West
Bengal has suddenly come into focus on the political arena due to the death of Students
Federation of India (SFI) leader, Sudipta Gupta (http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/sfi-leaders-death-causes-furore/article4575257.ece),
the reason primarily being SFI being a wing of Communist Party of India
(Marxist) [CPI(M)]. CPI (M) that had so fervently used the slogan, “CPM, laal
salaam!’’ to seize the attention of the
public around, especially, in West Bengal that once upon the time enjoyed the
sobriquet, “Sonaar Bangla’’. Any person who has spent a major part of his life
in West Bengal has heard this motto associated with the political party,
CPI(M), known for its intellectual pretensions that managed to condemn the fate
of West Bengal to a state of Waste Bengal. It would not be wrong to
say that the state of Bengal under the political leadership of Jyoti Basu and
his comrades was nothing short of a banana republic, an unstable state, in
disguise. The state, which had bred the likes of Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Swami
Vivekananda, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra
Chattopadhyaya, and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, had turned into something
obnoxious, pathetic, and so vulnerable that the residents of the state had
developed a feeling of antipathy and helplessness towards their own land.
During the regime of CPI(M), schools were burned down so that people remained
illiterate and unlettered, grants to hospitals and funds meant for
infrastructure were embezzled and misappropriated, and law was practically
bought and tucked away in the pockets of those who could afford and wanted to
run the state as per their whims. The political party that had promised the
people with a whole array of opportunities and available possibilities had, in
fact, reversed the state of affairs in the state into a labyrinth of confusion
and misguidance in which people got caught, stuck, and bamboozled. The
political party, CPI (M), which claims to be the longest-serving
democratically-elected communist government, had in the truest sense rendered Bengal
into a condition of persistent vegetative state that refused to wake itself up
and free itself from the fetters with which it had been confined to a state of
coma and permanent disability. Bengal, practically, had nothing to look up to
and no one to look up to it. The CPI (M) vandalized and destroyed the very soul
of the state through committing atrocities on its people by letting loose their
political goons and making blunderous decisions to suit their own interests.
But, there is something
that they forgot. Human beings are resilient by spirit. What they need is just a
chance to bounce back on their feet and a leader who could just show that all is
not ended unless you decide to put down your arms. There is light at the end of
the tunnel and all we need to do is not to let the light go away from our sight
unless we have reached that end to make a new beginning. The Trinamool Congress
(TMC) came and put to rest the pessimism that had got frozen in the minds of
the people due to fear and pain. The people wanted to do away with the CPI (M),
rather banish its very existence, but alas in a democracy it is not possible.
The CPI (M), when in power,
had attempted to show to the world that it was running the state based on some
idealistic policy, but in fact, they had actually brainwashed the rural and
urban people with a sense of fake ego and useless principles that took West
Bengal back into a stage where it was during British colonization. Mamata Banerjee's decision to stop students
union elections to the universities and colleges in West Bengal,
seemed
not to have gone down well with the Left. The present situation, regarding
campus violence, can only be understood in the historical perspective wherein
the Left front had intended of building a very
strong student front which will serve as their gatekeepers for their
political interests.
The death of a student
leader, no doubt, is painful in the history of student politics. Moreover, it
is shameful on the Left’s part to brand an accident as a crime committed in
cold murder. It is not new to the experience of the Bengalis that the Marxist
party leaves no stone unturned to stir attention of the people and use it to
its complete political advantage. The report of the forensic experts and the
statement given by the Bengal police means nothing to the Left front, for they
intend to make use of any and every incident as plausible that can bring them
back to power. The death of Sudipta Gupta, is perhaps, being seen as an
opportunity by CPI (M) to strengthen its roots in the minds of the Bengali people
from where they have been ostracized owing to their criminal and mindless
politics.
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