Fall of the Left and Buddhadeb

During a press briefing in May 2006, CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose made a prophetic comment. While speaking on the role of media which was then projecting chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee as the poster boy of reforms, Bose remarked bluntly: “The media has taken the Brand Buddha line. But it can spell trouble for him.” (Source) The outspoken CPI(M) state secretary was expressing his worry that the same media which is making a superhero out of him, was equally capable of abruptly changing color, chameleon-like, and start smearing the chief minister’s image. Biman Bose’s comment came at a time when the political influence and reputation of Buddhadeb was at its peak. He had just won the 2006 state assembly elections with a colossal majority and was hailed as a new-age leader, a “capitalist communist” who was expected to steer Bengal to glory. The industrial lobby, the neo-liberal media and large sections of the urban middle class was praising him animatedly for his single-point industrialization agenda. He was been credited for bringing back hope to a state marred by “despair”. Neo-liberalism advocate The Economist went gaga to extol him for his “reputation for probity,” for being “modest and engaging” on topics from agri-business to consumerism and Indian poetry. From Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Azim Premji of Wipro, many big-shots were lauding him as India’s best chief minister. Unfortunately for him, it took just a year after the famous victory for the Brand Buddha bubble to burst. Within a couple of years the monolithic edifice of the CPI(M) came tumbling down when the people of Bengal delivered a real kick in the teeth to sweep out the Left Front from thirty-four long years of uninterrupted power.

To the Comrades in Bengal

The 2011 Bengal assembly election is now over. A synthetically manufactured socio-political commotion that had embarked on a plotted journey from mid-2007 has finally arrived at its logical end. The much hyped circle of poriborton (change) is now complete. An assorted conglomerate of anti-Left elements, personified by the “magnanimous” Trinamool chieftain Mamata Banerjee have triumphed over a thirty-four years long uninterrupted Left Front rule in this eastern Indian state – the longest-serving elected communist government in the world. The euphoria over the victory in the anti-Left camp is therefore obvious. Prominent renegades, fence-sitter Leftists, drawing room revolutionaries and the awake-aware intellectuals have also joined to sing the celebration chorus. The winners and their embedded friends in the mainstream corporate media have announced with a big sigh of relief that Bengal, at last, is free. The people, we are told, is now liberated from a tyrannical and sluggish regime which has destroyed every aspect of democratic rights in the state. The Left’s terrible debacle, we are edified again and again, is therefore nothing less than historic. On the other side, a stoic silence has been observed from the losers who have gracefully accepted the people’s mandate and are presently tiring to protect their grass-root workers from the vicious attack launched against them by the victorious Trinamool goons.

Media hyperbole and Bengal assembly elections

If we go through the standard news reports, analysis, editorials and opinion pieces been published daily in the national and local mainstream media concerning the ongoing assembly elections of Bengal, there can be little doubt in our minds about whom the voters would prefer to see in the next government. According to the obvious trends and predictions reflecting in the media, the people of Bengal have already “decided” to reject the worn out Left Front and embrace the impressive Trinamool Congress (TMC)-Indian National Congress (INC) opposition alliance. Experienced pollsters have concluded that in all probability, this grand alliance under the sagacious leadership of our famed railways minister Mamata Banerjee is heading for a clean sweep. Passionate supporters of the Left might still go on arguing that a sheer anti-Left bias in the print and television coverage during any election campaign is nothing new in Bengal. The spectrum of debate that gets released on various media forums during the election season has seldom been objective. They are also trying to point out that for a long time independent media organizations in the state have been completely polarized along political lines. But not many people are listening to them. The coming Bengal election results are therefore, as one thin on top editor recently wrote, “the easiest to predict in our electoral history in a very long time.”

Who are the Harmads of Bengal?

When a joint forces team raided and arrested two suspected Maoists – Amiya and Asim Mahato from the Municipal Guest House in Midnapore town, Trinamool Congress chieftain and railway minister Mamata Banerjee rushed at the spot with “friendly’’ television units and swung into damage control mode. Banerjee’s quick reaction does not need much explanation. The guest house was run by her party with the Congress as a relief camp to “shelter” party workers who are on the run from CPI(M) cadres “reclaiming” lost ground in various parts of West Midnapore district. According to Midnapore police chief Manoj Verma, the “sheltered Trinamool workers” comprises many hardcore Maoists and PCAPA activists from the Jangalmahal area. His team was keeping a keen watch on the guesthouse for a long time and the raid took place only after they became definite that seven Maoists had been staying there. Eight letters of CPI(Maoist) politbureau member Koteshwar Rao alias Kishenji, senior Maoist leader Asim Ghosh alias Akash and Jharkhand Maoist leader Ranjan Munda has been seized from the two arrested suspects. One of Kishenji’s letters was addressed to the boisterous and bleeding-heart Trinamool MP Kabir Suman. The police have also informed that Amiya Mahato was present with Maoist commander Sidhu Soren when the faction encountered with the joint forces and lost eight of their members including Soren. Asim Mahato acted as Kishenji’s courier. The duo was hiding in the guesthouse since September 2010 with other Maoists including Kanchandeb Sinha, who was arrested on November 2010, from Trinamool block president Nepal Singh’s car in Shalboni. They have also participated in the recent Trinamool-PCAPA rally at Lalgarh. The joint forces team faced stiff resistance from local Trinamool men and women who had tried to prevent them from raiding the den for a second time. Six journalists suffered injuries when the police baton charged the mob to control the pandemonium. The police force has failed to nab the other suspected Maoists who have fled the den after breaking a window at the back of the building. (Source)

Lalgarh: when the saints go marching in

Swami Agnivesh and Medha Patkar, two conscientious rabble-rousers of our time have marched into Lalgarh on last Monday, grabbing the apron string of their spanking soul mate – our famous railways minister. They went to attend and address a rally organized by the Trinamool party under the “apolitical” banner of Santras Birodhi Mancha (anti-terror forum) to spread the message of peace among the people of Lalgarh and to re-establish rule of democracy in this Maoist infested land of Bengal. Both have delivered the best of their banal statements concerning adivasis and their rights, about why MNCs must be resisted from setting up factories in the adivasi land, about how democratic process had come to a halt in the area. Both have also condemned the atrocities perpetrated by the joint security forces against innocent villagers after putting a Maoist tag on them and demanded a judicial inquiry into the death of Maoist Central Committee spokesperson, Azad. Both the crusaders without a pause had heaped immense praise on the railways minister for “putting up a brave fight against the ruling regime in favor of the poor and establishing the rule of democracy.” Agnivesh has informed the sizeable crowd mobilized primarily by the notorious Maoist frontal body PCAPA that, “Only Mamata has the courage to oppose Operation Green Hunt. Only she has the courage to oppose land seizure in the name of industrialization.” The polemicist Swami went one step further. Unable to resist him from the exiting setting or maybe the scorching heat, he barked out slamming the chief minister of Bengal: “It is time for Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to go on vanwas (exile). Naya Zamana Aayega, Mamata Banerjee ka Zamana Aayega (A new era will come, the era of Mamata Banerjee)”. The rally was also blessed by top Maoist leader Kisanji. Manoj Mahato, the infantile leader of the PCAPA, has gone out of his way to ensure its success.

Another rail disaster: what comes next?

India woke up from uneasy dreams to witness one more devastating train accident on Monday. This time it was at Sainthia in Bengal’s Birbhum district where the Uttar Banga Express entered platform No. 4 at a speed of about 80 to 90 kmph and ran into the Vananchal Express from behind which was just rolling out off the station. The impact of the fatal collision was so huge that a coach of Vananchal Express was tossed over on a nearby pedestrian footbridge. Sixty-three passengers were announced to be officially dead, numerous has suffered severe injuries. In past one year, this is the sixth major accident. The total number of deceased from rail accidents in the last fourteen months, as put forward by various media reports, has reached a whopping 428. Only since April this year, the figure is a shocking 250. The alarming rise of railway accidents in the country (more than 162 accidents since Miss Mamata Banerjee took over the charge of the Railways ministry, 40 accidents since April 2010) has made the entire nation feel extremely vulnerable and apprehensive about a safe rail travel. But the out of the ordinary minister of Railways and her top notch officials seems to be quite unaffected by the frequent accidents. The minister, being suspicious about the cause of the accident, had assured to “take strong steps against those who are behind this,” obviously hinting towards a sabotage.

The other side of Rabindranath Tagore

A remarkable aspect of Rabindranath Tagore’s life is the way his persona had changed radically from the restricted identity of an oriental romantic-mystic to the wide-ranging identity of a concerned citizen of the world. A poet, who had earlier attempted to blend spiritual and romantic notions in his quest of grasping the mystery surrounding individual human soul and the divine, increasingly began to give voice to the minds of the colonized and oppressed people and expressed his passionate desire to be identified as one of them. This absolutely stunning transformation is manifested in the non-conformist and modernist approach of his later works. Quite obviously, this aspect of his life was somewhat overlooked by his ostensible admirers who has imposed upon him the title “Gurudev” and converted him into a sacred idol. W. B. Yeats, who was primarily responsible for forming the synthetic image of Tagore as a mystic poet in the West found problems with his later works. Amartya Sen in his brilliant essay Tagore and his India, has rightly pointed out that the “neglect and even shrill criticism” that Tagore’s later writings received from these early admirers arose from the “inability of Tagore's many-sided writings to fit into the narrow box” in which they wanted to place and keep him. “To those who do not read Bengali, Tagore is exclusively a literary person or a mystic of sorts,” regrets historian Tapan Roychoudhury. He further clarifies, “The fact that some two-thirds of his writings are serious essays, mostly on political and socio-eco­nomic problems of India and the crisis of civilization has been more or less ignored in Tagore scholarship.” (Source)

Innocent Maoists and the incredible but factual tale of a heartbreaking rail tragedy

Half minister Dinesh Trivedi always has a refined presence on television debates. Sometimes too refined one would say. He speaks chaste English, he can articulate his party chieftain’s feral “vision” in plain words which typically bear mordant remarks about the bête noire CPI(M). Therefore after the Maoists have successfully derailed the Mumbai bound Gyaneshwari Express near Jhargram in Bengal’s Midnapore district and caused several civilian deaths, the half minister’s clean and cold face kept flashing on various news channels. When asked about his opinion about the horrific incidence, Trivedi squarely puts the entire blame on the State government, parroting the Trinamool chieftain’s corrosive guideline and asks: Isn’t law and order comes under the state? When the anchor of the show asks him whether the Railways minister also owes some responsibility or not, the half minister thundered: How do you blame the Railways Ministry when the incidence has taken place in CPM ruled Bengal? After all Mamata Banerjee is not Bengal’s chief minister. He then delivered a gem. The half minister assured us, “The day Mamata Banerjee becomes the chief minister of Bengal, I can guarantee you there will not be any such problems”! (Source) How is he so confident?

