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By Agni Sharma
On the eve of Parliament elections, a silent revolution has taken place in the minds of our Communist comrades in Bengal. It seems that all of a sudden they could realise the truth and feel the heartbeats of the people where religion and traditions have a very strong base. This has prompted them to come out with a kind of propaganda where traditional and religious values have captured a large area. This was unthinkable in yesteryears-even during elections-because for them culture and religion was nothing but ?intoxication?.
In its appeal to be released next week, the chairman of the ruling Left Front of West Bengal, Biman Bose said, ?The people should vote for us because we are the true inheritors of the tradition of Vivekananda, Vidyasagar, Khudiram and Prafulla Chaki. Though we do not put Ramakrishna and Vivekananda in the same bracket, Jyoti Basu, on several occasions, spoke highly of Ramakrishna.?
This particular statement of the Left Front chairman has proved that they have been pushed to an ignominious corner for their religion-bashing attitude. Although for them ?religion? and ?tradition? were nothing but intoxication, now that things are changing they want to come off from their old dogmatic position. In other words, the whole of West Bengal has experienced a silent upsurge of ?Hindutva? in the minds of the general people. They have recognised that if the Hindus do not fight back unitedly, they will be further ostracised. So, to save religion and traditional values of Hindus they have taken a vow to teach the forces of disintegration a good lesson in the coming election. So long, i.e. in the last elections, comrades had strong faith in rigging of votes, but, of late, they have realised that this time rigging of votes would not be very easy as the attitude of the Election Commission, so far, has been very strict for holding a free and fair election. To pre-empt such eventuality, they have already taken certain steps. Hence the volte-face of CPI(M) and other left parties.
The whole of West Bengal has experienced a silent upsurge of ?Hindutva?. People have recognised that if the Hindus do not fight back unitedly, they will be further ostracised.
On the other hand, in spite of organisational weaknesses, BJP is high in the minds of the people of West Bengal. It was only for that reason that in an apparent bid to stump the BJP on its own turf, the Left Front claimed on April 9, 2004, that it was the only and true inheritor of the ideals propounded by Vivekananda, Rabindra Nath and Khudiram Bose.
This time, on the eve of Lok Sabha elections, Commu-nists have again fallen back on the old traditional values and religion with a deceptive motive. In Russia, because of that deception, they had to pay a heavy price during the 70-year-rule of Communists. In West Bengal, people have already been paying a heavy price for the last 26 years under the Left Front rule. But people, in general, are not impressed with the latest move of the Left Front to project itself as the worshippers of our national and religious heroes. Because people know that these are the people who used to criticise our culture and traditions day in and day out. They spread canards against our most revered national and religious heroes. Nevertheless, comrades are out on the field to use the same coin to pay back the debts they owe to the people. Let us see whether people accept it or not.
