People's Democracy

REGIONAL PAROCHIALISM  WILL BE OPPOSED: BIMAN BASU

SENIOR CPI (M) leader Biman Basu spoke about the urgent need to contain and condemn regional parochialism. �Ugly deeds of regional and linguistic chauvinism are a terrible danger to the very notion and practice of national integrity and unity� was how Biman Basu would put it.

�The whole concept,� he added, �of Indian citizenship itself is now faced with a challenge of grim proportions, as seen in the prejudiced drive overwhelmed with brutalisation against certain sections of the people in Mumbai This must not be allowed to go unhindered. People of every section of the social fabric must come forward in strong condemnation of the deeds being perpetrated. Political parties of every kind of ideology and political leanings should have the courage to condemn publicly such parochial acts of commission.

In this connection, Biman Basu referred to two forms of separatist movements taking place in Bengal. Up north in Darjeeling, the anarchic Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) was busy overwriting car number plates and altering signboard lettering, often being met with a different sort of separatism in the dooars and the plain lands. The Darjeeling district Left Front has called for unity of the people and for opposing all attempts at dividing up Bengal. Down south, a demand has been raised by interested quarters about slicing of three districts � Bankura, Purulia, and Midnapore west � from Bengal and having them form part of the neighbouring state of Jharkhand. .

Biman Basu asserted that the CPI(M) would stand against all separatist acts. He also condemned the killing of a doctor, a nurse, and a health assistant by the Maoists in Midnapore west recently and pointed to the desperation of these anarchic elements, which drove them to commit such crimes against humanity.

(B P)