Coochbehar Separatists Backtrack Before A Surge Of Mass Rallies

B Prasant

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee addressing the rally in Coochbehar

A SURGE of democratic protests expressed through mass rallies and marches saw the anarchic actions of the Coochbehar separatists shrink into a non-starter recently.  The separatist elements who raised the secessionists slogan for a state of Coochbehar and ran riot killing three police personnel and injuring many others beat a somewhat timid retreat when confronted with a series of mass rallies and marches. 

The separatists pulled unceremoniously off the ‘siege’ they had laid on a national highway running through the district and from which, they had triumphantly declared, they would not move away till their demands were met and in full.  Certainly, the corporate media that had inter alia supported the divisive elements – anything to berate the CPI (M) with is the operating slogan for these worthies. The BJP and the Trinamul Congress (for expected reasons) were surely and sorely disappointed at the way the elements they backed would end the stir with a whimper.

Addressing a massive rally that was attended by more than three lakh people at the big grassy ground abutting the Coochbehar aerodrome during the cloudy and rainy afternoon of September 24, Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee declared amidst a thundering applause that the masses of the people would not allow the state of Bengal to be torn apart by secessionist elements.

As the skies opened up and it poured, the rally would not budge and everyone hung on to Buddhadeb’s words as he carefully explained the fallacious logic of and the myth behind the ‘viability of a small state.’  Jharkhand, said the speaker, born out of Bihar, ‘continues to be one of the poorest states of India.’ 

The Coochbehar separatists, Buddhadeb continued, wanted to revive a myth and a lie in order to launch a separatist tirade, and try to mislead people. No one cared to register any protests at all when, back in 1950, Coochbehar was integrated into the state of Bengal.  In fact, the so-called ‘greater Coochbehar’ separatists emerge as one more failed attempt to destabilise north Bengal in particular and Bengal in general. 

The long line of attempt at subversion of the state’s fabric started with the demand for Uttarakhand.  This was followed by the heinous attack by the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) on CPI(M) workers. The ULFA and the other separatist groups supplied them with arms and gave them arms training.

Subsequently, surges of mass movements have seen these elements attenuate and degenerate into gangs of armed criminals, alienated from the people. The desperation witnessed in the violence perpetrated by the Coochbehar separatists, pointed out Buddhadeb, was surely sign of the fear that these elements would experience on seeing large chinks of their supporters choosing to break ranks and join the mainstream.

Coochbehar, declared Buddhadeb, would not be divided constitutionally, and it would never be allowed to be split asunder by the people.  Relentlessly critical of the violent acts of the Coochbehar separatists, Buddhadeb said that in the district during the tenure of the Bengal Left Front government, close to two lakh bighas of land have been redistributed among the poor and the landless, benefiting more than 1.29 lakhs of families.  The agricultural production base has widened in a perceptible manner.  Yet, much remains to be done, and it is precisely this that the Bengal Left Front government has been dedicating itself to.

Inchoate violence, said Buddhadeb, would not solve the problems that face the people. On the other hand, the separatist conspirators would be confronted not with counter-violence but with politics and ideology.  Thus had the Naxalite sectarians been resisted and then defeated. “Go to Naxalbari in the Darjeeling district and one would be hard put to find even one Naxalite cadre”, said Buddhadeb.  In the meanwhile, the Left Front government shall keep working deep amidst the people to ensure an even faster pace of development of the state, benefiting all the districts.

Others addressing the rally were Chandi Pal, secretary of the Coochbehar unit of the CPI(M), and by LF government ministers, Dines Dakua, Nandagopal Bhattacharya, Kironmoy Nanda, and Kamal Guha.