01-26-2008, 12:48 AM (This post was last modified: 01-26-2008, 12:49 AM by dhu.)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> <b>But for Communists India would have been a superpower</b> (Pioneer)
Dina Nath Mishra
Had there been no Communist party in India, the country may have been a developed country, though not like France, Britain or the US but quite close.
<b>The Communists are fundamentalists like Islamic jihadis in the economic sense of the word.</b> <b>By propaganda they create illusory truth, utopian reality and manufactured consent, thereby bringing a state of apathy in general public. </b>Even Jawaharlal Nehru was carried away by their ideology, and adopted a part of it.
The slogan 'socialism' halted constructive thinking for 45 years. <b>The Marxist variety of scientific socialism destroyed the natural course of economic development of the country for 50 years and of West Bengal for 30 years. </b>Seventy to 80 per cent of the Communist movement history published by the CPM is either in praise of scientific socialism or against capitalism.
One can hardly forget that they destroyed the fourth industrially developed State resulting in migration of industries to other States. Obviously, they destroyed employment opportunities for Bengalis who went searching for jobs wherever these were available.
Up to the late 80s and even now, the slogan-shouting comrades ranting Tata-Birla murdabad while conducting gate meetings of factory employees and abusing owner and managers of the factories, was a regular feature. They instigate employees for work to rule, where work to rule was not prevalent. A friend of mine posted in West Bengal, often complained that the blue collar Bengali hardly ever do their duties and leave work incomplete which has to be done by managers. When the edifice of socialism crumbled and reforms came into being, generally our economy improved, more so during the BJP led NDA regime.
In West Bengal, two of its stalwarts have started praising capitalism in superlative terms. Recently, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said, "Socialism is not possible now. You want capital both from foreign and domestic. After all, we are working in the capitalist system. Socialism is our political agenda and was mentioned in our party documents. But capitalism would continue to be compulsion for the future."
Basu's comments in praise of capitalism are even more surprising. "We welcomed private capital for industrialisation. Socialism is a far cry. It will continue to be compulsion for future. We have learnt from the failure of socialism, we have learnt from the miracle of China. The same Basus and Bhattacharjees have used the word 'miracle of Soviet Union' in the past. Miracle of China, too, is a mixed bag. Western China suffers from abject poverty. Only the eastern coast can be described as a miracle, that, too with the help of Chinese from abroad and the US.
Hardcore fundamentalist Communist leadership of India has apparently become permissive capitalist. If only they could have woken up half a century earlier. But the Communist rhetoric had a tendency to live in the past. Take for example their negative attitude to disinvestments. It is a well known fact that if best public sector companies are allowed to disinvest without loosing control over the company, they could have gathered Rs 8 lakh crore, enough to take care of all infrastructure requirements, lack of which has a decelerative impact on our economy today. They want India to follow the same old confusing path. But for West Bengal, they are ready to welcome total capitalism leaving Marx behind. Not that this wisdom was not available to the first generation politicians; Chakravorty Rajgopalachari, Minoo Masani, Piloo Mody were ardent pleaders for doing away with quota, permit and licence-raj and confused concept of mixed economy.
The ideological dilemma of CPM and the Left is far more deep rooted than what meets the eye. In West Bengal the Forward Bloc and RSP have raised some fundamental questions towards the changed altitude of CPM stalwarts. Kerala Chief Minister VS Achyutanandan has diagonally opposed views on these issues openly. It is also a well known fact that the CITU continues to stick to ideological dogma as they are violently opposed to the red-carpet welcome to Tatas and other Indian companies.
The inhumanity has been perpetuated by party leaders in Nandigram and Singur with the help Government constabulary. Still the whole truth is yet to come out. Every now and then corpses are unearthered. There is no count as to how many persons lost their lives to this barbarism. Only an year back Bhattacharjee was at the peak of popularity. Today is he at the bottom. Notwithstanding continuous propaganda engineered against Narendra Modi the number of journalists from West Bengal praised the multifarious development of one term of Modi Government and hinted at its comparison to six-term rule of Communist Government in West Bengal.
Meanwhile interesting transformation in Bengal cusine.
Op-Ed in Pioneer, 26 Jan., 2008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A chicken and egg story
Kanchan Gupta
<b>In Purnima Thakur's delightful little book, Thakurbari'r Raanna, which is all of 97 pages, a huge variety of recipes, ranging from shuktani (vegetable stew) to aam-rosune'r kaasundi (mango-garlic chutney), have been listed.</b> Many of the preparations were presumably popular in the Tagore household at Jorasanko and have a distinct 'eideshi' flavour compared to food as it is cooked and relished east of Padma. Purnima Thakur, known as Bubu'di among her myriad admirers, <b>has included 60 recipes for cooking fish, twice the number of recipes for cooking meat, in her book. Interestingly, of the 31 recipes for cooking meat, only five recommend chicken as the main ingredient </b>-- murgi'r rezaala, Peshowari murgi, murgi'r cutlet, Madrasi murgi'r curry and Filipini murgi'r curry. The first two are what we refer to as 'mughlai dishes', the third and fourth are of Anglo-Indian vintage, while the fifth is clearly of Filipino origin.
