Kerala’s slide into radical Islamism

Junking Indian identity for Arab garb!

There’s nothing surprising about the rash-like emergence of violent Islamism in Kerala. God’s Own Country, as Kerala was known for its natural splendour and cultural heritage, is rapidly turning into the springboard of jihad in India. This hasn’t happened overnight, nor has Islamism spread its tentacles over the past few months to make its presence felt in the most shocking manner: The attack on a professor for allegedly denigrating Islam has served to highlight the seeping terror unleashed by homegrown jihadis.

The rain-gorged verdant plains and hills along the lush Malabar coast are fast turning into the billious green of radical Islam. Roadside brick-and-mortar glass-fronted shrines dedicated to Virgin Mary with flickering candles lit by the devout and ancient temples with amazing hand-crafted brassware and bell metal utensils that once celebrated the Hinduness of Kerala are overshadowed by spanking new mosques that seem to be mushrooming all over the place. Not only are they built with Arab money — donations by Muslim Malayalees working in Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, add up to only a fraction of the cost — but they also symbolise the increasing influence of Arab ‘culture’, which is largely about visible manifestations of Islam and Islamism, that threatens to stamp out Kerala’s rich indigenous culture rooted in India’s civilisational past.

Huge billboards, advertising ‘Arab Pardha’ in English and Arabic, now jostle for space along with those advertising jewellery, new apartment blocks and investment schemes. The ‘Arab Pardha’ billboards are illustrated with larger than life images of women clad in head-to-toe burqas: They look shapeless and formless, their identity smothered by black fabric and their eyes barely visible through slits. “Arab Pardha”, declares one billboard, “All pious women should wear it.” The copywriter has it all wrong; it should have read, “All pious women should disappear behind it.” For, that’s what the burqa is meant for — to make women disappear, make them invisible, deny them the right to exist as individuals. Any argument to the contrary is spurious and any religious edict cited in support of this grotesque suppression of individual liberty is specious.

But there is a larger purpose behind propagating the ‘Arab Pardha', or purdah, which is insidious and frightening for those who value freedom. This is one of the many instruments adopted by Islamists to push their agenda of radicalising Muslims and imposing their worldview on others without so much as even a token resistance by either civil society or the state. The darkness of the world in which they live is now being forced on us. Decades ago Nirad C Chaudhuri was to record in his celebrated essay, The Continent of Circe, “Whenever in the streets of Delhi I see a Muslim woman in a burqa, the Islamic veil, I apostrophise her mentally: ‘Sister! you are the symbol of your community in India.’ The entire body of Muslims are under a black veil.” The Continent of Circe was first published in 1966; forty-one years later, the community wants the black veil, the ‘Arab Pardha’, to envelope ‘secular’ India.

Kerala’s ‘Arab Pardha’ billboards are a taunting reminder that in ‘secular’ India we must remain mute witness to the communalisation of culture, politics and society by peddlers of Islamism and its offensive agenda that is rooted in the most obnoxious interpretation of what Mohammed preached millennia ago. Even the economy has not been spared: Islamic banking, Islamic investments and Islamic financial instruments have surreptitiously entered this country under the benign gaze of an indulgent UPA Government whose Prime Minister spends sleepless nights agonising over the plight of Islamic terrorists and demands that all Government initiatives must be anchored in his perverse ‘Muslims first’ policy. The Prime Minister’s admirers claim he is a “sensitive person” who is easily moved by the “plight of the helpless”. Had he been moved by the pathetic sight of a Muslim woman, as much an Indian as all of us, forced to wear an ‘Arab Pardha’, his claimed sensitivities would have carried conviction. But such expression of sympathy, if not resolve to combat the insidious gameplan of Islamists inspired by hate-mongers and preachers of intolerance who draw their sustenance from the fruit of the poison tree of Wahaabism that flourishes in the sterile sands of Arabia, would demand a great degree of intellectual integrity and moral courage. The Prime Minister may be an “accidental politician”, but he is a practitioner of politics of cynicism. For that, you neither need intellectual integrity nor moral courage.

Every time there is criticism of the Islamic veil, which comes in various forms of indignity — the hijab, the niqab, the burqa, the chador — whether from within or outside the Muslim community, we hear the frayed argument: It’s a matter of personal choice; it’s an expression of religiosity; it’s culture-specific; it’s a minority community’s right, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. All that and more is balderdash, not least because there is no Quranic injunction that mandates a Muslim woman to wear an ‘Arab Pardha’. Given the nature of the community’s social hierarchy and the grip of the mullahs, rarely does a woman protest, leave alone rebel. Those who do, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somalian activist whose book The Caged Virgin provides a revealing insight into Islamism’s warped religio-political ideology, are hounded and live in perpetual fear of losing their lives. Blasphemy is not tolerated by those who live in a world darker than the darkest burqa, a world in which even Barbie wears the Islamic veil lest her plastic modesty be compromised.

But this is not only about the denial of an individual’s liberty, nor is it about the suppression of human rights in the name of faith. It is about the in-your-face declaration of Islamists that they can have their way without so much as lifting their little finger. It is a laughable sight to watch Malayalees trying to navigate crowded streets in Kochi wearing white Arab gelabayas, the loose kaftan like dress that along with the kafeyah — or ‘Arab rumal’ — has become a symbol of trans-national radical Islam, their ‘Arab Pardha’ clad wives and daughters in tow. But it is not a laughable matter.

Increasingly, we are witnessing a shifting of loyalties from Malabar to Manipur. Faith in India is being transplanted by belief in Arabia. This should alarm those who believe in the Indian nation as a secular entity.

In war on Red terror, blood shall be spilled

We should be resolute in exterminating Maoists to the last cadre. India has to win this war for the sake of liberty and democracy.

The reaction to Tuesday’s (April 6) ghastly Maoist attack on CRPF jawans deep in the densely forested Abujhmad region of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh has been predictable. There’s outrage across the country that the lives of 76 security forces personnel should have been so cruelly snuffed out. Politicians have responded with lachrymose statements; some have pretended anger at Government’s ‘flawed’ policy of using security forces as cannon fodder in the war on Red terror. Strangely, or perhaps not, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has been criticised by colleagues in the Congress for “provoking” the Maoists into striking with such ferocity. Security experts have been prompt in pointing out faultlines in the overall strategy and ground level tactics, not so subtly suggesting they could have done a better job. Sympathisers of the Left extremists, who masquerade as ‘intellectuals’, have had no compunctions about using friendly media outlets, including television channels, to slyly justify the slaughter. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has expressed “shock and grief”, which really amounts to saying nothing.
While the sense of outrage (tinged with frustration) that prevails among the people is genuine, it is doubtful whether the reaction of the political class is motivated by concern for national security. Mr Chidambaram’s colleagues in the Congress, no doubt displeased that he should have emerged as an effective Minister on whom praise is lavished frequently, have seized upon the opportunity to try and run him down. Those in the Opposition who mock at the Government do so unthinkingly. Their own track record in tackling the Maoist menace is a tale of callous indifference or, worse, shameful capitulation. The JD(U) spokesman would do well to bear in mind that Maoists have ‘liberated’ large stretches of Bihar from the civil administration where the writ of the state no longer runs. As for our security experts, it is possible that their criticism of the Government’s strategy and tactics is well-meaning, but the course of an asymmetric war cannot be predicted by the best strategists and tacticians.
Could Tuesday’s massacre have been prevented? In hindsight, the answer to this question would be, yes. If only the CRPF jawans had been more cautious, if only they had not used a vehicle in a terrain likely to have been laid with landmines, if only they had not under-estimated the firepower of the Maoists, if only they had not ventured out at that hour of dawn, if only… If ifs and buts were pots and pans, there would be no need for tinkers’ hands. Or, as another version of the proverb goes, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we would all have a Merry Christmas. The point is, ifs and buts are neither pots and pans, nor are they candy and nuts. In battling insurgency, the best laid plans can go wrong and fatalities can be high, just as collateral damage cannot be entirely ruled out.
Those who are suddenly mindful of the fact that 76 jawans have been killed should look at the statistics of Maoist violence over the past few years. In 2009, Maoist violence and encounters with security forces witnessed a spurt in casualties, and fatalities added up to a whopping 998. Among the dead were 292 Maoist cadre, 312 security forces personnel (including policemen) and 392 civilians. It would be absurd to suggest that since more security forces personnel have died than Maoists, or because civilian casualty is so high, the state is losing the war on Red terror. Insurgency driven by ideology extracts a terrible toll; if we are to win the war, we should stop counting the body bags. Excessive focus on casualties of war weakens national resolve. Maudlin sentiments have never helped anybody win a battle, leave alone a protracted war which the offensive against the Maoists is going to be: The ‘liberated zones’ won’t be liberated from Red terror overnight; it will take at least a decade to re-establish the authority of the state where Maoists now rule the roast.

