Nandigram, Godhra incidents unfortunate: PM
Palash Biswas
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The West Bengal assembly which today discussed an adjournment motion on Nandigram, witnessed noisy scenes and walkouts by Trinamool Congress and the Congress, with Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee saying the area was slowly returning to normal.
The chief minister, speaking on the motion, said that peace was slowly returning to Nandigram, people had returned home and the administrating was trying to distribute relief to all.
The house witnessed uproar when Bhattacharjee spoke about maoist activities in Nandigram and alleged TC MLAs Sisir Adhikari and Subhendu Adhikari knew about their presence there. Three maoists were arrested from Sagar Island, he said.
Bhattacharjee urged the Congress to introspect on the direction the party was moving. The Congress had joined hands with the TC, BJP and the maoists in Nandigram, he alleged.
Reiterating it would have been better if the March 14 police firing in Nandigram did not take place, he said the state's investment prospect has not been hindered due to happenings in Nandigram.
Bhattacharjee told the house that the state in the past one year received investment proposals of Rs 1.50 lakh crore and this year it would increase.
Earlier, Speaker H A Halim admitted an adjournment motion on Nandigram jointly moved by TC and Congress.
Stating that they were not satisfied with the reply of the chief minister, both the opposition parties walked out of the House
Nandigram, Godhra incidents unfortunate: PM
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today condemned the Nandigram and Godhra incidents and said they were 'unfortunate' and should not be repeated.
Incidents like Godhra and Nandigram in West Bengal are unfortunate and it should not be repeated, Singh said while interacting with the media at Rajkot on Friday.
Reacting to the issue of Afzal Guru issue awaiting death penalty after being convicted in Parliament attack case, Singh said it was a legal matter and the process is on and steps will be taken at appropriate time, he added.
Replying to a querry on the fake encounter on Sheikh Sohrabuddin, he said ''I would not like to comment on the issue as the matter was sub-judice and it was improper to react on it''.
Mamata meets Sonia, Advani on Nandigram issue
New Delhi : Stepping up her offensive against CPI(M) on Nandigram issue, Mamta Bannerjee on Friday held separate meetings with Congress President Sonia Gandhi and leader of the opposition L K Advani.
During the nearly thirty-minute meeting with Gandhi, Banerjee requested her to visit Nandigram to see for herself the situation there in the wake of long-drawn violence there.
Banerjee, who was accompanied by party MPs Dinesh Trivedi and Mukul Roy, told Gandhi that it was time Congress views its ties with CPI-M as the marxist party "has crossed the Laxman Rekha in politics".
She also wanted Gandhi to send a UPA team to Nandigram.
Banerjee had yesterday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Shivraj Patil on the issue.
Banerjee's flurry of meetings came
Politics on track over dead bodies in Khejuri, Nandigram
By NI Wire Views:18
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Dec 08: The West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee ordered the CID to probe into the matter of recovered five half charred dead bodies buried five mounds below the earth found at Khejuri village near Nandigram.
Besides the Bengal government has filed a fresh petition in the Apex Court challenging the CBI investigation into Nandigram.
The graves were dug up in the presence of CBI and CRPF officials and under the supervision of a judicial magistrate following allegations that dead bodies of the victims of recent Nandigram violence were buried there.
For the identification of deceased DNA tests would be conducted, said the Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Ray on Friday.
Mr Ray after a meeting with Chief Minister further said that the bones of the deceased would be sent to Central Forensic Laboratory for the examination.
The curtain rose, with the recovery of half-burnt skull bones and ashes from graves by the CBI in Nandigram, over the incident. The piece of skull and hair have been sent to a forensic laboratory for DNA matching as the CBI wants to be clear that whether the bones match with the people who are alleged to have been killed either in police firing on March 14 or by anti-social elements.
Instead of saying something concrete the Superintendent of Police of East Midnapur, Satyeswar Panda Expressed complex views saying that the dead bodies could be related to March 14 police firing or November 8 Nandigram violence or it could be of those five people, died owing to blasts while manufacturing bombs on October 28.
Local Trinamool Congress leader Subhendu Adhikari alleged that almost 27 people are missing from the area after March 14 open police firing on the innocent villagers. He said that those five bodies could be of those villagers.
But on the other hand CPM claims that those five people are its own members, who died in an accidental blast while manufacturing bombs on October 28.
While the Bhoomi Uchchhed Pratirodh committee, a group who has been fighting for the villagers, farmers against the acquisition of land allegedly claims that the dead persons were the workers and members belong to its group, who were dragged by the CPM cadres into Khejuri from a procession in Maheshpur and exterminated them.
Khejuri has been a CPM stronghold even at the height of the violence erupted in Nandigram, which is across the Talpatti canal.
Politics has been started with the recovering of charred bodies among all the major political parties. Trinamool Congress is playing its own cards when its members staged a noisy walkout from the West Bengal Assembly on Friday protesting the speaker’s refusal to allow a discussion on the unearthed bones from Khejuri Meanwhile the ruling government of CPM is trying to defend its position in West Bengal.