This preference for mutton over chicken is not surprising. <b>Till as recently as the mid-20th century, Bengali bhadralok Hindus would not touch chicken or eggs -- both were seen as 'Muslim food' or food meant for the mlechchho, both Muslim and Christian. Even Anglicised Bengalis who flaunted their disdain for conservative Hindu society by eating beef and cooking the prohibited meat at home, would not allow chicken to be served on their tables, leave alone consume it. If poultry had to be consumed to keep up with the Europeans, it was duck meat and duck eggs. The Brahmos were more liberal and chicken was served at some Brahmo homes (that would explain the inclusion of recipes to cook chicken in Thakurbari'r Raanna), but it had to be cooked in a separate kitchen, most often in the courtyard. Later, this became the practice in most Bengali bhadralok Hindu households, although women rarely touched chicken or eggs; their bias against both did not, however, dampen their enthusiasm for maachhe'r jhaal and mangsho'r jhol.</b>
<b>The decline and fall of the Bengali bhadralok samaj and the rise of neo-liberalism and the boxwallah culture,</b> best exemplified by Mani Shankar Mukherjee's Seemabaddha (Satyajit Ray later made an eponymous film based on this novel) that militated against established notions of caste and community, <b>saw the erosion of barriers that kept chicken and eggs away from the middle class Bengali's dining table.</b> In recent years, increased awareness of red meat's detrimental impact on health has contributed to the preference for white meat, most notably chicken, in Bengali, as in non-Bengali, households. <b>A third factor that has contributed to popularising poultry in a State where it was pro-actively shunned is the often pathetic attempt by Bengalis to discard that which is integral to their culture and ape others. </b>Traditional Bengali wedding feasts served on fresh banana leaves have now made way for catered food that includes chholey, panir and tandoori chicken and is served on chipped china. Mouth-watering chochchori has been replaced by chili chicken. <b>Even the snootiest of Bengalis are not untouched by this strange metamorphosis of Bengal's eating habits. The venerable Marxist economist Ashok Mitra once told me that he felt perfectly at home in Delhi's Banga Bhavan because they served an "excellent chicken curry".</b>
There is, therefore, need for neither surprise nor shock on account of West Bengal's Nadia district primary school council's decision to continue to serve chicken curry to children as part of their midday meal provided by Government. <b>In normal circumstances, this would be seen as a grand gesture, since in States like Uttar Pradesh, gruel fit for consumption by cattle is served as midday meal to school children.</b> But these are not normal times in West Bengal where avian influenza, or bird flu, has been detected in 11 districts; Nadia is one of them.<b> Mr Bibhas Biswas, chairman of Nadia district's primary school council, insists that the State Government has banned the sale and purchase of chicken, but not the "consumption of fowl curry". The wise man could have also cited the National Egg Co-ordination Committee's advisory that chicken, even if it is infected with the H5N1 virus, cooked at 70o C is safe for human consumption. That he hasn't is symptomatic of the West Bengal Government's terrifying non-response to the snow-balling crisis caused by H5N1-infected chickens dropping dead in district after district. The virus is now knocking on Kolkata's door.</b>
<b>Ever since the outbreak of bird flu was first detected in a little-known place called Hargram a fortnight ago, the CPI(M)-led regime has demonstrated its incapacity to deal with a disaster situation.</b> Not only has the Government been found to be unprepared -- a fortnight later scarcity of protective gear continues to prevent health workers from venturing forth in many affected areas -- it has once again allowed local Marxist cadre to subvert local administration. <b>The official ban on transporting chickens and eggs out of the bird flu-hit districts is being flouted with impunity because the poultry trade is controlled by the party apparatchiki, as is all trade and business in the districts. And so the deadly virus continues to travel from district to district, although it could have been contained, as was done in Maharashtra where the State Government restrained the virus to three kilometres of the two places where it was detected.</b>
The sheer unpreparedness of the State Government to deal with bird flu, despite there having been enough warnings and sufficient time, not to mention funds, also stands exposed by the methods of culling that have been adopted -- they are cruel and dehumanising. Health workers are decapitating terrified and squawking chickens by pulling off their heads, and in the process getting splattered with their infected blood. In Bolpur, 10,000 newly-hatched chicks have been buried alive. <b>As if this were not bad enough, the bird flu outbreak has once again brought to the fore the corruption that prevails in West Bengal's CPI(M)-controlled panchayats. People are reluctant to hand over infected chickens for culling because they are not too sure the local panchayat will hand over the Rs 40 per bird compensation. Already there are reports of poultry owners who have had their chickens culled being told by party dadas they should not expect more than Rs 30 per bird, possibly Rs 25, that is as and when compensation is actually doled out, if at all.</b>
Meanwhile, at Alimuddin Street, CPI(M) leaders are busy calculating the impact of avian influenza on this summer's panchayat election. Even if they were to ensure poultry owners get the compensation that is due to them, it would be less than half of what they would have earned from the culled chickens.<b> The H5N1 virus may succeed in achieving what the Opposition could not manage.</b> Let's wait and watch.
Siliguri, Feb. 7: The Forward Block put up two faces today.
The Dinhata brigade bellowed against the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government for Tuesday's police firing that left six dead, but colleagues in Calcutta kept their lips sealed.
Udayan Guha, the Dinhata Bloc secretary who has been catapulted to the forefront in the district, said Tuesday's "barbaric" incident would be highlighted at all party meetings from now on.
He said the Bloc would not buckle under the "might of the government", which had tried to "crush the Forward Bloc's efforts to raise common peoples' issues".
But leaders in Calcutta, who had yesterday cut short their bandh and refused to criticise the chief minister, were silent on the firing, confining themselves to the refrain that the matter would be discussed at the next Left Front meeting.
They appeared keen to distance themselves from Guha's aggressive brand of politics â in evidence since Tuesday's law-violation programme and in its aftermath.
Guha dismissed suggestions by the CPM that "antisocials" had mingled with the procession that had stormed the subdivisional office in Dinhata, which triggered the police firing.
"There was not a single antisocial in the rally. They were all our supporters. The CPM leaders should prove their point," he said.
In Calcutta, the Bloc leaders took pains to ensure that they did not lay the blame on the government â but only on the police â for the deaths. Guha, however, was in no mood for such benevolence.
