[Reader-list] Is Indian democracy turning into a farce now?

[Rakesh Iyer]

Dear all

To continue with this thread, I am now giving another article which puts out
how our own democracy has been turning to farce, this time in Bengal. It's
ironic that instead of the verdict 2009 being the only way through which
voices of people are heard, actions of violence are taking centre-stage in
the process, and the end result is a disaster where neither the police nor
the administration carries out the responsibilities they have to dutifully.

Hope views come across on this as well.

Regards

Rakesh

Link: http://www.tehelka.com/story_main42.asp?filename=Op270609circle_of.asp

Article:

*Circle Of Error*

*Was the CPM defeated just to usher in a new cycle of violence in Bengal?*

*APOORVANAND* *
Literary Critic*

IN THE PAST week, Khejuri — adjoining Nandigram in West Bengal — has been
witnessing incessant violence. Offices belonging to the Communist Party of
India (Marxist) (CPM) have been razed to the ground and vandalised. It is a
declaration of dominion, this time, by the CPM’s rival, the Trinamool
Congress (TMC). Do I sound like a liberal simpleton when I condemn this
violence unleashed by ‘the people’ led by the TMC? Photographs of people
tearing away grills from the windows of these offices and carrying them as
‘booty’ with smiling faces tell you that the same old story is being
repeated. The plot remains the same; only the hunted have turned into
hunters and the hunters of the past are now running for cover.
 Intellectuals who spoke up against CPM atrocities are now defending
Trinamool violence as people’s will

This is a turf war similar to the one between activists of the CPM and TMC
at Nandigram for much of 2007. The roads to Khejuri are blocked; ministers
and leaders of the CPM have been turned away, again, by ‘the people’. The
police, as usual, stand mute witness, trained in this state to not go
against the ‘will of the people’. How does it matter to them that now these
people do not belong to the CPM, who were masters for the last three
decades? They have learnt to follow, not the law, but the party. And in
Nandigram today, the TMC is ‘The Party’. And the enemy territory of Khejuri,
a long-time Marxist stronghold, has also been annexed. Victory is complete.

Since the TMC’s candidate was elected in place of the CPM’s notorious
strongman Lakshman Seth, the former has taken it upon itself to correct all
the wrong that was done by him and his party. What is wrong if the villagers
‘assist’ the police in unearthing arms that were stockpiled in the CPM
offices and the homes of their leaders? Why cry foul if the rage of the
people burns the dens of Left criminals? Why not rejoice the destruction of
the launchpad of the assault on Nandigram i.e. the Khejuri party office of
the CPM? After all, didn’t the raiders find in these houses NREGA cards
issued in the name of villagers and held illegally by the CPM men? Doesn’t
it follow that the TMC was right in cleansing Khejuri of the CPM’s foul
elements? And aren’t they right in boycotting the police, which has
‘wrongfully’ arrested 14 members of its liberation army on charges of arson?

You cannot equate the Khejuri liberation with the Nandigram recapture by the
CPM, we’re told. Has there been any killing this time, any rape? It’s
apparently the pent up anger of the people suppressed for last 35 years that
is erupting and devouring the CPM. We are witnessing popular upsurge, we’re
told. Intellectuals who had spoken up courageously against CPM atrocities in
2008, today try to defend the battle in Khejuri as violence that reflects
the will of the people! You’re expected to develop a nuanced understanding
of violence so as to differentiate between violence that only burns houses,
and drives out unwanted people, and the violence that also rapes, wounds and
kills.

The CPM was undone because it targetted the masses. The TMC, by vanquishing
the earlier masters, inherited the masses. It appears the Trinamool has
learnt the lesson well. Its leaders have struck when the CPM is totally
knocked out and its ranks demoralised. The police, a trusted ally of the
CPM, is not available, as they sensed that change was in the air. What
better moment than this to strike at the enemy?

Haven’t the people of Bengal already exercised their will by decisively
voting out the CPM in the Lok Sabha election? Why turn these ‘people’ now
into marauders, brutalising the opponents? The legitimacy gained through the
civilised exercise of election is being used to justify violent action. More
of this, and democracy is sure to die.
 The Left terrorised people and polarised them along party lines. The
Trinamool is simply a mirror image

This is what we have witnessed in Gujarat, where Chief Minister Narendra
Modi sought to justify his subversion of the processes of the law in the
name of a popular mandate. And this was precisely the argument used by the
CPM not so long ago in Nandigram. Didn’t people vote for them for 30 long
years? Weren’t they always used as a shield for the hegemonic acts of the
CPM? Gradually, the party gobbled them up, thereby completing the task of
integration of the people with the party.

It’s not very hard to understand why it took the Opposition so long to
register its presence in the citadel of the Left. The CPM had captured all
social spaces, all cultural and social institutions. Since politics is also
a semiotic game, they saw to it that every symbol representing Bengal had a
definite Left stamp over it. The terror of the Left was such that its own
intellectuals did not criticise the party for fear of being dubbed agents of
the bourgeoisie. The Bengal society is also dangerously divided and
polarised along party lines. It’s extremely difficult for a Trinamool
supporter to live with dignity in a CPM village and vice versa. The CPM did
not allow even its allies, like the Forward Block, CPI and RSP to grow
beyond a point. It very systematically dehumanised Bengal society to such an
extent that any act of opposition had to be, by rule, violent. The new
opposition to the CPM has turned, in a sense, into its mirror image.

I’m quoting from an article by Siraj written after the sixth Panchayati Raj
elections in Bengal: “There is unprecedented rise in the CPM terror and
clashes leading to a good number of deaths… The number of seats won
uncontested by the Left front was 338 in 1978, 332 in 1983 and 1,716 in
1993. It had risen to 4,200 in 1988, but dipped to 600 in 1998 but jumped
(again) to 6,800 in 2003. The ‘Marxist’ Chief Minister Buddhadev
Bhattacharja also had to ask in writing to his ‘party men to abide by
democratic norms and not to prevent opposition candidates from filing
nominations for Panchayat polls.”

The mandate of the 2009 Lok Sabha election has created an opening for
democratic politics in West Bengal. This is an opportunity for revitalising
agencies meant to maintain the rule of law, like the police. It’s tempting
to make them shift their loyalty to another party, but this is too easy. The
administration and police must realise that their allegiance should be to
the Constitution and not to The Party, old or new.

West Bengal has forgotten that the best way to live democratically is to
give dignity to your opponent and not humiliate and destroy him. The *Ilaka
Dakhal* campaign in Khejuri was ‘bloodless’, but in other parts, a fierce
battle for turf-control is on. Maoists and CPM members are locked in bloody
gun-battles, and wives of opposing party members are paraded with
shoe-garlands. It shows that Bengal is still far from “the sphere of human
agreement”, which, according to Walter Benjamin, is “non-violent to the
extent that it is wholly inaccessible to violence.” Benjamin calls it “the
proper sphere of understanding”, which cannot be achieved through force or
arms. It has to be created only by using the most democratic tool —
language.

*WRITER’S EMAIL*
apoorvanand at kafila.org

Article: