In recent elections the CPI(M) was trounced soundly all over West Bengal because of its corruption and cruelty. The State is run not by the government, but by the Party. Everything that one can expect as normal rights of citizens have to be paid for either by cash to party stalwarts or by grovelling loyalty to the Party. In rural areas whatever funds have come for development --- whether it is for tribals or National Employment schemes --- are either unutilized or stolen by Party leaders; the poor can only watch as the leaders build palaces at their expense. In any government job neither competency nor honesty is a factor; only how much one can help the Party. To speak up against the activities of Party leaders is to jeopardize one's job and health.  Consequently whether in industry, education, law and order or in health West Bengal has slid to the bottom of any development index. The main job of the police force of course is not to catch criminals but to cover up misdeeds of Party members and to harass people who have spoken out against the Party.  Election rigging is routine, with bombs hurled at voters and leaders boasting "we will shed rivers of blood". Only someone who has lived in such an atmosphere can ever understand the soul-sapping horror of it.  And even at that this is only the little things, the daily grind that all who live here face (except of course those who cater to the ruling powers).

This does not even touch on the sheer physical violence inflicted on anyone who is perceived to be against the dictates of Alimuddin Street.  After the elections, CPI(M) supporters and leaders are being beaten up and the their houses ransacked and destroyed, but who taught it to them first? The pogroms at  Singur and Nandigram are only tips of the ice-berg. In the past to be a Trinommool activist or even worse a candidate  was to invite a death sentence. Villagers who supported Trinomool were routinely thrashed,  their houses destroyed, their crops set on fire. Household utensils would be destroyed.  Neither were relatives spared --- elderly parents, wives, children would be violently attacked and wounded. Sometimes they would be stabbed or burnt to death.  Thousands of Congress and Trinomool supporters have not stepped foot in their villages for months and even years, some returning only after swearing that they are now CPI(M) members. Active supporters and candidates of Trinomool were often outright murdered or gruesomely injured so that they and others would not think of defying the Party again. Rape of course is another favourite weapon (including of Muslim women, but since leftists supporters are not ‘communal' no great outcry is raised). Through all these police were silent spectators or active collaborators. The police very often act like invaders pillaging and striking people as they please --- that is why Maoists got so much support in boycotting the police in the first place. A voter who voted for Trinommol had his hand chopped off for the offence in broad daylight before other people.  Another Trinomool activist had both his legs amputated. Yet another had his eyes gouged out.  During the recent elections, a well-known Trinomool activist who had fled from his home but returned to vote had his throat slashed as he stood in voting line. And these are only the high-lights that we in the cities have come to know of. That is democracy under CPI(M), that is the ‘rule of law' that the national media is so concerned to preserve,  in West Bengal. "After such knowledge, what forgiveness?" The ordinary people simply could not bear it any longer and the threat of having their land stolen for private profit was the last straw.  This vote was not for Trinomool so much as against CPI(M).  Despite CPI (M) efforts, neither caste, nor class, nor religion prevented voters from showing an united front.  The so called Marxist Party forgot the most important rallying cry of Marx --- "you have nothing to lose but your chains".  For the masses there is nothing more to lose; and so they voted, gambling their lives because life like this is not worth living.

Nowadays, after their debacle the CPI (M) is trying to step up the terror; the only difference is that this time Trinomool supporters are answering violence with equally savage violence.  CPI (M) leaders and supporters are beaten up and many Party leaders have fled their villages in fear.  Not only that, in many places it is not even the Trinomool who are committing violence or harassing Party leaders; many such actions are done by the local people striking back after years of torture.  Pulling down houses of Party Leaders built with stolen funds is also another popular past time now. It is not just the Maoists who are doing this (though some of them were definitely present in many cases), though national media would like to pretend otherwise. That is the gist of present CPI (M) angst --- instead of them committing violence (which is the natural order!), people are committing violence against them. I would like to say that such retaliatory violence is evil and should stop --- but what right do I have lecture a mother whose son's eyes have been gouged out,   a son whose father can only drag himself along the road because his spine had been shattered , when I could not protect them?

Last update : 04-08-2009 19:19

Keywords : Why Maoists Instead of CPI (M) Misrule?, Dr. Papia Mitra

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