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.