This is not to suggest that the lives of our security forces are expendable, or that they can be sacrificed without any concern on the altar of belligerent extremism, but to underscore the fact that the Indian state’s success in overcoming several challenges to the nation’s unity and integrity have not been without the loss of lives — of security forces personnel, of civilians and of those waging war on the state. Public memory being notoriously short, few would recall the terrible price that had to be paid to put down insurgency in the North-East, or restore peace in Punjab. Young officers and jawans in the prime of their lives are routinely killed while fighting terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir or while preventing jihadis from crossing the Line of Control into India. If we must shed tears, we should do so for all our men in uniform who have laid down their lives for their country and their people, and steel our resolve to avenge their deaths by exterminating the practitioners of violence, no matter what the shade of their evil ideology or their purported cause.
No purpose, however, would be served if the state were to take recourse to either senseless bravado or a bull-headed response to grisly blood-letting by the Maoists, irrespective of whether the victims of their butchery are civilians or security forces. The state must move stealthily, it must strategise with absolute clarity about what it seeks to achieve, and, most important, it must adopt tactics that will enable the security forces to outmanoeuvre the insurgents at every step. There will be errors of judgement, there will be mistakes and there will be slip-ups. Those strategising and fighting the war on Red terror will have to learn from these and recalibrate their tactics accordingly.
Mr Chidambaram has rightly cautioned against any “knee-jerk reaction” to Tuesday’s savagery by the rabid ilk of Koteswara Rao and advised that “at this moment we must remain calm and hold our nerves in the fight to rid India of the grave threat of Maoists and to save democracy”. Successive strikes by the Maoists in recent months — Sildah in West Bengal where 24 jawans of the Eastern Frontier Rifles were killed; Koraput in Odisha where 11 CRPF jawans died after their vehicle hit a landmine; and, now Dantewada in Chhattisgarh — suggest the need for course correction by those strategising the war on Red terror. Once this is done, the Government must stay the course and press on till the objective of ridding India of those who wish to supplant our democracy with a totalitarian state no different from Pol Pot’s regime is achieved. Liberty comes attached with a price tag and we should be willing to pay the price, no matter how high.

[This appeared as the main article on the Edit Page of The Pioneer on April 8, 2010.]

Please see: This is war by Ajai Sahni & Ajit Kumar Singh on why there's no other option but to smash the Maobadis.

Election 2009: The Mood in West Bengal

CPM's Red Fortress Under Siege!
I have just returned to Delhi after travelling through West Bengal where I spent 10 days trying to get a sense of which way the political wind is blowing. Here are some reports that I filed for The Pioneer.

A wall painting in Howrah captures the mood in West Bengal
FRONT PAGE | Sunday, April 26, 2009 |

Left could go down to 22 seats in Bengal

Muslims, one in 3 voters, desert CPM

Kanchan Gupta | Kolkata

As people in West Bengal prepare to vote on April 30 in the first of three rounds of polling for the 15th Lok Sabha, the ruling CPI(M)-led Left Front faces what could turn out to be its worst-ever electoral performance.

According to conservative estimates cutting across party lines, the Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance could notch up an impressive tally of 14 to 17 of the 42 seats in the State. If the popular mood prevailing from north to south Bengal is any indication, the Opposition could end up winning anything between 18 and 20 seats.

Whatever the final tally, there is mounting apprehension at Alimuddin Street, where the CPI(M)’s headquarters is located, that the Marxists will suffer a setback worse than that of 1984 when the Congress won 16 seats in the election that followed Indira Gandhi’s assassination.

In that election, the Left suffered reverses in urban areas. This time, the losses are stacking up in rural constituencies. The projected losses are largely concentrated in south Bengal where the Trinamool Congress is running an aggressive campaign.

Little over a fortnight ago, the CPI(M)’s election strategists were horrified to find that the Left Front’s 2004 tally of 35 seats was at risk of being whittled down to 20 to 22 seats.

All hands were called to deck and a massive effort was launched to paper over differences within the CPI(M) and between the party and its allies in the Left Front. Simultaneously, zonal and local committees were asked to reach out to disgruntled party supporters who were toying with the idea of voting against the Left. Third, the counter-attack on the Trinamool Congress was sharpened, focusing on Mamata Banerjee's inability to come up with a positive agenda.

These steps appear to have had some impact in preventing the Left’s electoral fortunes from declining further. What has helped the CPI(M) recover some lost ground is the Trinamool’s over-emphasis on running a vitriolic campaign which includes large posters and banners that are graphically illustrated with gory visuals of charred bodies, allegedly victims of Marxist violence.

Two visuals that have been used repeatedly are those of Tapashi Mullick, who was raped and killed in Singur. The first visual shows an innocent faced teenaged girl. The second shows her half-burnt body. In a variation of this theme, some posters show four men pinning down Tapashi Mullick while a fifth man rapes her.

Such graphic depiction of violence has begun to put off people. Sensing the disquiet over the Opposition’s campaign, the CPI(M) has used all available space to publicise its ‘development agenda’ and how Mamata Banerjee is preventing the State from moving ahead. “We have a positive agenda. She is running a negative campaign,” says CPI(M) State secretary Biman Bose.

But nothing that the CPI(M) does or says at this stage will stop this poll from turning out to be the tipping point that has eluded the Opposition in West Bengal for three decades.

The push that will enable Banerjee to cross the hump which stands between victory and defeat will be provided by Bengal’s Muslims who are said to comprise 26% of the electorate but in reality could account for one in every three voters. Banerjee claims (since it suits her to do so) and most people believe (since they are

influenced by TV news) that Muslim alienation from the Marxists is on account of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s farmland-for-industry policy, which has been kept in limbo ever since the Singur disaster. But the real reason why Muslims have decided to disown the Marxists lies elsewhere.

Ironically, that reason is the revelation by the Sachar Committee, which was supported by the Left to spite the BJP, about how Muslims in West Bengal are far worse off than in any other State, including Narendra Modi’s Gujarat. Confronted with this reality, Bengal’s Muslims have begun to question the wisdom of supporting the Left.

The man who took the Sachar Committee’s revelation to the Muslim masses is Siddiqullah Chowdhury of the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind. He has put up a dozen candidates in Muslim-dominated constituencies. But that could be a red herring, meant to divert attention as the community quietly consolidates behind Banerjee. And gives her the cutting edge she needs to defeat the CPI(M) in West Bengal.

FRONT PAGE | Friday, April 24, 2009 |

Biman says decision on Congress after results

Kanchan Gupta | Kolkata

The CPI(M) will take stock of the situation after the results are announced and accordingly decide whether to extend support to the Congress all over again. “At the moment we are focussed on winning as many seats as possible, along with our allies in the ‘Third Front’, so as to form a non-Congress, non-BJP Government at the Centre,” says Biman Bose, State secretary of the CPI(M) and chairman of the Left Front. The West Bengal party boss is also a member of the all-powerful Politburo.

“It is too early to talk about extending or not extending support to the Congress. Let us wait for the results. All the predictions that are being made (about the Left losing heavily) will not tally with the results,” Bose said in an exclusive interview to The Pioneer at the party headquarters on Alimuddin Street here, taking time off from his hectic schedule.

Defying popular sentiment which is palpably weighed against the Left, especially the CPI(M), more so in semi-urban and rural areas which were once considered ‘Red fortresses’, Bose says, “This is the impression created by a section of the media. There is an effort on to reduce Left seats by resorting to any and all means. Wait for the results. I don’t think the Left will lose many seats.” Implicit in the comment is the assessment that the Left will lose some seats.

He is dismissive about Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, who has launched an all-out offensive against the CPI(M) and, by entering into an electoral alliance with the Congress, hopes that this election will prove to be the tipping point that has eluded West Bengal’s divided Opposition for three decades. “She is like a frog in the well. She cannot look beyond West Bengal. This is a parliamentary election in which people are supposed to elect a Government at the Centre. But she is running a campaign for panchayat elections,” Bose says.

As an afterthought, he adds, “Have you seen her election manifesto? There’s not a word about governing the nation. Her election theme, ‘Ma, Mati, Manush’, which she has borrowed from the title of a jatra (Bengali folk theatre), shows how limited her vision is. For us, it is Bharat Mata, the whole country from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from Cachar to Kutch. We have an agenda for national governance. She has nothing positive to say.”

