monsoon.The bed has risen over the years with tons of boulders and pebbles rushing downhill with rain water and depositing along the stretch.The rate of siltation has increased with two more bridges built on the river between Airview More and Naukaghat,two points within a crow’s flight.
Media Imperialism : A Threat to Right to Information
Media Imperialism: A Threat
to Right to Information
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Media imperialism is a a phenomenon which provokes serious thought in those who are concerned about media freedom for the sake of democracy, civil liberty and protection of fundamental rights for all around the globe in consonance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Media being a capital- intensive industry to-day, the tycoons are in control of media houses worldwide. They invest to earn whooping profit, and are on the run to invade new territories to spread their networks thus to increase profit and clout. When profit counts, public interest tends to take the back seat. In the process, media freedom guaranteed in the constitutions of the democratic countries, in effect, becomes the freedom of media mughals. They are the media gatekeepers and, their interests, outlook and point of view influence the selection and presentation of news which the innocent consumers credulously accept. This is how they fall in line with the policy of the tycoons, and unwittingly become susceptible to the danger of being unable to be free thinkers.Vox populi loses originality and turns out to be the manipulated public opinion . In such a situation democracy ceases to be participatory in essence.
Back in 1980 UNESCO recognized the problem of imbalance in the flow of information between the developed and the developing worlds in the McBride report. During 1970s the Non-aligned countries identified the problem of this imbalance and strove for remedies. The developed world could not swallow the report adopted by UNESCO. With the passage of time the imbalance has increased.Globalization which encourages free market economy has paved the way for invasions of the media tycoons which the small and medium media houses cannot withstand.
The global tycoons operate in two ways. They annex new territories of operation or partner with strong local players. Those local players use their financial clout to cow down the small and medium houses and in course of time gobble them up. Thus at the local or country level also a sort of media imperialism is increasingly at work. This belies or, at least, distorts the concept of media being public fora to facilitate the right of people to unburnished and uncolored information.
to Right to Information
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Media imperialism is a a phenomenon which provokes serious thought in those who are concerned about media freedom for the sake of democracy, civil liberty and protection of fundamental rights for all around the globe in consonance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Media being a capital- intensive industry to-day, the tycoons are in control of media houses worldwide. They invest to earn whooping profit, and are on the run to invade new territories to spread their networks thus to increase profit and clout. When profit counts, public interest tends to take the back seat. In the process, media freedom guaranteed in the constitutions of the democratic countries, in effect, becomes the freedom of media mughals. They are the media gatekeepers and, their interests, outlook and point of view influence the selection and presentation of news which the innocent consumers credulously accept. This is how they fall in line with the policy of the tycoons, and unwittingly become susceptible to the danger of being unable to be free thinkers.Vox populi loses originality and turns out to be the manipulated public opinion . In such a situation democracy ceases to be participatory in essence.
Back in 1980 UNESCO recognized the problem of imbalance in the flow of information between the developed and the developing worlds in the McBride report. During 1970s the Non-aligned countries identified the problem of this imbalance and strove for remedies. The developed world could not swallow the report adopted by UNESCO. With the passage of time the imbalance has increased.Globalization which encourages free market economy has paved the way for invasions of the media tycoons which the small and medium media houses cannot withstand.
The global tycoons operate in two ways. They annex new territories of operation or partner with strong local players. Those local players use their financial clout to cow down the small and medium houses and in course of time gobble them up. Thus at the local or country level also a sort of media imperialism is increasingly at work. This belies or, at least, distorts the concept of media being public fora to facilitate the right of people to unburnished and uncolored information.
Escape
ESCAPE
Nidhu Bhusan Das
The Arrival
Sudden rain stopped us as we were trudging towards the haven, an arrow’s flight. Our guide said, the rain influenced by the nearby mountains would not last long. We waited in a house with bated breath for the rain to cease as we were in a hurry to escape across the border. We came a long way by motor launch and mostly on foot to escape the brutalities of the Pakistan Army. They were on patrol along the highway which we had left behind ducking through the jute fields which provided nice cover with the crop standing waist-high. Now we were behind the rail track patrolled by the army aboard train. During the rain the patrol- train had sped past the point we would use to cross over to India. Rain was a blessing, said our guide who had the refrain¬¬ – the more difficulty, the more escape route.
