West Bengal not Shining
Communism has its uses. But like all failed ideologies, you can’t take it too far. This happens eventually. One of the best analyses on Nandigram I’ve come across. Read till the final full stop.
What Karat SEZ
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Buddha proposes, party disposes
The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) has formally stated that there will be no Special Economic Zone (SEZ) at Nandigram. In fact, it has even emphasised that farmers’ land will not be allowed to be acquired for industrial projects.
It is not difficult to posit why the CPI(M) has had a sudden change of heart as far as Nandigram is concerned; this West Bengal hamlet has been greatly agitated by the proposal. Since January 2, when the farmers of the State’s southern district rose in unison against a local Marxist boss’s directive ordering them to surrender their lands to facilitate an Indonesian firm’s chemicals hub project, at least 15 people, including a police officer, have been killed. Groups of armed men are openly moving about on motorcycles, stalking their less-affluent opponents on foot carrying sharp agricultural weapons, their faces covered with red cloth to avoid detection. The Trinamool Congress and its partners in the Krishi Jameen Bachao Committee have little to do with the turn of events. Their presence in the district is hardly of the level of the CPI(M). Besides, the political reality of rural West Bengal militates against the two-party system - so absolute is the Communists’ stranglehold in the countryside. The killers and those killed both belong to the CPI(M). The motorcycle riders are beneficiaries of the land scam going on in West Bengal, while the foot soldiers are bargadars, or the forgotten loyalists of the party who were originally seduced by the pro-poor jargon of the Communists. The latter is not a victim of cruel irony. In the 1970s through the 1980s, it was this class that had acted as the Communist regime’s stormtroopers and evicted thousands of landowners, spilling much blood in the process. Two decades later, the theoretical context has altered dramatically. CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat’s concern that the clashes in and around Nandigram would cause a permanent divide in the party is perhaps justified. The decision, therefore, to suspend the SEZ plan has been forced by realpolitik, as much as by the Union Government’s proposal to re-evaluate SEZs as a concept.
However, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee seems to lack his general secretary’s sagacity. He continues to hardsell his version of Mao’s ‘Great Leap Forward’. But he fails to see that his vehicle for shilpayan (industrialisation) lacks wheels. If there is a single message going out to the community of investors through the political smoke billowing out of Nandigram, it is this: Trust Mr Bhattacharjee at your own peril. It is hardly surprising that he is being given the short shrift by his party. He gained the adulation of the media by announcing his political makeover from a fire-breathing Communist to pragmatic social democrat. But after Nandigram, when it is clear that his administrative prowess is restricted to media management and fudging records to benefit crony businessmen, the bottom has given away from shilpayan.
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Buddhadev was the main planner for TACKLING of political rivals during the tenure of Jyoti Basu. May be Congress will wake up now and ask its party cadres to provide the lsit of all killed or missing congress workers in the last 3o years. It has been the well established system in WB for settling scores with non CPM poltical opponents.
That is why he was selected as CM because he was a man who knew too much! He is ill tempered - clearly eveident by the statements he is making and arrogance seen during his interviews.
How these people can rule the state so long despite doing nothing for the betterment of people of WB? The real strength for CPM was always the system to keep opponents terrfied and eliminated. Silent booth capturing is another tactic for CPM.
Corporate Communism as evident by action of Karats and Yechuries is now certainly a good carreer option for people. It helps without responsibility, to offer two different and opposing views on every issue depending upon if it suits you! They can even go to the extent of diverting strategic border roads !!!
But the problem is that people of India will never wake up and expose the design of such scrupulous politicians.