Indian politicians are habitually infamous for talking nonsense in public and Trinamool Congress is particularly notorious in this aspect. One might therefore think that Trivedi must have gone utterly paranoid to stupidly justify an awesome disaster on behalf of his party boss who unfortunately is the Railways minister of the country. One might also wonder how Trivedi is so sure about the administrative competency of Mamata Banerjee. Both the thoughts have a close connection. In fact, Trivedi was speaking according to an instant strategy derived from the fantastic brains of Mamata Banerjee and her present advisors. The script was plain and simple. First to put the entire blame on the state government’s failure to maintain law and order, then to spread the rumor that the incident was possibly the handiwork of the CPI(M) and finally, to obscure any feature that could draw attention towards the Maoists and their frontal organization PCAPA as the real culprits behind the tragedy and shield them.

Intellectuals, who claim to be representatives of civil society and are openly supporting both the PCAPA and Mamata Banerjee, immediately jumped on the bandwagon. Instead of assisting the hapless victims and standing beside their families, the so called intellectuals, many of them on payroll of Indian Railways, were more anxious to clear the name of Mamata Banerjee and the Maoists from any public suspicion. They called a press conference to condemn the deaths and offer condolence to the victims. But the event was instantaneously converted into a political platform where the “awake and aware” intellectuals accused the CPI(M) of being involved in the mishap. “The accident was made to happen at a time when people are preparing to ring in a change,” thundered painter Shuvaprasanna, Mamata Banerjee’s trusted Rasputin and chairman of the passenger amenities committee of the Railways. Amid table-thumping approval from Shuvaprasanna, another jewel of the crown Debobrata Bandopadhyay unambiguously said that “the needle of suspicion is towards CPM, which is the only beneficiary of the accident.” During the press meet no one minced a single word about the involvement of the Maoists except Railways heritage and culture committee chairperson Shaoli Mitra, who monthly draws Rs. 50,000 and other perks from the Railways coffer. Posing as the most credulous among the lot, Mitra uttered, “Even though Maoists have denied their links with the accident, media is emphasizing the Maoists link. We are going through a dark time.” How bad not to believe the honest and truthful Maoists! However, the “intellectuals” refused to answer any question posed by journalists who asked them about the basis of their allegation. (Source)

Within hours after the now infamous “intellectual” press conference, Mamata Banerjee appeared into the arena to hold one more press meet with her matching message: “I don't know who has done the heinous crime. But whoever has done it, it's a political conspiracy. (Emphasis added) I have requested the union home ministry to conduct a probe,” she said briskly. She then added her punch line, “The accident has happened two days before the (civic) election. One may be politically against us, but I feel bad the way the incident was engineered to fulfill one's political interests.” (Source)

Why the Trinamool tricksters are so eager to put the blame on the CPI(M)? Is it just because they wanted to score brownie points before the civic polls? This logic seems valid and persuasive, but there is a more intricate mechanism that is working deep beneath the visible surface. During the Singur-Nandigram fiasco, a single enemy strategy was vigorously employed by the detractors of the CPI(M) which had helped the Trinamool Congress to evoke an innate fighting impulse against the Marxists. To some extent this fighting impulse has stimulated the common man’s mind and caused the party’s 2009 poll debacle. No one can completely deny that the CPI(M) as a party has made quite a few serious blunders during the land acquisition controversies. But it is also a fact that to serve the single enemy strategy and impale the Marxists as enemy of the people, the blunders have been trumped up on an enormous magnitude. The CPI(M) has been blamed for every malady and misfortune of Bengal. It was a well crafted strategy to cloud rational judgment and distract attention from the real causes. The vicious attack has worked extremely well in the recent past and eroded a substantial chunk of the Left Front and the CPI(M)’s support base. At the same time it has helped the Trinamool chieftain to emerge as the only unyielding voice against the single enemy CPI(M). Quite obviously it became the central strategy for the Trinamool and their rainbow allies which also include the Maoists as a vital but disguised ally. Blaming the CPI(M) have therefore served a dual purpose. It has augmented the single enemy strategy and also obscured the role of the atrocious Maoists in the train tragedy that has caused death of nearly 150 innocent civilians.

The “blame CPI(M)” ploy was initiated by the Trinamool MP Sisir Adhikari with his “evil forces are out to vilify Mamata” remark. Receiving the tip-off from Adhikari, the PCAPA convener and spokesperson Asit Mahato was quick to announce, “We had no knowledge about the attack on the train. Our people did not do it…. It was the handiwork of CPM goons. It was a conspiracy hatched by the CPM.” After denying any involvement of the PCAPA in the sabotage and strongly proclaiming about a “CPI(M) conspiracy” Mahato did not stop there. Sensing the ramifications of the tragedy, a concerned Mahato desperately attempted to vindicate Mamata Banerjee and said, “CPI(M) has plans to politically isolate Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee so that she is forced to resign”. (Source) Then the Trinamool intellectuals started their synchronized chorus to deliver an identical message which was followed by a statement issued by the State Committee of the CPI (Maoist). The statement assured the railway authorities “Nothing will be done from our side” and solicited them to ply their trains without fear. Keen to distance themselves from the tragedy fearing public backlash, the Maoists also repudiated the charge against them by stating that, “We were not involved in the sabotage.” Shaoli Mitra’s argument about the “innocent” Maoists was based on this statement. The Maoists also “demanded” an independent enquiry of the incidence by “a neutral investigation team comprising intellectuals, scientists, engineers and unofficial experts” since the state controlled CID and the central agency CBI “both are biased”. The Maoists demand call in mind what Rabindranath Tagore once wrote condemning the violence perpetrated by Indian extremist groups during the freedom movement, “To light the fire and then complain that it burns is absolutely childish.”

Why the Trinamool intellectuals and the veiled backers of Mamata Banerjee so intensely struggling to shield the Maoists from the train mishap? It is only because the chronology of events clearly show how the Trinamool leaders, the intellectuals, the PCAPA and the Maoists are coordinated with each other. Within days, the Indian Express published a story on PCAPA leader Bapi Mahato who controls the Guimara-Lalgeria panchayat area where the Gyaneshwari train disaster took place. The 25 year young leader, charged as the mastermind behind the attack by the police and investigating agencies, has revealed that “…we targeted the goods train. But somehow, we were fed wrong information that the goods train would cross through this track and we removed pandrol clips from a long stretch.” (Source)

Here we must also mention about some “neutral” analysts like a learned economist turned talk-show star who was simply “unable to comprehend why the Maoists will attack a train if they are so intimate to Mamata Banerjee”. Are the so called “neutral” voices really so naïve to figure out that to achieve her enduring objective of occupying the Bengal chief minister’s chair, Mamata Banerjee has willingly mounted on a savage beast? A Maoist leader has explained her predicament to the media, “We had expected Mamata to pressure the Centre in withdrawing the joint forces from the Jungle Mahal area. But she did nothing… She took our help in Nandigram, but she didn’t help us and so we wanted to cause minor damage to the railways by targeting a goods train.” (Source) The savage beast will possibly stop only after consuming the rider. These so called neutral voices are in fact deceitful to the core. By pretending to be naïve, they are actually trying to mislead the people from the clear nexus between the Maoists and Trinamool. People only see what they are prepared to see. Mamata loyalists and lobbyists are therefore trying too hard to preserve the post Singur-Nandigram milieu so that the opportunity of a “change” does not spin out of control.

Mamata Banerjee’s admirers adore her for the essentially ruthless fighter image she has fostered over the years and for her ability to enforce a creepy but effective anti-CPI(M) diatribe. In her ongoing business of deception, she is steadily assisted by her intellectual friends who are putting the final wrapping on her glitzy packages. Under her direction, incessant attacks of virulent deception are widely been used as a worthy weapon to win over different segments of the population and for keeping the support intact till the 2011 assembly elections.

Most of the arguments spearheaded by the Trinamool chieftain are essentially phony as their base substances are all lies. In unusual situations, even phony facts and phony arguments sound logical. The same is happening today in the post Singur-Nandigram political atmosphere of Bengal. The fallacies and lies she have mastered to execute her deception strategies will obviously fool some people for some time. Many of her enthusiastic supporters are unable to visualize the actual situation as their minds are besieged under the grand emotional appeals and fallacious arguments of the Trinamool Congress. But will it be possible for the megalomaniac Mamata Banerjee to keep this momentum till the 2011 assembly elections is a tuff question to answer. From the almighty chieftain to the creepy-crawly lower rank leaders, most of the Trinamool team is habitual offenders of democratic integrity. Their rhetoric is full of unsound reasoning. Their language is filthy and obnoxious. Their approach is unscrupulous and fascistic. Their outlook is reactionary.

The Trinamool chieftain and her destructive forces have launched a new brand of manipulative politics in Bengal where emotion instead of reason is used to prove a conclusion to every political argument. Her expendable pawns of today and her future day scapegoats are mostly unaware about the ulterior motive of this deceptive politics. By deliberately replacing reality with illusion, by appealing to people’s emotions and prejudices to cloud their thinking ability, she has converted political deception almost into an art form. Hence, for the time being, her every wrong seems to be right. The Trinamool intellectuals on the other hand, especially the most vicious among them have confirmed once more that greed and self-interest are truly great motivators. But the recent events have proved one more thing for sure. You really do not need enemies if you have friends like the ones who are buzzing around Mamata Banerjee’s spoilt hive.

