Forum of Concerned Citizens from various walks of life, including former Judges, senior functionaries of the Civil and Police services, ambassadors and senior armed forces officers have written to the President of India expressing grave concern about post-poll violence in West Bengal. The Dignitaries claimed they had “unshakable belief in the greatness of Indian democracy and its sacred institutions, and are fully committed to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India, build a robust economy and a healthy cohesive society infused with Bharat’s millennia-old culture and civilization.”
Such an appealing expression from eminent personalities from across the country is supposed to kindle rays of hope amongst sensitive people of West Bengal who’re seeing nothing beyond pitch-black darkness under the present state of affairs. However, in spite of such inspirational words, a lot of WB people are not feeling much hopeful. Why so? Why they feel morbidly pessimistic? The reason needs to be analytically elaborated.
While the dignitaries claimed they have an “unshakable belief in the greatness of Indian democracy” the confusion starts from there itself because belief is an abstract state of mind & one belief-system can silently be replaced by another without changing the apparent structure & look of democratic institutions which the dignitaries have termed ‘sacred’. West Bengal had been showcasing consistent & steady change in a belief system for the last 50 years which the Union of India failed to take note of. Therefore, doubt creeping in—what couldn’t drag due notice of the so-called ‘sacred’ democratic institutions in last 50 years, would a mere letter of the Dignitaries be able to do that? Would it be able to wake up the Union of India from deep slumber?
A significant section of sensible people of West Bengal are depressed contemplating the rest of India is either incapable of estimating the extent of malignancy of West Bengal’s disease or they’re incapable to treat it effectively due to procedural red-tape obstacles inherent to the so-called ‘sacred’ institutions. If the procedure becomes more important in any institution than the goal of achievement, how ‘sacred’ is it in reality? Such rebellious spurts are causing devastation of hope amongst sensible people of West Bengal.
The rest of India is perhaps failing to recognize the real pulse of the Bengal problem as they’re looking at Bengal through the prism of democracy & institutions. The dignitaries spoke of the “greatness of Indian democracy”. Comprehending the depth of this Statement pre-requires what exactly they meant by ‘democracy’. For example, to a set of people democracy might mean fearless right to express oneself unhesitatingly in any platform (however different his opinion may be from those of others on the same platform) leading to decision making based on both merits of argument & maximum number of fearless opinions for or against it. However, there may exist another set of people who’d define democracy in a different way.
To these people, democracy might mean getting a pre-conceived decision (however ethically flawed it may be) endorsed by the majority “by hook or by crook”. To the latter belief-system, the procedure of collecting endorsement may fairly include threats, rapes, terror, suffocating supply of regular requirements etc. keeping the bull’s eye fixed on collecting endorsement in favour of the pre-conceived decision. The argument between the two belief systems begins henceforth. If only ‘counting of a final number of endorsements’ (i.e. votes) comes under the scope & purview of ‘democracy, then democracy doesn’t get violated by the followers of the latter belief system. However, if the so-called ‘sacred’ institutions of India has any scope to consider ‘procedure of endorsement collection’ too at least with equal importance to that of number of final endorsements (i.e votes), then democracy is not only getting violated but raped in West Bengal starting at least from 1972 till the last election in 2021.
Questions that must be raised to India’s democratic institutions are as follows.
Q1:—Even if investigating teams come up to West Bengal, how would they map the manipulation system that starts right from top & spreads up to rock bottom of the system that ends up in local goons?
Q2:—A large number of those people whose house have been vandalized by goons won’t register complains against the perpetrators. How would the investigators measure the fear factor in a Court-friendly manner?
Q3:—High-tech investigation procedures like random polygraph & narco tests of people at the grassroots, police, bureaucrats, local politicians, BSF & last but not the least local goons may help. Does our so called ‘sacred’ institutions have any scope of application of such innovative techniques for probing true status of democracy in West Bengal?
Q4:—If they don’t, then are the institutions of Indian democracy really so ‘sacred’ as described?
The letter writes “Recent targeted political killings and bloodshed after the State Assembly elections in West Bengal highlight the need for every right-thinking citizen to observe nonviolence at all costs and respect a democratic process which inherently rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation.”
