History however, is ruthless

 West Bengal is at the cusp of a change. Ms Mamata Banerjee and her party have failed the people who pinned their hope on her as opposed to the brutal rule of the aging Left on the one side and the hatemongering BJP on the other. If the news and social media show us the writings on the wall, in 2026, a new government will come to power in Bengal. At least should!

We must try to understand what has been happening in Bengal. Here is an article by a leading public intellectual who has held his head high through the murky currents of Bengal politics, Kaushik Sen. The original was published in Ananda Bazar Patrika on 3 August 2022.

Translated into English by Kaushik Chatterjee

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A convention was held on the 2^nd floor of Calcutta Information Centre in 1990. It was organised by the Left Front Government. All the intellectuals of the times had converged there. The then Information Minister, Shri Buddhadev Bhattacharya, was also present. It was necessary to convene such a meeting at a time, when, thanks to a few serial events that rocked West Bengal, the credibility of the Left Front Govt had been considerably shaken in the perception of the people at large.  It is now on records, that, quite surprisingly, all the intellectuals present on that day, barring a few exceptions, strongly and concertedly denied any sense of frustration or misgivings majorly troubling the society; rather, they felt, it was after all, the product of an orchestrated anti-left propaganda, of the vanquished crying hoarse or even that of a bourgeois mentality gone paranoid. We come to know that, among others, even Utpal Dutta, with a clear voice and firm conviction, held on to the ground of the majority.

The poet Sankha Ghose was also present in that meeting. He read out from a small chit of paper. Everyone must have listened to him carefully but didn’t quite feel the urge to dwell upon the deeper anxieties voiced by the poet seriously enough.

The enthusiastic readers can easily retrieve the exact contents of the page from where the poet had read aloud in that intellectual-studded convention, organised by the Left Front Government on 11^th September, 1990. All I can say is that all those grim forewarnings which the poet had prophesied in his pithy but insightful write, were the subject of intense discourse and deliberation, following the electoral eclipse of the Left Front Government in 2011—disconnect with the masses, induction within the party of persons of dubious credentials, corruption, criminalisation, etc. The seeds of decay were all there for the people to take note of. But a large majority of them couldn’t or didn’t quite like to.

I am pretty sure if one goes through its contents today, there wouldn’t be any line of distinction between the parties that have been in governance in Bengal. You could easily swap the label of ‘Left Front Government’ with that of ‘TMC Government’ in that piece of paper. The issues of ‘dangerous laxity or irresponsiveness’, which the poet highlighted then, to have led to a series of ignominious incidents thereafter, were no accidents or conspiracies. They were not then and are not now either.

It would be impossible for the reigning TMC government of West Bengal to write off the instance of naked corruption and embezzlement of funds which has recently come to light, as a non-event or even treat it as conspiratorial. It is not possible for one Partha Chatterjee to commit such a ghastly crime single-handedly. The tentacles of the evil are enmeshed within the nooks and corners of the organisation itself.

The month of July of 2022 will either be remembered or consigned to one of the most inglorious episodes of the socio-political-economic history of West Bengal. The relentless agitation of those aspiring for the teaching posts of Classes IX to XII  for more than 500 odd days now, shall too be etched in the pages of history. A whole new set of questions and agitational dynamics would be scripted on the tales of dogged defiance they showed amidst sufferance of so much deprivation and misery. It is time we understood how this heinous crime had affected us all, beyond those who have been directly harmed by it. While complementing the perfectly professional and thoroughbred role performed by the Officers of Enforcement Directorate (ED) in unearthing crores of rupees from the different flats of the accused, it may be a sobering reminder at this stage, that barring, of course, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), none of the mainstream political parties of India are currently breathing free, thanks to the extraordinary clout and sweeping powers commanded by ED. The recent Supreme Court rulings may also add on the anxieties of the principal opposition parties in this regard, for everyone   knows how BJP can effectively weaponise the ED in bringing the entire Opposition to an uneasy standstill. And it is in this context, that the TMC, through this murky Partha Chatterjee episode, had significantly blunted the anti-BJP, ultra-Hindutwa campaign being taken up at the national stage. The recent events have only helped the party in power to get a firmer political foothold in the map of India; the same party, which operating through the smokescreen of whataboutery and subterfuge, has no qualms in defying the constitutional norms, openly threatening to decimate the minority community with bulldozing of their home and property, through a process of selective  targeting.

‘No Vote to BJP’ was the key slogan rallying which most of us openly mobilised ourselves in the last Assembly Elections. Without casting any disrespect on the TMC leadership or their foot soldiers who made a robust electoral show in the last Assembly elections, it may be averred that this inglorious event in the Bengal political chapter is a frontal betrayal of whatever bit of resistance that the apolitical segment of the societal space was trying to organise, in its own way, against the destructive and totalitarian regime of the BJP.

It is to be noted that TMC had cast their chessboard very astutely and expediently, both within the realm of the Parliamentary politics and outside of it, after a thorough calculation of their political payoffs. They had welcomed with open arms all of those discredited and defeated BJP leaders who had spewed communal venom. It is true that the issue of admittance or otherwise of any persons within a political formation is well within the prerogative of concerned political entity; and yet the 2021 Assembly elections in Bengal assumed a different dimension altogether. Most of us didn’t quite perceive it as a mere allocation of seats among different political dispensations. A large section of the citizenry, casting off the colours of political partisanship, had come out in the open and had in their own way, scripted verses, play-acted, composed songs, made intense parleys in both urban and rural locales, unitedly against a dominant political ideology which loved spewing communal hatred. The corruption that has come to the fore is a frontal assault on the generous faith that inspired such a great endeavour. Mere expulsion of Partha  Chatterjee cannot absolve the party of its moral responsibility.

People in this country now flaunt their masculinity in openly valorising Nathuram Godse. In the current year, in the ‘International Press Freedom index’, India is placed among the trailing 30 countries among the 180 contesting nations. The Modi Government had appropriated every means possible to curtail media and press freedom. Even more than its political contenders, the Bharatiya Janata Party seems to be deeply wary of the enlightened citizenry. Most of the alternate political dispensations are in a pitiable shape at this stage... some are suffering from organisational weaknesses, others are rudderless in absence of a decisive leadership, some have turned maniacal in the rush for political power and the rest of them, which raised a semblance of hope in the initial days, are so deeply mired in corruption, that unless some ground-breaking, far-reaching changes are made, it would indeed be difficult to believe that that they would be able to sustain a formidable and credible challenge against the communal forces.

In the realms of parliamentary democracy, it is the underlying urge of every political order worth its name to cling to power as long as possible. The TMC had scripted massive triumphs in the last three Assembly elections. And yet, in the last few elections, be they the assembly/parliamentary by-elections, Panchayat or the municipal, its relentless efforts to keep its political adversaries in check through an open display of muscle power, had raised serious misgivings and sent shivers down the line. And we have the well entrenched memories of how, thanks to the courageous and formidable resistance shown by the current Chief Minister, the entire political architecture of the Left Front and the CPI(M) came crashing from the height of its political brazenness to a nadir of nothingness. No political dispensation has been able to sustain itself in the long run merely scoring on its numerical strength. If the people lose faith, no material or muscular power can ever redeem a political party. TMC too is no exception. History always has a tough call to take. <>

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You can read the original Bangla article here:

https://mepaper.anandabazar.com/imageview_64859_5412792_4_71_03-08-2022_4_i_1_sf.html