Yes, the guide was right, the rain stopped after about 15 minutes. We were led out of the house. As we were out in the open we found a sea of people heading towards the upland, and we were in a procession leaving hearth and home to keep alive. As they were crossing the border, people yelled in joy as if they were at the end of pilgrimage.
The journey was arduous and packed with fear and uncertainties. Any time we could be bombed from above. The countryside was beyond the control of the occupation army. So, there was no fear that they would find us. But the air attack was possible. Bombers and fighters were often found to be in sorties.
The place we poured into across the border was Boxanagar in Tripura.The sun was about to go down when we sat down to rest on 5 May 1971 after so many days of fear. My mother fell silent. She had left her mother, brothers and a sister, and could not think what would befall them once the army fanned out in the countryside. My grandmother was an octogenarian. Tears rolled down her crinkled cheek when my mother sought her permission to leave. It was a poignant moment. We got registered as evacuees, and were provided with rations.
We had a short shrift of having a dinner of bread with jackfruit juice before falling asleep.
.
The Crackdown
I left Dhaka on 8 March 1971.The day before Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman delivered his historic and classic speech at Suharawardi Uddyan.It was the Charter of Independence of Bangladesh. We from Dhaka College hostel walked near the venue, and found the lawn of Arts faculty of Dhaka University as the vantage point to listen to what the leader would say.It was in the late afternoon.All roads led to the Uddyan. The swaying crowd spilled over into the adjacent Ramna Park and the roads around. It was the day of reckoning.That night at the hostel we had long discussion on what the Bangabandhu had said. We tried to understand what the leader meant by the two terms ‘Mukti’(freedom) and ‘Sadhinata’(independence).
Meanwhile,on 1 March in the afternoon the flag of Bangladesh was displayed by the students after the sudden postponement of the first session of the National Assembly of Pakistan following the general elections in December 1970 which Bangladesh Awami League led by the Bangabandhu swept. The session was scheduled to be held from 3 March at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar,Dhaka.The people of East Pakistan were perturbed.
Nidhu Bhusan Das
The Arrival
Sudden rain stopped us as we were trudging towards the haven, an arrow’s flight. Our guide said, the rain influenced by the nearby mountains would not last long. We waited in a house with bated breath for the rain to cease as we were in a hurry to escape across the border. We came a long way by motor launch and mostly on foot to escape the brutalities of the Pakistan Army. They were on patrol along the highway which we had left behind ducking through the jute fields which provided nice cover with the crop standing waist-high. Now we were behind the rail track patrolled by the army aboard train. During the rain the patrol- train had sped past the point we would use to cross over to India. Rain was a blessing, said our guide who had the refrain¬¬ – the more difficulty, the more escape route.
Yes, the guide was right, the rain stopped after about 15 minutes. We were led out of the house. As we were out in the open we found a sea of people heading towards the upland, and we were in a procession leaving hearth and home to keep alive. As they were crossing the border, people yelled in joy as if they were at the end of pilgrimage.
The journey was arduous and packed with fear and uncertainties. Any time we could be bombed from above. The countryside was beyond the control of the occupation army. So, there was no fear that they would find us. But the air attack was possible. Bombers and fighters were often found to be in sorties.
The place we poured into across the border was Boxanagar in Tripura.The sun was about to go down when we sat down to rest on 5 May 1971 after so many days of fear. My mother fell silent. She had left her mother, brothers and a sister, and could not think what would befall them once the army fanned out in the countryside. My grandmother was an octogenarian. Tears rolled down her crinkled cheek when my mother sought her permission to leave. It was a poignant moment. We got registered as evacuees, and were provided with rations.
We had a short shrift of having a dinner of bread with jackfruit juice before falling asleep.
.
The Crackdown
I left Dhaka on 8 March 1971.The day before Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman delivered his historic and classic speech at Suharawardi Uddyan.It was the Charter of Independence of Bangladesh. We from Dhaka College hostel walked near the venue, and found the lawn of Arts faculty of Dhaka University as the vantage point to listen to what the leader would say.It was in the late afternoon.All roads led to the Uddyan. The swaying crowd spilled over into the adjacent Ramna Park and the roads around. It was the day of reckoning.That night at the hostel we had long discussion on what the Bangabandhu had said. We tried to understand what the leader meant by the two terms ‘Mukti’(freedom) and ‘Sadhinata’(independence).
