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.
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.
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