Democracy is Catchword, Dictatorship Coveted in West Bengal

 

Democracy is Catchword, Dictatorship Coveted in West Bengal

Nidhu Bhusan Das

 

Dictatorial tendency and monopoly of power have been the hallmark of politics in West Bengal though democracy dominates the political discourse. Democracy gets lip service, and contravention of democratic rights is the norm.  Secularism pervades the discourse and avowed secularists are heavily tilted to a particular religious community. A known leftist- secularist intellectual could travel to Shaheen Bagh, Delhi from Kolkata to address the anti-CAA demonstrators but failed to condemn the large scale destruction of public properties like railway stations by anti-CAA agitators in West Bengal. This is the general role of secularists throughout the country. The Leftists are fond of Karl Marx’s assertion that    "Religion is the opium of the people” but they don’t hesitate to pamper the largest religious minority community and don’t find anything wrong in the sending out of communal messages through religious congregations like Friday prayer meetings in many places across the country. Besides, many political parties including regional ones that look like and function as family enterprises have the same secular stance as that of the left. This brand of secularism has been just a tool to win minority vote to the detriment of the pampered community and the unity and integrity of the country. Sachar Committee report   makes us aware how the Muslim community remains backward despite being pampered.One friend of the secular camp and former Chief Minister of now defunct Jammu & Kashmir Farooq Abdullah    reportedly hoped that China would help restore Article 370 in valley. National Conference president on Sunday said in an interview with India Today TV he wished that with China’s support, Article 370 of the Constitution, which conferred special status on Jammu and Kashmir, will be restored. The secularists have not found anything wrong in the statement.

Such secularists combine a devious electoral strategy with their dictatorial aspirations and function like natural allies to win votes. Once in power, they behave like masters and potentates. The Left Front Government in West Bengal from 1977 to 2011 monopolized power, and multi-party democracy was enveloped and rendered ineffectual through alleged electoral malpractices by the ruling alliance.  A virtual extinction of the separation between the party office and seat of government and the long rope of control held by the party office also hampered governance. An overwhelming control over the government helped the party to have almost complete sway over the people who, willy-nilly, had to accept the dictates of party offices at every level down to the grassroots. Once out of power, the Left Front constituents including the big brother CPI (M) overnight found the party edifice crumbling.

The sustained movement against the “misrule” of the Left Front catapulted Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee to the centrestage of state politics and ultimately Left Front was washed away from power in 2011 drawing curtain on 34 years of their so called “dictatorship of the Proletariat” which saw the rapid eclipse of industry because of the militant and questionable activities of CITU, the trade union arm of CPI (M). 

The fall of the Left Front at that stage was ironical. Meanwhile, well into the first decade of the new millennium Buddhadev Bhattacharyya was chosen the Chief Minister of the Left Front government. To reverse the anti-industry image of the Left government, the new Chief Minister earnestly embarked on an aggressive policy for rapid industrialization. This backfired. Trinamool Congress launched a massive movement against the land acquisition in Singur for Tata Nano small car Factory and the proposed chemical hub in Nandigram.Some left intellectuals and splinter left groups supported Trinamool Congress as they could not go beyond the copybook communism they had learnt before the launching of Perestroika and Glasnost in the erstwhile Soviet Union by Mikhail Gorbachev. Some of the left splinter groups are now in Trinamool Congress and share power.In Nandigram,dominant partner of the Left Front showed how they had arrogated unto themselves the responsibility of silencing the protest against the proposed chemical hub project,perhaps,to the discomfiture  of the Chief Minister. Tata pulled out and set up the factory at Sanand in Gujarat.

 Romping home to victory in the Assembly polls, the Congress-Trinamool Congress alliance formed the government headed by Ms Banerjee. However, the alliance ceased to exist soon as Congress walked out, and a one party government continued. Mamata Banerjee, in course of time, came to be tagged as Trinamool Congress supremo which signifies that the party accepted the norm of one- leader domination. Congress and the Left Front formed an alliance to fight the Assembly elections of 1916.The parties that fought street battles during the 34 years of left rule agreed to  an arrangement which might have looked like a marriage of convenience to the electorate and came a cropper. The alliance would fight the 2021 assembly polls and it appears their standing in the eye of the electorate has not much improved over the years. In fact, they are not different from the Trinamool Congress insofar as their brand of secularism is concerned. While Congress and Left Front are in alliance in West Bengal, they play the rivals in Kerala. This does not go down well with the electorate in West Bengal.

Well, after the exit of Congress from alliance, Trinamool Congress tightened its grip on power, went on expanding its base in areas where Congress and the left retained their strength. They won comrades of the left and congressmen, could, thus, form local government even when the popular verdict was not in favour of them. This is how power got monopolized even after the defeat of the Left Front. Besides, Trinamool Congress, it is alleged, has now the Congress syndrome of having become what looks like a family enterprise. Nephew Abhishek Banerjee is seen as the heir-apparent to Mamata Banerjee.

West Bengal has long been in the grip of political and poll violence though every party swears by Democracy. After all, monopoly of power matters.

 

 

 

"Hunger Makes Men Mad"

  Corona Lockdown

"Hunger Makes 

     Men Mad"

   Nidhu Bhusan Das

The mass exodus of migrant workers in the wake of Covid -19 lockdown clamped on 25 March for three weeks reminds me the grim fact that "Hunger makes men mad." Nobel laureate author Pearl S Buck makes the quoted observation in her  novel "The Good Earth" The migrants are desperate in the face of the double whammy of Covid -19 pandemic and the consequent lockdown.