Meanwhile,on 1 March in the afternoon the flag of Bangladesh was displayed by the students after the sudden postponement of the first session of the National Assembly of Pakistan following the general elections in December 1970 which Bangladesh Awami League led by the Bangabandhu swept. The session was scheduled to be held from 3 March at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar,Dhaka.The people of East Pakistan were perturbed.
Endangered Languages
Endangered Languages
Nidhu Bhusan Das
International Mother Tongue Day has been observed across the globe with enthusiasm .It’s a nice idea since it encourages and inspires thought about the need for the preservation of languages which are not in the mainstream and belong to close communities. They, perhaps, do not have the inner strength to stand exposure to the wider linguistic world or the invasion of mainstream languages. Some of them are even beyond the fringe. But how far this will be able to save the endangered languages is a moot point in the age of globalization and cultural imperialism.
In India alone, according to UNESCO, 196 languages are endangered. In the whole world the number is staggering. If we consider the state of the speech communities whose languages are endangered we find that they are closed in nature. They do not often interact with the outer world, and if and when they or some members of them come in contact with the mainstream they do not use their mother tongue but interact, though feebly, using the mainstream language.Besides,their languages are not being enriched with creative use in the form of literary activities and developing capacity to embody the ideas and expressions of the world of science & technology and social sciences. Given the reality, how to save the languages from extinction is an important issue to be concerned with.
A language faces extinction or gets stagnated for different reasons which broadly fall into two categories- political and economic.
The advent of the Aryans and their dominance established the sway of the Vedic language which subsequently came to be known as Sanskrit having been reformed by the great grammarian Panini.The waves of Germanic tribes into England cornered the Celtic speech community, the aborigines of the country, and Anglo-Saxon became the language of the realm. Anglo-Saxon is the ancestor of English. The settlement of English Puritans in the American continent pushed the Red Indians to the fringes and English became the dominant language in North America. Australia, the penal colony of Britain, became a new English speaking territory. All this could happen because of the political dominance of the invading speech community.
With political dominance goes the economic mite and influence. The speech community with political dominance keeps others in subjugation and the subjects become bound to accept the language of the masters to retain or gain economic privilege.True, all of the subjugated speech community does not accept the language of the masters en masse. Those who are ambitious and stand to lose their existing privilege take the first step towards acquiring the second language. Ultimately most of them follow the suit. Thus in England under the Norman domination French was learnt by a section of the English speech community to remain in or climb to aristocracy as in India a new class of English using natives and anglophiles appeared during the British colonial rule.
In the present age of globalization and cultural imperialism, it is really difficult to preserve the languages incapable of adapting themselves to the developments in the fields of science & technology and social sciences. English is the global language and every branch of knowledge is encapsulated in English for it’s global reach.Besides, the cultural contents of the west are dished out in English through TV and Internet to the rest of the world in attractive ways for the other speech communities to adapt to and adopt to the perils of their mother tongues and folkways.
Vis-à-vis such invasion, only those languages can survive which have the resilience and capacity to absorb the shock and assimilate the contents of the knowledge and message and thereby enrich themselves. Yet they will remain in the fringe because the new generations of the other speech communities will choose English as the medium of instruction for jobs in the global market.
Nidhu Bhusan Das
International Mother Tongue Day has been observed across the globe with enthusiasm .It’s a nice idea since it encourages and inspires thought about the need for the preservation of languages which are not in the mainstream and belong to close communities. They, perhaps, do not have the inner strength to stand exposure to the wider linguistic world or the invasion of mainstream languages. Some of them are even beyond the fringe. But how far this will be able to save the endangered languages is a moot point in the age of globalization and cultural imperialism.
In India alone, according to UNESCO, 196 languages are endangered. In the whole world the number is staggering. If we consider the state of the speech communities whose languages are endangered we find that they are closed in nature. They do not often interact with the outer world, and if and when they or some members of them come in contact with the mainstream they do not use their mother tongue but interact, though feebly, using the mainstream language.Besides,their languages are not being enriched with creative use in the form of literary activities and developing capacity to embody the ideas and expressions of the world of science & technology and social sciences. Given the reality, how to save the languages from extinction is an important issue to be concerned with.
A language faces extinction or gets stagnated for different reasons which broadly fall into two categories- political and economic.
