People's Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
No.
18
May 02, 2010
|
Vol. XXXIV
No.
18 May 02, 2010 |
THE bourgeois media and the
corporate houses that
sponsor them � out of their own financial compulsions � have for some
time now
been filled with hopes and aspirations about the �sure� defeat of the
Left in
Bengal when the municipal polls are held in May this year, with better
things
to follow. Before exploring the ground
under the feet of the right reaction, let us turn to something else.
The rich hope
for a d�b�cle of the left in the
civic elections. The petit bourgeoisie fear that the Left may have to face
defeat. These are but class responses. What we regret especially is that not-a-few
�left� thinking people, intellectuals, literati,
artistes, have even gone on to create
�scenarios� for the future right-wing government that shall �come to
office,
yes, certainly.�
One newspaper editor now
regularly runs a column where
he pontificates the �ways-and-means� that the rightists must look out
for,
while running the
The other day, a well-known
progressive, secular,
liberal historian, a genuine CPI(M) supporter, expressed his critical
apprehension as to how he would run the mufussil college that he heads
as the
principal, once �the brigands come to office.�
What makes him and his like so sure that the Left is going to be
voted
out and comprehensively?
The middle classes, the late and
very much lamented
Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M), Saroj Mukherjee, would never fail to
remind,
are a vacillating lot.
Go instead, as we have done of
late, to the villages
like those in the Binpur block in Midnapore west, or in the terai
and dooars regions of north Bengal, and you shall be
met with
bright-eyed optimism of the masses, for they have little doubt of the
fact that
the electorate would never vote in
the anarchic brigade.
Approach the workers who have
been cruelly retrenched
by the managements and who draw what is still a pittance of an
allowance due to
them courtesy of the Left Front government, and you shall see courage
of
conviction about the outcome of the polls. Who is concerned with
despondency? The Red flag shall flutter
once again, the workers believe.
The wondrous fact has been that
other than vague
charges like, say, the isolated, if sad, incident of police firing
during
Nandigram episode, or the so-called lack of �proper� (i.e.,
consumer-oriented,
market-driven, pro-rich) governance,
the opposition could only point to an issue, in their attack mode, on
which
they are themselves deeply mired in � the issue of law-and-order. The Left would tend to agree with the
rightists that there is need for
restoration of democracy, on very different grounds, grounds that have
everything to do with rightist intransigence and left sectarian
adventurism �
at the cost of the lives and livelihoods of the people.
The political meadow of the
opposition in the
meanwhile shows increasing signs of cracks and fissures. The actors and
actresses
who appear on the stage of rightist drama are becoming bitterly
personal in
their internecine quarrelling. The comfortable confines of a central
government
club of an office in downtown Kolkata was the venue for the latest
round of
talks in the afternoon of April 22 between Didi�s
men and the despondent looking lot called the Pradesh Congress. The
meeting had
already turned biley when somebody mentioned, before the horse-trading
commenced in earnest, one Pradesh Congress leader�s recent attack on
the
Trinamul Congress when he had commented that there was one post �of
political
prominence� in that outfit that all others were �unlit lamp posts.�
The Trinamul Congress during the
negotiations just
told off the Pradesh Congress big shots, our sources tell us, that out
of 141
seats in the Kolkata Corporation, the Pradesh Congress might get 20 or
less. The Pradesh Congress leaders then
fretted, fumed, and even let loose a bad word or two.
Nothing happened. Nothing can
happen.
The Trinamul Congress would crop
the opposition
political meadow flat and bald by overwrought, power-packed, mowing
down. To them, the Pradesh Congress is an
entity
that hangs on to the political pallu
of Didi, to survive in
