There is a great deal that resembles the RSS in the tactics and actions that distinguish Buddhadeb’s CPI(M) than is good for governance either in Gujarat or West Bengal

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is justified in tearing into the BJP government and its leader for allowing Narendra Modi to continue to do his worst or best, depending on the point of view, in a state hitherto known for its industrious people and a sensitive government able to attract business houses by ensuring them proper and efficient facilities. Speaking at a rally organized by the Left Front in Kolkata for preservation of communal harmony, he lambasted Delhi and the RSS adding that he was ashamed to be a chief minister when a person like Modi who justifies attacks on the minority population also passes off for a chief minister. Buddha said more. We don’t want to learn Hinduism from the RSS, which uses religion as a mask to hide its fascist intention to capture power and cripple the minority both physically and economically. There was a word of condemnation also for the assault on journalists at the Sabarmati Ashram. All this is valid and we applaud him for the position he has taken.

But there is a great deal that resembles the RSS in the tactics and actions that distinguish Buddha-deb’s CPI(M) than is good for governance either in Gujarat or West Bengal. It is not enough to rant against the RSS and all its work. Buddhadeb’s government should look into the mirror I hold up to his face. If the police are inactive in Gujarat because of communal prejudice, they are similarly inactive in West Bengal because of ideological prejudices. We have just had confirmation of the CPI(M)’s hand in the brutalities at Chhoto Angaria in Midnapore district; it is no satisfaction to be told that the people driven out from their homes there to the accompaniment of the same vulgarity were not religious minorities but political opponents. If Gujarat practiced a pogrom born of religious fanaticism, the CPI(M) did the same driven by ideological prejudices. The objective was common – political power by hook or more frequently by crook. To the victims, it is no consolation that their homes were destroyed, their women outraged and their menfolk brutally murdered because they were Trinamul supporters whereas in Gujarat the wrath was visited upon Muslims for no better reason than they were Muslims. Re-settlement in Midnapore was exclusively for CPI(M) supporters, the difference is that any kind of resettlement in Gujarat is still to commence. Alimuddin Street will not talk to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul just as Modi will not countenance Muslim representations. A coin, Mr. Bhattacharjee, has two sides; the one you are holding is no exception!

This newspaper wears its abhorrence of intolerance, of vulgarity, of prejudice, of indoctrination of police and para-military forces, of the supine bureaucracy ever ready to jump to attention to serve political masters in abuse of due process of law, on its sleeve. And it makes no distinction whether the driving force is religion or political ideology now discredited in the land from which it was imported with foreign mascots like Lenin and Stalin. I insist on good governance; this is clearly the need of the hour. It is true in Gujarat, it is also true in West Bengal. I am at pains to debunk the notion that somehow there is virtue in democratic centralism as a scientific doctrine. It is a euphemism for suppressing dissent and has been given up in the land of its birth, the Soviet Union; however, the adrenalin still flows in the spectacle of sadly out-dated Marxists raising their clenched fists on demand from fossils like Jyoti Basu and Harkishen Singh Surjeet. It is nauseating to see younger and more rounded personalities like Buddhadeb, who should know better, call these specimen leaders when they have been left far behind in the struggle for progress and well-being of the human race.

I must in fairness accept that there is another difference. The Marxists perceive, although dimly, that they have gone too far, their dilemma is that they do not know how to withdraw. When they do see their way clear, there is Jyoti Basu, ever ready to spike the guns of his successor for the sole objective of protecting his son, Chandan. Gujarat is different. The loonies are at a primordial stage where they do believe that more of the same will see them through the next elections.

The debate in Goa will not be between good and evil, between right and wrong. No principles of good governance will intrude. No notice will be taken of public warnings by Rahul Bajaj and Deepak Parekh, two respected industrialists, that Modi is taking Gujarat to ruin and disaster. The only question in contention will be – is Modi winning the next elections or is he likely to lose them? It is scarce believable that we have sunk so low. The Prime Minister is worried as to what face he will show to foreigners. I worry about what face we can show to ourselves!

April 10

Statesman’s Editor-in-Chief C. R. Irani is among the few journalists who stood up to Mrs. Indira Gandhi, during the ‘Emergency’. I have never known Mr. Irani troubled by the need to be politically correct long before the words gained their current currency. I have also known Irani to be infuriatingly objective. His columns in The Statesman, appropriately titled “Caveat” are hard hitting, going straight to the heart of the matter.