The advent of the Aryans and their dominance established the sway of the Vedic language which subsequently came to be known as Sanskrit having been reformed by the great grammarian Panini.The waves of Germanic tribes into England cornered the Celtic speech community, the aborigines of the country, and Anglo-Saxon became the language of the realm. Anglo-Saxon is the ancestor of English. The settlement of English Puritans in the American continent pushed the Red Indians to the fringes and English became the dominant language in North America. Australia, the penal colony of Britain, became a new English speaking territory. All this could happen because of the political dominance of the invading speech community.
With political dominance goes the economic mite and influence. The speech community with political dominance keeps others in subjugation and the subjects become bound to accept the language of the masters to retain or gain economic privilege.True, all of the subjugated speech community does not accept the language of the masters en masse. Those who are ambitious and stand to lose their existing privilege take the first step towards acquiring the second language. Ultimately most of them follow the suit. Thus in England under the Norman domination French was learnt by a section of the English speech community to remain in or climb to aristocracy as in India a new class of English using natives and anglophiles appeared during the British colonial rule.
In the present age of globalization and cultural imperialism, it is really difficult to preserve the languages incapable of adapting themselves to the developments in the fields of science & technology and social sciences. English is the global language and every branch of knowledge is encapsulated in English for it’s global reach.Besides, the cultural contents of the west are dished out in English through TV and Internet to the rest of the world in attractive ways for the other speech communities to adapt to and adopt to the perils of their mother tongues and folkways.
Vis-à-vis such invasion, only those languages can survive which have the resilience and capacity to absorb the shock and assimilate the contents of the knowledge and message and thereby enrich themselves. Yet they will remain in the fringe because the new generations of the other speech communities will choose English as the medium of instruction for jobs in the global market.
Not Alone
Not Alone
Nidhu Bhusan
I am alone
Who said ?
I feel
Ask yourself
How ?
Be Dr. Faustus
Don’t understand
Create a debate within
Cannot quite grasp
Look within,invoke the conscience
***************************
Am I alone?
I am your guide
Who are you ?
Conscience
May I talk to you ?
I am the forum
How to use you ?
Talk to yourself
I cannot
Know yourself
I know myself
You don’t, you have two selves within
Is it ?
Yes, introspect- see how you’re two-in-one
Introspect-look within-nice idea !
How do you decide to act ?
I reflect on what is right and what is wrong
This is conscience,wherein is the other self
Now I understand.
Nidhu Bhusan
I am alone
Who said ?
I feel
Ask yourself
How ?
Be Dr. Faustus
Don’t understand
Create a debate within
Cannot quite grasp
Look within,invoke the conscience
***************************
Am I alone?
I am your guide
Who are you ?
Conscience
May I talk to you ?
I am the forum
How to use you ?
Talk to yourself
I cannot
Know yourself
I know myself
You don’t, you have two selves within
Is it ?
Yes, introspect- see how you’re two-in-one
Introspect-look within-nice idea !
How do you decide to act ?
I reflect on what is right and what is wrong
This is conscience,wherein is the other self
Now I understand.
Bangladesh : Emotion And Reason
And Bangladesh: Emotion And Reason
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Back in late 1960s and early1970s, specifically between 1969 and 1971, the tidal wave of emotion swept the people of East Pakistan even as a nation was in the making.Bengali nationalism had it’s high tide. Was it all emotion sans reason? Emotion bereft of reason cannot lead to the emergence of a nation. The reason in this case is the fact of exploitation and the desire of Islamabad to perpetually suppress and oppress the people of East Pakistan from eleven hundred miles away The majority ethnic group of East Pakistan,the Bengalis perceived with pain and shame that they were under the colonial rule of a minority. This fact and perception provided enough reason for the people to rise in revolt. The Bengalis began to recoil from the reality of Pakistan soon after it’s birth.Their struggle against exploitation continued and gained in strength with the passage of time. Awami Muslim league shedded the adjunct ‘Muslim’ in keeping with the spirit of the emerging Bengali nationalism.Under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman the Awami League came to the forefront of the nationalist movement. The league put up the Six-point Demand in 1966,and the so called Agartala Conspiracy Case
was instituted by the Pakistan Government to frame Mujib and others .In recognition of his struggle and sacrifice,the people he led fondly crowned Mujib with the title Bangabandhu.