While such a statement reflects sanity, upholds nonviolence, West Bengal, I’m afraid, is not a place for nonviolence right now. As they initially provide alternative psychotropic drugs to De-addict drug-users in drug rehabilitation centers, the violence-addicted State too must receive medicinal & surgical doses of alternative violence to be de-addicted from habitual violence.
West Bengal requires to observe strict coercive actions upon selective goons who are indirectly supported by the State Administrative Machinery. Just as ferocious canines have well-demarcated area, goons of West Bengal have specified areas for each of them where they’re state-empowered BAADSHAHs enabled to rampage upon dissenting populace of corresponding areas. Falta, Canning, Sandeshkhali, Baruipur, Birbhum —each area has its own goonstar whose names are known by all. Who’s the goonstar of Canning? Who terrorize Falta? Local people know the names. People of each area live at the mercy of their goonstar. Each has a huge brigade behind with ample supply of arms & bombs. Bomb making is one of those very few cottage industries that flourished in present West Bengal. Not to forget, this industry too was inaugurated by the LEFTs in West Bengal.
The above mentioned information can be proved only by competent authorities like NIA / Indian Army. However, West Bengal won’t allow Union of India much time to prove the existing goonocracy of Bengal in a format that Court understands. If India decides to spend another 5 – 10 years (like Saradha & Narada Scam investigation) investigating truthfulness of such information in a Court-friendly manner, West Bengal, by then, would be a cultural loss to India. On the other hand, Parliament of India has due power to take apt measures to prevent West Bengal from changing to a form different from what Swami Vivekananda preached. The dignitaries wrote in their letter, “Swami Vivekananda reminded us of the importance of non violence when he said: “India for thousands of years peacefully existed. Even earlier, when History had no record…..ideas after ideas have marched out from her, but Every word has been spoken with a blessing behind it and peace before it.” To prevent this ideology to perish from this part of India, Government of India would have to step in with all its might for the cause of protecting a culture from extinction. If Indian democracy is ‘great’ & institutions thereof are ‘sacred’, won’t they endorse GOI to do whatever is needed to change structural & functional modalities of present West Bengal?
To uphold & practice non-violence by heart, the State needs to be sterilized from goons. Around a 1 – 1.5 lacs goons dominate the State’s criminal ecosystem. They are the torchbearer of the expansionist lobby. Can neutralizing them be a non-violent process?
Eminent personalities from all over India wrote, “We are submitting this Memorandum as we are greatly disturbed by the mindless instigation of reported violence in electoral vengeance against the people who exercised their democratic right to vote for one political party or the other. Media reports, largely substantiated by eyewitness accounts, mention murders, rapes, attacks on persons and property, including by anti-national elements, leading to the forced migration of people to shelter homes. These reports show unabated attacks after the results of the West Bengal state elections and the deficient and inappropriate response of the local administration and police. These unfortunate developments, if unchecked, could establish a trend which will undermine and ultimately destroy the deep-rooted democratic traditions of India.”
This part of the letter has palpated the exact point of malignant tenderness of Bengal Violence. They pinpointed with a precision that Bengal violence of 2021 is not just muscle-flexing of a set of people against another but a plot to deny & defy the basic tenets of democracy which, if ignored, has the potential to cause destruction of the Union of India.
It’s necessary to mention here that many eminent political minds have already narrated Bengal violence of 2021 as continuation of West Bengal’s tradition of political violence. Sainbari & Bijon Setu Massacre etc. of Left Front regime have been mentioned as examples to substantiate such narrative. However, while brutality & cruelty of those massacres were no less than post poll violence this year, viewing 2021’s violence from the perspective of these incidents might be misleading. Sainbari & Bijon Setu violences were truly political in nature, while post poll violence 2021 is by and large communal.
Q1:—Were seeds of Bengal’s tradition of political violence sown here by Congress & LEFTs with long term idea of creating permanent political unrest not only in WB but in India?
[Not to forget Rohingyas entering India through South Bengal are not remaining confined only in West Bengal but migrating to Delhi, Maharashtra, Bangalore, Jammu & Kashmir & elsewhere. Infiltrators entering Murshidabad are not limiting themselves to WB but migrating to various parts of India.]
Q2:—Had West Bengal with 2216.17 Km long largely open international border with Bangladesh been strategically made a hotbed of political violence from since 1967 in order to camouflage trans-border inward expansionism of Islamists from East Pakistan aka Bangladesh?
