Friends who have been following developments in West Bengal will be familiar with the targeting and attacks on activists, workers and supporters of the Left parties particularly the CPI(M) in the run-up to the Assembly elections. 388 men and women, most of them belonging to the poorer and socially oppressed sections were brutally killed by the TMC-Maoists combine and in some places by the Congress, since the Lok Sabha elections in 2009. Houses were burnt and hundreds displaced, their crime being that they refused to put down the red flag that they held in their hands.
Since May 13 and the TMC combine victory, there has been a qualitative change in the situation with the powers of the State Government being fully used to back the aggressors. Twelve CPI(M) leaders and one RSP leader, and supporters have been killed in the first week of the results being announced. In the course of elections in other parts of the country, parties win or lose and the changeover is usually without incident. But in West Bengal the defeat of the Left Front has been accompanied by the unleashing of terror in many parts of the State not witnessed anywhere else in the country. The aim is two fold: firstly to attack in those constituencies and areas where the Left has been able to withstand the slogan of change and maintain a presence. The targeted attacks in W.Midnapore, Bankura and Burdwan are examples. The second aim is to generally spread terror and fear among supporters of the Left and teach them a “lesson.” In particular the offices of trade unions, elected student unions as well as party offices are being attacked.
It would be a mistake to see these attacks in isolation. The political aim is to prevent the Left from regrouping after its electoral reverses so as to weaken any opposition to moves to reverse the historical achievements of the people of W.Bengal under the Left front regime and to weaken the democratic rights of the people so assiduously advanced and strengthened by the Left front Government.
It is clear that this process is aimed to deny the Left the opportunity to regroup and mobilize the people against policies and moves which would adversely affect the life and livelihood of the people which is already under heavy onslaught because of the neo liberal policies pursued by the Central Government. This is not an issue which concerns W.Bengal alone, but which challenges the basic premises of the functioning of minimum norms of democracy in our country.
The Post-Regime-Change Violence:
The qualitatively new dimension of the new situation is now playing out in the full. And the new pattern is also becoming quite familiar. Even though these attacks and violence are concentrated against the Left and the CPI (M) in particular throughout the State, the focus of the violence is in the areas where the Left has actually won the elections despite all the odds.
The “campaign” includes killing supporters, evicting them from their homes, imposing fines and financial penalties, physically capturing offices of Left Parties and that of democratic organisations and putting up TMC flags, taking recourse to extortions, wantonly beating up people and injuring and maiming them, torching homes, and so on and so forth – in short doing everything possible to terrorise people into submission and inaction, on the false plea to recover ‘arms, firearms and other lethal weapons’ which are supposedly stock piled by the CPI(M) !
This is so very common in the practice followed by forces which excel in persecution and is the antithesis of “Rule of Law” which the new Chief Minister argued for in her election campaign. It proceeds on the premise that TMC mobs will arbitrarily announce that arms are stocked up in the houses or party offices of the CPI(M) or other Left Parties. And then a mob would descend on the designated spot often themselves armed either with the police or without and force a raid. On many occasions the police have been forced to certify “Nil Seizure”. In many cases arms and on many occasions old rusted pieces are planted in the homes and in the party offices. “Seizures” are then officially established! This obnoxious exercise is also sought to be legitimized by wide coverage by sections of the media who unquestioningly and uncritically accept the version dished out by the TMC local leadership and their willing police accomplices. This is of course, new tenets of the rule of law that has come to dominate the new landscape of West Bengal.
Of course, there are variations in the pattern. On occasions where the police officers have refused to completely go along the TMC game plan they have unceremoniously transferred them or even physically assaulted. A classic and symptomatic episode was on full view when the Director General of Police of the State in the middle of his Press Conference for announcing the discovery of arms in one of the areas which was affected by Maoist violence and was in the process of revealing that it included an automatic weapon which was captured by the Maoists during the assault on the EFR camp in Silda, was interrupted by a phone call. The call received by him in the full view of the media brought a dramatic change. He pointed out “the recovery of arms supposedly in the possession of Maoists along with arms recovered brings up a new angle about the facts with the Police!” he had to make this up because the police had already filed a charge sheet detailing the Maoist role in the Silda massacre where 24 security men had been brutally killed.