As a continuation of their 2009 general election performance, the Trinamool has achieved a “giant victory” in the civic polls today. It is an expected verdict. Only a miracle would have turned the verdict in CPI(M)’s favor. But the writings have already started to appear on the wall. It will become more and more prominent in the coming days. Do we really need a weather man to know which way the wind blows?

Image Courtesy: foxnews.com

Jyoti Basu and his ‘respectful’ detractors

Jyoti Basu, the nonagenarian patriarch of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was seriously ill for the last few months. He was also too old. So, the news of his death initially did not arouse much shock but a profound sadness. This sadness will gradually creep dip by dip into the minds of the masses, from the poor countryside to affluent cities, those who have admired and respected the man and repeatedly brought him and the Left Front back to power. With every passing day, the reality of his absence will be felt more and more among his admirers as well as his critics. Beginning from the early 40’s till the recent times, the towering persona of this legendary leader of the Communist movement in India has marked an enduring imprint on the socio-political life of the nation in many significant ways, particularly in the collective psyche of an entire generation of post independence Bengal. However, he had strongly dismissed the view that he had played any special role from an individual capacity and affirmed that, “What I was and what I am is because of the party. The CPM leadership had assigned a role to me which I carried out with help from innumerable comrades.” (Source) He was a true Marxist committed to the ideology. Like a true communist he had tirelessly served his people symbolizing their aspirations, struggles and sacrifices for six decades till his last breath. Even after his death he continued to serve them by donating his eyes and body for the benefit of patients and medical science. He had learned from Lenin that democracy is indispensable to socialism and genuinely believed that “it is people, and people alone, who creates history”. He was the last living icon of a spectacular era. Now with his demise, the era has permanently come to its end. Comrade Jyoti Basu has become history himself.

The subject of this post is not about Comrade Basu or his legacy. This blogger is too minuscule to write anything about the impressive feats of this illustrious life. This post will only present the undulating media extravaganza which has followed from his final illness till his death. The post is arranged by eclectically picking up gems from the “respectful” media “homage” offered to this extraordinary man.

On one hand, a wide spectrum of the mighty Indian press has pursued its standard populist agenda by sensationalizing the persona of Jyoti Basu, flattering him as a colossus, a stalwart, an astute but bhadralok (gentleman) politician and what not? Did they hold a similar attitude for Jyoti Basu when he was at the helm of the government? It must be noted with some conviction that during his tenure, the dominant section of the Bengal press, Bengali as well as English, left no stone unturned to regularly disparage him, his government and his party by distorted or twisted news and views. Jyoti Basu was made the prime target of this hostile and contemptuous criticism that has many times gone beyond all limits of journalistic decorum towards plain impropriety. Before every election in Bengal, Chief Minister Basu and the Left Front were written off by these mischief-makers and an aura of ‘hope’ use to be propagated in favor of the opposition. This tendency became a commonplace phenomenon in Bengal just like the winning streak of the Left Front. To them, as Ashok Mitra has recently written, the communist party was a nuisance and Jyoti Basu was an integral part of that nuisance. Even when he had voluntarily retired from office, he was not spared and was subjected to ill-concealed acrimony.

All the praise and admiration that has been promoted after his death are therefore nothing but sheer duplicity. The way in which the tributes and honors are published displays an inherent design beneath. It is actually designed to ridicule the present Left leaders, particularly Prakash Karat. Corporate media loves to hate the CPI(M) general secretary. The intention is to show them as dwarfs by comparing them with the “pragmatic communist” who was free from the ‘muddle of ideology’. The ignominious tone of this media ‘homage’ is evident from the high pitch exposition of the so called ‘historic blunder’ when the “upstart” leaders of CPI(M) Polit Bureau and Central Committee opposed him to lead a coalition government in 1996. Though, the stateliness in which he had accepted his party’s decision is obviously downplayed. It looks as if Jyoti Basu as the Prime Minister of India was a much anticipated desire of these superficial media folks.

On the other side, a wide range of reproach has been planned through contract analysts and senior political pundits to bash the man from all possible angles, by any means. We find a hoard of elite ex-Kolkata denizens lamenting about their ex-Kolkata “paradise” that was turned into a hell – “a place time forgot” due to the politics exercised by Jyoti Basu and his party. Speaking on behalf of the “entire generations of educated middle-class Bengalis” who were “forced to seek refuge in other States or migrate to America” these detractors grieve for the genius Bengalis who became a prey of the “Stalinist rule” of Jyoti Basu regime and became “refugees from Bengal” due to “a contraction of opportunities, educational and economic, and a closing of the Bengali mind”. (Source) Besides, who are these well-wisher crooks who are purposely wheedling about their Kolkata days before the communists came to power and shedding crocodile tears for the “brainy” Kolkata middle-class diaspora from safer and cozy distance? They are essentially representatives of the Indian affluent class promoting its odious anti-Left values. They surely feel grateful, pleased and satisfied to be able to join the creamy section of Indian society. In their tapered vision, Kolkata embody the whole of Bengal.

From both the sides the intentions behind the tributes are similar. A candid statement like “the present history of Bengal is largely the story of Jyoti Basu” is fundamentally contemptuous. The comment is intended not really to glorify him but as a deliberate attempt to get nearer to the real point of attack – to ascertain that the story of Jyoti Basu is actually “a story of unmitigated disaster,” the story of Bengal’s pathetic “decline and decay” from “a hub of industrial and intellectual activity” into an “economic and professional backwater”. To validate their point, established analysts of the neo-liberal media have thus unambiguously relied on the phony findings of Bibek Debroy & Laveesh Bhandari, the “duty bound” economist duo infamous for their dubious study Transforming West Bengal – Changing the Agenda for an Agenda for Change. This bogus and ostensible “study” was commissioned and funded by Dinesh Trivedi, then Rajya Sabha MP from the Trinamul Congress. It was a purposeful effort on the eve of 2009 Lok Sabha polls to illustrate Bengal’s “pathetic decline” caused by “overall governance failure”. Putting the purpose behind the study into perspective, Economic Policy Editor Vivan Fernandes of CNBC-TV18 has uncovered that “the Business Standard and Economic Times quoted it as if it were an independent study. By tracing West Bengal’s decline from the 1960s, than from 1977, when the Left Front assumed power, by comparing it selectively with peers Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu and by ignoring achievements in agriculture, the authors seem anxious to prove that West Bengal is indeed, as they say, the most miserable state in India.” (Emphasis added) Fernandes found that the study was “deliberately provocative when it asserts the Left Front government is like Gangrene. It cannot be cured, and must be excised out.” (Source)

Like the above stated iniquitous report, Jyoti Basu’s death has brought out the savage teeth and nail of a variety of editors, commentators and experts who are principally anti-Left. Some among them are rather clever to present their contentions under a politesse veil. According to their sarcastic depiction, Jyoti Basu was just “a member of Calcutta’s privileged,” who wanted to “do something for the downtrodden”. A bhadralok who wore “glistening white” clothes and “invariably polished” shoes, who was fond of “good food and the sundowner” and whose only memorable contribution was to spearhead agitational politics that “resulted in the flight of capital, a complete erosion of work culture and irresponsible trade unionism.” (Source) Some among them have also tried to suggest how the persona of Jyoti Basu, previously committed to his party and the ideology, began to change “once he became firmly entrenched in power” and “acquiesced in the loot of state sources” along with party functionaries. (Source) There are also others, intensively raw and crude, those who have virtually crossed every limits of civility while lambasting Basu. Their calumny is decorated with abusive language and based on imaginary stories, fabricated reminisces, street gossips and unadorned lies. It also includes malicious personal attack by putting imaginary dialogues into selective mouths. (Source) Their style is fairly similar to the despicable approach popularized by the Trinamool chieftain Mamata Banerjee who while expressing her doubt upon Basu’s retirement had commented, “He will never retire till he expire.”

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. But can these so call experts be dubbed as fools when they cunningly avoid mentioning the stride in the Bengal countryside achieved under Jyoti Basu’s leadership? The pathbreaking achievements of Operation Barga – the land reforms and redistribution program initiated by the Left Front government is either completely ignored or referred in a diminutive and inconsequential way while assessing his contribution in the obituaries,. This example is sufficient to expose the precise objective of these deceitful pundits. How can they establish their points if they focus on the unmatched achievements of Jyoti Basu government’s panchayat program that has decentralized power to the grassroot and greatly empowered the rural peasantry? Since Independence, Bengal has accounted for 22.6 per cent of the total land distributed in India as a whole, and 54.5 per cent of the total number of gainers from land distribution programmes in the entire country. Land reforms and redistribution is the single most important contributor to rural poverty reduction and in this regard Bengal’s performance is the best among any state in the country. These policies occupied the centrestage of the Left Front government’s pro-people administrative initiatives and thus have significantly improved the status of the poor, giving them a sense of social dignity. Even in recent years, as V.K. Ramachandran has observed, “the extent of agricultural land distributed under land reform in West Bengal as a proportion of land distributed in the country as a whole is 22.6 per cent.” Ramachandran has also observed that “the total number of gainers from land distribution programmes in the country, more than half – a full 54.5 per cent – are from West Bengal.” (Source) But as Paranjoy Guha Thakurta has pointed out, “Historians have selective memories. Who cares today about Operation Barga or the empowerment of panchayats?” (Source)

By delicately applying their biases and prejudices, the pundits talk about Bengal’s poor growth compared to the rest of India. These pundits will never draw attention toward Bengal’s phenomenal agricultural growth which has grown at an annual rate of 2.7 per cent – double the national rate. Instead, they prefer to vociferously babble on the ‘gherao culture’ as the foundation of industrial stagnation in Bengal but never utter that Bengal’s industrial turn down was primarily caused by the central government policies of freight equalization and industrial licensing. Doesn’t it astonish us today that it took 13 years for the Congress government at the center to clear the flagship Haldia Petrochemicals project? Since the days when the license-permit raj were lifted and liberalization opened new possibilities, from 1990s Bengal was one of the fastest growing states in India. The pundits also endlessly emphasize on the worst condition of poverty and hunger in rural Bengal compared to most other states. But the planning commission figures show an entirely different picture. Percentage of persons below poverty line in rural Bengal has declined from 73.2 per cent in 1973-74 to 28.6 per cent in 2004-05 compared to the national average of 56.4 per cent in 1973-74 to 28.3 per cent in 2004-05. Urban poverty in Bengal is 14.8 per cent compared to the national average of 25.7 per cent – the performance is even better than fast-growing states like Maharashtra and Gujarat. The Eleventh Plan document has noted that Bengal is one of the five major states that have succeeded in reducing the absolute number of the poor in rural areas over the three decades from 1973 to 2004-05.