The migrants have turned desperate to return to their homes because of the uncertainty ahead  aggravated by the inhuman treatment of their employers and landlords in utter disregard of the advisory of the government of India.Pearl S Buck also says:"The rich are always afraid." The heartlessness of the rich employers of the migrant workers testifies to the veracity of and wisdom in the statement of the Nobel laureate author.

It is beyond comprehension how the administration of the host states/ UTs failed to act according to the advisory of the Central Government and ensure that the workers are paid subsistence allowance at least and are not evicted from their rented house.

We may revert to the author and refer to her another aphorism to understand how some of us are incarnations of wickedness while we may be proud of many who have played the Good Samaritan providing food,water and temporary shelter to the tired and famished trudgers.She also says: "The test of civilization is in the way that it cares  for its helpless." Fie on the cruel employers and landlords! They are a slur on our civilization.

Here is a heart rending report in Hindustan Times: "An eight-month pregnant woman and her husband were offered monetary help and an ambulance in Meerut to cover the rest of their journey from Saharanpur to Bulandshahr after they were forced to walk over 100 kms on their way home without food when the latter’s employer turned them out without any money."

Action against such cruel people is imperative.

But there is also a silver lining in the same report:

"Local residents Naveen Kumar and Ravindra spotted the exhausted couple, Vakil and Yasmeen, when they arrived at Meerut’s Sohrab gate bus stand on Saturday and informed Prempal Singh, a sub inspector at Nauchandi police station, about their problem.

Ashutosh Kumar, the Nauchandi police station in charge, said Singh and the residents gave the couple food and some cash besides arranging for the ambulance to drop them to their village--Amargarh in Bulandshahr’s Syana.

Kumar said Vakil was employed at a factory and covered the 100 km distance with his wife over two days.

Yasmeen told police they lived in a room the factor owner had offered them. “But he asked us to vacate it after the lockdown was announced and refused to give us any money to go our village,” she said.

With no alternative, the couple started walking on Thursday from Saharanpur to reach their village. Yasmeen said that they had no food for the past two days because of complete closure of restaurants along the highway.

The three-week lockdown announced on Tuesday to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic has left millions of migrant labourers jobless and forced them to walk hundreds of kilometres to their villages in absence of any means to sustain themselves."

Meanwhile a Press Trust of India report states:

The home ministry suspended two senior Delhi government officers on Sunday while two other officials were issued show-cause notice for dereliction of duty during the nationwide lockdown imposed to contain Covid-19 spread.

The Additional Chief Secretary of the Transport Department and the Principal Secretary of Finance, GNCTD & Divisional Commissioner were suspended with immediate effect, while the Additional Chief Secretary of the Home and Land Buildings Departments and SDM Seelampur were issued a show-cause notice for "failing to ensure public health and safety during the lockdown.

"It has been brought to the notice of the competent authority that the following officers, who were responsible to ensure strict compliance to the instructions issued by Chairperson, National Executive Committee, formed under Disaster Management Act 2005 regarding containment of the spread of Covid-19, have prima facie failed to do so," the Home Ministry said.

"These officers have failed to ensure public health and safety during the lockdown restrictions to combat Covid-19. Due to the serious lapse in performance of their duties, the competent authority has initiated disciplinary proceedings against the following officers," the ministry further said.

The Central government has initiated disciplinary proceedings against the four officers of Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) for dereliction of duty regarding containment of the spread of COVID-19, the spokesperson said.

The concerned state governments have taken steps to rescue and provide succour to the hapless people.They will be kept in quarantine for 14 Days to prevent possible spread of the virus through them.The very purpose of the lockdown is bound to be defeated if we cannot take care of the poor.The national effort should be,at the administration level, from the top to the grassroots to contain the scourge.

Covid-19: Reliability of Crowd Wisdom

            Covid-19: Reliability

             of Crowd Wisdom

                Nidhu Bhusan Das

Crowd Wisdom does not exclusively mean Collective Wisdom. Neither is it synonymous with a Jury in the court of law. We find today in the social networking sites that provide platform for free expression of wisdom as well as nescience. Wisdom is not knowledge per se.A person is wise when (s)he knows that (s)he knows very little and there is much more to know. Knowledge refers to the awareness of a person that (s)he knows. Such a person is complacent about what (s)he has intellectually grasped. Wisdom looks beyond the boundary of knowledge. We may recall what poet Tennyson’s Ulysses says: “ Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’/ Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades/For ever and for ever when I move.” A knowing person would say: “I know that I know.” His/her knowledge is limited to what (s)he knows. A wise person would rather say:  “I know that I do not know.”  Wisdom is the knowledge of the non-knowledge. This is genuine knowledge, and is, therefore, wisdom.

My friend Bikram in a Facebook post on 21 March 2020 stated: “Bangladesh seems to have the highest number of experts on Coronovirus. My inbox is overflowing with tons of advice and prescriptions.” True, Facebook and other social networking sites provide open forum for sharing perceptions, feelings and understanding. Most of them do not have the weight of being recognized as wisdom. When an innocent milkman speaks on astronomy and confuses it with astrology, it may provoke our laughter, and we cannot take it to be an expression of wisdom.

In his 2004 book The Wisdom of Crowds, New Yorker writer James Surowiecki first popularized the idea of Crowd Wisdom. It refers to idea that large groups of people are collectively smarter than individual experts. Within financial markets, the idea helps explain market movement and herd-like behaviour among investors. Herd-like behaviour cannot be the demonstration of wisdom. And my friend’s satirical observation tells a lot about the reliability of many a post on social sites. So, we need not be influenced by such unsolicited posts.