Q3:—While Western border of India got duly secured, why was West Bengal-Bangladesh border kept largely open & highly porous?
Q4:—Wrong to guess to let trans-border infiltration continue enabling political expansion of Islamists in India?
Q5:—Isn’t West Bengal’s antecedents of political violence camouflaging the communal nature of 2021 post poll violence?
Q6:—Was setting the trend of political violence in West Bengal aimed at bringing about this camouflaging outcome? (Those who know Jyoti Basu would perhaps realize such a doubt is not baseless.)
Q7:—Every time political violence is highlighted, isn’t the true danger of Islamic expansionism being undermined & sidetracked?
Q8:—While women in Nandigram broke into tears in front of West Bengal Governor and asked him if they needed to change religion to live, did any one wonder how & why change of religion could cool down post poll violence?
Q9:—If perpetrators asked voters for religious submission & not political allegiance, then wouldn’t terming such savagery mere ‘retributive political violence’ be understatement of reality?
Union of India cannot afford to forget history of Partition. The then entire Bengal province, to which the present day West Bengal was also a part, was targeted to be included in East Pakistan by Muslim League. Are League-descendants still trying to capture West Bengal & greater part of India through religious expansionism under the veil of political violence? Is arson on May 23 by Islamists in Mahadalit village of Purnia, Bihar (which too is located near Bangladesh border) mere coincidental? Or congruent with Bengal violence? Bengal violence, in my opinion, is displaying just a miniature fraction of the entire threat the State is truly posing to National security.
“Objectively speaking, the response of the state machinery, particularly of the police, in such a situation should have been spontaneous, protective and unfailingly public spirited, rising above any political influence to act in one way or another. It is clear that the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths resulting from political violence were the result of what should be understood as serious acts of commission and omission of the law and order enforcement machinery of the State, or, in the worst case scenario, induced “State Terror.” — wrote the dignitaries in their letter.
Q1:—What could be the tenable reason why Administration & Police remained silent spectators of savagery?
Q2:—Didn’t they as Public Servants thus violate the oath they took as per Constitution?
Q3:—What could be the probable reason that the topmost bureaucrat ultimately responsible for the State’s law n order has not yet been questioned by higher forum at the National level?
Q4:—Is ACS HOME, West Bengal getting protection by the Cabinet Secretary of India? Or is he getting immunity as a senior IAS by IAS Association?
Q5:—In either case, isn’t Bengal indirectly involving all the Babus of India in methodically safeguarding an organized crime being done by a very powerful anti-India force?
Q6:—Aren’t the Police & Administration of West Bengal being seditious?
Let me also provide clues to answers to the above questions. In reality, the whole State Administration of West Bengal is within the grip of goons & are also in cahoots with them. Why should State Administration be in tandem with goons? Perhaps for personal well being & existence. The goons are so large in number & so prepared with arms and bombs that Police & Administration are factually powerless in front of them. Governor of West Bengal was intercepted on his way to a violence-affected area by WB State Police who displayed unimaginable audacity to stymie Governor’s journey. It’s not difficult to plot that such strength of wrongdoing cannot come in Police & Administration without any specific, negative motivation behind it.
Q7:—Whatever be the motivation, money or life threat, hasn’t the idea of ‘State-power’ already failed in West Bengal?
Q8:—Shall the Government of India remain inactive?
Q9:—Shouldn’t actions start at least at the level of bureaucrats?
Dignitaries expected West Bengal CM to take action against perpetrators. Data work has shown Mamata Banerjee reached her chair for the 3rd term only because an overwhelming majority of perhaps more than 95% of Muslim votes consolidated behind her. It reminds me a few lines from the famous animation movie “The Jungle Book” written by Rudyard Kipling.
“NOW this is the law of the jungle,
As old and as true as the sky,
And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper,
But the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk,
The law runneth forward and back;
For the strength of the pack is the wolf,
And the strength of the wolf is the pack.”
None of the wolves of the pack would dare to violate the ‘law of the jungle’ in West Bengal as “the wolf that shall break it must die.”
I’d conclude my piece by sharing a doubt. Most of the readers won’t perhaps believe the information contained herein & think them to be an exaggeration. But only those who’d believe could feel the real spine-chilling threat of existence from an extremely powerful unknown enemy.
Comments