The Gory Trail of Killings:
Readers of this account will get an idea of the brutality of the violence against the CPI(M) through the terrible killing of a father and son in Kapasdanga village, Murshidabad. Mahabool Sheikh was a party sympathizer who had worked for the party candidate in the elections. On May 24th the Congress and TMC combine brought out a victory procession in the village. Mahabool was at home at the time. The processionists caught hold of him and started mercilessly beating him. His son, Musharraf Sheikh a young man working in Mumbai had come home at the time of the elections. He rushed to rescue his father. He was caught and tied up by the “victors.” He was thrown into the house and the house was set on fire. Musharraf was burnt alive. His father died of his injuries.
The killing of Left leaders and activists did not wait for the swearing in of the new Government. It started of on the 13th night itself the day the election results were announced. Jiten Nundy, a Zonal Committee Member of the CPI(M) and a teacher by profession was dragged out of the party office and ruthlessly murdered in Garbeta in West Midnapur District. Incidentally, Garbeta is an assembly constituency which has been won by the CPI(M) and the Left. On 14th May, the same day Comrade Nundy was brutally killed, Purnima Gharoi, a middle aged woman, a CPI (M) sympathiser in Raina village in Burdwan District was killed for the most unlikely of reasons advanced for attacking her. Her six year old grand-daughter had picked up a flower from a neighbour’s plant. This was the so-called provocation for beating up the young child and her mother. When Purnima tried to protect the them, she was so severely beaten up that she succumbed to her injuries in the hospital. Both in Garbeta and Raina the people had elected a CPI(M) MLA that was their crime.
So the tragic tale continues – of gruesome murders of men and women for their only ‘sin’ – their loyalty to the Left. Till 3rd of June, thirteen precious lives have been lost, from as far as North Dinajpur, on the foothills of the Darjeeling Hills, to the South 24 Parganas. Some of them were so gruesome that even the main stream media which had taken up the cudgels of the ‘absence of the rule of law’ during the Left Front had to front page these sordid episodes.
Grievous Injuries:
Since the 13th of May, severe attacks are taking place with left activists bearing the main blunt despite the Chief Minister’s repeated assertions that there will be no reprisal on political grounds. When a delegation on the Left Front leadership in the Assembly met her recently she went further and declared that the TMC would not be organizing victory processions which in many cases were leading to these serious attacks. However, till now there are no visible signs of any change in the spree of violent attacks.
It is very difficult to detail out the entire range of attacks which are most severe in West Midnapore, East Midnapore, parts of Bankura, Burdwan, Hoogly, Howrah and even Kolkata itself. A major aspect of these brutal attacks is highlighted by the fact that they are not sparing old, physically sick people and women.
The degree of inhumanity can be gauged from the manner in which one of very senior and respected State Committee Member Sheikh Israel was assaulted in Ghatal. Com. Israel happens to be a septuagenarian and a cancer patient who was assaulted while he was on his way to attend an all party meeting convened by the administration for maintaining peace in the area.
Attacks on Offices of Political Parties:
The assumption of office by the new Government have led to physically attacks, capture and forcible closure of CPI (M) offices.
In West Midnapur alone, up to 3rd June, 2011, 207 CPI (M) offices have been ransacked or destroyed and 145 forcibly closed. 20 were looted and 3 were burnt down. At least 26 CPI (M) Zonal and Local Committee Offices were raided or searched without any legally valid search warrants. Similarly, in Burdwan 13 Offices have been forcibly closed in Raina and Burdwan. 118 Offices of CPI (M) and different mass organisations have been occupied by TMC in Bankura and about 40 in Hoogly have been attacked. In many cases FIRs have not been registered by the local police stations. And in any case there is hardly any response from the Police Administration to stop or to take punitive action.
The fundamental right enshrined in the constitution to ensure freedom of association and carry out political activities has become a mockery with the assumption of the new Government.
Attack and Occupation of Trade Union & Mass Organisation Offices :
One of the major features of the post poll violence is the attack and forcible occupation of Trade Union offices mainly in the unorganised sector. In some cases even organized factory level offices are being forcibly captured. In some cases affiliations are being forcibly ensured. There is active connivance of the police in many of these illegal and violent acts perpetrated by the criminal elements of the TMC.