TheBangabandhu was at the helm of the upsurge after he had been acquitted of the Agartala Conspiracy Case and released from jail following the Eleven- point Movement of students and agitation of Democratic Action Committee(DAC )in 1969. The people of the then East Pakistan were agitated as they perceived they were being exploited by Islamabad. The upsurge was for their emancipation. Bangabandhu reflected the hopes and aspirations of the people when he significantly and unequivocally declared in the mammoth public meeting at Race Course Ground(now Suharawardy Udyan) of Dhaka on 7 March 1971: ‘The struggle this time is for liberation,for emancipation.’ This may,perhaps,be seen as the preliminary to the final Declaration of Independence at midnight of 26 March 1971,followed by a nine-month long liberation war which ended with the surrender of about a lakh strong Pakistani Occupation Army in Dhaka under General Niazi.Indian army fought against the occupation army side by side with the freedom fighters of Bangladesh and India sheltered the huge number of evacuees from Bangladesh during the liberation war. In fact, the occupation army surrendered to the joint force of the Indian Army and the freedom fighters on 16 December 1971 at Race Course Ground,Dhaka.
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Now in the month of February when the Bengalis with pride look back to the glorious martyrdom of 21 February 1952 for the state language status of their mother tongue and take pledge to uphold the values associated with Bengali nationalism ,it is imperative that one undertakes to see how reason and emotion went hand in hand in the struggle against exploitation.The language policy adopted by Islamabad clearly demonstrated to the people of East Pakistan that injustice was meted out to them,and they would be discriminated against in other fields as well.Urdu,the mother tongue of only 12 per cent of the Pakistanis, was adopted as the state language of the country which was eventually declared an Islamic Republic.The Bengalis of East Pakistan protested against this blatant injustice.The language movement thus turned out to be the protest against injustice and the fountainhead of Bengali nationalism based on language and culture.Bengali nationalism thus is secular in character and emerged as a counterpoint to the theocray sought to be established in Pakistan .
The recent verdict of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh restoring the basic character of the 1972 Constitution of the country bears evidence how the apex court functions as the conscience keeper of the nation. In the wake of the dastardly killing of the founding father of the nation Sheikh Mujib by renegades and usurpation of state power the four pillars of.the state policy enshrined in the Constitution- nationalism, democracy, secularism and socialism – were erased which drastically changed the basic character of the polity and it’s mother law.The apex court held that the amendment to the Constitution by the usurpers was wrong and illegitimate. The court, evidently , acted in it’s wisdom and reasoned to uphold the spirit which went into the building of the nation.Perhaps,the court took into account the resurgence of the Bengali nationalism which denigrates religious fundamentalism as regressive. If the people of Bangladesh go by modernism which is marked by scientific spirit and secular logic , the country is sure to progress and prosper as it has a rich alluvial soil, resourceful manpower and strategic geo-political position in South Asia. It is important for the nation to go by reason in the age of globalization for gaining in status as an Asian Leap Forward is on the card with India and China emerging as economic giants.Dhaka should,perhaps, have pragmatic domestic and foreign policies.Pragmatism,in this context, is synonymous with modernism.
Dhaka has a number of achievements to boast of. Meanwhile, the Unesco declared the Language Martyr Day ( 21 February ) as the International Mother Tongue Day .The SAARC is a reality . The member nations can utilize the forum for mutual gain and individual as well as regional prosperity as they are doing in Europe with their European Union.Not suspicion, but understanding and goodwill can help bring peace and prosperity.Understanding can grow only in a democratic and secular climate. Reverting to secularism Bangladesh is back to the root and can win the trust of the democratic world to it’s advantage insofar as it’s development efforts are concerned.It is heartening that Bangladesh has reinvented itself and can now work for it’s progress and economic growth,instead of being busy with fundamentalist rhetorics and raising war cry against India.
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Back in late 1960s and early1970s, specifically between 1969 and 1971, the tidal wave of emotion swept the people of East Pakistan even as a nation was in the making.Bengali nationalism had it’s high tide. Was it all emotion sans reason? Emotion bereft of reason cannot lead to the emergence of a nation. The reason in this case is the fact of exploitation and the desire of Islamabad to perpetually suppress and oppress the people of East Pakistan from eleven hundred miles away The majority ethnic group of East Pakistan,the Bengalis perceived with pain and shame that they were under the colonial rule of a minority. This fact and perception provided enough reason for the people to rise in revolt. The Bengalis began to recoil from the reality of Pakistan soon after it’s birth.Their struggle against exploitation continued and gained in strength with the passage of time. Awami Muslim league shedded the adjunct ‘Muslim’ in keeping with the spirit of the emerging Bengali nationalism.Under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman the Awami League came to the forefront of the nationalist movement. The league put up the Six-point Demand in 1966,and the so called Agartala Conspiracy Case
was instituted by the Pakistan Government to frame Mujib and others .In recognition of his struggle and sacrifice,the people he led fondly crowned Mujib with the title Bangabandhu.