Asked about the Government’s blunders, especially its handling of the sensitive land-for-industry issue and the protests in Nandigram and Singur, Bose is prompt in his response. “Yes, there may have been mistakes. But anybody who tries to do something, tries to change things the way they are, makes mistakes. If we had just sat around and done nothing, there would have been no mistakes. Wherever the people feel we have erred, I have been asking them with folded hands to forgive us. It is in Bengal’s culture to forgive those who admit their mistakes.”

The Left Front Government, he says, will continue to persist with its industrialisation policy as “there can be no progress without industry”. Will it go easy after its experience at Nandigram and Singur? “No, not at all. Minus industry West Bengal’s economy cannot develop.” He goes on to explain how products worth Rs 25,000 crore are sold in rural West Bengal alone. “Only a small fraction of these are produced in the State. We have a huge domestic market which can sustain industry,” he says, confident that the Nano’s exit will not affect investment.

The one issue on which Bose does not speak with equal enthusiasm is the Muslim vote, which, at 30 per cent (and that is a conservative estimate), has sustained the CPI(M) in election after election since it first came to power in 1977. This time, the Muslim voters are backing Mamata Banerjee; the Jamiat-i-Ulama Hind’s entry into the electoral arena with a dozen candidates in Muslim-dominated constituencies has further made the Muslim voting pattern unpredictable and unsure for the Marxists.

“I can’t say just now which way the Muslims will vote. But they are rational people and can decide for themselves which party is a better bet. Nobody can doubt the secular credentials of the Left Front as a whole,” he says. But that’s an answer which underscores the sense of uncertainty that prevails in the Left today. For all its brave words, the CPI(M)’s leaders know that the ground beneath their feet is beginning to shift. This election could come as the rudest shock to the Marxists in the past three decades, ruder than the setback they suffered in 1984.


FRONT PAGE | Thursday, April 23, 2009 |

Colourful past may haunt Mamata’s Kabir

Kanchan Gupta | Kolkata

He is a guitar-swinging wannabe Bob Dylan who took the Bengali music scene by storm in the early-1990s. He is a self-confessed agnostic who scoffs at faith in god and thinks it is an invention to divert attention from the reality around us. He believes “marriage is another form of bondage … a besetting sin” which he has committed more than once, tying the knot, by his own count, with five women. His concept of liberation focuses on “liberating the body”. He is a Bengali Brahmin from a conservative family who embraced Islam to marry a Bangladeshi singer. And, pushing 60, he is a pot-bellied ‘revolutionary’ who dresses in faded jeans and T-shirts, sports a stubble and shaves his balding head.

Meet Kabir Suman, the Trinamool Congress candidate for the prestigious Jadavpur parliamentary constituency in Kolkata. We catch up with him while he is campaigning in the lanes of Bagha Jatin, riding an open jeep with another fitted with blinding halogen lamps following him. The theme of what he says, every time he stops to address a motley crowd in the dark — there’s a power outage, the sweltering heat is oppressive — is pegged to the Trinamool slogan plastered all over Kolkata: “Krishak merey Tata prem; shame, shame CPM” (Peasant killer, Tata-lover, CPM Shame! Shame!).

Kabir Suman — no, you can’t call him either Kabir or Suman — recounts the horrors of Nandigram where the CPI(M)-led Left Front Government unleashed a reign of terror after failing to acquire land for a special economic zone to be set up by the Salem Group. He reminds people about the “mass struggle” against the Tata small car factory at Singur. He mocks at Tata Motors for turning tail and fleeing West Bengal.

“We will chase out big industry. Do you remember the old Communist slogan which the CPI(M) has forgotten? No, you are too young to remember. Let me remind you. Tata-Birla'r kaalo haath bhengey daao, guriye daao. (Break and smash the black hand of Tata and Birla). The CPI(M) has discarded that slogan, but we have adopted it,” Kabir Suman says. His audience is truly ignorant: Nobody bothers to remind him that the slogan was “Congress’er kaalo haath bhengey daao, guriye daao”.

He doesn’t use the original version for good reason: He is supported by the Congress which has entered into an electoral alliance with the Trinamool Congress. Although it is doubtful whether Sonia Gandhi, whose beaming picture adorns Kabir Suman’s election posters, is aware of the ‘free-wheeling’ lifestyle, which some would call licentious, of this radio journalist-turned-Sandinista activist-turned Marxist bard-turned-Muslim-turned-Mamata fan-turned-Trinamool candidate. In between his various personality changes, Kabir Suman has been accused of physical abuse by his now-separated German wife Maria. He survived the charges; today, Kabir Suman is eloquent in his condemnation of “atrocities against women like Tapashi Mullick by CPM goons”.

Kabir Suman lived in Germany and the US between 1975 and 1989, working for German International Radio and Voice of America. He returned home to Kolkata, claiming he had had enough of the West’s ‘materialistic life’, and set up a one-man travelling band.

He sang ballads with an earthy appeal and his first album, Tomaakey Chaai (I Want You), was an instant hit. He would often appear at CPI(M) rallies and enthral the crowds with his songs about the ‘oppressed masses’ and the ‘struggling working class’. According to one of the early stories about him, he was a Naxalite who fled India in 1975 to escape the police. Kabir Suman never denied that version; now he says he was never a Naxalite, never had the time to dabble in such nonsense.

He would often travel to Bangladesh for concerts. During one such visit, he met Bangladeshi singer, Sabina Yasmin, quite unknown at the time. This time, he also ‘liberated’ himself from his Bengali Hindu Brahmin identity and converted to Islam. Thus was Suman Chattopadhyay reborn as Kabir Suman.

He says he is still married to her, although in a recent interview to a Kolkata daily he said, “I am a polygamous man. Maybe I am still searching for love.” Sabina Yasmin remains a Bangladeshi citizen. “He is a charlatan,” says CPI(M) activist Saibal Mukherjee, “He became a Muslim to marry Sabina Yasmin. But now he is going around saying he discarded his Hindu identity to protest against the murder of Graham Staines. Chhi!”

Jadavpur is considered a high profile constituency. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee represents the Jadavpur Assembly segment. In 1984, Mamata Banerjee had defeated Somnath Chatterjee in Jadavpur on a Congress ticket, delivering a stunning blow to the CPI(M) and emerging as a leader in State politics. Since then, this constituency has swung between the CPI(M) and Trinamool Congress. Sujan Chakraborty of the CPI(M) wrested it from the Trinamool Congress in 2004; he is the party’s candidate this time too.

Mamata Banerjee obviously hopes to cash in on Kabir Suman’s ‘Muslim identity’ with the large number of Muslim voters in the constituency who could hold the key to victory in a stiff contest. After delimitation, Muslims comprise nearly 20 per cent of the voters, concentrated in Assembly segments like Bhangar and Sonarpur. The CPI(M)’s narrow lead in the 2006 Assembly election in the outlying Assembly constituencies, further depleted in last year’s panchayat polls, could work to its disadvantage. The Muslim consolidation in support of Mamata Banerjee post-Nandigram is further cause of worry in the Marxist camp.

Ironically, the CPI(M) has, in the past, used Kabir Suman to play the Muslim card. In 2002, he was the CPI(M)’s mascot at protest meetings against the Gujarat riots. The party now hopes that the conservative, Hindu middle class voters of the urban areas of Jadavpur, most of them refugees from East Pakistan and their descendents, will vote against Kabir Suman for two reasons: He has “converted to Islam to marry a Muslim”, and has a “lifestyle that would shock madhyabitta Bengalis”. A whispering campaign is on about the various scandals involving Kabir Suman.

Near Thakur Baari, Kabir Suman stops to address a cluster of curious onlookers and holds forth on why the people should reject the CPI(M) and elect him. And then brazenly adds, “I know they are spreading scandalous stories about me and my dharmantaran. But I don’t care. In Hollywood, agencies are paid by stars to spread such stories which makes them more famous. Similarly, the CPI(M) is making me more famous.” Jeeyo! shouts a lungi-clad man carrying a Trinamool Congress flag. His friend puts his fingers in his mouth and lets go a piercing whistle, the sort that used to be heard from the front stalls at first day first shows before multiplexes became the rage.