Protecting the rights and privileges of the poor, creating the possibility for a better socio-economic condition and achieving it to some reasonable extent are certainly the most significant contributions of Jyoti Basu’s rule. There are also other social sectors where Bengal has performed well. The state has registered the lowest death rate and maternal mortality rates among all the major states and has achieved notable reductions in fertility rate. It is the first state to lower the voting age to 18, first to introduce reservation for women in elected bodies. Jyoti Basu must also be credited for his firm commitment to secularism that has established an unwavering atmosphere of communal harmony and secularism in the state.

However, responding to the new aspirations and popular demands that has emerged from the successful agrarian reforms is a far more difficult and time-consuming task. It is a fact that the Left Front government’s response in this aspect was relatively slow. The government has also somewhat failed to achieve success in areas like education, infrastructural developments and the state of the economy. Long stint in power have also developed bureaucratic habits among a section of the Left Front leadership and detached them from the people. Jyoti Basu was quite aware about these shortcomings and negative developments. He had persistently spoken about the necessity of going to the people, listening to them, explaining the reasons behind the shortcomings and sincerely admitting the mistakes. Jyoti Basu himself has done it all through his life.

All his positive achievements, and there were many, is overshadowed or ignored by the bombastic and dismissive media rhetoric which is more engrossed to focus on the “egregious blemishes” of Jyoti Basu and his tenure. Viewed objectively, most of them will turn into plain deception. Jyoti Basu’s death has once more proved the myth of media objectivity and manifested an emergent trend of corporate journalism in India. A depressing trend that deceives millions of people and indoctrinates them by promoting personal bias towards the Left in the name of “balanced reporting”. It is a dangerous trend that encourages flak criticism to disgrace an exemplary politician – one of the country’s most illustrious leaders and statesmen.

Image Courtesy: aajkaal.net

Minister Mamata Banerjee and the labyrinth of Singur

In a recent public announcement Union Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee has proclaimed that her ministry is ready to start up the ‘world’s biggest coach factory’ at the abandoned Tata Motors site in Singur “if the state government gives us the land”. As soon as she became Railways Minister for the second time following her most conspicuous success in the 2009 parliamentary polls, she has taken up numerous ‘new’ programmes, floated several ‘innovative’ proposals and started introducing various ‘development’ works. From the typical ‘Kalpataru’ syndrome which has affected many Indian politicians time and again, she is right on her track publicizing ‘big plans’ for Bengal on a regular basis through trusty media bulletins. From the bouncing Railways Minister’s continuous announcements of innumerable Bengal initiatives, it seems that the Bengal voters have at last voted a leader who is capable of satisfying their unfulfilled wishes – just like the mythological wish-fulfilling tree which came out during churning of the ocean. Her railway strategists are doing a commendable job to link her ministerial offerings with the Trinamool party agenda. But the people of Bengal need to be cautioned about one thing. Desiring something from the ‘Kalpataru’ could turn dangerous in the long run because, according to the myth, the tree fulfills all wishes regardless of good or bad outcomes.

The Railways Minister's juggernaut

Within a short period of time, Mamata Banerjee has launched many ‘new’ trains, ‘new’ stations, ‘new’ railway line extensions, ‘new’ railway connections, ‘new’ computerized reservation offices through a nonstop inauguration extravaganza and bombarded project after project. To accrue advantageous publicity and score political points over her bête noire CPI(M), she has flagged off old trains in new names, introducing new trains by taking out coaches from existing trains and re-laying foundation stones of old projects which were inaugurated long back. Recently she had laid the foundation stone of the New Jubilee Bridge over river Hooghly in North 24-Parganas, and renamed it as ‘Maitreyee’ bridge. The farcical part is, during her first tenure in 2001 she had laid a foundation stone of this same bridge!

Keeping track on all her Bengal centric projects and promises is not going to be an easy task. Her railway budget has proposed the takeover of the wagon units of Burn Standard and Braithwaite. Both units under the Ministry of Heavy Industries and both are based in Bengal. From the 375 ‘ideal’ stations that her budget has promised to create all over the country, 216 stations are in Bengal alone! Assuring the commuters that the progress of this project will be ‘personally’ monitored by her, she had declared to sanction “Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore for each of these stations”. In presence of representatives from national auto majors, she has inaugurated an automobile logistics hub at Shalimar which will “provide employment to scores of local men and women” and has also chosen Singur for the Rs 3 crore perishable cargo storage unit under the "Kisan Vision" scheme where “Singur’s farmers can store their excess products at this unit free of cost”! It is highly interesting to note the locations of her bombastic projects – most of them are carefully chosen on the merit of their political significance.

Her budget proposal also include the Rs 900 crore project of a new coach factory at the Kanchrapara-Halishahar railway complex in North 24-Parganas, a component factory at Dankuni in Hooghly district, and a high-speed bogie casting unit at Majherhat, South 24-Parganas. Though the same Mamata Banerjee and her party is fervently opposing a power plant at Burdwan district’s Katwa in the pretext of ‘forceful land acquisition’ by the state government, she found no problem to propose a 1000MW power plant at Purulia’s Adra in her budget as it will “create jobs for local tribals” and bring “the tribal people into the mainstream”. Though critics have pointed out that the Railways have to acquire additional land if they truly want to set up the proposed power plant in Adra since they do not possess the full amount of land required for the project.

There are other Bengal projects in her kitty such as extending the Metro rail network to Dakshineswar, Barrackpore and Barasat, connecting Kolkata by a ‘ring-railway network’, and laying new rail lines at Canning, Bakkhali and Nandigram. Her ministry is also thinking to set up new coach factories in Burdwan, Nadia and other Bengal districts. She has also announced that the Railways have planned several industrial projects in the state that would generate ‘employment for lakhs’ and has expressed her desire to revive the jute industry in the state. “There are many closed jute mills in and around Kanchrapara. The jute industry will be revived and there are other plans as well” she has assured. To pour honey into people’s ear she has proclaimed, “Many more industries will be coming up and there is no need for you to leave Bengal.” It occurs awesomely bizarre when we recall that it was this same industry friendly and ‘changed’ Mamata Banerjee who had forced Tata Motors a year ago to shift the Nano plant from Bengal to Gujarat’s Sanand by spearheading the Singur siege.

The myopic Railways Minister has also reached a new low by refusing to invite the state government at her inaugural ceremonies. Relishing her act of disregarding democratic protocols as a fitting response to the ‘high and mighty’ Left Front government, one of the client scribes has gone to the extent of declaring that, “her individual acceptability with the people of the State is more than what the Left Front as a whole”. A highly pretentious statement follows: “the Union Railway Minister has appeared as a titan in State politics” in front of pygmies “like Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury, Biman Bose and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee”. (Source) Her Railways functions have also been converted into TMC party events where invitees are categorically selected according to their loyalty. Mamata Banerjee really gets a sadistic pleasure by publicly ignoring the State government. Over the years, she has induced a new kind of political hatred into the polity which has greatly assisted to lumpenize Bengal’s political culture.

An unconventional Railways Minister!

The talented Railways Minister has also indicated that she does not want to stay restricted into the conventional Railways Minister’s cocoon. In fact, she has attempted to put forward a unique idea; that it requires only one minister to gratify almost every requisite of the voters. Surrounded by film stars and the intellectual glitterati of Kolkata during the flagging off ceremony of the Tollygunge-Garia Bazaar Metro Railway extension, she had announced to set up a 75-bed hospital near Tollygunge in Kolkata, and promised to upgrade the existing South Eastern Railway Hospital into a well-equipped medical college. In the “next two-three years” she had proposed to set up more hospitals, schools, cold storages, flyovers, museums, theatre complexes, stadiums and what not? Her ministry has sanctioned Rs 17 crore for a stadium at Bongaon in North 24 Parganas. “If we get land from the state government” she had said while offering to construct another stadium at Canning in South 24-Parganas and bragged that “we can construct it in seven days”! Scrapping off a similar sports complex project in neighboring Howrah which was approved by the former Railways Minister Nitish Kumar during the NDA regime, the Eastern Railway will now have to spend Rs 57 crore to build an ‘world class’ indoor stadium to Behala, a part of the Railways Minister’s South Calcutta constituency because she simply “does not seem to be interested” in the Howrah project. Instead she has sanctioned Rs.3.5 crore for an amphitheatre there to “develop it as a platform for cultural interaction” and “to nurture cultural activities in our state”. Naming the amphitheatre after theatre personality Sambhu Mitra, she had appointed Sambhu Mitras’s daughter Shaoli Mitra as the chairperson of the advisory committee. Shaoli Mitra is one of her client intellectuals who were in the forefront of Nandigram-Singur agitation demanding a political ‘change’ in Bengal. Mitra also chairs the newly formed Heritage and Cultural Committee of the Railways and draws Rs. 50,000 per month of public money as allowance along with other perks. Many of the Bengali intellectuals considered close to her were also rewarded with plum posts in various Railways committees.

The Basumati fiasco

During her budget speech, Mamata Banerjee had also offered to take over the state-run printing press Basumati Corporation Ltd, a 128-year-old historic publishing house associated with the freedom movement. The corporation is presently a sick unit with an accumulated loss of Rs 100 crore. Mamata Banerjee’s announcement in the Parliament that “if the state government agrees, we will take over Basumati and modernize it” was promptly welcomed by the Bengal government as a “very good proposal” and had generated huge hope among the 200 doomed Basumati employees. The jubilant Bengali media also created a lot of hype around the proposal. But the lofty offer turned into a damp squib and subsequently ended the hope of the employees when the Railway Board wrote to the state government that it will take over the PSU but ‘would not accept the liabilities’. Mamata Banerjee’s Basumati flop show is a premonition of what is really going to happen with her Singur proposal.

