HARMAD

Nidhu Bhusan Das

What’s Harmad, mom?

Don’t know? What our beloved Boss believes should not be used to refer to the armed cadres and hired goons of his party.

Why he believes so?

He is conscious more about the dress than thought and substance.

What’s the substance of his thought?

He calls the main opposition party uneducated by innuendo but won’t brook any reference to his party using armed cadres and hired goons to control areas and silence opposition.

Is it?

Haven’t you seen the armed people with slippers and in police uniform in operation along with police at Nandigram against the innocent villagers who were against land acquisition for chemical hub, and people with staves and bombs in the procession led by a senior colleague of the Boss?

Yes, in the TV?

What would you call them?

Criminals, outlaws!

Hush! Don’t be loud, my son. They may be around.

So what!

They will make our life a hell as they said they would and did in Nandigram.

Cowards die many times before their death, mom.

But they are powered by the state, you know.

They swear by democracy, mom.

This is only lip service to the government by the people, for the people and of the people.

What is, then, actually true.

Theirs is the government by terrorized and misinformed people, for the party and of the party.

So the Boss said, ‘we are 235 to their 30.’?

Exactly, if Britain and the USA are democracies.