The spurt of post poll violence in the state has already created a new class of victims and refugees in the state. This time the victims are mostly from the ruling CPIM camp. In Khejuri, adjacent to Nandigram, at least 1,000 CPIM supporters have fled their homes and taken shelter in nearby Haldia on the face of violent mass upsurge against them. Led by the TMC leaders the people destroyed and put fire to dozens of houses and CPIM party offices.
After the TMC-led mob took possession of Khejuri, the police went there and recovered a huge cache of firearms, mostly country-made guns, pistols, bullets and bombs from Khejuri. According to TMC leaders, these weapons were stored there by the CPIM activists to unleash fresh violence on the Nandigram people. The violence is not restricted to Nandigram-Khejuri alone. Almost all the districts in south Bengal are now subjected to political violence, where vendetta is a dominating feature. The colleges have become a testing ground of the changing political dynamics.
Both the CPIM and the TMC are blaming each other for the violence.
The CPIM state secretary Biman Bose has already blamed the opposition TMC for the violence and said that by doing this the TMC was pushing the state towards political anarchy.
TMC leader, Mamata Banerjee, went on record saying that already around 30-35 people had lost their lives because of the post-poll violence, of them more than 20 people were TMC supporters. She alleged that the CPIM was trying to terrorise people to submission and recover lost ground after the polls.
Yesterday, Governor, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, issued a statement expressing “regret and anxiety” and urging all to “halt this cycle of violence”. He said, “Reports of violence between supporters of different political formation in the wake of elections…is a matter of regret and anxiety.” He further observed, “In a mature democracy..neither vengeance and vendetta nor bragging and bravado can be allowed either by the victorious or the defeated.”
The civil society, which played the role of conscience keeper, in the last two years and gave a call for ‘Change’ during the election, now is in a piquant situation. The violence is now being perpetrated by mostly the opposition.
Taking cue from the governor’s admonition, a section of the civil society is now trying to initiate moves to put a stop to this violence.
Sujato Bhadra, a prominent human right activist is anguished and felt that a gross violence of political and human right is taking place in the name of settling past scores.
Sujato feels that since the popular opinion is now with the opposition, the TMC leader Mamata Banerjee should have come forward and issued a statement condemning the violence. However, in absence of that he would like to see the civil society coming forward and condemning equivocally both sides for the violence. He says, no matter how serious was the grudge; this cycle of violence has to end immediately.
Bratya Basu, aleading playwright and a known voice of conscience of the civil society does not hesitate in condemning the violence.
Like him, a section of civil society feels that if the artists and intellectuals were rightfully critical of the violent act of the CPIM in 2007 in Nandigram then they should not hesitate when the violence was perpetrated by the opposition in Khejuri.
While agreeing that the violence should be stopped immediately, Kalyan Sanyal, an economist and keen observer of the political developments, cautions, “All these violence has a local history, local cause of its own. These are basically a reaction against the arrogant local leaders of the ruling party. So, it cannot be stopped by issuing statement from above.”
Sanyal explains, “In November, 2007, the CPIM cadres entered Nandigram from Khejuri with the direct connivance of the local police. That time they had mobilised cadres from outside. This time the CPIM leaders are not accusing the TMCof mobilising forces from outside.
This is a popular upsurge against the ruling party at the local level.” The wind of change has also forced the police administration to distance itself from the ruling party.
An aggrieved SFI general secretary, Koustav Chatterjee, sbemoaned the fact and said today that because of “the police inactivity, the students belonging to the opposition have unleashed terror in the colleges.” Sanyal points out, “the development in Khejuri and elsewhere shows clearly that the Left is helpless when the police became inactive. It means, they had lost control over the people at the grassroot level much before. Now, the people are settling their score for all those past misdeeds of the leaders belonging to ruling party.”