EDIT PAGE Main Article | Wednesday, April 22, 2009 |

Gurung dons his guru’s mantle

Kanchan Gupta

Darjeeling: There’s an air of quiet confidence about Mr Bimal Gurung, the president of Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha which is now spearheading the movement for a separate Gorkhaland comprising Darjeeling district and the Dooars region of West Bengal. He speaks softly, oozes humility and remembers the smallest of courtesies. If there’s anything that gives away his razor sharp mind which is constantly outguessing opponents and planning the next move on the chessboard of Gorkha politics after checkmating his erstwhile mentor Subash Ghising and chasing him out of the Darjeeling hills, it’s the Mephistophelean smile that lurks around his tightly pursed narrow lips.

It’s difficult to imagine that this nattily dressed man who, with as little as a snap of his fingers, can move mountains and men is a junior school dropout. During the mid-1980s, when Mr Ghising led a violent agitation to press his demand for a separate Gorkhaland — the hills literally burned for months as activists of the Gorkha National Liberation Front ran amok, indulging in arson and worse — Mr Gurung made a quiet entry into Gorkha politics as a trusted bodyguard of the now disgraced, discredited and disinherited leader. If Mr Gurung’s phenomenal rise and emergence as the sole spokesman of Darjeeling’s Gorkhas has stunned politicians and plebeians alike, it has left Mr Ghising, currently camping in the plains, stupefied.

After the August 22, 1988 peace accord which led to the formation of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council that the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mr Jyoti Basu, thought would serve to meet Gorkha aspirations and mollify those demanding a separate State, Mr Gurung steadily climbed the ladder of the GNLF hierarchy and came to be recognised as Mr Ghising’s most trusted lieutenant, his second-in-command. Mr Ghising was ruthless in putting down potential challengers and those who dared question his decisions, but he was more than indulgent towards Mr Gurung. The protégé responded in equal measure; for him, the master could do no wrong.

So, when the relationship turned bitter, virtually overnight, everybody was taken by surprise. This happened after Mr Ghising agreed to accept Sixth Schedule status for Darjeeling after a series of meetings with representatives of the West Bengal Government and the Union Government from which he excluded his senior party colleagues. Surprisingly, even Mr Gurung was asked to sit outside the room while Mr Ghising confabulated inside. It was after one such meeting that Mr Gurung just walked out of the GNLF and severed all ties with Mr Ghising: The protégé became the master’s foe and swore vengeance.

There’s no dearth of apocryphal stories about why Mr Gurung turned against his guru at a time when he was battling to retain his absolute control over the hills. The promised special status under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution was to serve as a placebo for those who had begun to complain about how nothing had changed in the two decades when Darjeeling’s affairs were handled by the DGHC, headed by Mr Ghising, first as an elected representative of the people and then on extended tenure by way of a political favour done by West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

But unfettered power and unrestricted access to public funds had dulled Mr Ghising’s amazingly sharp and crafty mind. For the first time he under-estimated the anger of those who once adored him and over-estimated his ability to ride the storm that followed his decision to opt for special status for Darjeeling under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. Mr Ghising suddenly found himself in an awful minority, with his senior colleagues, led by Mr Gurung, deserting him when he needed them the most.

After listening to several of the apocryphal stories about the breach between Mr Ghising and Mr Gurung, two possible reasons emerge for the separation that led to the birth of the GJMM — or Gojamumo, as it is called in the hills — in end-2007. First, non-tribals among Gorkhas, of whom there are many, were appalled by the idea of tribals becoming all powerful and the main beneficiaries in a political dispensation under the Sixth Schedule which is essentially meant to provide administrative autonomy and special privileges to tribal areas. Second, Mr Ghising had begun to marginalise Mr Gurung, fearing he was becoming a parallel power centre; he would increasingly keep him out of the loop, as he did during the talks on granting special status to Darjeeling under the Sixth Schedule.

An elderly couple in Darjeeling, who has spent the past six decades in the hills and are a treasure trove of fascinating stories that date back to the dying days of the British Raj over dinner that stretches late into the night at their dollhouse-like cottage precariously perched on the slope of a hill that overlooks Kanchenjungha, offer a third reason. Mr Ghising had begun to interfere with the religious practices, rites and rituals, of the Gorkhas, insisting that Hindus, Buddhists and Christians should give up their individual faith and embrace tribal animism. The Gorkhas, deeply religious, irrespective of their faith, were mightily offended. Among those repulsed by this forced repudiation of faith was Mr Gurung.

Whatever the real reason, Mr Gurung, upset, slighted or enraged, seized the opportunity to stage a coup and dislodge Mr Ghising at a time when his ratings had hit rock bottom, accusing him of striking deals on the sly and compromising the interests of Darjeeling. He floated his own organisation, and posited the GJMM as the real champion of the Gorkhas’ demand for separate statehood.

Mr Gurung began by organising minor protest meetings and small rallies; gradually, he co-opted the cadre of the GNLF who were tantalised by his dramatic assertions of securing a separate State for Gorkhas at any cost. His incipient insurrection soon turned into a tidal wave of popular anger that washed away all vestiges of the GNLF and Mr Ghising’s hugely corrupt and callous administration that had increasingly come to rely upon thugs to maintain its stranglehold over the region and its people.

Most of Mr Ghising’s supporters, including his party’s MLAs and corporators, have switched allegiance to Mr Gurung. Those who refused to do so have been hounded out of their home and hearth and banished from the hills. Some have fled to Nepal; others have sought shelter in Siliguri. Mr Gurung does not believe in political plurality and dissent, but since he claims to be a ‘Gandhibaadi’, he lets his militia of vigilantes do the needful with knuckle-dusters.

Between last spring and this summer, Mr Gurung and his GJMM have replaced Mr Ghising and his GNLF. The dying embers of the Gorkhaland agitation have been stoked back to a roaring fire. Can Mr Jaswant Singh, if elected on a BJP ticket with GJMM support from Darjeeling parliamentary constituency, ensure it does not turn into an all-consuming blaze in the hills and plains of West Bengal?


FRONT PAGE | Tuesday, April 21, 2009 |

‘Gorkhaland’ pits plains against hills

Kanchan Gupta | Darjeeling / Siliguri

The revived demand for Gorkhaland, which is the sole election issue in Darjeeling district and the Dooars region of West Bengal, has polarised voters as never before. Gorkhas and Bengalis stand divided along ethnic lines, determined not to let the other score a victory.

Gorkhas, who form the overwhelming majority in the three hill sub-divisions of Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong of the Darjeeling parliamentary constituency and have a sizeable presence in the foothills, view this election as a crucial step towards realising their dream of a separate State. The Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha, which is really a reincarnation of the now-discredited Gorkha National Liberation Front, and whose leader Bimal Gurung claims to be the sole spokesman of the ‘hills people’, is backing BJP candidate Jaswant Singh.

With the BJP promising to “sympathetically consider the long-standing demand” of the Gorkhas, the GJMM believes it can secure Gorkhaland by roping in a national party to back its cause. Jaswant Singh has strengthened this expectation by voicing enthusiastic, often emotional, support for a separate Gorkha State in his election rallies. Within a fortnight he has gained amazing popularity in the three Assembly segments in the hills despite being, as Congress candidate Dawa Narbula describes him, an “outsider”.

But in the plains it is a different story. The Bengalis of Siliguri and the three other Assembly segments are equally determined to demonstrate that the demand for Gorkhaland does not have majority support and cannot be conceded. With nearly 55 per cent of the votes in the plains, they believe they can defeat the BJP-GJMM alliance and nip, what a Bengali lawyer in Siliguri describes as “a grand conspiracy against West Bengal hatched by anti-Bengali politicians” in the bud.

The BJP had substantial support among the plains Bengalis, especially those who came as refugees from erstwhile East Pakistan and are now alarmed by the phenomenal rise in the population of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. “I voted for the BJP in 2004,” says Dileep, while negotiating a hairpin bend on the road to Kalimpong from Siliguri. “So did most people in my colony.” This explains why the BJP candidate in the 2004 Lok Sabha election, despite being a Gorkha from Darjeeling, polled nearly 10 per cent of the total votes, almost entirely in the plains.

Jaswant Singh’s strategists believe this vote-share will remain with the BJP and give him a cutting edge over his Congress and CPI(M) rivals. But it is unlikely Dileep and others who voted for the BJP in 2004 will vote for the party on April 30. “I would like to vote for the BJP. But since the party has decided to support Gorkhaland, I won’t vote for it,” says Dileep. Whom will he vote for? “May be the Congress. Dawa Narbula is from the hills, but he doesn’t talk of Gorkhaland.”