"We have been fighting the CPM-led government on some major issues. After Tuesday's incident, we doubt how much unity can be maintained in the Left Front. Our workers at the grassroots level view the CPM as any other opposition party."
Some Bloc leaders in Dinhata admitted that the sympathy generated by Tuesday's firing would "benefit" the party.
"It is not a very pleasant thing to say given the enormity of the tragedy, but the deaths will definitely help us in the panchayat polls," a leader said. "It has pumped up our workers and made us more aggressive in our anti-CPM stance."
Dinhata limped to normality today with shops and offices re-opening and children trooping back to school.
However, tension hung heavy over the town and nearby areas, especially villages which lost residents to the police bullets. "We are not going to sleep till justice is done," said a Bloc supporter from Sitai.
Viewers of English-language TV news channels will have noticed the frequency with which a <b>mysterious community called "activists" has begun popping up</b>. On subjects as diverse as education, health, industrialisation and religion, the utterances of politicians, officials, corporates and the man in the street are invariably countered with views of "activists" presumed to have profound expertise on all subjects. <b>There is also an implicit suggestion that the "activists" are detached, selfless and not burdened by the baggage of interest groups. In short, they are a superior and pious voice in the rabble. </b>
It may be unfair to lump "activists" into the umbrella category of NGOs. There are many non-profit organisations that perceive themselves as philanthropic bodies, charities, religious trusts and even social organisations which occasionally dabble in "social work". They raise their own resources, have nothing to do with the Government but hate being clubbed with "activist" NGOs. What distinguishes normal NGOs from "activist" groups is funding, political involvement and what the Americans call attitude. <b>The "activists" tend to be globally funded, politically Left-liberal or worse, and blessed with the conviction that they know best and everyone else is garbage.</b>
At the 1999 Seattle summit of the World Trade Organisation, <b>The Economist estimated some two million NGOs in the world; of these, about a million were in India</b>. The numbers have increased over the past nine years, more so because a growing number of entrepreneurs have discovered business potential in NGOs.
To be fair, most activists are not racketeers, <b>though they have an insatiable appetite for publicity, business class travel and endless conferences in exotic places.</b> Activists from the so-called Third World which, tragically, still includes India, <b>have also developed considerable skills in guilt-tripping angst-ridden Western liberals and UN-sponsored bodies into doling out lavish grants</b>. The grants are ostensibly aimed at facilitating "people's empowerment", a euphemism for good salaries, many conferences, media lollipops and sponsorship of agitations that impede national progress.
The activists ostensibly want to "help people help themselves". Some genuinely try to help the informal sector get legal protection and end up getting thrashed by goons. Others, rope in starry-eyed TV reporters from privileged backgrounds and gap-year radical tourists to give legitimacy to movements that seek to prevent steel plants in Orissa and dams in Gujarat.
"Activists" have different priorities but what binds them together is a passionate desire to keep alive the problems that justify their existence. In recent years, for example, activist bodies have been accused of grossly exaggerating the incidence of AIDS in India. <b>The unstated reason: The massive availability of international funds to fight AIDS.</b> <b>In Gujarat, the "activists" have also been accused of keeping riot victims in a state of permanent dislocation because it helps score political points.</b>
In the old days, the "activists" were derided as harmless but over-zealous jholawalas and relegated to the margins of civil society -- despite their bogus claims of actually representing civil society. In recent times, thanks to lavish global patronage, some deft "advocacy" and strategic political interventions against the former NDA regime, the activists have inveigled themselves into the decision-making making process. The inclusion of "activist" icons in the once all-powerful National Advisory Council chaired by Sonia Gandhi was a signal to the UPA Government to accommodate seemingly radical concerns in the development process. The results have been catastrophic.
Take the case of urban planning in Delhi. The sudden collapse of all systems of traffic management in areas outside Lutyens' Delhi is widely blamed on the construction of the High Speed Bus Corridor. Billed as a system favouring cyclists and bus commuters and flaunted as the success story of Bogota (Columbia), it is likely to be a major factor behind the Congress' near-certain electoral defeat in Delhi later this year. <b>Yet, as is now apparent, this hare-brained, regressive scheme was sold as a progressive pro-poor measure by activists who have no stake in the future of India.</b>
<b>The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was the greatest triumph of the "activists". </b>Now operational in 330 districts at a cost of Rs 12,000 crore, it was supposed to do for the Congress what Operation Barga did for the CPM in rural Bengal: Make it electorally invincible. <b>The interim results point to a monumental disaster and CAG's draft report speaks of a 97% under-performance.</b>
In normal parlance this means unmitigated disaster but "activists", <b>egged on by a mindless section of the political class, now want Rs 30,000 crore from this year's Budget to make this profligate, corrupt and unproductive scheme national.</b>
They want a dedicated bureaucracy and membership of a so-called Employment Guarantee Council to run NREGA as a form of parallel Government. They want to turn disaster into calamity.<b> A distraught Government, afraid of admitting its Italian blunder, may well oblige.</b>
Finally, "activists" have poured into sensitive bodies like the Minorities Commission. Established as a well-meaning talking shop for those who couldn't be accommodated in Parliament, it has become a malignant influence on society. From giving predictable template reports on "attacks on minorities" by a despicable majority, it has moved into tampering with national security. <b>The interference of Minorities Commission activists in the arrest and interrogation of terror suspects in Andhra Pradesh is a warning. If you give them an inch, they will take a mile</b>.
<b>Democratic societies operate on the principle of indulgence. However, when minuscule unaccountable "activists" start holding the nation to ransom on the strength of misplaced certitudes, it is time for correctives. An urgent rehabilitation programme for "activists" is overdue.</b>
For any comments, queries or feedback, kindly mail us at pioneerletters@yahoo.co.in
Many politicians in the capital, irked beyond measure by the arrogance and snobbery of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its secretary-general Mr Prakash Karat, and its holier-than-thou attitude towards other parties, have been hoping, even praying, that the party be brought down a peg or two from its "lofty pedestal".