Maoists attempting to entrench themselves in WB evicted: CPI-M
New Delhi: Apparently seeking to justify the recapture of Nandigram, the CPI(M) today claimed West Bengal was the only state from where Maoists, who were trying to entrench themselves there, have been evicted.
The party, heading the Left Front, also utilised Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi's visit to Nandigram to project that all was well in the area.
"There are so many states like Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh, where vast areas have come under the control of the Maoists. No administration functions in these 'liberated zones'. West Bengal is the only state from where they have been evicted," Politburo member Sitaram Yechury told reporters here.
Replying to questions on the Nandigram issue, Yechury said the party Politburo was taking stock of the situation there on the basis of a report submitted by the party's West Bengal Committee on the matter.
"The question is to restore peace and normalcy there. People are returning to their hearths and homes after 11 months. They are being provided money by the state government to buy utensils and even seeds to help them start a new life." To a question about Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi's visit yesterday to Nandigram, he said it was good that the Governor had first-hand experience of the situation there.
"The fact that he played cricket there shows normalcy has returned. Where is the fear psychosis being reported by the media," he asked.
Asked in a lighter vein about the Governor getting bowled out on the first ball, Yechury remarked "those who do not know (how to play), should not try it."
A Few Desperate and Concerned Questions
By Ashok Mitra. Translated by Debarshi Das, Sanhati
http://sanhati.com/front-page/542/
This article appeared on 18th April, 2007 in the Anandabazar Patrika
Thousands and thousands of faceless, ordinary people; crossing thousands and touching lakhs even. The heart of the Left movement in West Bengal lies in these ordinary folks. They have been witness to several episodes of history. Slowly and gradually, over the span of last half century they have welcomed and embraced the communist party, “Come to my abode mother, and stay here forever.” Mother-like communist party has provided them with fearlessness and courage, has assured them in the darkest hours, “Unite. Speak up against atrocities and injustice with a united vow. The society will change, you yourselves will change it. Your united strength is the strength of the party, which makes our movement all conquering.”
This particular history has its origin in the beginning of the decade of forties of last century. Before the raw wounds of great famine could be healed, came partition. Countless refugees who had lost everything flocked to West Bengal. There was unprecedented price rise of commodities. Valiant tales of Tebhaga movement were coming from villages. In village after village share croppers, farm labourers, their womenfolk who laboured till the last drop of sweat and could not get bellyful of food, were fired up with the heroic sacrifice of Ahalya Ma . In Kolkata and its suburbs, the middle and lower middle class, battle-weary in life’s struggle, were uniting fast. In the factories workers were fighting to protect their jobs. Students were on the streets demanding extension of right to education. The teachers demanded living with dignity, they joined the march too. Neither were the governmental, non-governmental workers left behind, their protest language was getting sharper by the day. Joining all of them were the recently arrived batches of refugees from East Bengal, uprooted and desperate.
An avalanche commenced from that time on among the rural and urban populace. A large section of the state’s people’s embraced the communist party. Their conviction did not know any doubt. The communist party taught them, social injustice can be resisted through love. Get together, be prepared, change is bound to come – political change, and social change with it. But this change of tide will not happen automatically. It is not easy to unite and achieve one’s goal. Political, economic and social problems will have to be understood with ample patience. Those who are not with us at present will have to be convinced – with due humility, with a peaceful temperament. Then we shall overcome someday.
Gradually, decade by decade, the appeal reached every house of West Bengal. People’s support for the communist party saw a high tide. Many of the participants of this mass, who feel proud to call themselves the sons and daughters of the communist party, are not members of the party. Many a time they are not even directly connected with the mass organisations of the party. And yet they are the real pillars of the party. The communist party (whatever be its formal name) is enjoying the administrative power of the state because of their intense loyalty. Communist movement cannot move a single step in this state by solely depending on the organisational talent, and ignoring this vast and wide communist surrounding. Even Marx had acknowledged with high regard the historical role of the communist surrounding in a society. Ignoring this surrounding is tantamount to losing one’s compass and blundering along in blind alleys. While entering the Writers’ Building in 1977 the chief captain of the Left Front had announced that, not by sitting in this red building, but by being one with the people and abiding by its directions every administrative policy and programme of the Left Front government would be decided. His gesture was towards this communist surrounding: please rest assured, the Front government would not take a step without your counsel and advice.
The incidents of the last few months have put the proud with tradition communist surrounding to greatest danger. People in the surrounding are not able to relate their dreams with the cruel reality. Those who used to spread newspaper sheets on the Maidan grass and get mesmerised by exhorting speeches of Bankim Mukhopadhyay, Jyoti Basu, Harekrishan Konar are troubled, restless and flabbergasted. There were promises made by the Left Front government to provide succour to the poorest, even while keeping within the constitution of India. In spite of the administrative, legal, economic hurdles – there was a strong promise that these measures were to be presented to the rest of India as a pattern of an alternative programme. And this was to move the spellbound and inspired millions under shadow of the red flag. Why this promise was withdrawn, since when was it withdrawn: the leaders of the party did not feel the need to explain to the sons and daughters of the party. Why they did not explain: this question is internally troubling the communist surrounding. Since they are not able to understand, they not able to explain it to others. Their soul is wounded with thousands of questions. And yet it seems that the responsibility to answer the questions is being evaded. As if, the leadership does not deem it fit to waste time in answering these insignificant, worthless questions.
