There is a need for a democratic revolution through election. But is it at all possible, especially in our Red State, and if yes, how are we to do it?

Normal life was disrupted across West Bengal on Thursday (16th July) as enraged Congress party workers torched buses and obstructed rail and road traffic in protest against the attack on their party legislators on Wednesday in Mangalkot in Burdwan district. The Congress activists set fire to a bus on Howrah bridge, which links Kolkata with the busy Howrah railway station, police said. “They (Congress workers) have obstructed all major road junctions across the state,” said a police officer. Suburban and long distance train services of eastern and southeastern railway were badly hit as party activists blocked railway tracks.

Congress legislature party leader Manas Bhuinya told reporters that a 12-hour shutdown had been called in 12 of the 19 districts of the state on Friday 17th July, i.e. today. “The shutdown call has been given by our district units spontaneously,” Bhuinya said.
Eight Congress legislators of West Bengal were injured on Wednesday, 15th July, when they were allegedly attacked by armed Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) cadres in a village.

A 14-member Congress delegation led by Bhuinya had entered Dhanyarukhi village in Burdwan district around 1510 hrs IST for distributing relief to party supporters whose houses have been burnt after the murder of CPI-M district committee member Falguni Mukherjee when the attack took place.

Apart from this, the red is getting the blues in West Bengal. First a CPI-M sympathiser, Debu Malik, confessed to raping and killing Tapasi Malik, a teenager who was protesting Tata’s acquisition of land in Singur. Then based on Malik’s statement, the CBI arrested Singur’s Zonal Committee Secretary, Suhrid Dutta, for his role in the murder case. The two are now in CBI custody for 15 days, and the CPI-M finds itself a target of a concerted opposition campaign across the state. Says Trinamool Congress leader, Kakali Ghosh Dastidar, “The CBI enquiry has proved today that the CPI-M cadres and leaders have been involved in the rape and murder of Tapasi Malik.”

In a surprise move, the CPI-M, which has been caught on the wrong foot, has called a 12-hour bandh in Singur on Saturday. However, senior party leader and former chief minister Jyoti Basu says the entire controversy is an Opposition conspiracy.

With public anger on the rise after the recent turn of events, the state government is taking no chance. It has tightened security around Tata’s site in Singur, where construction work is on.

The oft repeated adage(and now ‘cliché’), “The Sun will never set on the Red Empire,” was a result of the impact of thirty-two years of unstinted Marxist rule, a historic record of sorts in the world. The Left sympathizers and leaders’ relationships with the people and leaders of the opposition or anti-LF were always abusive and nowadays, it has degenerated into ‘inhuman’ relationship, especially, in the interiors of the villages of this State.

With the direct orders from the bosses stationed in the CPI(M) headquarter at Alimuddin Street in Kolkata, the sidekicks and cadres of this political hue, go about extortion, torture and all types of tyranny. The things are going on under the very noses of the police force. These police forces have emphasized the belief that somehow human beings in ‘servitude’ are ‘less human’ —- being responsible for the unthinkable predicament being meted out to the opposition sympathizers .

Difference’ has become synonymous with ‘danger; in this Red society. The police force do receive a share of the taxpayers’ money to assist the strong-handed tactics of the authorities. They cannot contain unruly party demonstrators but lathicharge and fire upon opposition agitators and student demonstrations, even on the farmers and labourers’ agitation.

Enforcing the local and village-level judiciary (‘saalishi sabhas’) has resulted in a few LF cadres pocketing a huge sum of money out of the mediation between quarelling parties, laughing all the way to the banks.

We must dare to be true individuals and dare to be exile. We must resist the terror tactics being forced on the freethinkers. Amidst this’dysfunctional state of affairs’ , a circus party comes to their Red State and Red Capital every five years . The clown in elected and made to sit on the King’s Throne to facilitate the ever-ready ringleaders and trapeze artists to share the booty of the loot.

The common people of West Bengal are waiting for a change and a breather hopefully to come few years down the line.