“The BJP claims it stands for unity. And see what’s happening here! The BJP is backing those who want to partition Bengal again. The Gorkhas refer to us as Madhesis, they abuse us, call us jatha. Why should we vote for the BJP which now stands for Gorkhaland?” says a young tea taster in Siliguri. “It’s a ‘separatist’ movement aimed at a third partition of Bengal. How can you divide West Bengal yet again? What will remain of this State? Don’t Bengalis matter? Are settlers more important than the people of West Bengal?” These questions of his find a resonance with most Bengalis in the plains and beyond.

What has lent credence to the anti-Gorkhaland feelings which are running high in the plains is the ‘ban’ imposed by the GJMM on the Congress and CPI(M) candidates from campaigning in the hills. Both Dawa Narbula and Jibesh Sarkar, who is the CPI(M) candidate, have been forced to restrict their campaigning to the plains and some areas of the foothills with mixed populations. This has only added to their vitriol against the GJMM and the BJP.

Sarkar doesn’t miss any opportunity to berate the BJP as an “opportunist party” out to “disrupt the unity of West Bengal”. At every election meeting, he darkly hints at the “frightening consequences” if the GJMM-BJP win this election. “We (the CPI-M) stand for unity and peace,” he tells the voters.

Narbula is more forthright in his attack. He calls Jaswant Singh an “outsider” who “will do nothing for Darjeeling”. And after a pause adds, “I am the only hill man in the contest.” This doesn’t quite upset the voters in the plains because Narbula, the sitting MP, has been steadfast in his opposition to Gorkhaland. He doesn’t say so, but skirts the issue entirely at his public meetings.

So, which way will the vote go on April 30? The voters of Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong will, without doubt, vote for the BJP and Jaswant Singh can count on a huge lead in these three Assembly segments. But in the plains, the CPI(M) has a clear edge in all four Assembly segments. This by itself is unlikely to add up to a victory for Sarkar. A split in the anti-Gorkhaland vote between the Congress and the CPI(M) will see the BJP through.

Unless there is a silent consolidation in support of either Narbula or Sarkar. Subash Ghising, the disgraced Gorkha National Liberation Front chief who has been chased out of the hills by the GJMM and is camping in Siliguri, has asked his followers to boycott the election. Many feel this is a ruse; that he will quietly tell his supporters to vote for the Congress. Narbula is also confident of GNLF support, or what remains of it, since he won in 2004 with Ghising’s backing.

Narbula has a further advantage. He is contesting on a Congress ticket but has the support of the Trinamool Congress which can, if it wishes, transfer its vote to him. The newly-emergent anti-CPI(M) vote may also go his way. The substantial tribal vote remains an unknown factor.

But the fact remains that whichever way the vote goes the ethnic polarisation will only get stronger. If Jaswant Singh loses, the GJMM will up its ante and launch a fresh round of agitation. If he wins, the plains will be up in arms. Either way, trouble lies ahead for both victor and vanquished.


FRONT PAGE | Monday, April 20, 2009 |

Jaswant looks set for massive victory

Kanchan Gupta | Kalimpong

With a Gorkha cap that has an exquisitely carved miniature khukri pinned to it worn rakishly, a Gorkha scarf jauntily tied around his waist and a soldier’s demeanour that sits easily on him, Jaswant Singh takes the podium as the huge crowd gathered at Kalimpong’s Mela Ground breaks into applause. It is late afternoon and the joint BJP-Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha (GJMM) election rally began mid-morning; the April sun is unusually strong and the humidity exceptionally high. But the people, who have trekked from distant places to hear the latest protagonist of Gorkhaland, have been waiting patiently for this moment.

Those who have spoken before Jaswant Singh have explained at great length why the GJMM has entered into an alliance with the BJP (the voice of the ignored Gorkha will now be heard at the national level) and how the people of Darjeeling parliamentary constituency are lucky to have Jaswant Singh, a “stalwart leader who ranks after Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani”, as their representative in the Lok Sabha (the result of the April 30 poll is a foregone conclusion in the hills). It is now the ‘stalwart’ leader’s turn to endorse all that they have said.

Jaswant Singh does not let down either the GJMM’s top leaders on the dais or the eager-faced audience in the maidan. “My heart aches when I see the neglect of the Gorkhas,” he says, “I am shocked by your humiliation.” A hush descends on the jam-packed sprawling Mela Ground in the heart of Kalimpong town. He launches into a tirade against the CPI(M) and the Congress; describes the latter as the “bandhua mazdoor” of the Left parties. “Therefore, I am not surprised that neither the CPI(M) nor the Congress has done anything to make Gorkhaland a reality. The BJP will do what they have not done,” he adds with a flourish.

There’s loud clapping. Someone whistles and women, wearing saris with an identical ‘Gorkha’ pattern, lustily cheer their new patron. An old woman who wants to bless Jaswant Singh is ushered on to the dais by a teenaged boy in a body-hugging blue-and-yellow tracksuit with ‘Gorkhaland’ emblazoned on it. There are three alphabets printed just below that: ‘GLP’. They stand for ‘Gorkhaland Police’.

The teenaged boy is a member of the ‘police force’ that has been set up by Bimal Gurung, who heads the GJMM, with its own intelligence wing and cadre trained in combat tactics. The West Bengal Police has deployed its own armed men for the rally, but they are standing in a corner — asked by the GJMM to stay away from the dais and the audience — while ‘GLP’ cadre with inscrutable faces take care of security. Bimal Gurung may not have a State as yet, but he has his own police force.

“Gorkhas have been protecting India since ages. Gorkha soldiers have been laying down their lives for this country. If we can trust them with our protection, why can’t we trust them with a State of their own? It is my destiny to correct this grave injustice that has been done to you. This is why god has picked me up from the desert of Rajasthan and placed me in the laps of the Himalayas. From now on, this is my karmabhoomi.” By now the crowd is delirious. Here was a man from the plains, from distant Rajasthan no less, speaking their language, commiserating with their sorrows, echoing their sentiments. They couldn’t have asked for anything more.

By the time the rally gets over, it's almost early evening. People begin their long trek back home as dusk descends in the hills. Their decision has been made; all that remains is casting their vote on the election day. A tired, though beaming Jaswant Singh returns to the hotel for a short break. There’s a second meeting scheduled later in the evening at Town Hall where Kalimpong’s intelligentsia will gather to hear him speak. Bimal Gurung wears a satisfied smile — his political gambit has not been in vain.

Nobody doubts that Jaswant Singh will sweep the three hill sub-divisions of Kalimpong, Darjeeling and Kurseong of Darjeeling constituency. The GJMM is riding an amazing popularity wave and the BJP is riding the crest of that wave. The other two contenders, Dawa Narbullah of the Congress who won this seat in 2004 with a 45 per cent share of the vote, and Jibesh Sarkar of the CPI(M) have not yet forayed into the hills. Even if they wanted to, they would have been prevented from travelling beyond Darjeeling More in the plains. Such is the overwhelming anger and hostility of the people towards both parties.

Of the seven Assembly segments in Darjeeling parliamentary constituency, the GNLF of Subash Ghising won the Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong Assembly seats in the 2006 election. With the GNLF discredited and a disgraced Ghising forced into exile (he now camps in Siliguri), the GNLF MLAs have switched allegiance to GJMM, as have all other elected functionaries. The GJMM's domination of the hill sub-divisions is absolute. Discordant views are voiced after swearing you to secrecy and in hushed whispers.

But the story in the plains is different. The four Assembly segments here were won by the CPI(M) in 2006 with thumping majorities. After delimitation, Islampur Assembly constituency has been replaced by Matigara-Naxalbari, a Left stronghold. Therefore, the political profile of the parliamentary constituency remains unchanged. With more votes in the plains than in the hills, the Congress, which is contesting this election in alliance with the Trinamool Congress, and the CPI(M) are concentrating on voters in these four Assembly segments.

Had it been a direct contest, then this strategy would have worked to the advantage of Jaswant Singh's opponent. But with the pahadi votes consolidating in support of Jaswant Singh, the plains votes will be split between the Congress and the CPI(M). Unless there is tactical voting in the plains to defeat the BJP and thus diminish the perceived clout of the GJMM, Jaswant Singh will win with a handsome margin. It could even be an unprecedented landslide victory. Since there are no signs yet of a tactical consolidation of votes in the plains, this is one seat the BJP can count as already won. The price of victory, however, is another story.