Their prayers appear to have been answered. They can now draw vicarious pleasure from the acute embarrassment visiting on the CPI(M) following the surfacing of cracks within the ruling Left Front coalition in West Bengal. For the first time in three decades Left unity is unravelling and the Front partners are pulling in different directions. The malaise of disunity and incohesion has hit all the three states simultaneously and the claim of the Left parties that it is the glue of ideological affinity that keeps them together has been exposed to be a myth.
<b>Ideology has played no part in the current split-up of the Left which has resulted solely from ego and personality clashes induced by the CPI(M)âs arrogance.</b>
The CPI(M) is the dominant partner in the Left Front in all the three states, West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala, where the Left parties have held sway for some years. Though the Front comprises the CPI, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the All India Forward Bloc, it is the CPI(M) that has been acting as the principal spokesman of the Left consolidation.
<b>In that role, the CPI(M) has not shied away from being extremely critical of everything that does not conform to standards set by it or to the Left ideology. It has been openly intolerant of most other parties and their respective ideologies. </b>
Even where its own interests demanded co-operation with other political formations, as with the so-called Third Front parties in recent weeks, the CPI(M) has been both patronising and condescending.
The CPI(M)âs arrogance and its holier-than-thou postures have become a given after the Left parties took a strong position against the Dr Manmohan Singh governmentâs proposed nuclear deal with the US. <b>There are more opponents than supporters of the deal within Parliament and the ranks of the political class, but the CPI(M) has managed to project itself as the sole "principled and patriotic" opponent of the deal and to dub the supporters as American stooges</b>. This attitude has not gone down well with a large section of the political class that feels that the Left is exploiting the nuclear deal to win votes for itself in elections.
Part of the anti-Left resentment in other parties is also intimately linked to the threat of a mid-term Lok Sabha poll that loomed large a few months ago following the CPI(M)âs warning of withdrawal of support from the UPA were the government to persist with the deal. Most politicians are not ready for snap polls, and the thought that the government can be brought down by the Left is galling to them. During the last debate in the Lok Sabha on the nuclear deal, the Leftâs stand was derided by some MPs supporting the deal as reflecting "power without responsibility".
What is relevant here is not the rights or wrongs of the nuclear deal but the kind of reactions the Left has provoked among other parties. Bigger and important regional outfits like the Nationalist Congress Party of Sharad Pawar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam of Karunanidhi (all UPA constituents) have also been considerably peeved by the fact that the Left parties are able to exert more influence on the UPA and its policies than the allianceâs partners. Their peeve is all the more intense since the Leftâs influence is confined to just three states but its hold over the Centre is disproportionate to its real political strength. The main opposition party, the BJP, has made no secret of its belief that the Left virtually runs the government and influences, even determines, all its economic policies. A touch of envy runs through the BJPâs anti-Left statements.
Those who felt that the Left had indeed grown too big for its boots because of its capacity to keep the UPA in check and dictate terms to the Prime Minister and Congress president Sonia Gandhi will see in the CPI(M)âs current predicament some cause for satisfaction.
Three of the four erstwhile Left Front partners are now estranged from the CPI(M) and have traded charges with it. The CPI has accused the CPI(M) of "Big Brother" behaviour while the AIFB and RSP are threatening to part political company from the CPI(M). In the process they have raised a question mark over the Left Frontâs future.
The first signs of fissures in the Left consolidation appeared in Kerala when differences between Chief Minister, Mr V.S. Achutanandan, and the CPI(M) party chief, Mr Pinarayi Vijayan, became the talk of the town. The two senior leaders vied with each other in name-calling. The rift dissipated all the goodwill the Left had earned by sweeping the last Assembly polls and forming a Left Front government. The CPI(M) politburo had to intervene and discipline the two "warriors", a rare instance in the rigidly-run party that does not tolerate the airing of personal views in public.
The Kerala development embarrassed the central leadership but the party made a virtue of the event by publicising the view that unlike in other parties, indiscipline received zero tolerance in the CPI(M). The party was thus able to ride over the embarrassment, but the suspension of the Chief Minister and Mr Vijayan from the politburo made no difference at all. The two Kerala CPI(M) stalwarts have yet to mend their ways and the central leadership is powerless to impose unity from above.
Nandigram was the immediate provocation for the alienation of the CPI, RSP and the Forward Bloc from the CPI(M) in West Bengal. Short of pulling out from the Front, each of the three disgruntled partners made no secret of its annoyance with the CPI(M) leadership for taking the Front constituents for granted. Although the top CPI(M) leaders like Mr Jyoti Basu, the Chief Minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Left Front chairman Biman Bose, managed to paper over the differences, the Left Front lost its shine. The patch-up was only skin-deep. This was confirmed by the Forward Blocâs call for a Bandh on Wednesday in protest against the police firing at Dinhata in Cooch Behar district in which five FB activists were killed. The impressive success of the Bandh confirmed that the FB, as the second largest party in the Front, can call some if not all the shots against the CPI(M) in West Bengal. The bandhâs success must also have been an eye-opener for the CPI(M). It was typical of the CPI(M) to attribute the bandhâs success to the efforts of "reactionary forces" like the Congress and the Trinamul Congress to embarrass the government! The impact of the Frontâs crack-up in West Bengal was felt immediately in Tripura where both the RSP and the Forward Bloc announced that they intend contesting the coming Assembly polls on their own and not in alliance with the CPI(M).