The Singur labyrinth

From the day Mamata Banerjee and her friends has forced the Tata’s to leave Singur; the humiliated Bengal government is keenly trying to bring in new investors to ensure industry in the abandoned land. After negotiations with the Chinese automobile manufacturing company First Automobile Works (FAW) failed to materialize, the state government opted for the central government PSU Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) to set up a power plant. Keeping a careful watch on the developments “whether BHEL is really coming” and calling the state government’s initiative a joke, Mamata Banerjee was quick to float her counter proposal of setting up a railway coach factory on the same day the BHEL officials has visited Singur to assess the site. Informing the media that her proposal has already received the blessing of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, she went on further to disclose that the affectionate Finance Minister “told me to go ahead”. After all, who can dare to oppose a vital Union Minister’s “dreams regarding Singur”? Keeping in mind the present political clout, it would have been a real surprise if the central government PSU had agreed to go ahead with the project on this ‘dream’ site. Inevitably, BHEL refused to go ahead with the project on ‘technical, commercial and environmental grounds’.

To a certain extent Mamata Banerjee was taken aback when the Bengal government agreed to her proposal. The state chief secretary’s announcement before the media that “The state government, in-principle, is agreeable to hand over the entire land at Singur to the Railways for setting up a coach manufacturing factory” caused panic among the TMC think-tank. Receiving instructions from the above, familiar Trinamool face Partha Chaterjee has to plunge in with the musty old demand of returning ‘400 acres’ of land (This figure is a blatant TMC lie. The actual figure is 254.36 acres, where the owners have either refused to accept compensation from the state government or unable to claim the compensation due to legal problems) to the unwilling landowners. Accordingly the Railway Board chairman wrote back to the Bengal government echoing the TMC line that “The railways want to set up a world-class coach factory in Singur on the entire land (600 acres) after returning 400 acres to the unwilling farmers/landowners.” (Emphasis added)

There are enough reasons to be skeptical about the proposal. Mamata Banerjee and her band of cohorts are not so stupid to recognize the fact that once acquired for public purpose, no land can be returned to the original owners until the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 is amended. She knows very well that it will be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to keep her promise and return the so called ‘400 acres’ to the unwilling farmers after removing the legal obstacles. In addition to legal problems, it is also impossible to fish out and rescue 600 acres for the coach factory as the disputed lands are scattered in the form of small plots all over the site. They are definitely not stupid but wicked to the core. Their aim is only to recur into the same vicious politics that they had played with Singur just a year ago. For her own interest, the deceitful Railways Minister wants to keep Singur as a labyrinth where the destiny of numerous ordinary people will be captivated.

While answering the question about how the so called 400 acres could be returned, a stupid TMC source has revealed the true intention: “In all probability, the entire rail coach factory project will start rolling post 2011, when we come to power.” This comment shows the sly cunning face of Mamata Banerjee’s Singur initiative. It is neither the coach factory, nor the future of Singur but ‘coming to power’ that is important. This vicious political game will never encourage industry in Singur but simply evoke utter hopelessness and despair.

Plotting the Bengal line

Mamata Banerjee propagandists embedded with the media are asking: why she is blamed for being blatantly partial to her State when she has initiated national projects like spreading the Railways network in Kashmir, launched ladies Special EMU trains connecting metro cities with suburbs and has introduced trains like the Izzat – intended for the poorest of the poor, and the Duronto – India’s ‘fastest’ non-stop trains? Applying Railways Minister’s status for pushing forward the party agenda has been made an established norm in this country by all her predecessors. There is nothing wrong if she is doing the same. To defend Mamata Banerjee’s biased Bengal initiatives, the client scribes has premeditated an aggressive attack on the Marxists, blaming them for deriding “various development works of the railways”. The Railways Minister herself has provided them the tip: “The CPI(M) is constantly conspiring against the railways. If any accident takes place in the railways, they CPI(M) will be solely responsible for that”. Haunted by the CPI(M) specter, the client scribes are cautiously trying to obscure the dark truth. Mamata Banerjee actually cares a damn for the development of the Railways infrastructure throughout India. Her interest on the few national projects is only because they have the potential to generate wide publicity in the national media. Her real interest lies in making the most of the Railways infrastructure projects to mesmerize the Bengal voters for the next one and half years till the 2011 Bengal assembly polls. The ‘privileged’ voters in return will pave her way towards supremacy and make her the Chief Minister. It will also ensure a long-term reverie of the anti-left spin doctors – to end the CPI(M) rule in Bengal.

Who is going to finance the hogwash list of Railways Minister’s ‘inventive’ proposals? Obviously it is the Finance Ministry under Pranab Mukherjee. The Finance Minister has sanctioned Rs 15,800 crore budgetary supports (Rs 5,000 crore more than the Rs 10,800 crore promised in the Interim Budget for 2009-10) for the Indian Railways and has also exempted transport of goods by Indian Railways from service tax. This abrupt exemption is startling when transport of goods in railway containers were already under the service tax net from 2008 and in July this year the Finance Ministry had further proposed to extend the levy of service tax. Pranab Mukherjee’s fishy U-turn again indicates a desperate political ploy. To dislodge the CPI(M) in Bengal, it is a joint venture between the present patriarch of the Bengal Pradesh Congress and the TMC chieftain, under the watchful eyes of the enigmatic Sonia Gandhi. The farsighted Congress president appears to be confident about the return of the prodigal daughter as well as the state of Bengal into her fold.

Our friendly neighborhood Railways Minister is notoriously greedy for power and authority. The parliamentary poll results and its subsequent ambiance have made her so overconfident on winning the 2011 assembly polls that she has valued the Railways Minister job only as a booster for her approaching encounter with the Marxists. By assimilating a five year agenda into one and half year, she wants to exploit her ministerial position and reap maximum advantage from it. Therefore, it has become relatively easy for her to go on ‘gifting’ an endless list of unrealizable projects and promises regardless of any responsibilities about the consequences. On this matter, her conscience is as clean as a white piece of paper. Munawer Tehseem, the Railways Minister’s complaisant media manager from the ministry has recently boasted about how the dynamic minister has “fulfilled 70% of the promises she made in her budget speech in 56 days”. (Source) Unfortunately, the word ‘promise’ has lost its significance long back – particularly if connected with a special brand of Indian politicians turned ministers.

Like the other deceitful and reactionary politicians of this country, Mamata Banerjee is also cut from the same piece of cloth. Hence it is difficult to digest the ongoing cant that she has ‘changed’. How much the myopic vision and short time objectives will help the Railways Minister to grab political power in Bengal will be manifested in the near future. But one thing is for sure. If her cunningly plotted political gamesmanship succeeds, then Bengal will change; but possibly for the worst.

*****

Sources: Unless stated, all news sources used in this post are from the websites of The Hindu, The Times of India, The Indian Express, The Telegraph and DNA.

Image courtesy: hinduonnet.com

Maoist’s in Lalgarh: the plot unfolds

Lalgarh continues to burn. Over the last few days, there were continuous news of violence, brutal killings and large-scale arson reported from there. The victims of the atrocity were mostly local tribals who were also known to be activists or supporters of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).They were forcefully driven out of their homes and coolly gunned down. Several CPI(M) party offices with houses of local party leaders were selectively targeted, torched and demolished. In front of the CPI(M) party office, the corpse of an agricultural laborer and CPI(M) worker Shalku Soren were seen lying under the sun, draped in a blood spattered sheet, for days. No one from his family has dared to perform his final rites. In the name of ‘people’s resistance’, this unprecedented brutality and vandalism was spearheaded by the Pulishi Santrash Birodhi Janashadharaner Committee or People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA). At present, state police force along with central forces are jointly engaged in a fierce gun battle with the PCPA activists. It is out in the open now that the PCPA has been shaped, maintained, controlled and strengthened by the Maoists who are leading the Lalgarh resistance from the front.

Lalgarh is situated in West Midnapore district, just 200 km away from Kolkata. In spite of the fact that within a stone’s throw distance of Lalgarh, the Jindal Group has acquired 4500 acres of near-barren land to build up a steel plant at Salboni, there is no credible complain of ‘forceful land grab’ against the Bengal government here. Like Singur and Nandigram, some ‘concerned’ activist groups had habitually opposed the steel project but were unsuccessful to create enough ruckuses as 4200 acres from the notified land was ‘unfortunately’ owned by the government’s State Animal Welfare Board and the rest was purchased directly by Jindal from local landowners through a three tire compensation policy. The ‘Salboni Package’ was complimented all over the country as the best possible model so far for acquiring farmland for industry in India. In Lalgarh, there are no reports that the CPI(M) party men has unleashed a reign of terror on poor and harmless villagers wearing ‘police uniform but with chappals’. Here, no ‘eyewitness account’ has informed us that villagers are brutally murdered by the CPI(M) goons and then ‘put in gunny bags, loaded in trucks and transported to unknown destinations’. There is also no such report about mass raping of women. No witness has testified before a ‘fact finding committee’ that ‘the legs of a small child were torn apart’.

Then why this brutal outrage is surfacing in and around Lalgarh? Is it possible to explain this ‘people’s rage’ by linking it with the ‘thirty two years of massive state repression’? According to a honorable central minister who also happens to be a Trinamool Congress leader, the violence is a spontaneous ‘outburst’ of the oppressed people against the ‘atrocious’ CPM rule. Furthermore, who can disregard that the CPM has a chronic tendency to tag all popular unrests against their dismal rule with the Maoists? Didn’t they try to circulate the same theory during the great Nandigram uprising? Didn’t they do the same in Singur? “Where are the Maoists?” the honorable central minister candidly asked in a recent television debate. Is it not true that the Maoist presence in Bengal is a myth created by the CPM? The honorable minister in all probability was not aware at that time that Maoist leaders have surfaced before the media to claim their robust authority to the movement. The justifying tone of the minister sounds as if he was actually enjoying the brutal killings of the CPI(M) men! He must be in a calculative mood and expecting that Lalgarh will provide some sort of continuity to the electoral and political gains his party has reaped from the very similar episodes of Nandigram.