TheBangabandhu was at the helm of the upsurge after he had been acquitted of the Agartala Conspiracy Case and released from jail following the Eleven- point Movement of students and agitation of Democratic Action Committee(DAC )in 1969. The people of the then East Pakistan were agitated as they perceived they were being exploited by Islamabad. The upsurge was for their emancipation. Bangabandhu reflected the hopes and aspirations of the people when he significantly and unequivocally declared in the mammoth public meeting at Race Course Ground(now Suharawardy Udyan) of Dhaka on 7 March 1971: ‘The struggle this time is for liberation,for emancipation.’ This may,perhaps,be seen as the preliminary to the final Declaration of Independence at midnight of 26 March 1971,followed by a nine-month long liberation war which ended with the surrender of about a lakh strong Pakistani Occupation Army in Dhaka under General Niazi.Indian army fought against the occupation army side by side with the freedom fighters of Bangladesh and India sheltered the huge number of evacuees from Bangladesh during the liberation war. In fact, the occupation army surrendered to the joint force of the Indian Army and the freedom fighters on 16 December 1971 at Race Course Ground,Dhaka.
.
Now in the month of February when the Bengalis with pride look back to the glorious martyrdom of 21 February 1952 for the state language status of their mother tongue and take pledge to uphold the values associated with Bengali nationalism ,it is imperative that one undertakes to see how reason and emotion went hand in hand in the struggle against exploitation.The language policy adopted by Islamabad clearly demonstrated to the people of East Pakistan that injustice was meted out to them,and they would be discriminated against in other fields as well.Urdu,the mother tongue of only 12 per cent of the Pakistanis, was adopted as the state language of the country which was eventually declared an Islamic Republic.The Bengalis of East Pakistan protested against this blatant injustice.The language movement thus turned out to be the protest against injustice and the fountainhead of Bengali nationalism based on language and culture.Bengali nationalism thus is secular in character and emerged as a counterpoint to the theocray sought to be established in Pakistan .
The recent verdict of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh restoring the basic character of the 1972 Constitution of the country bears evidence how the apex court functions as the conscience keeper of the nation. In the wake of the dastardly killing of the founding father of the nation Sheikh Mujib by renegades and usurpation of state power the four pillars of.the state policy enshrined in the Constitution- nationalism, democracy, secularism and socialism – were erased which drastically changed the basic character of the polity and it’s mother law.The apex court held that the amendment to the Constitution by the usurpers was wrong and illegitimate. The court, evidently , acted in it’s wisdom and reasoned to uphold the spirit which went into the building of the nation.Perhaps,the court took into account the resurgence of the Bengali nationalism which denigrates religious fundamentalism as regressive. If the people of Bangladesh go by modernism which is marked by scientific spirit and secular logic , the country is sure to progress and prosper as it has a rich alluvial soil, resourceful manpower and strategic geo-political position in South Asia. It is important for the nation to go by reason in the age of globalization for gaining in status as an Asian Leap Forward is on the card with India and China emerging as economic giants.Dhaka should,perhaps, have pragmatic domestic and foreign policies.Pragmatism,in this context, is synonymous with modernism.
Dhaka has a number of achievements to boast of. Meanwhile, the Unesco declared the Language Martyr Day ( 21 February ) as the International Mother Tongue Day .The SAARC is a reality . The member nations can utilize the forum for mutual gain and individual as well as regional prosperity as they are doing in Europe with their European Union.Not suspicion, but understanding and goodwill can help bring peace and prosperity.Understanding can grow only in a democratic and secular climate. Reverting to secularism Bangladesh is back to the root and can win the trust of the democratic world to it’s advantage insofar as it’s development efforts are concerned.It is heartening that Bangladesh has reinvented itself and can now work for it’s progress and economic growth,instead of being busy with fundamentalist rhetorics and raising war cry against India.
Sycophant Adjective
An adjective qualifies a thing or person referred to by a noun.This is true. But what is intriguing is that adjectives are sometimes misleading, and ironical,too. When we speak at a condolence meeting we often use adjectives to glorify the person dead,although we know we are lying. Thus we may describe a ruthless autocrat as a benevolent dictator and a corrupt statesman as an honest politician.