The CPI(M) may manage to tide over the latest crisis also and manufacture another patch-up of partners. However, the crisis of confidence that has been on public display in the three Communist-controlled states of late may well spell the beginning of the end of the Front.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Kolkata, February 9
A well-networked cartel at the <b>Indian Museum in Kolkata, one of the biggest repositories of the countryâs cultural and historical heritage</b>, has been siphoning off crores of rupees under the pretext of preserving priceless artifacts, a probe has found.
A recent investigation by a central government team has detected a scam that involved misappropriation of funds to the tune of Rs18 crore between 2004 and 2006. The magnitude of the scam could be even bigger, say investigators.
The fund was meant for gallery renovations for the Indian Museum, National Library, Rabindra Bharati University Library and Guru Saday Museum in West Bengal and for improvement of the state museums of Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Assam Sankardev Kalakshetra Museum, Guwahati.
Highly-placed sources said West Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi, the chairman of the Board of Trustees, played a key role in pursuing the initial leads about the malpractices. A thorough probe by officials of the Central Government later revealed that at least Rs18 crore had been siphoned off.
âThis may just be the tip of the iceberg,â said an official of the team, expressing serious concern about the existence of priceless antiques supposed to be lying in the stores. Only a small fraction of the Indian Museumâs collection is displayed in the galleries, while the rest are kept in stores and have not been verfied for years.
New Delhi, Feb. 4: Someoneâs laughing all the way to the bank while Citu is crying foul.
A cyber fraud has left the CPMâs trade union front poorer by Rs 24,000, and enraged Citu seniors now want the government to find the culprits and bring them to book.
They have written to external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee and the Indian high commission in London, seeking urgent redress.
What made Citu register with an unknown organisation hosting a conference on âglobal warming and climate changeâ remains a moot question, though.
A while ago, Citu received an email invitation from an entity that called itself the International Development Organisation (IDO). It said the IDO was hosting the âInternational Conference on Global Warming and Climate Change (GWCC 2008)â in London from February 22-25, 2008.
The venue: Hyde Park Hotel, 15 Sussex Place, Hyde Park, London W2 2SX, the United Kingdom.
The contact person: Ms Stella Gray.
The participation terms: register (at registration@idorg .org), wire a sum of £300 for board and lodge âand the hosts would be pleased to send you a round ticketâ.
âThe IDO has set up an access fund to support the travel costs and all-round air fare cost for participants who are unable to raise sufficient funds on their own. All participants, however, will be expected to fundraise for their hotel bills in the UK, which will not be waived,â the mail said.
Citu responded with alacrity. Central working committee member P.K. Ganguly was nominated to participate and an amount of Rs 24,000 wired from the trade unionâs Canara Bank account on Delhiâs Bhagwan Dass Road.
Someone smelt a rat when realisation dawned that the hosts were not sending a round ticket, only offering to reimburse the fare once the participants reached London.
âFirst they said they would send the tickets to us. But a mail last week said they would reimburse the fare,â Ganguly said.
âWe investigated and found that the whole thing was a fraud.â
The trade unionâs boss, M.K. Pandhe, has now sent out a âcatch-themâ plea to the government, but it may be too late; the cash has already bolted from Cituâs coffers.
I know you had nothing to do with it but your name has been tarred and roasted on the streets of Kolkata. Like Nero, these perpetrators who use your name fiddled while a building burned for over 100 hours. The way the fire raged, you would think this was war-torn London. Such is the level of efficiency in West Bengal that of the 42 fire tenders which reached Burrabazar, only two functioned.
Were the protectors of the proletariat worried? Not in the least. While the city blazed, they held a rally and held forth on the revolution. Not one of their telegenic leadersâwho are normally ready for the camera at the drop of a byteâwas seen or heard at the site. Indeed, if this had been any other city, the mob would have instantly appeared on TV and prophesied the doom of the UPA regime.
You could argue that after all, it was the bourgeoisie who were affected in the fire. The thought did cross my mind. I wondered what party the traders who lost over Rs 2,000 crore of property vote for.
But it is not a class conflict. It is simply a validation of the theory that cadre-isation of the government or systems breeds sloth. "Hobey na" comes more naturally than "let's do it". This was proved just a day after the fire was put out.
Last week, the Health Ministry revealed that the West Bengal Government had put at risk millions of lives by not acting on the symptoms of and warnings about a bird flu epidemic. It was 10 days before the lal salaam machinery moved. Who knows how many lives will now be at risk? After all, unlike Maharashtra, West Bengal neither has the facilities nor the administrative mechanism to coral affected individuals. A whole state has been put to risk while the comrades were plucking chicken, well, metaphorically.
You must be wondering who these strange heartless creatures are. In case you have not heard of themâand why should you have heard of a motley crewâthey are known as the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Now I know it is delusional for any outfit without even a passing presence in 27 of the 30 states of India to call itself a national party, but such is the state of politics in India. With 60 MPs, they are the ruling Opposition in India. Yes, that sounds contradictory, but it is simple, really. The red brigade supports the government but prevents it from functioning. I don't think they agree on any issue except staying put. I am told physicists may be able to explain this state where a body uses inertia to stay afloat.
For years they have proved beyond doubt that they cannot practise what they preach. They talk about the oppression of minorities but do nothing on the ground. The literacy level of Muslims in West Bengal is astoundingly low. Despite their full-throated cry about discrimination by majoritarians, the fact remains that Muslims in other states do much better than those under the protective umbrella of the Left. In fact, the comrades would like you to believe that Nandigram was just one incident and Rizwanur just another individual.
It is not their use of pelf and prose to stay in power that surprises me. It is the absolute impotence of the Opposition to dislodge them. I have never had any doubts about their incapacity to rule or their lack of vision, but always thought their heart was in the right place. Their interventions in the name of the marginalised man, even if preachy pink, deserve support in these days of hyper-crony capitalism. But that is now being done by a host of NGOs so effectively through the use of right to information laws.