Elected Student’s Union Offices are also proving to be a major focus of targeted attacks. In most cases outsiders – armed goons of the TMC are entering the college premises and forcibly capturing the student union offices. In many cases they are mercilessly beating up student activists and leadership of the elected student’s unions. The student leaders are being threatened either to surrender or to give undertaking that they will not be part of any student activity or they are asked to become part of the students’ wing of the ruling party. Fourteen student union offices in seven districts including four in Kolkata have been forcibly captured by the TMC.
Panchayat Offices
The attacks are also taking place to forcibly stop the functioning of panchayats led by the Left Parties. Elected Panchayat Members are being forced to tender their resignations. As a result of these illegal and violent acts in many villages developmental work under the panchayats have come to a stand still.
Attack on houses and forcible eviction and ousters from residences :
A large number of Left activists have been rendered homeless as a result of the continued violent attacks and severe attacks on their very lives.
In West Midnapore alone 3108 CPI (M) activists and supporters have been forced to leave their houses under severe attacks. 41 houses haves been ransacked and destroyed. In East Midnapore more than 1000 have been rendered homeless. In Bankura 982 families have been forced to leave their residence, similarly in Burdwan about 200 people have been forced to leave their houses. In North 24 Parganas 1135 people are forced to leave with their houses looted. In many cases small shop owners find their only means of livelihood looted.
Against Women
Shockingly there have been cases of rape and sexual harassment of women in Teghoria in Meenakha in North 24 Parganas District, Chandpur in Amta in Howrah District. In one case two women from the minority community have been sexually assaulted. They were totally traumatized and one of them threatened to commit suicide when a family member tried to take her to the police to register a case. Women in some villages in Burdwan and East Midnapore have also been sexually harassed. There have been numerous cases where unruly mobs of drunk men have stormed into houses of CPI(M) sympathizers with green coloured powder, symbolizing the TMC colour, and have forcibly rubbed it onto the women in spite of their protests. In these incidents, the women have been sexually harassed. Taunts, verbal abuse, sexist remarks are some of the other methods of harassment and torture that hundreds of women sympathizers of the Left have to confront almost on a daily basis.
Extortion
A dangerous drive of extortion is taking place throughout the state. Hundreds of CPI(M) supporters and villagers have been forced to give ‘fines’ and ‘donations’ to TMC of thousands of rupees. Villagers were served ‘notices’ with amount of money declared by TMC as a ‘precondition ‘ to stay in the villages. Everyday TMC and in some areas Congress activists are threatening people to pay this money. In fact, it has become the principal tool of terror in rural Bengal.
To sum it up, these acts are major threat to democracy and democratic rights.
Need for solidarity for restoration of peace and democracy and ‘Rule of Law’.
The State of West Bengal has been and continues to be a bastion of the Left Movement. Even though the Left has been defeated in the election it has registered support from 41 per cent voters. This is higher than the popular votes held by ruling parties in many states; and of course by the incumbents of the Central ruling coalition itself. But, the West Bengal elections were not just about a change in the Government. It was more about removing and eliminating the Left forces which have always been in the forefront of struggles to protect the life and livelihood of poor people – of working people. The Left has also been in the forefront of the struggle for maintaining communal harmony and peace in the State.
The W.Bengal Finance Minister an open and ardent advocate of neo-liberal policies has already declared that his task is to “dismantle” the Left policies. This means that behind the rhetoric and the slogans, the hard won achievements of the people led by the Left front Government as an alternative to the central Government policies, whether on the issue of land reforms, decentralization, pro-poor policies will be under attack from the new regime. The present violence against the Left is precisely to make this path easier. The post poll situation is marked by a vigorous campaign by the TMC led combine in this direction. Physical attacks and the denial of democracy is a major aspect of this new post poll situation. These issues are of concern to democratic minded people all over the country. Solidarity with the Left parties, the CPI(M) and the defence of the democratic rights of the people in W.Bengal is the need of the hour.
No comments:
Post a Comment