There are indeed many similarities between Nandigram and Lalgarh. The politics and modus operandi of the agitation is similar. In both the places, rumor and disinformation were spread among locals to agitate and mobilize them. In both the places, a rainbow organization had sprung up rapidly to lead the agitation. In both the places the agitators took over the state administration to establish a free zone. Roads were dug off, several places were blocked by felled trees to resist any further state incursion. In both the places, indigenous weapons brandishing mob emerged as a symbol of the resistance. Both the so-called ‘popular movements’ were backed up by social activists, NGO’s and city dwelling intelligentsia who came on the street to protest the ‘state repression’ and ‘brutal use of force’. In both the places, there were a significant presence of women and children among the agitators who formed the front rank as ‘human shields’ while armed Maoists have positioned themselves in the back layer to instigate police firing. To deliberately create an anti-people image of the CPI(M) and the state government, a deceitful propaganda model was crafted to establish that the state government has particularly targeted the minority Muslims in Nandigram. The same model is applied at Lalgarh where the long oppressed tribals are shown as the victims of state government’s oppression and dispossession. It is now starkly evident that in both the places, the agitation was and is fuelled by a combined force of the right-wing Trinamool and the ultra-left Maoists. In both the places, the CPI(M) party and its workers were the single target.

The answer to the question why Lalgarh has become a killing field of CPI(M) workers is plain and simple. The CPI(M) is the lone target because it is the only party in that area that has the potential to confront and resist the deadly Maoist insurgents. It is the daring local leaders and workers of the CPI(M) who has created the biggest hurdle for the Maoists. They are the only one spoiling the Maoist’s grand design to systemically extend influence in the entire Jangalmahal region of Bengal. These sincere workers who are rooted deep with the daily struggles of the people are the real strength of the CPI(M). The Maoists have understood this strength and therefore has taken up the horrific task to selectively kill individual leaders and workers of the CPI(M) and detach the people from the party by enforcing a reign of terror against them.

The Janashadharaner Committee which is roaming and clumping all over Lalgarh for the past few months were formed as a protest against ‘rampant police atrocity especially on women and school children’ after the state police had raided Lalgarh and its adjacent villages in November, 2008 and detained some locals for having suspected Maoist links. The police action was carried out after the landmine blast on the convoy route of chief minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee who was returning from Salboni after laying the Jindal steel plant foundation stone. The wire connecting the landmine was found to be originating from Lalgarh. The mastermind behind the attack on the chief minister is suspected to be Maoist action squad leader Sasadhar Mahato, younger brother of the former Trinamool and present PCPA leader Chatradhar Mahato. Along with Maoist sympathizer groups like the Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) and Lalgarh Andolon Sanhati Mancha (Solidarity Forum for Lalgarh Movement), the Trinamool Congress had also extended its clandestine support towards the PCPA from its birth and stimulated the ‘unique form of democratic politics’ in Lalgarh against the “government’s long neglect of the tribal people”. Trinamool chieftain Mamata Banerjee was seen several times in the recent past to share the same dais with Chatradhar Mahato. ‘Humanitarian’ NGO groups, social activists and intellectuals with ultra Left undertone were seen to be busy providing moral, intellectual and financial support to the PCPA and ‘steadfastly persevered’ the movement ‘on a path of peaceful show of unity’. The Maoists, who had already set up a strong foothold in the region, were already waiting in the wings. The PCPA incited the tribals for an administration boycott and prevented the police from entering the area. All these developments were happening prior to the Lok Sabha polls. The Left Front government, taken aback by the political consequences of Nandigram were coerced not to take direct action and tried to resolve the crisis through negotiation and talks.

The villages in Lalgarh block could not cast their votes in the Lok Sabha polls due to constant threats from the Maoists. Soon, the area completely went out of hand from the state administration. Lalgarh virtually became a liberated zone of the Maoists. The mainstream media started its systemic propaganda with illustrated stories of people’s resistance and also about how the Maoists have initiated the alternative developmental work inside Lalgarh in the past seven months through their rural governance programme to ‘built at least 50 km of gravel paths, dug tubewells and tanks, rebuilt irrigation canals and are running health centres, with the help of local villagers in Lalgarh. Sporadic killing of CPI(M) leaders and workers were taking place which was made known as ‘people’s upsurge’ against CPI(M) ‘atrocities’.

Just some time after the Lok Sabha election results were out, the situation of Lalgarh erupted with its real face. Planned butchery of CPI(M) local leaders starts. Exciting images of enthusiastic PCPA activists hammering down the house of a CPI(M) leader brick by brick surrounded by drum beating tribals were beamed by TV channels. On June 15, Maoist leader ‘Bikash’ came out into the open to deliver a chilling interview, “On November 2, our plan was to execute Buddhadeb Babu. If West Bengal wants Buddhadeb hanged, who will hang him. It will be us of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army.” Standing back facing TV cameras with an AK 47 slung on his shoulder, the real leader of Lalgarh ‘movement’ announced to the literally dumbfound looking journalists, “The ground here is already ready and waiting for us. A child is about to be born and we are playing the role of the nurse who will deliver it”. Next day, in his second media interaction, Bikash also told to the Bengali news channel Star Ananda that “Killings, mass rapes, violence are the doings of Buddhadeb babu’s party. What we are doing is counter-violence.” But Bikash tried to indirectly deny any association with the Trinamool by saying, “Trinamool and CPI(M) are the two sides of the same coin.” At once, Trinamool friendly media picked up this information and propagated repeatedly to invalidate the CPI(M) claim that “Trinamool Congress workers are in cohorts with armed Maoist groups”. Bikash’s identity has been revealed by the Bengal Home Secretary. He is none but Sasadhar Mahato; the younger brother of Chatradhar Mahato.

After Bikash, it was the turn of Koteswar Rao alias Kishanji, the head of CPI(Maoist)’s central military commission and a politburo member in charge of Bengal, Jharkhand and Orissa to address the media. Suspected by the administration to be present at Lalgarh to spearhead the insurgency, Kishanji in his interview with the news channel NDTV has demanded an apology from the Centre and the Bengal government for waging a ‘psychological warfare’ against the tribals. Contrary to the remarks of Bikash on the Trinamool-Maoist connection, Kisanji has meanderingly appealed to the Trinamool chieftain ‘to break her silence’ and repay the Maoist’s contribution in Nandigram by assisting them in Lalgarh. In an earlier interview with the Times of India, Kisanji had spelt out how the Trinamool has armed them to fight in Nandigram. Even Chatradhar Mahato, in a careless moment had acknowledged the same fact.

It seems that the Maoist leaders are finding it increasingly difficult to keep the truth of a Trinamool-Maoist nexus concealed anymore. Earlier, in an inter-party letter, the Maoist leaders had already expressed their desire to “amass all anti-CPM forces in Bengal” and have appealed to their members to “involve the ruling class parties in this anti-CPM project to the maximum extent possible”. In the same letter, the Maoist leaders had asked their comrades to “strengthen relation with the leader who is leading the Singur movement from the front”. Fearing that her carefully veiled truth is getting uncovered by the ‘block-head’ Maoists, Trinamool chieftain Mamata Banerjee has promptly distanced herself and her party from the Lalgarh movement. Impatient to ‘portray a statesman-like attitude’, she has worriedly responded on the issue by saying, “I don’t support that (the Lalgarh violence). It is our collective duty to maintain law and order”. She has announced that two years ago her party has ‘expelled’ Chatradhar and made a wild claim that the Maoist’s are in fact a CPM plant to prevent the growing Trinamool influence in Bengal. “Buddhadev himself is the Maoist” was her reply to the CPI(M) allegation! (For a recent update on the Trinamool-Maoists nexus, see Maoist leader names TMC, Mahashweta as allies)

In Lalgarh, the Maoists have again made it clear why they are no different than any terrorist group. But till they were working covertly under the PCPA banner, their linkage with the PCPA could not be believably proved by the administration. It was easy for the Maoist backers to romanticize the Lalgarh movement in every possible way and candidly support the movement through sympathy soaked media coverage and armament-logistic-legal-financial helps. But by coming out in the open to face the media and announcing their leadership role in Nandigram and Lalgarh, the Maoist leaders have placed them on the horns of a dilemma. The avid sympathizers are showing signs of frustration that the consequences of this ‘stupid’ revelation of ‘hegemonic power’ can derail their well crafted plans. Now, when the truth about Maoists presence in Lalgarh cannot be dismissed anymore, a section of the sympathizers are trying their best to project the Lalgarh violence as a result of the growing discordance between the Maoist central leadership and ‘grassroots Maoists’ and harshly criticized the Maoist leadership as a ‘threat to the various democratic mass movements’. (Source) Their prime concern now is to justify that the Lalgarh movement is basically a ‘non-violent struggles of the people against unjust development policies in the state’ that is suddenly hijacked by the ‘self styled warriors against the state’. Can we humbly ask the ‘democratic mass movement’ propagators why they have waited so long to raise their voice to oppose the Maoists role in the Lalgarh resistance? Following the same logic, will they then condemn the so called Nandigram resistance also?

There is another section that is continuing to shield the Maoists by saying, “…the Maoists are rightly concerned about the objective historical necessity of the moment. This has prompted them to boycott elections and more ruinously adopt the exclusive path of protracted war. It is true that Maoists do not necessarily enjoy staying underground, and it is the brutality of the state that initially forced them into the forests.” (Source) Off course, this dogmatic section does not face any dilemma. Through their intellectual jargon and twisted facts, they are keen to establish that the mindless violence in Lalgarh was “…a spontaneous outburst of popular anger which has resulted in the torching of a CPI(M) party office.” (Source) They have condemned sending in paramilitary forces into the area and guaranteed continual support to the ‘historic in form and content’ movement in ‘every possible way’. They are supporters of mindless killings and completely blinded by the concept of armed uprising.

It is just a matter of days before the state and central joint forces will flush out the Maoists from Lalgarh. The real test for the state government will start from here. Instead of banning the Maoists, confronting them through political and administrative means seems to be the right solution. The government has to address the genuine grievances of the extremely poor and underprivileged section of the region with a compassionate determination. They must also remain extremely alert about the evil designs that will continue to proliferate in the coming days.

Image Courtesy: hindu.com, ndtv.com

Cyclone Aila, its aftermath and a biased discussion about an ‘unbiased’ media

Sitting distanced from Bengal and following the sui generis coverage of the Cyclone Aila after effects in the Bengali TV channels is a fascinating experience. The tragic incidence has emerged as the prime media story of the moment, promptly filling the void created by the just concluded Lok Sabha polls. The cyclone that hit the Bengal coast on Monday, 25th of May has left a massive trail of destruction in different parts of the state. The scale of destruction and the suffering of the effected people were unprecedented. As per official reports, 137 people have lost their lives in the catastrophe. Nearly two lakh others were left homeless. While the worst hit districts were South and North 24-Paraganas in South Bengal, Cyclone Aila has also left its disastrous impact in the North Bengal districts particularly in Darjeeling Hills where at least 28 people have lost their lives. In Kolkata, three people were killed when huge trees fell on buses, cars and auto-rickshaws, roads were blocked, many electric poles were keeled over snapping overhead wires. In several parts of the city, power and water supply were severely disrupted.

The days after

In the Sunderbans delta zone, gigantic waves caused by the cyclone have destroyed around 400 kilometers of embankments in Sagar, Pathapratima, Basanti, Gosaba, Sandeshkhali and Hingalgunj, flooding hundreds of the villages. 54 major and smaller islands and the lives of over 40 lakh of its inhabitants were severely affected in these areas. The floods has razed or damaged countless houses, washed away seeds and killed the livestock. Brackish water entering farmlands has ruined crops and wiped out all stocks of freshwater fish and shrimp. Village after village lay submerged. Affected people are living with acute shortage of drinking water, food and shelter. Fears of an outbreak of waterborne enteric diseases loomed large as rotten carcasses of farm animals were floating in the surrounding rivers and creeks. According to experts, Sunderbans has never been hit by such a destructive storm in the last three decades.

The world's largest independent conservation organization World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) was working in Mousuni Island of the Sunderbans for quite some time in partnership with WWF (Netherlands), Hewlett Packard and GTZ to increase the adaptive capacities of the inhabitants from cyclones and tidal surges. By taking up climate adaptation strategies and infrastructural facilities to protect the island's inhabitants, WWF (India) had also set up a Climate Adaptation Centre here, with an electronic Early Warning System to warn villagers of oncoming disasters. Cyclone Aila’s wrath has washed away the entire work done by WWF (India) in Mousuni.

Apart from the human tragedy, the cyclone and subsequent floods has badly affected the mangrove forests of Sunderbans and presumably caused a sizable damage to its animal life by sweeping away a large number of highly endangered Bengal tigers, crocodiles, wild boars and spotted deer. It will take several weeks to assess the actual extent of the damage only after the water level recedes from the area. Alarm bells are ringed by environmental activist groups. A Greenpeace spokesperson has expressed caution that “the destruction caused by Aila was in consonance with the predictions made by scientists, who had warned that storms would become more frequent and more damaging due to climate change.” The spokesperson has also said that, “…domestically, India must take ambitious action to curtail emissions of carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas which is causing climate change), by adopting mandatory, ambitious energy efficiency and renewable energy targets, and creating fiscal incentives for the same”. (Source)

The response

The Bengal government’s response to the cyclone devastation was gradual. To gear up the relief and rehabilitation work, chief minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee immediately deployed five ministers in the affected areas. Relief operations delayed to start as local communication systems were found to be paralyzed and many areas inaccessible by the impact of the cyclone. The army and Border Security Force personals were called in for carrying out rescue operations and air dropping of food packets in the inaccessible terrains. The government set up over 100 relief camps to temporarily shelter 50,000 effected people. While at the ground level rescue and relief efforts gradually gathered its momentum, it was almost inevitable that there will be administrative shortcomings in reaching adequate relief to certain remote areas as the scale of the disaster was massive and the numbers of victims were countless. The administrative loopholes in relief distribution remained a matter of grave concern to the government and have swelled harsh criticism from different quarters. Even as the state finance ministry sanctioned 61 crore rupees for relief operations, the funds available with the state government were grossly inadequate to cope up with the situation. Stressing the need for a centre-state joint effort to tackle the damage, the state government has urged for 1,000 crore rupees central assistance from the Natural Calamity Contingency Fund and also has demanded for declaring the disaster as a national calamity. The chief minister has also appealed to all political parties to rise above narrow politics and work hand in hand to provide relief to the distressed people.

But where the main opposition party is Trinamool Congress and the main opposition leader is no other but the ‘famous lady’, the country’s newly appointed Railway minister, the lofty call was expected to fall on deaf ears. How can her party work along with the CPI(M), the obnoxious ‘Stalinist’ party she had recently thrashed in the polls and won 19 parliament seats from the state? And who’s Buddhadev Bhattacharjee anyway? Didn’t the poll verdict confirm that the people have wholeheartedly supported her adamant approach of going up against everything the present government does? Eyeing the 2011 assembly polls, she has immediately tapped the popular grievances to blast off the state government for ‘nonexistence’ of any disaster management system throughout the 32 years of ‘misrule’. As if elsewhere in India, disaster management systems are working splendidly. She seemed, or pretended, to be unaware that the term Disaster Management System was introduced into the country’s administrative terminology barely seventeen years ago; fifteen years after Left Front came to power in Bengal.

Alleging the state government for careless utilization of central funds, she has demanded that the centre should not assist the Bengal government in relief and rehabilitation. On the pretext that no relief was reaching the affected people, she floated her alternative ‘PM to DM’ proposal: central relief should be directly handed over to the Panchayats bypassing the state government. As the Panchayats in most of the affected areas of South Bengal are advantageously under Trinamool’s control, the raison d'être behind her alternative proposal was targeted to reap maximum political advantage through relief distribution. Quite naturally she was upset when central finance minister Pranab Mukherjee met Buddhadev Bhattacharjee to discuss on the cyclone relief issue. As her alternative proposal was annulled by the central ministry, her party leaders and workers remained by and large aloof from any relief work. Instead, local Trinamool leaders were more interested and active to create obstacles in the ongoing relief and rehabilitation work and together with the friendly journalists were busy plotting effective plans to disrepute the government. Only after relief materials reached the affected areas from the Railway ministry, Trinamool leaders have jumped into their business.

The ugly media circus

Cyclone Aila has once again uncovered the ruthless anti-CPI(M) face of the mainstream media establishment in general, and the Anandabazar Patrika group (ABP) in particular. Setting a new low in journalistic sensationalism, the ABP group reporters are full of activity to spread disinformation based on half-truth evidences, primarily targeted against Buddhadev Bhattacharjee and his party. The carefully manufactured news items were selective in nature but regardless of validity, were supported by facts that cannot be easily separated from the fabrications and were presented in a ‘hit and run’ way – by making a brief attack and then dashing off from it without answering the subsequent response. To associate disinformation with authority and point up its trustworthiness, the news channels continuously ‘inventing’ exciting news and presenting them through the lingo of their own ‘experts’. Star Ananda, the ABP group’s ‘unbiased’ 24 hour news channel is an undisputed leader in this aspect. Brushing aside all journalistic ethics (if such a thing really exists), the channel has even started name calling and ridiculing rival news channel 24 Ghanta which do not follow their prescribed line of reporting. After all, 24 Ghanta is the ‘CPM’s channel’ stupid!

During Buddhadev Bhattacharjee’s visit in Aila hit Basanti, ABP group journalists had manufactured the sensational ‘imprisonment’ story. A group of local relief distribution workers were shown as ‘forcibly caged’ into a shed ‘against their wish’ for nearly two hours by overactive police and administration who had considered them as a ‘threat to Mr. Bhattacharjee’s safety’. An editorial in ABP group’s English daily The Telegraph had further articulated that the actual reason behind the imprisonment was to prevent them from “…confronting Mr. Bhattacharjee with their version of the truth of how relief operations were being mishandled in the area.” (Source) Star Ananda made it a major piece, uninterruptedly telecasted the ‘cage’ image for hours and promptly arranged a lengthy discussion on the topic. Surprisingly, the ‘cage’ was so tightly locked and guarded that the channel’s cameramen were allowed to enter inside and shoot this sensational footage of captivity for the viewers!

When the chief minister visited the cyclone effected Hingalgunj of North 24 Paraganas, he had to face ‘the wrath of the victims’ who had also ‘heckled and jeered’ him for inadequate supply of relief. The ‘hungry and angry cyclone victims’ shouted at the chief minister, “You are an inefficient chief minister. You deserve a garland of shoes. What have you done for the development of the Sunderbans in the last five years?” The angry ‘villagers’ asked the chief minister during an interactive session why a poor country like Bangladesh can build concrete embankments and the state government had failed to do so despite enjoying uninterrupted power for more than three decades. What the ‘angry villagers’ didn’t know was that ‘concrete embankments’ had feebly failed to protect Bangladesh from the devastating wrath of Aila. In fact, the condition of the Bangladesh Aila victims was so bad that Heather Blackwell, the NGO group Oxfam's Bangladesh representative called it a ‘humanitarian crisis’.

The ‘furious cyclone victims’ then heckled and abused the 75 years old local CPI(M) legislator Gopal Gayen at the Madanmohan Vidyapith relief camp and smeared his face with mud. The next day, the mud spattered face of the legislator was published in newspapers all over the country decorated by an incredible caption: ‘How does it feel?’ Not a single line were published anywhere by the worshippers of democracy condemning the attack on a senior legislator whose own house, situated in one of the worst affected areas was lying submerged for days. (Source)

Inspired by their homemade propaganda, a columnist of The Telegraph wrote, “The people were angry with not just the administration’s rather casual response to the human suffering, but also with the long years of official indifference to their plight.” (Emphasis added) The columnist continued, “Such anger erupting in the Sunderbans and in the chief minister’s presence can only mean how it is extending beyond ideological or partisan confines.” (Emphasis added) The columnist finally delivers his real message, “But the change in Bengal is noticeable…Bhattacharjee and the CPM are now less popular with the rural masses…” (Emphasis added) (Source) Buddhadev Bhattacharjee’s visit was termed by Star Ananda as a ‘VIP Picnic’. The media brotherhood roared in accordance: if the security of a chief minister becomes more important than relief distribution, if distribution workers are kept caged, then there is no need for the chief minister to visit the affected areas. Let him sit home. His visits are hindering the relief process. Amazingly, enlightenment struck the ABP group to raise the ‘VIP Picnic’ issue only after the ‘famous lady’ and three Trinamool central ministers had finished their respective visits to the cyclone hit areas. When the ‘conscience keeper’ Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi later visited the humble victims of Sandeshkhali, the same media reported about an ‘altogether different public mood’. Cyclone victims who has lost all that they possessed gave the Bengal Governor a ‘warm welcome’, little girls strewed flower petals before him. A shaken Governor was seen to amiably ask a woman in tears ‘if the child in her lap had eaten’. The reporting has turned Sandeshkhali into an almost surreal land, inhabited by surreal people who in the midst of agony can magnanimously strew flowers on their illustrious guest!

There is an alternative version of this rousing incident that came from Ganashakti, the CPI(M) mouthpiece. (Source: June 4, 2009 Issue) According to Ganashakti, the basic plan to heckle the chief minister was hatched by the ABP reporters. Blessed by their management, the reporters joined with local Trinamool leaders in a neighborhood club ‘Tarun Sangha’ in the early hours of that eventful day and fine-tuned their plan. Hingalgunj became their perfect executing ground as the area is considered to be a Trinamool Congress stronghold. The Trinamool leaders were taught how to stage a ‘media friendly’ demonstration in front of the chief minister, in the crudest way possible, involving women armed with brooms and shoes. The news and images will then be publicized as ‘public fury against the chief minister’. The Trinamool leaders perfectly acted according to the ABP authored script and helped to manufacture the breaking news: ‘Struck by Aila, survivors jeer Buddha, call him inefficient CM’.

The CPI(M) mouthpiece’s version could have been easily dismissed as a cliché CPM style defense under severe media criticism. But this time the daily has struck directly to produce an authoritative proof to support their claim. Ganashakti published an image of the chief minister’s interactive session in the Madanmohan Vidyapith relief camp and convincingly identified five ‘cyclone victim villagers’ – all of them were local Trinamool leaders. Throughout the incident, this gang of five was the most invective protesters who had flung ‘hard questions’ before the chief minister. None of them were cyclone victims; none of them were living in relief camp, none of them were hungry. The attack on CPI(M) legislator Gopal Gayen was also perpetrated by the same group. But no matter what evidence or logical arguments are offered, it is CPM manufactured news after all. A piece of news is considered 'credible' only when it appears in the ‘unbiased’ media.

Why the ABP group has gone berserk to involve itself into such a depraved act? In their own words, the initiative was undertaken to ‘provoke a widespread eruption of popular rage’ against the ‘impotent’ state government administration. (Source) The key intention behind this media circus was to act as proxy to the ‘famous lady’ who was away from the epicenter to attend her ministerial obligations in New Delhi. While the Trinamool chieftain and her henchmen were too busy celebrating their portfolios, their media friends has taken up the task to counteract the positive impact of the chief minister’s visit by any means. It was therefore their moral obligation to establish that the chief minister was sternly discarded by the cyclone affected people. They have realized that this out of the blue situation has provided them a wonderful chance to intensely exploit public resentment against the ruling Left Front and the CPI(M). Systematically they are trying to build-up an atmosphere of discontent and sustain it till 2011, for the final assault. Beating the Stalinists in Bengal is no more a pipedream. In any case, the Stalinists are in the verge of losing their power and the glory!

A concealed truth

The all out media surge against the Left, particularly against the CPI(M) obviously lead to the suspicion that the media might be working hand in glove for a much greater plan designed by their imperialist bosses. Remember the former US Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker’s testimony about how the Central Intelligence Agency had carried out a clandestine operation to topple the democratically elected Communist government in Kerala? Howard B Schaffer, the author of Bunker’s biography Ellsworth Bunker: Global Troubleshooter, Vietnam Hawk, has disclosed in the book that, “…the election results rang alarm bells in Washington. This apparently involved agency funding for political demonstrations organized by the Congress party and other opposition groups that were designed to create a law and order situation.” Sounds familiar? Former US ambassador to India Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s autobiography A Dangerous Place has further revealed how agency funds were poured in to help the Congress Party in Kerala and Bengal to cut off the communists who were clear favorites in the elections.

Successive US governments have a long history of extensively using the CIA to interfere in the internal political matters of various countries if considered detrimental to the US interests. Do we have to believe that the continuous eruptions of mayhem, lawlessness and violence in Bengal are spontaneous events? In the current global state of affairs, it is impossible for the US to remain impassive about a strategically important country like India. Only a stupid will believe that the US has signed the Indo-US nuclear deal to solve India’s power crisis! In their notorious intelligence game, one of the most efficient devices is the journalists who can serve the US interests under an institutional cover – the Fourth Estate.

Former Washington Post reporter, the legendary Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein had exposed in his Rolling Stone cover story ‘The CIA and the Media’ how journalists had secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency. Bernstein wrote, “Journalists provided a full range of clandestine services – from simple intelligence gathering to serving as go‑betweens with spies in Communist countries. Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters … who found that their association with the Agency helped their work… and, the smallest category, full‑time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad. In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America’s leading news organizations.” (Source)

Do the journalists go on working for the CIA on their own? According to Bernstein, “…contrary to the notion that the CIA insidiously infiltrated the journalistic community, there is ample evidence that America’s leading publishers and news executives allowed themselves and their organizations to become handmaidens to the intelligence services.” What about the ‘opinion maker’ columnists? Bernstein writes, “…a dozen well known columnists and broadcast commentators whose relationships with the CIA go far beyond those normally maintained between reporters and their sources. They are referred to at the Agency as ‘known assets’ and can be counted on to perform a variety of undercover tasks.”

Bernstein continues, “In the field, journalists were used to help recruit and handle foreigners as agents; to acquire and evaluate information, and to plant false information with officials of foreign governments.” Bernstein further elaborates, “…During the past twenty-five years, the Agency has secretly bankrolled numerous foreign press services, periodicals and newspapers – both English and foreign language – which provided excellent cover for CIA operatives.” (Emphasis added) The CIA is believed to have directly owned of subsidized “…more than fifty newspapers, news services, radio stations, periodicals and other communications facilities, most of them overseas. These were used for propaganda efforts, or even as cover for operations. Another dozen foreign news organizations were infiltrated by paid CIA agents.”

However, in response to public disclosure of CIA’s use of journalists in undercover operations, the agency has scaled down the program but continued “to ‘welcome’ the voluntary, unpaid cooperation of journalists”.

Daniel Brandt, founder of NameBase, the web-based cross-indexed database of names that focuses on individuals involved in the international intelligence community once asked, “How can one distinguish between news and propaganda when the overlaps and interlocks are so pervasive?” According to Brandt, “…the collapse of socialism and the centralization of domestic and transnational media, suggest that the CIA now has everything well in hand”

We wrap up the section with a wise Daniel Brandt comment: “…the larger problem is that the media is owned by the ruling class. With the increased media centralization of the last twenty years, their lock on the masses is now so complete that when they maintain an appearance of objectivity, it's only out of habit.” (Source)

Disaster Management: the Indian way

Any policy is best judged by how well it is implemented on ground. The Government of India had incepted the Natural Disaster Management Program (NDMP) in 1992-93 following the devastating Latur earthquake to suggest a long-term strategy for managing natural disasters in the country. As a guideline the NDMP had also provided a long list of necessary institutional and legislative measures for the national, state and district levels to follow. In 1999, soon after the devastating cyclone in Orissa, another high powered committee on disaster management plans was constituted to prepare a comprehensive model for management of disasters. But the 2001 Gujarat earthquake has brought out in open several inadequacies in the country’s disaster management system. The 2004 tsunami catastrophe has proved again that the system in fact does not exist beyond the government files. As a consequence of the tsunami, on 11 January 2005, another high power committee was constituted by the central government to draft the Disaster Management Bill to start a multi dimensional endeavour involving various scientific, engineering and social processes. The draft bill became the National Disaster Management Act after being passed by Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and signed by the President of India on 23 December 2005. The Cabinet Committee on Management of Natural calamities and The National Disaster Response force was constituted on the same year. The 2008 Kosi floods in Bihar once more exposed the serious weaknesses in the government machinery and confirmed that disaster management system in India has turned into a disaster by itself. Neither the central nor the state governments have any clue on how the system is supposed to work.

Disaster Management Programs require multi-disciplinary and pro-active approach involving a number of departments and agencies spanning across all sectors. After every disaster strikes, limitations of the government machinery, its top-down approach and lack of determination to mitigate the impact of natural calamities comes into open. Our governments have learned little from experiences of the past disasters. Neither have they realized that costs of disaster mitigation are far more economical than spending crores on relief and rehabilitation.

Conclusion

It is beyond any doubt that in a natural disaster of extreme magnitude, where properties and lives of countless people are devastated, anger against the government administration is nothing unusual. If the Aila affected people in Bengal are demonstrating their anger against the authorities, they have enough reasons to do so. But it is also true that in a country like India, timely and evenly supplying relief material to each and every effected area or person is virtually impossible. Even a utopian administration cannot succeed in this task. There will be certain places where supply of relief will fall short to satisfy the real need. Therefore it is quite easy to find out stories of anger, frustration and deprivation in a situation like this. We are not saying this to cover up some of the genuine administrative lapses of the Bengal government’s but trying to view the situation from a realistic point of view. The point is – what are then the alternatives? Running a parallel administration while ignoring a democratically elected government? Purposefully defaming a sincere and concerned chief minister by questioning his motives and blowing the opposition leader out of proportion? Bringing out cliché allegations based on minor matter or element of the facts, focusing on side issues and fabricating them to an absurd level? Claiming every effort of the Bengal government as irrelevant and demanding for the impossible? Insisting on immediate disaster management solutions in a country where political cynicism, bureaucratic lassitude and corruption formidably rule the roost?

None of the above alternatives have any ability to bring smile on the face of the Cyclone Aila victims. It can only reinforce the farce of Indian democracy once more. Judicious preventive measures with community initiatives are the real answer to the problem, not the post-disaster relief and rehabilitation.

Image Courtesy:
daylife.com, westbengalnews.blogspot.com