So seriously, Karl, since you now know that the God has failed, don't you think you should invoke intellectual property rights and stop CPI(M) from using your name. For starters, your name would not be shamed and the denial of this fig leaf of identity perhaps would trigger the dispersal and exit of this mob.
My apologies for intruding into your peaceful reverie, but this was critical.
KOLKATA: Forward Bloc cadres on Wednesday went all out to embarrass Big Brother CPM during its daylong bandh against the police firing that killed six Bloc supporters in Dinhata.
<b>The day saw no major flare-ups but was peppered with scenes that usually mark an Opposition-sponsored bandh. Bloc activists stormed government offices and squatted on railway tracks in a bid to make its bandh â which was reduced from 24 hours to 12 â successful. There were hardly any CPM men on the streets to foil the "spontaneous" reactions.</b>
In Kolkata, transport minister Subhas Chakraborty said neither his party nor the government opposed the bandh on "tactical grounds". Though the day before he had promised more buses on the roads, he said on Wednesday, "The bandh has been called by an LF constituent. We ran some buses to maintain normality."
<b>FB was in no mood to relent. Calling the Dinhata incident "a second Nandigram", FB state secretary Asok Ghosh said the Left Front government has to take lessons from such incidents. "Is this the way the Front should survive?" asked the veteran leader.</b>
State co-operative minister Robin Ghosh showed the way early in the day. The septuagenarian sat on the railway tracks near Uluberia station with his supporters. Other FB supporters followed suit across the state, throwing train services out of gear. As many as 30 trains were cancelled and many more detained at various stations.
Ghosh wasn't the only FB leader to take to the streets. Barasat MLA Bithika Mandal stormed the office of the additional district magistrate (General) and forced the staff to vacate the building. FB men went berserk, overturning tables and other furniture before throwing out the few government officials who had turned up for work. Mandal then picketed the entrance with her supporters to stop anyone from entering. Former MLA Saral Deb was arrested for trying to enforce the bandh.
In Kolkata, the Metro functioned normally though the number of commuters fell to 30% of other weekdays. The bandh's impact was felt in areas like Esplanade, Ekbalpore, Kidderpore and Shyambazar â places where FB has a strong presence. Opposition parties supporting the bandh took to the streets at Kidderpore, Bhowanipore-Hazra crossing, Jorabagan and Howrah bridge.
FB supporters also blocked Diamond Harbour Road and forced bikers and cyclists to get off their vehicles and walk. Motorists, too, were stopped but the police presence ensure that no car or bus was damaged. The driver of a state-run bus was injured when bandh supporters pelted stones at the AJC Bose Road-Pretoria Street crossing. A sub-inspector, Prakash Ghosh, was thrashed by bandh supporters at Bowbazar. As many as 258 FB workers were arrested across the city.
In the districts, the FB supporters targeted many government offices. A bus was damaged by bandh supporters at Madhyamgram, while clashes were reported from Murshidabad and Birbhum. FB supporters came to blows with employees of the district land and land reforms office in Murshidabad. Trouble broke out when cadres tried to stop the DLLRO staff from entering office. In the ensuing melee, DLLRO employee Manabendra Dasgupta ended up with a fractured leg. Four others had to be hospitalised. Hundreds of FB supporters fought with police when they were stopped from entering the Birbhum Zilla Parishad office.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
New Delhi: The West Bengal government has denied before the Supreme Court all allegations regarding the reported excesses committed by the state administration in Nandigram where 14 people were killed in police firing in March last year.
A Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice R V Raveendran asked the counsel for the state government about the statement made by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in reference to the role of CPM cadres during Nandigram violence.
The counsel for the state virtually disowned the statement of the Chief Minister and responded by saying that it might be the personal view of the Chief Minister but it was not the view of the government.
Farmers in Nandigram have been opposing forcible acquisition of their agricultural land by the state government for setting up of a Special Economic Zone.
The state has come in appeal against Calcutta High Court order declaring that police firing in Nandigram was not justified.
The High Court ordered a CBI inquiry and also directed the state government to pay a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each to the families of those killed in police firing.
While denying the allegations, the government had also taken a stand that it did not oppose CBI inquiry. However, the observations made by the High Court have virtually foreclosed the investigation by CBI as the investigating agency can not go beyond the findings of the High Court.
<b>The Left Front government in the state has been under fire across the country for the role played by CPM men at Nandigram. A large number of women were allegedly raped and villagers were forced to flee from their villages after being terrorised by the activists of he Communist Party of India (Marxist).</b>
Twelve persons have been injured in two separate clashes between supporters of the Bhumi Ucched Protirodh Committee (BUPC) and the CPI(M) in Nandigram since Saturday night. No one has been arrested.
The violence comes days before the chief minister's visit to the district. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is slated to visit Nandigram on Tuesday.
Sources said armed CPM cadres fired at BUPC members in Satengabari village around 2 pm following rumours that a CPM member had been beaten up by political rivals. More than 12 rounds were fired and four BUPC supporters suffered bullet injuries.
Hearing of the CPM attack, BUPC cadres gathered at Satengabari village and assaulted a CPM supporter and his mother. A police picket has been posted at Satengabari.
The CRPF has also been called in. The BUPC has called a 12-hour bandh in Nandigram on Monday.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Communist murderers back to their old business of conducting pogroms.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>CPM guns for RSS in Kannur, two more die </b>
Pioneer.com
VR Jayaraj | Kannur
Thalassery, Koothuparambu and adjoining areas of Kerala's Kannur district, known for the bloody political rivalry between the CPI(M) and RSS-BJP, on Friday fell into panic that reached schizophrenic levels after murders continued through the third consecutive day. <b>Six young men -- four RSS workers and two CPI(M) men -- have been hacked to death within 48 hours starting Wednesday morning</b>. Â
Hundreds of policemen under the direct command of State Director General of Police Raman Srivastava failed totally in controlling the gruesome political violence in Thalassery and adjoining areas on Friday. The DGP, faced with the terror situation, was forced to ask the police to shoot trouble-makers at sight.
