Written by: Rukmini Sen
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad [ABVP] and Bharatiya Janta Party [BJP] should remember what West Bengal did to Congress, not too long ago.
Congress Chief Minister Sidharth Shankar Ray over saw killings of thousands of young men and women in the seventies. Congress claimed to have killed ‘anti-national’ Naxals. People in Bengal, especially those who were part of the Left movement and those who lost their children, say – without using the word ‘allegedly’ – that Ray killed whoever he wanted to indiscriminately. He killed the students he thought were Naxal sympathizers. He killed many who challenged him politically. Almost any body who supported the strong farmer’s movement was [identified as the ‘enemy of the State’ and decimated] his target.
Ray primarily targeted a large section of the educated youth of West Bengal, the urban intelligentsia, the sympathisers and supporters of the peasant struggle. This was in the wake of Naxalbari uprising in North Bengal which was triggered by police firing on the peasants. The thinking, thriving, actively dreaming youth! When the young [People] died Bengal smelled of death for years! So did Sidharth Shankar Ray and his party, Congress…blood was never washed from their hands. Especially the blood of farmers and the youth.
So much so that the State was scared to pay him the honour that a Chief Minister deserves.
“The Tricolour flew at half-mast in Punjab on Monday for Siddhartha Shankar Ray, but not in Bengal, where the veteran Congress leader was born and the state he served as Chief Minister. The north Indian state gave its former Governor the honour he deserved but Ray was let down in the place he called his own. While the Punjab government promptly announced a two-day state mourning for Ray, the best Bengal could come up with was a local holiday on Monday. The gun salute by the State Armed Police during his last rites at Keoratala was merely to show respect to a dignitary. It was far less than the state funeral accorded to Jyoti Basu,” wrote Times Of India in its November 9 e-edition, 2010, soon after Ray’s demise.
Even Mamata Banerjee, the present Chief Minister of Bengal, who was known for her proximity to Ray, was ‘scared’ of Ray or Ray’s image. If the activists of Bengal are to be believed, Ms Banerjee “requested” Ray not to visit her during her marathon hunger strike in December 2006. Such was the ignominy Ray was exposed to for nearly 30 years after his rule, even while he was not always an inferior administrator.
Congress was such a shamed party in Bengal for so many decades that perhaps Ms Banerjee had little choice but to launch her own party. Perhaps she realised that it is impossible to win an election in Bengal from a party which has actively indulged in a genocide. So she launched a party, fought an election championing farmer’s right and defeated Communists. Perhaps the Communists made the same mistake. They stepped into the same shoe that Congress wore between 1972-1977. They started dictating terms with the same arrogance. Towards the end of their and thus like the party of the land owners– the Congress– they targeted Bengal’s peasants, who are still strongly attached to their farm land. They also actively antagonised the women, the minorities and the youth.In its regime of 35 long years, Communist Party of India Marxist (CPIM) was accused of not giving academic positions to non CPIM scholars. Not even to Marxist scholars who refused to subscribe to CPIM.
BJP and its bachcha elements in ABVP and Viswa Hindu Parishad [VHP] show the same arrogance today being n ew to political power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Their attack on FTII students, IIT students, Hyderabad Central University students, Benaras Hindu University students, Allahabad University students, Lucknow University teacher/students and of course Jawaharlal University students indicates that they think their sun will never set. The same arrogance that we have seen in other ruling parties in past.
What we are seeing in BJP additionally is its lack of political patience. Never before has a Government attacked the educated youth across the country so violently, openly, visibly. It is strange because one expected the popular Prime Minister to win over his detractors. What his people did instead is to alienate the ones who were with him! BJP and its associates have targeted the Dalits, the tribals, the minorities, the women. They have been so indiscriminate in their attacks that they have even attacked their own people like Swadeshi Jagran Manch [SJM] – the economic wing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh [RSS]. It has completely bypassed the advice of SJM while embracing FDI in nearly a dozen sectors. A quick visit to SJM’s website will illustrate the anger of SJM against Modi-Jaitley raj
Never before has a Government forced its ‘sleepy’ opposition to wake up so quickly. Never before has a Government created so many new educated leaders – across the country – to oppose them so soon. Never before has the nation been so strongly divided since independence into Caste Hindu and Dalits, Left and Right, Hindu and Muslim. The change is palpable in spite of most mainstream media houses working overtime to talk about how Bharat has become swatch/clean and strong.
A Government that works against its youth can’t have a future. You don’t touch anyone’s child if you want to rule their hearts. The socialist, Youth Congress and Leftist student band wagon have feudal, semi-feudal, corporate friendly parents back home. Many of them had voted for the ‘development friendly’ BJP Government. If you hit their children what will they do with your development?
What will Radhika Vemula do with our Prime Minister’s development Mantra? Is Najeeb’s mother thinking of development right now?
What West Bengal did to Congress…India may do to BJP if the attacks against its youth do not stop.
A nation needs its Left, Right and Center! It needs a good government and a strong opposition! The fight in our institutions is not a fight of ideology alone…ideology evolves. This a nasty battle for power…absolute power should stop, must stop.
Our humble suggestion thus to all the political parties is: Leave the kids alone!
Don’t push Rohith and now Najeeb’s mother…endlessly…ceaselessly…You are calling the mothers out on the streets and you know how that ends.
[1] SJM website: http://www.swadeshionline.in/