‘Hoodlum years’

Bengal’s Slide into Fascism
Garga Chatterjee

There is a certain way in which certain spokes-people sell 'movements' happening in the third world to primarily white audiences in the first world. They act as non-partisan but ideological warriors. Curiously those representing this strand from India include many from the CPI(M), the foremost among them being Vijay Prashad. A recent article by Vijay Prashad in the widely read Counterpunch is a case in point where he paints an alarming scenario about the recent happenings in West Bengal–especially with reference to the death in police custody of Sudipto Gupta, a student activist of the SFI.

Much of what is being said about the incident is true, but, to the white readers in the first world, where English language ability becomes an important point of legitimacy of viewpoint, will hardly know that this is not unprecedented and that almost all of these crimes have been previously committed by the erstwhile CPI(M) government led by the party. They will also not know that such authors also support the same CPI(M).

The article in question can be found here (http://www.counterpunch.org/2QI3/04/10/bengals-slide-into-fascisim).

Such propaganda materials do not state that the student organization of the CPI(M), when it was in power in West Bengal, systematically decimated other organizations, mostly through organized violence or threat thereof. These readers will also not know that during the CP1(M) regime, student union elections with non-SFI candidates happened in only a minority of colleges of Bengal as in most colleges, SFI did not let others even submit nomination papers for candidature.

While they will wax eloquent on the danger of 'neo-liberal reforms' in education, they will not state that the 'neo-liberal reforms' like privatization and auctioning of college-seats to highest bidders were started by the erstwhile govt. to which the 'main' one owes allegiance to–and never confronted the government on the streets like it is doing now.

It will also not say that fees were raised many times during the CPI(M) government–and that SFI did not take to the streets in protest.

The piece docs not go into the details of "tendency to yoke education to careers and to measure learning with fealty to rules developed in the North Atlantic"–since a laying out of this would show that the past and present government were not qualitatively different in this respect.

That police lines have advanced hundreds of times with unpleasant and bloody motives on opposition student groups during the erstwhile regime, bloodying them and there was no 'slide into fascism' article written then by the author.

The arresting of hundreds of students and throwing them into buses to transport to jail, a vivid picture that would rouse a Westerner, is also something that the erstwhile government perfected and routinely practiced on opposition student activists.

Unless one probes deeper, the reader will not know that Sudipto Gupta was the latest in a string of students killed by police violence–a student protesting forcible takeover of land from peasants for a car factory was killed by police beating in Singur. There was no slide into 'fascism' when that happened. None of the 4 'left' student organizations mentioned protested that killing. Shamefully, the present Chief Minister termed Sudipto's death an accident. More shamefully, there are no words on record on the Singur death from the erstwhile Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharyya.

One should not forget that there has never been a public apology on any case of custodial death of opposition activists by the police during the CPI(M) rule. Trinamul is simply continuing that shameful tradition. Between 2001 and 2010, there have been 98 government documented cases of death in police custody due to torture during the CPM rule. This data is from the National Human Rights Commission, compiled by the Asian Centre of Human Rights led by Mr Suhas Chakma. This is a fraction of the dead and a fraction of the CPM rule.
Sudipto Gupta is the 93rd 'left front' cadre killed in recent years, but the sordid 'score' is not 93-0. The lack of the other number is intellectual dishonesty. Scores of opposition members have been killed during the CPM regime. Even the erstwhile CPI(M) government did not only target the right-wing opposition but also communist activists from other parties and groups.

ln the article, Vijay Prashad refers to a 'temple' dedicated to the present Chief Minister and presents a picture as proof. The Bangla words sadly don't say 'temple'–they simply say Alipur Trinamul Youth Congress office. By that same definition, Bengal is full of 'temples' to Lenin, Stalin and many others. No doubt the present Chief Minister is the singular face and command of the governing party, and she also has authoritarian tendencies, but to call that a 'temple' is pulling a fast one.

The article states 'any state inquiry would be compromised by the culture of impunity that has begun to enfold the state'–what he does not say is that this culture of impunity is a legacy of the last government. How many killers of opposition activists were punished during the last regime? The article does not venture there. Impunity existed and continues to exist. The novelty is not the alarming bit, the continuity is. The piece, however, knows the value of using continuity to its favor, when it remembers acts by the present CM, similar to the one meted out to her in New Delhi. Just that there is a blind-spot and an empty time of 33 years, when all of this analysis does not seem to apply. The number of opposition party offices that had been destroyed and ransacked during the erstwhile regime somehow does not figure.

The piece correctly alarms how offices of party-affiliated women's organizations were attacked. The same author in a different piece in the same publication, tried very hard to absolve party activists who committed the gruesome rape, burning and murder of Tapasi Malik, a fiery young activist who was fighting against forcible acquisition of land by the party-government that the author supported. The author insinuated that her father was involved in the killing. Later CPM party activists and functionaries were arrested.There was no follow-up from the author.

Read both the original piece http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/05/23/the-political-economy-of-a-crisis/ and its counter http://sanhati.com/news/307/).

The piece states that the media will not let this be seen in context. True. So won't the author. That missing context is the past record. Using the evocative imagery of the Kritallnacht may be smart for communicating the 'gravity' to Northern world sympathizers, but that's just about it, especially in the context that this is not the first Kristallnacht, just the latest.

Bengal's slide into fascism did not start with the present government, and with the past record of the present opposition, may not end with it, unless honesty and repentance of past-crimes becomes an integral part of political praxis of the opposition, including the CPM. Pointing out these will bring obvious charges of being an apologist to the present government. In the meantime, poorer nations are stuck with self-appointed spokespersons with huge blind-spots. This was not an exercise in exposing an apologist of the CP1(M). It is also to make the point that honest reporting requires full truth-telling. Partial truths discredit everyone else who is fighting for justice.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 46, May 26-June 1, 2013

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