Marxists pander to Muslim fundamentalists

CPM engineered Muslim rage
Taslima thrown out to get Nandigram off the radar
Kanchan Gupta
Jamiat-i-Ulama Hind leader Sidiqullah Chowdhury at a protest rally in Kolkata
Was the recent violence witnessed in some parts of central Kolkata, leading to dissident Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen's forced eviction from the city, genuine Muslim anger or manufactured rage? Did the CPI(M) have a hand in organising the rioting? Who has gained the most after mobs took to the streets?
For possible answers, we need to step back and take a look at the sequence of events beginning with the CPI(M)'s smash-and-grab of Nandigram.
When the Marxists let loose a reign of terror in the villages of Nandigram in end-October, ratcheting it up in the first week of November, to recapture territory they had lost to the Bhoomi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee protesting acquisition of farmland for an Indonesian SEZ, they had not bargained for extensive and sustained negative publicity in media.
The CPI(M)'s Nandigram takeover strategy was based on the doctrine of shock and awe, that is, rapid dominance through the use of overwhelming force. Marxist cadre were deployed to block entry to Nandigram and newspersons were chased away. It was hoped that this would prevent media from putting out details.
In the event, the media coverage of Nandigram was beyond anything the CPI(M) could have imagined and hugely damaging for the party. Newspapers and channels across the country picked up the story, as did foreign agencies. The fact that most of the victims of the Marxist mayhem were Muslims painted the CPI(M) in lurid colours.
With Muslim organisations, till now favourably disposed towards the CPI(M), beginning to voice their protest -- Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind said "Muslims in West Bengal are worse off than in Gujarat" - Marxist leaders, yet to recover from being pilloried over police harassment of Rizwanur Rehman and his death in mysterious circumstances, found themselves scampering for cover.
Seeking to capitalise on Nandigram, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind called a three-hour shutdown in central Kolkata on November 15. There was moderate response to the call, disrupting Kolkata's usually chaotic traffic, but there was no violence.
The next day, Pashchim Banga Milli Ittehad Parishad, comprising 12 Muslim organisations, including Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, Milli Council, Indian National League, Jamiat-e-Islami Hind and All-India Minority Forum, called a four-hour shutdown. Once again, apart from fiery speeches, the protest was unremarkable. Traffic was stalled at Esplanade, Park Circus, AJC Bose Road and Kidderpore. Not that traffic moves smoothly in these areas otherwise.
Suddenly, the All-India Minority Forum, led by Idris Ali, former head of the local Congress minority cell and a serial 'public interest' litigant in Kolkata High Court, called a three-hour shutdown on November 21 to protest against "Marxist atrocities on Muslims in Nandigram" and demand the "expulsion of Taslima Nasreen from Kolkata".
On the day of the shutdown, mobs emerged from Muslim-dominated areas, many of them in CPI(M) leader and West Bengal Assembly Speaker Hashim Abdul Halim's constituency, Entally, and went berserk, torching vehicles and attacking policemen. Within no time, news channels across the country were broadcasting live footage of the violence.
The footage showed mobs on the rampage and Kolkata Police personnel on the retreat. In one particular shot, a policeman was seen loading a teargas shell and then not firing it as a mob, waving swords and chanting slogans, advanced menacingly.
At none of the places that witnessed violence was the mob larger than 100 hooligans. If the police had wanted to, they could have chased away the mobs. But they didn't. It was almost as if they had been instructed not to act.
Surprisingly, the State Government, which later claimed to have been taken by surprise, promptly called in the Army and imposed curfew. This, too, made headlines as the Army's help had not been sought in West Bengal for the past 15 years although there had been worse incidents of violence.
In sharp contrast to the prompt deployment of the Army in Kolkata, the Left Front Government had refused to deploy CRPF personnel in Nandigram. When CRPF personnel were finally allowed in days after the Marxists had taken over Nandigram, they were not given the power to enforce law and order.
It took less than an hour for the Army to clear out the violence-hit streets and restore order. By early evening, calm had returned and life in Kolkata was back to normal, barring the dusk-to-dawn curfew in a few areas. Briefing newspersons on the violence, CPI(M) politburo member and State party secretary Biman Bose said if Nasreen "should leave Kolkata if her stay disturbs the peace".
What he did not explain was the ease with which mobs had been mobilised by an unheard of organisation and the listless behaviour of the State police. Neither Idris Ali nor his All-India Minority Forum could have organised the crowds. The Forum had already participated in the protest organised by Pashchim Banga Milli Ittehad Parishad and there was no reason for Ali to call a separate shutdown.
Those who track the CPI(M)'s dirty tricks department believe that Ali may have been "encouraged" to call a shutdown and highlight the "Muslim demand" for Nasreen's expulsion from Kolkata. He may have been the proverbial cat's paw. Apart from him, four men may have played a crucial role in securing for the CPI(M) an escape route from the Nandigram mess: Aslam alias Pappu, Ruhul Amin, Sultan Ahmed and Iqbal Ahmed. Aslam, a resident of Alimuddin Street, where the CPI(M)'s State headquarters are located, is a "property dealer" known for his links with the CPI(M). Amin lives in Topsia, has CPI(M) links and a dubious profile. Sultan, a resident of Ripon Street who has switched loyalties from the Congress to the Trinamool, is "open to persuasion if the price is right". His brother Ibal has done a reverse switch though his services are "not strictly restricted to the Congress". On November 21, mob fury was seen in the Ripon Street and Topsia areas, apart from Park Circus.
By the morning of November 22, media focus had shifted from Nandigram to the rioting. That day Nasreen was put on a flight to Jaipur and since then, newspapers and 24x7 channels, especially in West Bengal, have front-paged and prime-timed stories about the CPI(M) "giving in to Muslim demands". Nobody is talking about the CPI(M)'s "atrocities on Muslims in Nandigram" anymore.
Yesterday's 'persecutor' has become today's 'appeaser'.





December 2, 2007





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Muslims riot in Marxist Kolkata

