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The party's over
The CPI(M)'s stance on Nandigram exposes its arrogance and
ineptitude
Ashok Mitra
TILL DEATH I would remain guilty to my conscience if I keep mum
about the happenings of the last two weeks in West Bengal over
Nandigram. One gets torn by pain too. Those against whom I am
speaking have been my comrades at some point of time. The party,
whose leadership they are adorning, has been the centre of my dreams
and works for the last 60 years.
Let me start with the Governor. Those who remember Anantaprasad
Sharma or T.V. Rajeshwar would admit that it's a great fortune of
this state and the government that they have someone as gentle,
well-mannered, sympathetic, modest and erudite as Gopalkrishna
Gandhi as Governor. Let me also add that he had consented to the
post because of the interest shown by the central leadership of the
CPI(M). What has been his fault that the ruling party is so
determined to declare him as its enemy? It is being said that the
Governor has termed the return of those who were forced flee
Nandigram to take shelter in Khejuri as illegitimate and
unpardonable. This is nothing but a travesty of truth. He has not
done so. He has condemned, in no uncertain terms, the way in which
they have been brought back.
By now the machinations that went on behind the return is known to
the world. The government had enough scope to rehabilitate these
devastated people in their own homes through political mediation or
administrative arrangements during the last 11 months. The attempts
through unilateral threats, police action and indiscriminate firing
had a tragic end. But there were still many avenues left to be
explored. The government could have announced compensation for the
family of the dead and injured after the idiotic incident of firing.
Promises could have been made to take action against the police
officers and personnel involved in the crime. Days passed, the
government did nothing.
The senior-most political leader of the state and the country had to
take the initiative to call up Mamata Banerjee, sit and discuss with
her a few conditions for resolution. The government was intimated
about them but did not proceed. On the
 initiative of senior Forward
Bloc leader Ashok Ghosh, an all-party meeting was convened. That
also got stalled due to the indirect pressure from the ruling party.
Meanwhile, as was inevitable, Opposition parties started using the
unstable situation of Nandigram to their own advantage. The flame of
tension was kept burning by a variety of organisations of different
colours and class. The whining one hears from the ruling party over
this has no rationale whatsoever. The responsibility of unspoken
suffering of those who spent 11 months as homeless rests squarely on
the shoulders of the government.
It is better to look further into the past. Nandigram was not after
all the ‘first blood'. The Singur episode had happened before that.
The government does not like nationalised industries; they want to
set up private industries in the state. Hence, there are promises to
acquire land on behalf of the national, international capitalists.
Since there was declaration of industrialisation in the election
manifesto, and since they have won 235 seats, it was assumed that
there was no need for preparations. All of a sudden, peasants were
told: leave the land, the masters would set up industries here. If
it had learned very little from the protests, clashes and the
blood-letting at Singur, the government would have been more careful
in Nandigram. But that was not to be, it remained as arrogant as
ever. Even the top leaders of the ruling party have been saying
there was no existence of Opposition parties in Nandigram. The
government itself provided them with the opportunity to grow. The
loyal followers of the ruling party declared revolt and those who
were not with them were driven out. The onus of this rests on the
government as well.
For 11 months, complete silence and inactivity were carefully
maintained. No political or administrative alternative was explored.
Suddenly, a new plot was hatched. As has been repeatedly admitted by
the Bengal Home Secretary, the police was instructed to remain
inactive. Mercenaries were collected from across the state. Workers
of the ruling party encircled Nandigram from all directions. Birds,
bees, flies, journalists - no one was given the permission to
penetrate the blockade.
And then the light brigade of the ruling party charged in, beat the
wayward militants of Nandigram to a pulp and into submission. Those
who had fled returned. However, the moment of their return saw a
parallel and opposite incident. Houses were torched anew; those who
were inside Nandigram were butchered in a massive celebration of
revenge. At present, the Nandigram sky is reverberating with screams
of the recent batch of refugees.
The problem does not involve Singur and Nandigram alone. It is much
more deep and serious. The repetition of mistakes has become a
habit. Just consider this for a minute: it has only been a year-anda-half
since the Left Front has won a massive mandate. And what examples of
 arrogance and stupidity during this brief span. Come what may, we
shall have control over every nook and corner of the state. The
cricket board will get its chief elected by our dictates. If our
candidate loses, we would say, "Evil power has won, we will chase
him out." We are an all-knowing government: from cricket, poetry,
theatre, films to the magic of land acquisition - we know
everything. Neither should anyone lecture us on the pros and cons of
the nuclear deal, for we have won 235 seats. Jyoti Basu won more
seats in 1987 but he was never heard to mouth such hubris.
Not only hubris, ineptitude also. Decades have passed shouting
hoarse about universal education, and still Bengal is behind so many
states. Money is flowing in from the Centre for employment
generation schemes, there is zero administrative initiative. The
hungry and the unemployed go hungry and unemployed. The Centre has
arranged for wheat and rice. These are not even lifted so that they
could be sent to the middle and lower classes through the public
distribution system.
One can borrow S.D. Burman's song to describe what the CPI(M) was in
the state a few decades ago: "You are not what you were." Ninety per
cent of the party members have joined after 1977, 70 per cent after
1991. They do not know the history of sacrifices of the party. To
them ideological commitment to revolution and socialism is simply a
fading folktale. As the new ideology is development, many of them
associated with the party are in the search for personal
development. They have come to take, not to give. One efficient way
to bag privileges is to flatter the masters. The party has turned
into a wide open field of flatterers and court jesters. Moreover,
there has been a rising dominance of ‘anti-socials'. For different
reasons, every political party has to lend patronage to
‘anti-socials', they remain in the background and are called into
duty at urgent times. In the 1970s, these anti-socials had reached
the top rung of the state Congress. I fear the same fate is awaiting
the communist party.
I feel sorry for Jyoti Basu. Of the four ministerial colleagues who
took the oath as members of the first Left Front government with him
on June 21, 1977, only I am still alive. His current state like
imprisoned Shah Jahan - saddens me deeply. But my real concern lies
elsewhere. Mamata Banerjee is the safest insurance for the current
ruling party. Urban and rural masses may have become discontented
with the Left Front, but whenever they imagine Banerjee's ascent to
power, the sheer terror of that possibility has made them vote for
the Left Front. But if it comes to a situation that the hubris and
ineptitude of leaders of the Left Front government frustrate them so
much that they begin to think there is no difference really, it's
all tweedledum and tweedledee, that will be a real disaster.
Ashok Mitra is a former Finance Minister of West Bengal and a former
Rajya Sabha member. This is an edited extract of the article that
appeared in Anandabazar Patrika on November 14.
(Courtesy Hindustan Times)
21 November, 2007
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