Even as political leaders called for restoration of peace, two more young men -- an RSS activist and a CPI(M) worker -- were hacked to death in the area on Friday, taking the number of the murdered to six. One CPI(M) worker and two RSS-BJP men were hacked to death on Wednesday setting off the present spell of political terror in Thalassery and another young RSS worker was murdered on Thursday. At least three young men are undergoing treatment in critical condition.
Â
Police stood helpless in Thalassery, Koothuparambu, Panoor and other areas of Kannur district, known for the murderous politics of the CPI(M),<b> in the context of
alleged lack of will on the part of the CPI(M)-controlled LDF Government to bring the situation under control</b>. Home Minister Balakrishnan came under fire for not showing the will or courage to take strict actions to control the violence, which had pushed the people of his constituency, Thalassery, into panic by Thursday noon.
The body of CPI(M) worker Aneesh, 30, was found at Puthur in Panoor on a roadside on Friday morning. Reports said that he was hacked to death while he was going for work on a motorcycle. RSS worker Suresh Babu, 38, Kuniyil, was hacked to death allegedly by a CPI(M) terror group at Ingayilpeedika near Kodiyeri, the native village of the Home Minister. He has already drawn flak for not visiting to his constituency and home town even after the gruesome murders.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Communinst continous pogrom in Kerala
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Â <b>Bloodshed in Kerala </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Marxist killers on the rampage
The killing fields of Kannur in Kerala are once again soaked with the blood of young men murdered by CPI(M) terror groups. The only fault of those slaughtered this past week by Marxist thugs was that they preferred the colour saffron over red. In a recrudescence of political violence in Kannur district, CPI(M) hoodlums hacked five young BJP activists in a span of less than 72 hours starting last Wednesday afternoon. Horror-struck people in the CPI(M)-dominated areas of Thalassery and Koothuparamba in this district, known for Communist brutality, are cowering in fear. More than a thousand police personnel, led by top officials, have been patrolling the streets, but that has neither inspired confidence nor restored peace. This is not surprising since the police force reports to CPI(M) top gun and State Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, who hails from and represents Thalassery constituency. Marxist misuse of the police for political purposes is not unique to West Bengal; the situation in Kerala is no better. Indeed, not many people disbelieve reports that Mr Kodiyeri has all along played an active, albeit behind-the-scenes, role in his party's murderous campaigns to exercise control over Kannur district.
Even Marxist fellow travellers in Kannur will concede that the so-called 'liberated' villages in the district, especially in Thalassery and Koothuparambu, are nurseries that breed terror elements who, when ordered by their leaders, do not betray the slightest hesitation while killing 'opponents'. Since the late-1970s, the victims of this thuggery, which becomes particularly vicious whenever the CPI(M) is in power, have invariably been RSS workers and BJP cadre. The mass killings began in 1980 when the late EK Nayanar was the CPI(M) Chief Minister -- in the past three decades, there has been a spurt in Marxist violence every time the LDF has come to power, with the police remaining mute spectators. In 1999, the pattern of killings changed for the worse. Till then, leaders would be spared by the Marxists, but in 1999, Kerala was stunned when the State Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha vice-president KT Jayakrishnan, a school teacher, was hacked to death inside a classroom and in front of his students.
It's the law of the jungle that prevails in Kannur. The law enforcement agencies have abysmally failed in their task of ensuring safety and security for all. The criminal justice system has equally failed in ensuring the guilty get their just desserts. This is best exemplified by the shoddy investigation and shoddier prosecution that resulted in three of those accused of murdering Jayakrishnan walking free while the fourth accused has been sentenced to life imprisonment -- justice would have been seen to be done if all of them had been sentenced to death. Not surprisingly, the local CPI(M) committee organised a rousing welcome for the three men who were acquitted, heaping insult on the memory of the man they had so brutally murdered. There is no percentage in seeking the UPA Government's assistance, as has been done by Leader of Opposition LK Advani, to stem the Marxist violence. Such appeals will only be met with approving silence and indulgent inaction. Let us not forget the UPA Government's response to the butchery at Nandigram in West Bengal. There is no reason why it should react any differently to the plight of the people of Kannur.
Attacks on CPI(M) offices are ominous for democracy: Yechury
New Delhi (PTI): The attacks on CPI(M) offices in different parts of the country are "ominous" signal for democracy as they reflected the "fascistic intolerance" of the RSS-BJP in their bid to gain political mileage, senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said on wednesday.
He also charged the Sangh Parivar with "refusing" to join the talks to restore peace in the troubled Kannur district in Kerala convened by Kerala Home Minister K Balakrishnan on "specious grounds".
"The fact that the RSS is refusing to join these talks to restore peace in Kannur is a clear indication of their desperation to maintain their political presence through spread of such violence," Yechury told reporters here.
Releasing a list of 12 CPI(M) activists killed allegedly by the RSS-BJP workers and a large number of attacks in Kerala since the Left and Democratic Front came to power in June 2006, he said "their frustration is clearly reflected in such increased violence against the Left as even the attendance in RSS shakhas in Kerala is dwindling."
Maintaining that even some allies of the BJP had condemned the attacks, Yechury said the LDF government had been appealing to all sides to stop violence and "we hope good sense will prevail on the RSS-BJP."
Referring to the attacks on his party offices in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune and Dehradun, he said "they had vandalised the portrait of Comrade P Sundaraiyya, a legendary freedom fighter who was the first Leader of Opposition in Parliament in 1952."