A plague on all their houses
Kanchan Gupta

For all his bravado, Mr Idris Ali, who heads a little-known Muslim organisation that operates under the name of ‘All-India Minorities Forum’, panicked when he saw his followers run riot in those parts of central Kolkata where there’s dancing in the streets every time Pakistan wins a cricket match against India. Hence his sly attempt to distance himself from the rioters who set upon innocent people, torched cars and police vehicles, attacked school buses and held petrified children hostage in their schools till the Army was called in on Wednesday late afternoon.
“They (Marxist cadre) have infiltrated our ranks and sparked the violence. We wanted to protest peacefully, but the Marxists are trying to discredit us,” he told newspersons on Wednesday evening, obviously hoping to be spared the punishment that he justly deserves but is eager to escape. To paint himself and his murderous mobs as innocent victims of ‘state repression’, he claimed that “the disturbances broke out after the police, without reason, arrested 200 protesters owing allegiance to the AIMF and Furfurasharif Muzaddedia Anath Foundation at Park Circus”.
Without reason? Mr Ali’s foot soldiers were armed with swords and an assortment of weapons, including Molotov cocktails, which they used generously to terrorise people and attack the police. The high casualties reported by Kolkata Police — two Deputy Commissioners were among those grievously injured — and the widespread destruction of public and private property bear witness to the ferocity of those whom Mr Ali has sought to defend. But he is not alone in being indulgent; the anchor of a Delhi-based 24x7 news channel described the rampaging mobs as “civil society in ferment”. So much for media integrity.
The issue, however, is not Mr Ali’s too-clever-by-half defence of his criminal deed. Thankfully, the marauders were forced to back off before lives were lost; but the ‘peace’ that has been enforced with the help of the Army and night curfew is at best tenuous: Only the naïve and those who subscribe to Communist calumny will believe that Wednesday’s communal violence was an aberration and that Kolkata is back to being a ‘city of joy’. Nor should we get distracted by the suggestion that Kolkata’s Muslims are up in arms against the CPI(M)’s thuggery in Nandigram where many of the victims are their co-religionists.
Indeed, it is doubtful whether Mr Ali is truly concerned about the plight of the maimed, the raped and the homeless of Nandigram. Had this not been the case, he would have mobilised political opposition to the CPI(M)’s atrocities in Nandigram and elsewhere. After all, Mr Ali, apart from being the chief of All-India Minorities Forum, is also a Congress leader, or at least is known for being close to certain individuals in the party who have defended his action.
By seeking to convert Nandigram’s mind-numbing tale of human misery into a ‘Muslim issue’, he has tried to add to the list of the community’s imagined grievances. For, the CPI(M)’s ‘Harmad Vahini’ was, and remains, indiscriminate while letting loose its reign of terror in Nandigram. Among the thousands of villagers who have lost their near and dear ones, or have been forced to flee their home and hearth and take shelter in ‘refugee camps’, are a large number of Hindus. Two men whose names have become synonymous with pillage, murder and rape in Nandigram, and who led the CPI(M)’s bloody campaign, are Shahjahan Laskar and Selim Laskar.
The real objective of Mr Ali and his friends — Maulana Toha Siddiqui of Furfurasharif Muzaddedia Anath Foundation, Mr Roshan Ali of Qaumi Awaz Welfare Society and leading lights of Milli Ittehad Parishad — who organised Wednesday’s violent shutdown was to inflame Muslim passion by raising the bogey of Muslim sentiments being hurt by the Left Front Government. Hence the attempt to convert the atrocities in Nandigram into atrocities on Muslims; hence, also, the demand that the visa given to Bangladeshi dissident writer Taslima Nasreen, who has been living in Kolkata for the past couple of years, should be cancelled.
In fact, the second underscores the real purpose behind Wednesday’s violence: Of taking the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen’s shameful attack on Ms Nasreen in Hyderabad to its logical conclusion. Mr Ali and his friends allege that Ms Nasreen has “abused Islam and denigrated the Prophet”, and hence must not be provided with refuge from those who want to kill her, as ordained by Shari’ah, for ‘blasphemy’. If their reference is to Lajja, whose publication led to her first clash with Islamists, then it is rather late in the day. If they are referring to Dwikhondito, then we can only presume that neither Mr Ali nor his ilk has any regard for the law of the land which, they believe, does not apply to India’s Muslims.
Here we must digress to understand why the CPI(M) is as guilty as those who ran amok in Kolkata on Wednesday. Ms Nasreen’s autobiographical book, Dwikhondito, was banned by the West Bengal Government on November 28, 2003, soon after its publication. The initiative to proscribe the book because “it contains very derogatory and provocative references that go against the grain of the tenets of Islam and of Islamic beliefs” was taken by West Bengal’s ‘intellectual’ Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at the behest of fellow travellers, many of them Bengali writers who take perverse pleasure in denigrating Hindus and Hinduism. One of them, Mr Sunil Gangopadhyay, has waxed eloquent in Thursday’s Anandabazar Patrika on how India is “not a theocracy and we cannot accept fatwas”. He did not display such tolerance while pushing for the ban on Dwikhondito.
The ban was declared illegal by the Calcutta High Court on September 22, 2005. Since then, Ms Nasreen has neither said nor written anything that can be considered, by any stretch of the imagination, ‘derogatory’ of Islam. Two years later, Mr Ali has raised the issue of Ms Nasreen and her controversial book, skilfully avoiding any reference to the court order, taking a cue from the MIM and using Nandigram as a cover.
This is calculated mischief — as calculated as the mass hysteria that was unleashed by bogus propaganda on the cartoons published in a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, allegedly lampooning Mohammed, or the equally bogus breast-beating over the execution of Iraq’s former dictator, Saddam Hussein. On those occasions, the CPI(M) was vocal in its support of the ‘Muslim cause’ and rallied its forces behind a convoluted worldview that has now come to haunt West Bengal.
Wednesday’s communal violence in Kolkata is only the beginning. Having sown the proverbial dragon’s teeth, the CPI(M) must now prepare to harvest its poison yield. The first signs of West Bengal’s Marxist Government cravenly giving in to Muslim violence are already visible. Even before calm was restored in the riot-hit areas of Kolkata, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and Left Front chairman Biman Bose sought to placate Mr Ali and his goons by offering to expel Ms Nasreen from West Bengal “to maintain peace”. On Thursday, Ms Nasreen was flown out of Kolkata to Jaipur. Her visa expires on February 17 next year. It is entirely possible that the Marxists will now force their obliging friends in the UPA Government to either not extend Ms Nasreen’s visa any further or cancel it right away.
But this is unlikely to serve any purpose in containing ‘Muslim anger’ and preventing incidents similar to what was witnessed on Wednesday. For, Mr Ali and his friends will come up with other grievances that have nothing to do with the genuine problems of India’s Muslims. Make no mistake of that.

November 23, 2007.

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Murder in Communist Bengal

CPM proves it’s a party of fascists
Kanchan Gupta

Real face of Buddhadeb: A rally to protest CPM atrocities in Nandigram

Bengalis have this fascination for bhadralok Marxists, which is really a contradiction in terms but has stood the CPI(M) in good stead in West Bengal. As Deputy Chief Minister in the fumbling, bumbling United Front Governments, Mr Jyoti Basu presided over the lumpenisation of West Bengal politics and began the process of destroying West Bengal’s industrial infrastructure, which in the 1960s was not to be scoffed at. He made gherao into an instrument of state policy and lawlessness the hallmark of Marxist politics. When harried industrialists petitioned the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court and the judge sought an explanation, Mr Basu deployed thousands of his party’s hoodlum brigade to gherao the court. The Chief Justice saw merit in the dictum that discretion is the better part of valour.
As Chief Minister after the Left Front came to power in 1977, Mr Basu vigorously pursued his reckless agenda, denuding West Bengal of whatever little remained of its once thriving industry, while making it a point to holiday in London every year, ostensibly to seduce investors. From the Marichjhanpi massacre to the Bantala gangrape, his tenure as Chief Minister was one long saga of atrocities committed by either Marxist goons or the police, which he had swiftly converted into an extension counter of the CPI(M). Yet, people were easily persuaded to vote for him and the CPI(M)-led Left Front, election after election, because whatever his faults, he was a “bhadralok”. Never mind the fact that behind the spotless dhuti-panjabi façade lurked an evil man with a malevolent mind, a modern day Mephistopheles who derived perverse pleasure from West Bengal’s impoverishment.
His successor, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, was seen and feted as a “bhadralok” twice over. His lineage was impeccable — graduate of Presidency College, nephew of Sukanto Bhattacharjee whose darkly haunting poetry is replete with metaphors of human bondage and struggle against hunger and poverty, translator of Russian poet Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, poet and playwright of sorts at one with Kolkata’s intellectuals for whom Nandan is their second home, high on Marxist dialectics and suitably preachy. Bengalis could not have asked for more. What added to his appeal is Bhattacharjee’s ‘reformist’ zeal. He borrowed Nike’s slogan and came up with his (in retrospect, rather corny) one-liner: “Do it now.” Buddhijeebis, who have amazing power to influence opinion in West Bengal, overnight became ‘Buddhajeebis’ and wore their new identity on their sleeves. Mr Basu would let his mask slip once in a while and indulge in crudity; Mr Bhattacharjee, who claims to be a fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, would never do that.
But all this must now belong to the past. Mr Bhattacharjee’s bhadralok image has taken a severe beating and today he stands exposed as a charlatan who doesn’t deserve the office he holds. For all his pretensions of being a man of culture and integrity, he is no less Mephistophelean than Mr Basu. If imitation is the best form of flattery, Mr Bhattacharjee has proved himself an accomplished flatterer by aping his party general secretary, Mr Prakash Karat, in justifying murder, rape and pillage by Marxist criminals. There is not even the faintest hint of regret that Nandigram should have become the leitmotif of the CPI(M)’s unrestrained thuggery. There is no belated acceptance of moral responsibility, leave alone assertion of authority, even at this stage when his friends have begun spitting at him. The Pioneer was not exaggerating when it suggested to its readers that for a lesson in fascism, they should read Mr Bhattacharjee’s shocking comments at a Press conference where he praised his party’s black shirts and poured scorn and ridicule on the hapless victims of their crimes. Among the victims, it needs to be noted, are a Muslim woman and her two teenaged daughters who were gangraped by the Marxist marauders. The two girls are missing; for all we know, they may have been killed or are being held captive to satiate the animal desires of those about whom Mr Karat and Mr Bhattacharjee speak so admiringly.
Compare this with the CPI(M)’s clamorous and vile protest against the alleged custodial killing of a wanted criminal and his moll in Gujarat. Recall also how 24x7 television channels, notably those headquartered in Delhi, went berserk, trying to pin the guilt of that alleged crime on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Contrast the timid, almost cowardly, media response to Mr Bhattacharjee’s appalling comments and Mr Karat’s chilling defence of the Marxist killers and rapists who have let loose a reign of terror and whose victims are largely Muslims, to the epithets and worse hurled by our newspapers and 24x7 channels at Mr Modi who has at no stage justified the 2002 violence in Gujarat or the alleged custodial killing of a mafia don and his moll. Is it because there is an ‘ideological’ affinity between the fascists of AK Gopalan Bhawan and mediapersons? Or is it because Mr Modi is a soft target and, unlike Mr Karat or Mr Bhattacharjee, whose storm troopers have been intimidating journalists and threatening dire consequences if they report the truth, will not retaliate? Or are there ‘linkages’ that influence our media, more so 24x7 channels, to black out Marxist crimes and invent scurrilous stories to demean others? If our media bravehearts wish to shame and shun Mr Modi, it’s their choice. But must they so shamelessly admire those who prescribe “Dum Dum dawai” — thuggery of the sort witnessed in Nandigram — as Ms Brinda Karat did at a rally in Kolkata? And support Mr Sitaram Yechury who has the temerity to insist that Nandigram can’t be discussed in Parliament because law and order is a State subject?
Mr Bhattacharjee has no doubt sold his soul to the likes of Indonesia’s Salem Group and, closer home, Ambuja Cement and ‘industrialists’ who were no more than small time Burrabazar traders till the CPI(M) came to power and facilitated their rags-to-riches journey. Mr Karat genuflects at Stalin’s altar and listens to the Internationale to relax, so we shouldn’t expect him to be touched by the plight of those maimed, killed and raped by his cadre. But what about mediapersons who tirelessly preach moral and ethical rectitude to others from their high perch in ‘national’ newspapers and ‘national’ news channels? By not admonishing those responsible for the ghastly events in Nandigram, they have legitimised the indefensible and paved the path for similar crimes elsewhere. Amen.

