Electon Fever Grips West Bengal

Election Fever Grips
      West Bengal
Nidhu Bhusan Das



 

     Assembly elections are round the corner in West Bengal.The highlight of the elections is the understanding between two perennial rivals - Left Front and Congress.True,the leader of Left Front in West Bengal and the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala CPI(M) reached understanding,tacit and explicit,from time to time at the national level,and in Kerala Congress leads United Democratic Front (UDF) against the LDF while in the Assembly polls of 2011,Congress allied with  the present ruling party Trinamool Congress to unseat the Left Front in West Bengal.This worked and ended the 34-year Left rule.But the alliance was short lived,Congress walked out of the government and the live-together terminated. In Kerala,the UDF is pitted against LDF to retain power.

  It appears Indian politics has learnt to jettison much vaunted ideological position selectively for gaining power,and power is important,not governance.The nation has seen the failure of such alliance and electoral or post-poll understanding again and over again.The Left withdrew support to the Congress led government of Monmohan Singh on nuclear deal issue.

  True,ideology does not play a role in the electoral battle in the country and it  is just a refrain in the theme-song of convenience.The race for power relies on the principle of convenience.So,Nitish Kumar did not mind reconciling with Lalu Prasad Jadav to retain power.Gandhian concept of means-and-end has been replaced by the Machiavellian scheme.

Many Voices & Politics

Many voices & Politics                Nidhu Bhusan Das                       JNU is now the hotspot of political haggling with otherwise rival political parties having come together to share dias and express solidarity on  freedom of speech and expression and,perhaps ,more so for enlisting support for electoral gains.In a country where Naxal Movement once  propagated the message that power comes from the barrel of the gun, Emergency stifled dissent and three decades of Left rule left a heap of human skeleton in West Bengal,how far the political parties believe in what Voltaire once said - "I do not agree with a word you say but, I defend to death your right to say it" is not beyond doubt.    

   CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yachuri,CPI leader D Raja and Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi are there to participate in the choric song against the arrest of the General Secretary of the students union of the university.Freedom of speech must be defended for a vibrant and meaningful democracy,but would the defenders of it today swear that they would defend it if they come to power tomorrow.Would they,really, respect tomorrow what they would pledge today?The question arises because,once in power,our politicians fail to remember what they have said before assuming power.                              
     No believer in democracy denies the importance of the language of conscience but when there is conflict between the conscience of individual citizens  and that of  the state,which one is to be given priority  and defended is the moot question for everyone who can think above electoral equations,and in national interest.

Savage vs Civilized

Savage vs Civilized           
     Nidhu Bhusan Das        
The Bangalis of West Bengal who claim to be proud of the first non-European Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore who,they
tend to tell the world,is their cultural icon,is ,sadly,reluctant to remember the wise sayings of the sage-poet.They failed to remember on 10 February 2016 that Tagore says,"Wild life is beautiful only in the wild" when they teased and hurt an elephant that strayed into the open just crossing the edge of the depleted Baikunthapur forest which has been made to shrink to make room for the expansion of  the sprawling Siliguri town.                               
Media report suggests the herbivore was on its way back to the forest when a few overzealous locals began to tease the pachy                                              
derm.Face to face with the civilized animals,the noble savage got to be taken aback and made its uncharted journey into the civilized territory to be disturbed by the insane mob that encircled and hurt it.The denizen of the wild might have been sad to see the cruel and crazy behaviour of the "rational animals".The mobocracy of the civilized animals puzzled the noble savage,and the personnel of the wild life squad had a tough time to rescue the innocent creature from the siege of the cruel and insane mob,that too to the peril of helpless noble beast.They had to administer sleeping pills from a long distance blindly to tame it for rescue.It is reported the pachyderm collapsed after it had been transported and released in the Mahananda Sanctuary.