We may eulogise a cruel usurer as a helpful man with the hope of getting benefit from him through sycophancy.Politicians often have sycophants as the kings did have during the feudal days. The court poets of kings were good examples of sycophants.
Adjectives like "great" , "gracious", etc, are often used by way of sycophancy and overstatement.Sometimes adjectives are used ironically as in the sentence-I am blessed that I am in such a terrible condition. Here the adjective(past participle) is used ironically to mean "cursed". So,we must be cautious when we encounter adjectives.
We may eulogise a cruel usurer as a helpful man with the hope of getting benefit from him through sycophancy.Politicians often have sycophants as the kings did have during the feudal days. The court poets of kings were good examples of sycophants.
Adjectives like "great" , "gracious", etc, are often used by way of sycophancy and overstatement.Sometimes adjectives are used ironically as in the sentence-I am blessed that I am in such a terrible condition. Here the adjective(past participle) is used ironically to mean "cursed". So,we must be cautious when we encounter adjectives.
Quarrel over importance
I am Noun.Remember, the baby first of all knows me.
Don't be so proud, Mr.Noun. You have started your boasting using 'Me'.Everyone knows 'I' is a pronoun. You have also used another pronoun 'me' in the second sentence.On the other hand,you see, I can well go without you . I could even avoid naming you in the third sentence.
You are used instead of me,and without reference to me you are hollow,Mr.Pronoun.
Why don't you understand that people are reluctant to use you repeatedly.They don't say,'Ram lost Ram's pen.' Rather they say,'Ram lost his pen.'
That's right, but 'his' here refers to 'Ram', the noun.
So, you cannot boast of being all important.As pronoun I am not like that.I understand we are equal- I need you and you need me.Well,I agree.
Don't be so proud, Mr.Noun. You have started your boasting using 'Me'.Everyone knows 'I' is a pronoun. You have also used another pronoun 'me' in the second sentence.On the other hand,you see, I can well go without you . I could even avoid naming you in the third sentence.
You are used instead of me,and without reference to me you are hollow,Mr.Pronoun.
Why don't you understand that people are reluctant to use you repeatedly.They don't say,'Ram lost Ram's pen.' Rather they say,'Ram lost his pen.'
That's right, but 'his' here refers to 'Ram', the noun.
So, you cannot boast of being all important.As pronoun I am not like that.I understand we are equal- I need you and you need me.Well,I agree.
Comrade
The term COMRADE bears political overtones.Congress President Sonia Gandhi has used the term as an adjunct to late communist patriarch Jyoti Basu.This may yield political controversy . In the context we may look up the word in the dictionary for a fair idea about it.
According to The Pocket Oxford Dictionary, Comrade is 'mate or fellow in work or play or fighting, equal with whom one is on familiar terms.'
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary says,Comrade is 'a person who is a member of the same trade union as oneself, or of the same socialist or communist political party,etc.'
While the first meaning is wider,the second one is restricted. We don't know in what sense Ms Gandhi has used the word in reference to the late communist leader.
As society evolves, our behaviour also evolves.Speech also is a kind of behaviour.The meaning,connotation,overtone and undertone of a word undergo changes over time.Besides,it is a fact that words frequently have several meanings and meanings change in time,just like other elements in language.Thus,in Old English 'tartness' could be attributed to winter and could encompass such possibilities as freezing to death. Today the meaning has changed considerably.
Samuel Johnson in his dictionary defines a 'humanist' as 'a philologer,a grammarian'. We now know these meanings have changed considerably.In Frank Norris's 'Octopus'(1901),a '...typewriter rose and withdrew,thrusting her pencil into the coil of her hair',in the 1990s 'typists' rather than tywriters engage in such activities.In brief,meanings change.
According to The Pocket Oxford Dictionary, Comrade is 'mate or fellow in work or play or fighting, equal with whom one is on familiar terms.'
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary says,Comrade is 'a person who is a member of the same trade union as oneself, or of the same socialist or communist political party,etc.'
While the first meaning is wider,the second one is restricted. We don't know in what sense Ms Gandhi has used the word in reference to the late communist leader.