November 18, 2007.

http://www.dailypioneer.com/

On March 21, 2007, I had written the following article for The Pioneer's opeditorial page, contesting Mr Jyoti Basu's glycering tears for the victims of the police firing in Nandigram on March 14 in which at least 14 villagers were shot dead and scores injured:

Pot calls the kettle black

Kanchan Gupta

When in power, veteran Marxist Jyoti Basu, who presided over West Bengal's decline and death, was as ruthless and callous as Buddhadeb BhattacharjeeEven before West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's critics, both within and outside the CPI(M) and the Left Front it leads, could articulate their opposition to the ghastly atrocities that were committed by the police and Marxist cadre at Nandigram on March 14, one man had set himself to the task of cranking up criticism with remarkable energy and alacrity for his age.
Veteran Marxist and former Chief Minister Jyoti Basu did not lose any time in making public his disagreement with the "anti-people action" of his successor at Writers' Building. And, if stories emanating from Kolkata are to be believed, he promptly contacted leaders of the CPI(M)'s partners in the Left Front, notably those of the RSP and the Forward Bloc, and urged them to lash out at Mr Bhattacharjee.
At an informal meeting among the Left Front partners on March 15 in Kolkata, Mr Basu, having worked himself into a right royal rage, is believed to have pitilessly castigated Mr Bhattacharjee, demanding to know, with all the pomposity that he could command, as to who had ordered the police action. As a sullen Chief Minister decided against converting the meeting into a slanging match, Mr Basu continued with his fulminations: Why did the police resort to firing? Why were protesters shot in their bellies and their heads? In the end, he accused Mr Bhattacharjee of being "arrogant" and "uncaring".
In Delhi, Mr Basu's criticism found resonance in the timid response of the CPI(M)'s tele-friendly leaders, Mr Prakash Karat and Mr Sitaram Yechury. Both let it be known that had Mr Basu been at the helm of affairs in West Bengal, they would have been spared the ignominy of having to justify such barbarity. Almost taking a cue from them, the feisty Trinamool Congress chairperson, Ms Mamata Banerjee, told newspersons that "even a respected person like Jytoibabu has condemned the police firing".
Suddenly, it would seem, Mr Basu has emerged as a better Chief Minister, a more humane administrator and a farsighted leader compared to Mr Bhattacharjee. Many of those who are spitting venom at West Bengal's accidental Chief Minister - had it not been for Promode Dasgupta, Mr Bhattacharjee would have been penning poetry overladen with darkly haunting metaphors much like his uncle Sukanto Bhattacharjee who died at the young age of 21 raging against hunger and poverty or his favourite Russian poet Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky who committed suicide - it would appear, are yearning for the good old days when Mr Basu held the 'Red Fort'.
The truth, however, is that there are no good old days to recall. If anything, Mr Basu's record in office, first as Deputy Chief Minister in two successive United Front Governments beginning 1967 (for all practical purposes he was the de facto Chief Minister with a hapless Ajoy Mukherjee reduced to indulging in Gandhiana) and later as Chief Minister for nearly a quarter of a century at the head of the Left Front Government which has been in power for three decades now, the "longest elected Communist Government" as party commissars untiringly point out to the naive and the novitiate, is a terrible tale of calculated destruction of a State in the name of ideology.
It was Mr Basu, whose feigned outrage over the police going berserk at the behest of their political masters at Nandigram is now being cited to paint him in bright colours, who actively politicised West Bengal Police. It was he who instructed them, as Deputy Chief Minister during the disastrous UF regime, to play the role of foot soldiers of the CPI(M), first by not acting against party cadre on the rampage, and then by playing an unabashedly partisan role in industrial and agrarian disputes.
The 'humane administrator' and the 'farsighted leader', few would recall today, presided over the destruction and death of industry in West Bengal, denuding the State of its wealth and disinheriting future generations of Bengalis. Within the first seven months of the United Front coming to power, he ensured 43,947 workers were laid off because of strikes and gheraoes and 4,314 rendered unemployed after their factories were shut down. Flight of capital in those initial days of emergent Marxist power amounted to Rs 2,500 million. In 1967, there were 438 'industrial disputes' involving 165,000 workers and resulting in the loss of five million man hours. By 1969, there were 710 'industrial disputes' involving 645,000 workers and a loss of 8.5 million man hours.
That was a taste of things to come in the following decades. By the time Mr Basu demitted office, West Bengal had been reduced to a vast industrial wasteland. The only beneficiaries of the policies and programmes actively promoted by Mr Basu were a clutch of Marwari asset-strippers and promoters who moved in to convert industrial wasteland into housing projects. Mr Basu remains loyal to both; even in retirement he ensures promoters violating environment and other laws have their way while those who feathered their nests thanks to 'industrial disputes' instigated by Marxist trade unionists swear by him and his able tutelage.
Mr Basu is aghast that the blood of innocent men and women should be spilled in so callous a manner by the Government headed by Mr Bhattacharjee. Yet, Mr Basu, while in office, did not brook any criticism of the Marich Jhapi massacre by his police in 1979 when refugees were shot dead in cold blood. Till date, nobody knows for sure how many died in that slaughter for Mr Basu never allowed an independent inquiry. Neither did the man whose heart bleeds so profusely for the lost souls of Nandigram hesitate to justify the butchery of April 30, 1982 when 16 monks and a nun of the Ananda Marg order were beaten to death and then set ablaze in south Kolkata by a mob of Marxist goons. The man who led that murderous lot was known for his proximity to Mr Basu, a fact that the CPI(M) would now hasten to deny. Nor did Mr Basu wince when his police shot dead 13 Congress activists a short distance from Writers' Building on July 21, 1993; on the contrary, he continues to justify that incident.
Mr Bhattacharjee's initial reaction to the horrifying killings of March 14 was no doubt that of a cynical politician not unduly perturbed by the loss of a few lives. His subsequent "regret", which party apparatchiks insist does not amount to an apology, is not becoming of a man with pretentious claims to being a poet and a playwright. But was Mr Basu any more sensitive to the plight of those who suffered at the hands of his party's thugs? Did his heart cry out when women health workers were gang-raped and then two of them murdered by thugs with Marxist affiliation on May 17, 1990 at Bantala on the eastern margins of Kolkata? Or when office-bearers of the Kolkata Police Association patronised by the CPI(M) raped Nehar Banu, a poor pavement dweller, at Phulbagan police station in 1992? If we were to recall his response to such gross abuse of power by party cadre and party-affiliated policemen - "Emon to hoyei thaakey" (Such things happen), much like former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's comment, "Stuff happens" - and his sly insinuations that the victims of such barbarity deserved what they got, Mr Basu would neither shine in comparison to Mr Bhattacharjee nor come across as an angel in red.
It's amusing to watch the name-calling in the wake of the violence in Nandigram. It brings to mind an old idiom fallen into disuse, that of the pot calling the kettle black. The Bengali version, popular in north Kolkata, is too risque to be repeated here.