DR. S. AUSAF SAIED VASFI comments on Nandigram violence and concludes that the Left has put the Saffron to shame in many respects.
“We are ashamed of what is happening in Nandigram. Intellectuals, film artistes and others are being arrested by the police for protesting against the Nandigram violence.” – Priyaranjan Dasmunsi, on the violence unleashed by CPI-M- cadres in Nandigram “Our people retaliated in desperation. The Opposition has been paid back in the same coin.” – W. Bengal Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. “We don’t support the wanton violence as a means to find a solution in Nandigram. We are totally opposed to it. The CPM alone is responsible for this unfortunate turn of events.” – RSP, CPI, Forward Block. F or a proper appreciation of Nandigram, one has to understand the Communists, whose “Ka’aba” has shifted from Moscow to Beijing after the fall of Soviet Russia in the early 1990s. Recall that the Communists refused to condemn the Chinese attack on India in 1962. That they were conspicuous by absence in the freedom struggle is an old story. What is new is that they have not spoken against a single Chinese incursion into the Indian territory, which has during the last one year, experienced their disquieting presence 140 times in Jammu & Kashmir’s Ladakh region and in Arunachal Pradesh, which, according to the age-old Chinese position, belongs to China. They have also, perhaps deliberately, shut their eyes towards the Chinese naval build-up in the Indian Ocean. They are not disturbed at the close relationship Bejing has established with the regime in Yangoon, which aims at excluding India from Burma’s oil and gas fields. The Chinese support to the Maoist uprising in the neighbouring Nepal does not cause consternation to them. Their past moral and material support to the Naxalites, who happen to be their ideological cousins, is no more a secret. Equally an open secret is the receipt of Russian largesse, through Germany, in the form of printing presses, to popularise the socialist philosophy in “Capitalist” India. It is still fresh in public memory that during Mr. Stalin’s period, the late Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, as Prime Minister, had been branded as “running dog of imperialism”. In the CPI-M ideologue’s current thinking, the Chinese interests occupy the central position. Mr. Prakash Karat is credited with the view that India is being used by the United States to encircle China. This alleged encirclement is more important to the Communists than the Chinese expansionist designs in our region. REDS V/S ISLAM The Communist view about Islam and Muslims requires full-fledged, well-researched books cataloguing their Muslim persecution and stultification of Islam in Russia and its satellite states in Eastern Europe. Suffice here to recall how they lent their active hand in the erasal of Muslims from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Communists never indulge in random atrocities. Like the Rightist fascists of Bharat, the Leftists plan their plots in advance and execute them with precision. They do not mind “imperialist” support for the fulfilment of this cause, the cause of elimination of Islam from the surface of the soil. What is surprising in this backdrop if, in the light of Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee Report, Muslims happen to be one of the most backward ones in West Bengal, where they have been ruling for the last 30 years. As anti-Muslim riots do not suit them politically, they do not allow them to happen. But as far as Muslim status in that State is concerned, you will have to re-read the said document. LEFT’S VETS That democracy is an imperfect political institution is now known to all the political scientists and those who live in democracies and suffer from its inaccuracies. When in India, total support to a single party proved disastrous, as the nation saw in the case of Congress, the electorate decided what in consequence came to be known as alliance-governments. Now this variety of political dispensation is playing havoc with polity. As the Congress at the Centre needs Leftist support, the Leftists have come to enjoy a virtual veto-power. Perhaps because of this veto, at least two senior leaders, Mr. L.K. Advani of the BJP and Ms Mamta Banerjee of the Trinamul Congress, suspect a deal between the Centre and the West Bengal government. The Trinamul chairperson, expressing her anger over the Centre’s apathy to the violence in Nandigram, accused the Congress of striking a deal with the CPI-M. “It is now clear,” she said, “that the CPI-M and the Centre have struck a deal. The Centre has apparently promised to remain silent over the Nandigram”. The truth is that the Centre could invoke Articles 355 or 356 dealing with protection of every state against internal disturbance or promulgate the President’s rule. If this ground reality of the imperfection of democracy and frailty of alliance politics in the form of veto-power is correct, we dare suggest the “Caliphate model”, which guarantees justice, equilibrium and equanimity in any and all diverse societies. Shedding the un-founded and un-called for prejudices, the thinkers and social scientists of the country should give a serious thought to it. ORIGIN OF SEZ When Communism crashed under its own weight, its exponents had been left with no alternative but to turn towards what they had been castigating with contempt: the private property, diversification in the ownership of the resources and production and profit oriented corporations. This in India brought the concept of Special Economic Zones or SEZ. Nandigram, a hitherto un-known village, having a sizable Muslim population, was chosen to “usurp” private lands for setting up a foreign-funded higher-paying industry. The socialism-inspired peasants failed to digest the SEZ philosophy. They resisted it tooth and nail. No machinery was devised to pay prompt and adequate compensation. About 14 people were killed in the unjustified firing, which also hurt over 200 people also. It was the genesis of unrest. Under the stewardship of the then spent force, Ms Mamta Banerji, Bhoomi Uchched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC)” was formed which understandably succeeded in bringing administration to a halt. In the meantime, the State government had given up the idea of establishing a “chemical hub”. But the humiliated CPI-M cadres, waiting in the wings to avenge their party’s moral and political defeat, unleashed a reign of terror on the defenceless. RAPE: STATE SUBJECT According to stories by Ravik Bhattacharya in the Indian Express (November 17 and 18), Sabina’s is the first officially confirmed case of gang rape, allegedly by armed CPM cadres on November 6 during their “Operation Recapture” in Nandigram. Her two daughters went missing soon after the gang rape that night. Sabina’s house has been vandalised and the Police say they can’t go there. In chilling testimony, Sabina has said that after she was raped, she saw her daughters, Fatima, 16, and Nasreen, 14, raped as well and then abducted by CPM cadres. (All the three names have been changed to protect their identities.) “We have initiated a case of rape and I cannot say anything more,” said S.S. Panda, Superintendent of Police, East Midnapore. “Doctors have confirmed that Sabina was raped. I personally took her statement yesterday at the Tamluk sub-divisional hospital. We have registered a case of gang rape against the accused. She has given us names in her statement but I cannot disclose the names right now. We have also members at the relief camp. “At around 8 that evening a group of youths knocked at my door and my mother-in-law opened it. Mir Bachchu Sheikh and Mir Kalu, two CPM men, whom I knew in the village, along with several others, barged in. I tried to run away with my two daughters but was caught in the backyard,” Sabina told the media. They dragged me and my daughters near the field. I was raped by eight people including Bachchu and Kalu. I also saw my two daughters being raped by the youths. It continued throughout the night. Then they took my daughters away, dumping me inside the house,” said Sabina, in tears. So far the State Police has not taken any action against the alleged criminals. SHAME ON CPI-M Shame on you, CPI-M! If that is your line of moral and political argument, that “unlike Gujarat, rape in West Bengal is a state subject,” fie on your policies and politics. Even your ideologues like Marx and Angles did not approve of sexual crimes against women. Yes! Stalin and Beria did not mind that. Are they your models, your icons? The CPI-M reaction on the rape of Sabina, Fatima and Nasreen pales Mr. George Fernandes, an apologist of Mr. Modi, into insignificance. Modi, after Gujarat riots, remarked: “What is extraordinary about rapes? They are taking place everywhere!” One sees macabre parallels between Gujarat and some villages of West Bengal like Nandigram. Both put each other to shame! In fact, the Left has put the Saffron to shame in many respects.