Violence is an integral part of Marxism. There looms large a tendency towards violence behind the scenes of Marxist political agenda. Enter the Marxist world of verbosity, a host of fierce, berserk terms and the forms of ?Isms? stand there as shooting columns. Marxists, consolidating themselves, thus became a political tribe, opposed to the whole of the nation-society. Once a consolidated political tribe, a synchronised process forms ruthless coterie inside the party that commits grievous crimes against the people. Thus works Marxist dogma in which violence is a tenet. History, all over the world, has shown Marxism and violence are inextricable.
Marxists of various shades gained ascendancy in West Bengal and Tripura (Kerala entails something different) because heinous violence that was perpetrated on Bengal'ssocial life during and after the Partition days contributed to the consolidation of the Marxist Party in West Bengal.
Thirty million persecuted, robbed people had to seek refuge in West Bengal since 1947 because of the Muslim League barbarity in East Bengal?East Pakistan (the method is still in process in Bangladesh). People driven out of their ancestral land because of inhuman torture and violence by the Muslim League became the pray of Marxist agitation and propaganda machinery in West Bengal since 1950s. The secular Nehru Congress failed to redress, even partially, the grievous conditions of the rootless, pauperised people seeking refuge in West Bengal. Nehru collaborated, in implicit form?if not directly, to handover the fate of millions of Hindus to the Muslim League lording over East Bengal. The colossal failure of the Congress to ameliorate the distressed conditions of East Bengal people coming over to West Bengal let the Communists, by means of their agitation-propaganda machinery, to get hold over the struggling refugee people in West Bengal. Thus, the sordid, violent acts of the Muslim League in East Bengal prepared the ground for the ascension of the Marxists in West Bengal political sphere. One kind of gruesome violence on the Hindus in East Bengal paved the way for the incoming of another violent political tribe i.e. Marxists in West Bengal.
The Marxists, however, would never have the ascendancy as they have gained in West Bengal, had Indira Congress, following Nehru'slegacy, not let Marxists swell in West Bengal for confined party interest of Congress in Delhi. Indira Gandhi let West Bengal Congress became a pack of divided cards engaged more in internal feuds so that the Marxists find West Bengal a vineyard and stand as a political force, namely in opposition, but serving Congress in Delhi at crisis period by dividing, hoaxing the anti-Congress opposition parties in the Parliament. Thus, the rise of the violent political tribe of the Marxists in West Bengal was caused and fertilised by three different dimensions?Muslim League (exodus of millions of persecuted, pauperised the Hindus from East Bengal?East Pakistan); antipathy of Nehru towards East Bengal refugees; and Indira Gandhi'stactics of providing space for the Marxists in a particular state so that the political tribe may play as her secret hand in the group of opposition parties. The cat of the said liaison came out of bag during the Emergency period 1975-77.
But no word is a last word in History.
National senses are gaining momentum in West Bengal and striking back the Marxists. Nationalist consciousness prevailed intensely in Bengal by last two centuries in the avant-garde sense of the term (national sense existed all over Bharat from time immemorial). Vande Mataram epitomised the entire flow right down from Rammohan Roy to Netaji Subas Bose, Syama Prasad Mukherjee?a flow from early 19th century when thousands suffered and dozens of sterling revolutionaries sacrificed their lives for the cause of national independence. The concept of Bharat Mata brightened the masses chanting Vande Mataram.
The Marxist political tribe, by their axioms, are opposed to the sense of nationalism. National feeling of the masses stand opposed to their design to have authoritarian command on the people. The brand-name of their efforts to denationalise peoples? consciousness are ?class struggle? ?proletariat dictatorship? etc. As a result the passage of the rise of the CPM in West Bengal by last forty years is soaked with blood of CPI, RSP, Forward Bloc, SUCI, Naxalites, BJP and all other party activists and workers be that from peasant or working class or middle class people. During land grabbing programmes of 1967-72 CPM murdered scores of those party workers.
But the national consciousness cannot be erased from the conscience of the people as a whole, moral sense of right or wrong cannot be obliterated by the use of cunning, ferocious methods from the corridors of governance. It is that where Marxists fail anywhere, everywhere of the world. In West Bengal too the same thing is going to happen?for the basic reason that a violent political tribe cannot stand very long opposing the inherent national consciousness of the people. Singur and Nandigram are the fluorescing points of such national conscience. It is not an expression of simple political opposition.
The struggle of Singur-Nandigram is not party oriented one, it emanates from the cultural-social conscience of the Bengal people and have been rightly tuned by the moral conscience of the entire nation?the national conscience, here is fighting back the Marxist regimentation. The marauders and murderers let loose in Singur-Nandigram are the terrorists of violent political tribe the Marxists. When faced by the conscience of the people, the days become numbered for the oppressors.
The voice of national democracy was tried to be gagged by the promulgation of Emergency in 1975-77, that was chastised by the people in 1977, but the Marxists came in governance in West Bengal in 1977 following the Emergency. Begotten by Emergency politics, they continued their methods of social regimentation since then in West Bengal and the Congress was happy to let the boot of Emergency arrogance to CPM so that the party could walk to Congress for mutual political business.
The days of Marxist authoritarian governance in West Bengal are becoming numbered. The canvas of the Congress-Communist political entente waits serious reverses in the national plank too.
National conscience in Bengal is striking back the Marxists and the virtues of nationalism is again reappearing in West Bengal.
(The author a senior journalist can be contacted at 59/B Kankulia Road, Kolkata-700 029.)