He said as many as 159 CPI(M) workers lost their lives in the last three years, "mostly in clashes with Trinamool Congress and Maoists".
<span style='color:red'>CPM's killing fields: Kannur</span>
By Balbir K. Punj
March 15, 2008, Deccan Chronicle
AKG Bhavan as the headquarters of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) gets importance far in excess of the real strength of the Marxists. This is partly because right now they have the strategic advantage of keeping the UPA government in power at the federal level, while in effect the party has been holding sway in only three of Indiaâs 30 states. Since the Marxists are deciding the federal agenda, they enjoy the advantage that all bruises inflicted on them get a national perspective.
That is why the BJP protest rally and the resulting skirmish outside the CPI(M)âs central office in Delhi got immense publicity, eclipsing the killing fields of Kannur of Kerala.The root cause of it all is the Marxist theory of violence as a legitimate means of not only acquiring power but also hanging on to it at any cost. The way the Marxists claw their way into village after village and shut out all other political elements was exposed to the world at Nandigram in West Bengal. Even the governor of the state was shocked by what Nandigram revealed and he did not hesitate to say so. By forcing their way into villages and shutting out others by sheer brute force, and with the state apparatus helping them in the process, the Marxists consolidated their hold.
This is what Kannur too has exposed. The North Malabar area with Kannur as its headquarters is a communist stronghold. Historically, building the party on the fallout of the Mappila Revolt of the early 20th century, the party, using its strong-arm tactics, ensured that there was no access for other political formations. Kannur also is the backyard that has bred top Marxist leaders, starting from A.K. Gopalan, the party boss of the Sixties, former chief minister of Kerala E.K. Nayanar to present state party boss Pinarayi Vijayan and state home minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.
In this blood-soaked district, the recent spate of violence and counter-violence started soon after state home minister Balakrishnan suddenly transferred tough district officers and posted a set of pliable ones soon after the partyâs recent session at Kottayam. The Marxists are worried that despite their tentacles spread all over North Malabar, people are beginning to revolt against Marxist rule.
The RSS has courageously faced the brunt of the Marxist attack for quite some decades now, and has sought to challenge Marxist hegemony. The brutality practised by the Marxists became evident when an RSS-minded schoolteacher was cut to pieces in front of his students two decades ago. Kannur has seen bloody clashes between Marxists and Congress workers, between the Marxists and the Muslim League, and even between the CPI(M) and the CPI. The inner secrets of Marxist hegemony enforced by violence and economic power became public when a top leader M.V. Raghavan broke ranks to tell the truth.
Raghavan has been the target of several violent attacks since and has survived them by being part of the rival UDF. Only last year the Marxists used their cadres to oust him from the cooperative society that runs a local medical college. But the Kerala high court invalidated that âelection,â exposing the Marxist machinations. This was one more of the several setbacks the comrades have received apart from the steady accretion of the strength of the BJP-RSS that is worrying them.
The current spate of violence started soon after the Marxist party session in Kottayam. The session saw the consolidation of state party boss Pinarayi Vijayan who took complete control of the party apparatus overshadowing the chief minister, V.S. Achuthanandan. The chief minister has been reduced to a shadow in the power structure of the Marxist party. The state home minister Balakrishnan is a Vijayan appointee.
The last two weeksâ orgy of violence was inaugurated with the comrades hacking to death an RSS worker. The weapons used in the series of killings in the area were sickles, swords and daggers. In some cases, locally made bombs were used. Sickles and swords are used because they are easily available and used in agriculture. They are good at targeting individuals rather than bombs that can kill a crowd. Hacking is the communistsâ favourite game as it leaves a horrific sight and generates fear.
Not just the RSS, even other political parties like the Congress and the Muslim League have expressed concern over this senseless violence. Oommen Chandy, the Leader of Opposition, even went on a day long fast to highlight the officially protected violence in Kannur. Remembering how the Marxist government in West Bengal was hoodwinking the public and the Centre over the restoration of peace in Nandigram, what their compatriots are doing in Kerala can generate no confidence among the non-Marxist parties. Time and again, Kannur had witnessed clashes between the Marxists and the Congress â even the CPI had once warned the Marxists over targeting its cadres.
However, the silver lining in all this is that the Marxists are finding (as in Nandigram) that they cannot always use violence against other political and ideological formations to prevent the latter from establishing their own presence. The people of Malabar seem to have woken up to the threat that the Marxists will establish a Soviet land there with a virtual one party regime. Having seen the police playing a partisan role there, the people are taking up on themselves the defence of their basic right to organise and propagate other political philosophies than Marxism.
The Marxists are therefore getting desperate even as the cleavage between the government and their party is widening. The Marxist chief minister even dares to ignore his party general secretary Prakash Karatâs advice to call an all party conference to restore peace. By claiming that this was not the time for such a conference, Achuthanandan has clearly signalled to his comrades that they could wreak as much havoc as possible. Of course, for those who have tracked such communist behaviour since the Twenties of the last century, this bout of violence in Kannur should cause little surprise.
Stalinâs extermination of millions of his own people was exposed by none other than his successor Nikita Khrushchev. Mao disregarded his own suffering people. The barbarism practised in Cambodia still weighs heavy on the conscience of humanity. So the Marxists need not pretend in New Delhi that they are the victims. They tried the same technique in Nandigram, but the entire episode exposed the comrades for what they were.
Balbir K. Punj can be contacted at punjbk@gmail.com
Chinese Party in India sings a familiar tune CPI-M refuses to condemn Tibet violence
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sitaram Yechury, leader of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, refused to condemn the violence in Tibet, described by the Dalai Lama [Images] as 'cultural genocide' by the Chinese government.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Yechury said the clashes were an internal affair of China. "How can we condemn the incidents in Tibet, which is an internal part of China?" he asked.