As society evolves, our behaviour also evolves.Speech also is a kind of behaviour.The meaning,connotation,overtone and undertone of a word undergo changes over time.Besides,it is a fact that words frequently have several meanings and meanings change in time,just like other elements in language.Thus,in Old English 'tartness' could be attributed to winter and could encompass such possibilities as freezing to death. Today the meaning has changed considerably.
Samuel Johnson in his dictionary defines a 'humanist' as 'a philologer,a grammarian'. We now know these meanings have changed considerably.In Frank Norris's 'Octopus'(1901),a '...typewriter rose and withdrew,thrusting her pencil into the coil of her hair',in the 1990s 'typists' rather than tywriters engage in such activities.In brief,meanings change.
Dialogue
How would you assess his rise to power?
It is simply brilliant.
Is it? How?
He is a master manipulator.He wants only success,whatever be the means.
If it is brilliant,what is not?
That I can't say,and nor am I bothered.
Morality does not count?
It is of many hues.There is political morality,business morality,professional morality,and what not.
If you wade through blood to power,what kind of morality is it?
Don't forget politics is for power,and it is only power that counts.
So,there is bankruptcy in every field.
When you are in power, you command respect and awe because you can punish and reward.
You have power sans authority.
That matters little when you are in a position of power to enjoy life at the expense of the public and can dole out favours as well as award punishment at will.
Is it morally correct?
People,by and large, accept it.Those who are against it stoically remain passive-they are a miniscule minority.
Then we should live with it?
Let's see.
It is simply brilliant.
Is it? How?
He is a master manipulator.He wants only success,whatever be the means.
If it is brilliant,what is not?
That I can't say,and nor am I bothered.
Morality does not count?
It is of many hues.There is political morality,business morality,professional morality,and what not.
If you wade through blood to power,what kind of morality is it?
Don't forget politics is for power,and it is only power that counts.
So,there is bankruptcy in every field.
When you are in power, you command respect and awe because you can punish and reward.
You have power sans authority.
That matters little when you are in a position of power to enjoy life at the expense of the public and can dole out favours as well as award punishment at will.
Is it morally correct?
People,by and large, accept it.Those who are against it stoically remain passive-they are a miniscule minority.
Then we should live with it?
Let's see.
Honesty is casualty
Honesty is now-a-days the casualty.Why?To answer is,perhaps,difficult.Maybe we are,by and large, dishonest,more or less.Most of us try to have quick gains,anyhow.We don't have the mind to go by the Gandhian teaching : the goal must be noble,and also the means.Rather we find it convenient to follow Machiavelli :end determines the means. It appears,everywhere it is the go of the day.The honest people are the victims of circumstances.
With honesty is linked the personality.What is personality? To-day most people confuse personality with street smartness.A well-dressed person talking fluently and cunningly is taken to be a man of personality.Is it so? Then what about Socrates,Plato,Aristotle,Tagore ,Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Mahatma Gandhi?Were they not men of personality? If they were,then honesty in thought and action were the dominant attribute of their character.
But now such people are rare and often suppressed.They are not respected and talked about openly.Their honesty is often taken to be their weakness.We measure the worth of a man by his money and muscle power.Honest people cannot be wealthy overnight ,and they don't flex muscle to be respected.They are in the habit of calling a spade a spade,and this is their nemesis. They don't call a bad man good,a vice a virtue.We are equivocators,and,therefore,cannot appreciate plain talk.We are for tall talk,hollow talk.We clap when someone makes hollow promises. This is the irony of the situation in which honest people are undone.We have Iagos, all around , reigning.Honesty is,therefore,the casualty.
With honesty is linked the personality.What is personality? To-day most people confuse personality with street smartness.A well-dressed person talking fluently and cunningly is taken to be a man of personality.Is it so? Then what about Socrates,Plato,Aristotle,Tagore ,Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Mahatma Gandhi?Were they not men of personality? If they were,then honesty in thought and action were the dominant attribute of their character.
But now such people are rare and often suppressed.They are not respected and talked about openly.Their honesty is often taken to be their weakness.We measure the worth of a man by his money and muscle power.Honest people cannot be wealthy overnight ,and they don't flex muscle to be respected.They are in the habit of calling a spade a spade,and this is their nemesis. They don't call a bad man good,a vice a virtue.We are equivocators,and,therefore,cannot appreciate plain talk.We are for tall talk,hollow talk.We clap when someone makes hollow promises. This is the irony of the situation in which honest people are undone.We have Iagos, all around , reigning.Honesty is,therefore,the casualty.
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