DOUBLE TALK

DOUBLE TALK                    Nidhu Bhusan Das                                                                "What is double talk?" asked my young neighbour the other day.I said,"A redoubtable Marxist Mr. Biman Basu remarked Congress is not a patriotic party."
,"What!"the young man wondered.                        "Why are you so stunned?"I asked and said this happens in West Bengal politics which is dominated by wise persons like Mr.Basu.They are deft in intellectual exercise,and have the rarest of the rare quality and ability to bend their thought pragmatically.You may mistake their pragmatism as double talk.But I would urge you not to misunderstand these wise and honourable persons of politics.The latest news is that they are waiting eagerly for an electoral alliance with the same Congress party to wrest power from Trinamool Congress in the ensuing Assembly Polls.                                                        "Will they not be strange bed fellows in that case?" asked the naive youngster.                             I could not but laugh at his ignorance of the ways of the ace politicians and their power game.                                                                              "You are really so innocent,my boy.Don't know politics is the art of possibilities."                             "But they are Marxist!" he exclaimed.                   I could not blame him for the ignorance.He is young and tend to live in a make-believe world.He does not understand that Marxism and Gandhism are stock words and gets only lip service for winning support when felt necessary considering the naivete of the mass."Will Congress accept them as partners?"he asked in all his innocence.                       "Congress leaders are too eager to make
 their hitherto  bete  noire  friend because they are leaders who have lost touch with the mass.They cannot win elections without  winning pity of other parties.You will see a galaxy of leaders draped in Gandhi attire but few workers at the grassroot level.So, let us talk  angling," I tried to divert to diversion.He showed enthusiasm.We caught two mid sized  Hilsa from the   Fulbari Barrage. Don't you believe?Ask any honourable politician,and he will confirm.You know politics is a kind of angling.

We Need Be In a Police State

We Need Be In a Police State

                                 

                                   Nidhu Bhusan Das

            Since we are civilized, we must be guided by the norms of civilization. We need a police state. Our leaders may dismiss this suggestion as uncanny and take me to be a lunatic. They would chide me saying,” You are anti-independence and ignorant of the fundamental rights guaranteed in our constitution which is sacrosanct. You don’t deserve the rights and the status of a citizen.” I dare not contradict our versatile leaders who are our guardians and the protectors of our meaningful democracy.

            But this is what I am constrained to believe. I won’t share this belief. This is just my loud thought, a soliloquy which, I am certain, none will share if I tell. I see daily how we the civilized people in India depend on the police to remain disciplined. We cannot use the streets in the absence of the rule of the traffic police. Before the deployment of the police at traffic points and after they leave the posts we don’t care about the automatic traffic signals because we know the signals cannot catch us if we ignore them. The one- way lanes become the free-for-all space for driving along. Thus we create chaotic situation and invite accidents.

           We spite anywhere even when we are eloquent about environmental pollution. We are granted freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1) (a) of our constitution as a Fundamental right and merrily abuse the right. How? We fail to discharge our duties at offices ,spend time gossiping during working hours and/or coming late and leaving early don’t miss any opportunity to lecture on discipline, honesty and public service from the pulpit. We are vociferous against corruption in public life but fail to understand we, as individuals, are not free from corruption.

            We cannot do without the guardians of law and revel when we can destroy public property, disrupt public life in the name of public good. Our political bosses like guardian angels inspire us to do so striking works and destroying public property, as if we work for colonial masters and under colonial rule and the property we destroy does not belong to the nation. We occupy the roads halting traffic movement holding political rallies or wedding procession to exhibit our power and pomp. This is our dominant characteristic and tendency because we tend to believe we are civilized and know we are independent. We chant slogans and in the process lose the energy and will to work. This is the highlight and beauty of democratic values we hold dear and cite constitutional provisions to justify our actions in contravention and distortion of the same.

 I tend to believe people without pomp and power like me harbour the idea that we need be governed in a police state for a period as we need to be lessoned in democracy and civilization. But I am afraid I should not share this publicly to be counted and quarantined as a lunatic.

   

Frog’s Dream

                 Frog’s Dream

                         

                                          Nidhu Bhusan Das

          Professor Kola is the dean of the Faculty of Hypocrisy at the University of Imbecility in Frogland.The University is the only centre of excellence in the whole land. He is the Emeritus Professor of Frog-psychology and teaches frogs how to lie on their backs. He is known and respected as the Machiavelli of Frogland.He has a fascination for the term Mafia, which like Machiavelli has an Italian overtone. Professor Kola isn’t aware that Italy had been the birth place of European Renaissance in the wake of the fall of Constantinople, the Capital of eastern Roman Empire, in 1451 to the Turks. Nor has he heard of the Bengal Renaissance of the nineteenth century.

       Professor Kola has learnt to lie on his back and walk with upside down always dreaming of hypnotizing others to his profit and prospeirty. His four hands remain always suspended in the air. They are used as tentacles to catch the imbeciles living in Frogland.He claims he is a bibliophile. You cannot disbelieve. He takes all and sundry to his home where he has a stock of books he cannot read. To show his love for reading, he keeps books open on his huge table and when he shows he reads the books are always held upside down. This increases his importance to the visitors as they think this is the way of reading by great scholars. Once he lectured a visitor on Communication thus: “Your no,Kamanikason geret ata of waking on hed and lain on bek.I is a geret kamanikator.I is a motarkor of kooson popr of Kamanikason in d univociti.”The visitor from Apeland took pains to decipher the Froglandian English thus: “You know. Communication is a great art of walking on head and lying on back.I am a great communicator. I am a moderator of question papers of communication in the university.”

    Everyone and every political party and social organization likes this great scholar and learns from him with delight lollipop of knowledge. He has been warned by his grandpa Kola the Wise not to eat the fruit of knowledge because it is dangerous as aphrodisiac. The lollipop of knowledge keeps you unaware that you are naked. So the Apeland visitor sang his parting song:

     “I’ve met one in the queer land

      Who always chews lollipop

      Licks pages of books

      And never knows he’s nude

      But proud being the butt of joke.”

       When the visitor said ‘You are really an education mafia’, the professor smiled and said, “ Hapy..hapy!”

Mac Flecknoe ll

           Mac Flecknoe ll

                                     Nidhu Bhusan Das

            

            God knows how Dryden would react after Poet Sushil Sarkar of Rupsapur had received the DLit from Rupsa University on the recommendation of the Education Minister who knows how a pseudo communist can be broken in and exposed. Had there been a Dryden to write a reaction to the Award, we could have ‘Mac Flecknoe ll’ in our reading list.

            Every intellectual in Rupsapur knows for certain how great a poet Mr. Sarkar is. His wife Chandrika Roygupta was, many say, a better poet. She was not considered for a posthumous DLit to their astonishment. Whatever be it, we shouldn’t have any doubt now after the Award that Mr. Sarkar shouldn’t be considered a poetaster any more.

         What is intriguing is what will happen to the restoration of the communist order in the country of poets and poetry if the Marxists lose for ever talents like Sushil Sarkar.It’s understandable Mr. Sarkar has genuine cause for grievance. Perhaps he was in his right to hope for the position of the Poet Laureate which he was denied. He hoped for it till the day the Marxists were dethroned which astonished even this wise poet who sang paean to his former patrons till their last day in power. It was beyond his capacity to understand that the actions in Tingur and Kandigram marked the swansong of his long time masters. Well, to err is human. Wise people like Mr. Sarkar have the ability to correct the error, so he is now with his present masters. Socrates and Galileo were, indeed, unwise if we compare them with the wise men like Mr. Sarkar of our Rupsapur. So were Pablo Neruda of Chile and Mangalacharan Chatterjee who Translated Neruda for Bengali readers.

      It’s always wise to play safe for awards and recognition and be with those who have the power to reward. Now we may expect Mr. Sarkar’s poems will appear in the school text books of Rupsapur for children to read, learn and be enlightened.