Calcutta Notebook
Shoummo

To quote from the ‘Glasgow Herald’ of 14 July 1949 "A bomb exploded at a corner of the huge parade ground in Calcutta yesterday while the Indian Prime Minister, Pandit Nehru, was calling on a great meeting 'to face the Communist trouble squarely' (reports Reuters from Calcutta)".Further, "One policeman was killed and five persons were wounded when the bomb was thrown at a police picket guarding the crowd of about 1,000,000 men and women. The crowd seized a man and handed him over to the police". The report adds "Half-way through the speech a group of persons in one corner threw leaflets into the air and shouted anti-Congress slogans. When some of his audience became restless Mr Nehru called out 'Please remain calm. Stay where you are. It is a challenge to the vast majority of this audience that a few seek to create trouble. It is for you, the people, to take up this challenge'." The report says that "His appeal was greeted by an outburst of cheering and he continued his speech after asking the police not to interfere with the demonstrators". However Jawaharlal Nehru was no meek Congressman and he had a few aces up his sleeve for he "called on the crowd to fight back against the menace of Communism". He went on to add that "Do not run away from it. The cry for civil liberties raised in certain quarters is not for genuine civil liberties. If these people have their way India will suffer the same fate as Germany under Hitlerism". Much later Budhhadeb Bhattacharya, the recently displaced chief minister of West Bengal echoed the same sentiment when he said that "Human rights—Fuman rights ami bujhe nebo" or "leave it on me to tackle human rights issues". The then chief minister was goading his police into action and was speaking the language that those in power use, irrespective of their political affiliation. The police is an organism structured to maim & kill and they listen to their political masters only when it suits their sectarian interest. It must be emphasised that the present chief minister of West Bengal, no respecter of civil rights, does not think twice before passing snide remarks at the office of the State Human Rights Commission.

Political parties of all hues have their reserve army of cannon fodder from the reserve army of human resources that are waiting for the neo-liberal economy to employ them. To test the political ground, one or many from this reserve army is once in a while expended. BTR or any of his senior cohorts did not lead the charge in 1948 or later and Biman Bose did not do so 2 April 2013. When 13 Congress supporters were shot by the police on 21 July 2013, there were no leaders on the list of martyrs. However, the leaders have congregated every year since then on that date to commemorate the 13 shot and killed. This correspondent had heard the 1949 story from an activist who went underground in 1948 at the age of 18. The person who was taken away from Nehru's meeting was a friend/comrade of the person to whom this writer was talking and was perhaps no more than 19 years old in 1949. When the whereabouts of the person who was taken away by the police from Nehru's meeting were enquired of the reply was a haunting 'I do not know'. He did not say but the Communist Party did not care to know.

Pradip Tah of CPI(M), was killed on the morning 22 February 2012 in Burdwan, West Bengal by alleged Trinamul Congress (TMC) supporters. The trouble started when CPI(M) supporters allegedly removed a TMC flag from the shop of a TMC supporter to replace it with a CPI(M) flag. The shop owner protested, an argument followed and the row snowballed into a clash. Political ground was again being tested by a political party that had lost heavily in the April-May 2011 polls to the state legislative assembly and if a party supporter paid with his life, it was expendable. Same was the case of 22-year-old Sudipto Gupta of Students Federation of India (SFI), the student wing of CPI(M) who was brutally bludgeoned to death in police custody on the afternoon of 2 April 2013. The SFI supporters had gathered on Rani Rashmoni road in Espanade, Kolkata to demand the holding of college union elections in the state. It was a legitimate protest but the state leadership of CPI(M), unsure of its strength on the brink of Panchayat elections, was once again testing political waters in the state. It must be kept in mind that at the same time the ruling TMC was venting its ire at the State Election Commission at Metro Channel which is not more than 300 metres away from the place where the SFI supporters had assembled. The central part of the city was a seething cauldron of political activity with the police waiting to go at the opposition. The state leadership of CPI(M) was present at the meeting but the barricades were broken by the SFI. One more life considered expendable by the CPI(M) was snuffed out in its prime at the altar of an unrepentant state that unleashes violence at the smallest challenge to its legitimacy by unleashing police hordes, a force that taxpayers feed to kill their fellow citizens. The party, CPI(M), has been quick to jump at the opportunity and at the time of going to press a series of protest programmes have been announced.

The brutal act of the government of West Bengal must be unequivocally condemned. The chief minister of the state of West Bengal who is also the home minister is answerable for the brutal killing. The policemen guilty of manslaughter must be booked. There is no doubt that an unjust state and the various institutions legitimising the state's power must be countered at every available opportunity. The onslaught of the state's police on tax paying citizens must be resisted. However, such resistance must not be to further the cynical electoral interests of political parties that are bereft of any ideal or ideology.

[The report from Glasgow Herald quoted above can be read at : http://news.googlacom/ 7iewspapers?id=l25RAAAAIBA J&sjid=ljQNAAAAlBAJ&pg =3894%2C5640903]

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 41, Apr 21- -27, 2013

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