End of Agricultural Potential?
But the rustic and ignorant peasants are really at a loss. The land they had captured under the bold leadership of the party, the land over which the middle tenant farmers had achieved due rights after implementation of land reforms act, the land which had met their food needs – why should the government hand over that land to the capitalists under a dictatorial British act? Have all the potentials for improving agricultural productivity been exhausted? Why were no efforts made to improve agricultural productivity through co-operatives? Why were the least attempts not made to encourage co-operative initiatives even in buying of tilling implements and sale of farm products? Could not experiments of joint-farming be done as they have been done in Kerala? Twenty five years ago a committee appointed by the Reserve Bank of India recommended some steps to overhaul the irrigation system of East India. If they had been implemented agricultural production rate in Bengal would have increased many more times. Why didn’t the Left Front government show any interest in them? Who would unveil that mystery?
The biggest question of all: is taking refugee behind the capitalists the only way to achieve industrialisation? If for a second, if for the sake of argument we agree (clearly a large section of the farmers would not concur), the questions will remain relentless. Why wouldn’t the government itself take the initiative in setting up industries? The party has kept up its fight against privatisation of nationalised industries at the Centre. Why wouldn’t the government, loyal to that party in every sense of the term, come forward to set up industries? There is no dearth of talents in the state. Most modern and adequate technology can be purchased from the market. Getting finance for investment is not a stumbling block. Different financial institutions under the Centre are lording over billions of rupees. The same money is used for gambling in the stock markets, the same money is utilised by private masters to extend their empire. The Central Government which owes its existence to the Left support could have been pressurised into allocating fifteen to twenty thousand crores of rupees each year for West Bengal. The Centre could be unabashedly supplicated for additional forces in order to counter the poor cow smuggler of Bangladesh. Why so much hesitation in demanding money for setting up industries? The communist surrounding would continue posing such questions to party leaders. “We have won 235 seats in the state assembly, we are not bound to answer these questions:” such logic is disastrous.
Therefore, beyond everything, there is the question of culture, of humanity. Muzaffar Ahmed, Ganesh Ghosh, Binay Choudhury, Modammad Abdullah Rasul have repeated this point in numerous nuances – and have constantly tried to establish through examples of their own lives – the gist is the following: the communist leaders and workers must be gentle, they must be humble, they must remain tolerant in extremely adverse circumstances. Here is where the problem lies. The Left Front is in the government for the last thirty years. Naturally, plenty of opportunists and sycophants have made themselves intimate to the main ruling party. If the tide turns, or if there is an indication that it will, they would have a change of heart and would vanish from the scene. But those who are in the communist surrounding, have been there through thick and thin. They would remain so in the time of deepest trouble of the party. The party may turn its face from them; their loyalty to the party would not diminish a bit. When the party falters, it is they who have to answer for it. In markets and streets it is they who confront the critics. Why so much arrogance even in admitting that much intolerance and immodesty has seeped into the party and party’s running of the government? When the leadership with an unrepentant, brazen gesture takes the entire responsibility of the mistake on its shoulders, it reminds one of that line from a Bengali poem, “When peace roars like a lion, we fear it.”
There is no alternative but to accept the framework of competitive democracy. It is being said that there is no alternative but to bribe a particular industrial group of thousands of crores of rupees to set up a car manufacturing factory in the state. Otherwise they would take their business to the poorer state of Uttarakhand. Trouble is, competitive democracy cuts both ways. All the follies of the ruling party would be capitalised by the opposition, as they are doing so in Singur and Nandigram. Those who are so vocal against the ruling party do not exactly have halos around their heads. But in this pandemonium who cares for such niceties! The onus therefore falls on those who are in the surrounding of the ruling party and are trying their best to protect the image of the party. Responsibilities of rigidity of the leaders, use of unclean language, don’t-give-a-damn-to-anyone attitude are borne by them.
We Know It Very Well
They will never alienate themselves from the party. Unflinchingly they would keep on ignoring the welcoming gesture from the enemy camp. They would only hope that the party and the government would not avoid a few very important questions. We know the history of the last fifteen years very well. National output had had a tremendous rise, capitalists have built mountains out of profits, but employment has not risen. The little rise there was, was in the public sector. In private sector employment has in fact gone down. On what basis therefore is the party leadership claiming that unemployment problems would be mitigated if West Bengal is handed over to domestic and foreign capitalists? Undoubtedly, about eight decades ago, in Soviet Russia farmers were evicted from vast fields in the interest of industrialisation. But those who were evicted were big landlords and the rich kulaks. The land that was captured from them was used to build large nationalised farms, which raised agricultural production by huge amounts thus supplying raw materials to industries and providing food to workers employed in industries. And in West Bengal today the initiative that is on has the target to cleanse small peasants, share croppers and agricultural labourers and give away the land to giant industrialists.
If anyone declines to answer these questions, they would not evaporate into thin air. I fear one day they may, all of a sudden, catch fire.
* Ahalya Ma, was a martyr of the Tebhaga movement in South Bengal