---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shiva Shankar <sshankar@cmi.ac.in>
Date: Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 6:03 PM
Subject: W.Bengal elections
To:
'... The bhadralok apart, no other community boasts of a share of tickets even equivalent to their proportionate strength in population. Under-representation of any community distorts democratic spirit and impairs character of the polity. Here begins political injustice and political immorality that breeds discontent, precursor to violence and extremism. ...'
West Bengal Assembly Elections 2011
A perspective beyond conventional frame
Dr. A. K. Biswas*
(*The writer is a former Vice-Chancellor, B. R. Ambedkar University, Muzaffarpur, Bihar. [Mailing address: Flat B-2/310, Block-1, Kailash Dham, Sector-50, NOIDA, UP. PIN: 201301])
Every election, Assembly or Parliament in India, exposes the interiors of social panorama in original colors. The manifestation of social realities attain fullness, be it in cow-belt or in so-called progressive states. In the case of states like West Bengal, discussion of caste via-a-vis election, or for that matter on any occasion, is abhorred and considered blasphemous. A social anthropological analysis of ground realities nonetheless is worth, though such an attempt might be bitterly assailed by many hands as reflective of regressive and primitive mindset.
In weeks, results of the Assembly election 2011 in West Bengal will be before the country. The main contenders for power are the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) on one hand, and Indian National Congress (INC) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) on the other. The lists of candidates, though, pregnant with immense social significance have escaped attention and analysis. Psephologists and academics engage themselves animatedly in such exercises if it concerns BIMARU states. Alarm alleging politics of caste against major players is sounded. Unbridled criticism, sarcasm, admonition or condemnation are reserved for Laloo Prasad Yadav, Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav as avatars and also benefactors of caste politics.
The spectrum in West Bengal usually remains strangely enveloped in golden silence on such occasion, for reasons not intelligible though. No questions, no inquisitiveness whatsoever on this front is ever entertained or evinced. This defies explanation. Such an attitude presupposes that things are perfectly harmonious. But Bengali electoral politics ab initio is as much steeped in caste and suffers dominance by microscopic social aristocrats as elsewhere in India, not excluding BIMARU states!
A section of the Bengalis feign that caste is anathema in politics as it is in their life and culture. Truth, however, belies the claim. Democracy cannot be divorced from demography. If so, the balance of benefit is cornered by a minuscule minority and democracy is a mere tool in their hands. West Bengal has since decades defied demography, and democracy is applied to suit advantage and benefit of an oligarchy. A cursory look at the list of candidates fielded respectively by the LDF as well as INC-TMC combine for the forthcoming Assembly election reveals embarrassing ground reality aimed at dominance and subversion of the cardinal principles of democracy. The ruling Front, for instance, has favored 59 Brahmans and INC-TMC 58 of the same breed with tickets. TEN Left Front candidates bear surname Bhattacharya and have captured the top slot among the priestly flock; SEVEN Mukherjees and FIVE Chatterjees, THREE Chakraborty in order followed suit. Banerjee, Maitra, Bagchi, Ganguly, Mishra, Mahapatra, Roychoudhuri, Roy, etc. supply the rest of the Left luminaries from the sacred community.
In the seventh LDF government, there are ELEVEN Mukherjees who are MLAs, belonging to CPM. No other party, including opposition, boasted of a Mukherjee as MLA. Alas! the Bhattacharyas this time have pushed the Mukherjees out of the position of primacy in nomination under the red banner.
The rival INC-TMC coalition together have deployed 58 Brahmans including SIX Bhattacharya, SIX Chakraborty, SIX Mukherjee, FOUR Chatterjee and FOUR Banerjee in the hustings. Others of the opposition brigade are Roy, Batabyal, Mishra, Pande, Majumdar, Ghatak, Ghosal, etc.
Caste enumeration in census being stopped after 1931, we have no reliable data save and except the scheduled castes and tribes. In 1931 Bengal returned Hindus, 2,32,12,069 including 14,47,691 Brahman, 15,58,475 Kayastha and 1,10,730 Baidya and Muslims 2,78,10,100. The three upper caste, euphemistically called bhadralok, aggregated 31,16,905 souls and accounted for a mere 6.1% of population in 1931. In absence of up-to-date data, we assume that the same ratio of bhadralok in West Bengal population prevails even now, notwithstanding the havoc of partition in 1947.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharya Council has sixteen Brahmins as ministers, accounting for 48% of his outgoing cabinet. With the Kayastha and Baidya, he has packed 69% of his ministry with bhadralok alone.
There are 40 Muslim MLAs in this Assembly but only five ministers, though they comprise 23.6% of state's population. Fifty eight assembly constituencies are reserved for scheduled castes and 17 for scheduled tribes. Excluding those 75 reserved constituencies, the LDF Brahmin candidates account for 20.06% of unreserved seats where as INC-TMC fielded the priestly class to the extent of 19.72%, a shade less than their political rivals.
For 2011 elections, 57 Muslims have been favored with nomination by LDF. Bonanza of INC-TMC for them is same too. 43 Kayastha and Baidya have made into INC-TMC candidate list whereas 36 of them seem to have bagged LDF tickets. There was a time under Jyoti Basu, when Baidya and Kayastha didn't play second fiddle to the Brahmans as they do nowadays under their prince Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. INC-TMC have granted 14.6% of their ticket to Kayasths and Baidya, who together account for a mere 3.5% (approx.)of the population. LDF has been less generous by allowing 12.3% seats to Ghosh, Bose, Guha, Mitra, Dutta, etc. who embellish the list of the main contenders.
The tri-castes (bhadralok) alone account for candidates in election more than its proportion to population. This perverts democracy, denying legitimate share to others in proportionate to their communities and creates vested interest. The bhadralok apart, no other community boasts of a share of tickets even equivalent to their proportionate strength in population. Under-representation of any community distorts democratic spirit and impairs character of the polity. Here begins political injustice and political immorality that breeds discontent, precursor to violence and extremism. In a situation as this, political injustice cannot be reformed by awakening moral conscience. That is why the wronged communities resort to violence to undo the mischief of the minority.
Thanks to the constitutional safeguard, the SCs and STs get due share of representation. But then Buddhadeb Government does not have a tribal as cabinet minister, on presumptuous incompetence albeit merit. Democracy is not all about merit; it's about participation of all sections in governance.
What have been the actual and potential upshot of disproportionate acquisition of political muscle by 6.1% people in colonial and post-partition Bengal? Bengal suffered and Bengalis slided down the slope in accelerated speed to the doom. The minority wielding unbridled political and administrative clout has virtually turned everyone against them, manifesting fissiparous tendencies since early twentieth century. No other province suffered as much political disasters as Bengal. A minority tenaciously dominated the commanding heights of political and administrative tools exclusively to their advantages. They blamed the British for 'divide and rule' under the Imperial rulers' feet with brazen disregard for fellow Bengalis at large.
The language, literature and cultural celebrations or visual media of the Bengali ruling class smacks of acerbic arrogance, blind prejudice, or vile innuendos against the masses through subtle signs or gestures and cryptic language beyond their comprehension. A professor described a girl, first ever graduate of her tribe in a university classroom as a criminal tribe. Her protests against continued harassment over three years went unheeded leading her ultimately to commit suicide in 1993. The tormentor, a Brahman was exonerated by a commission of inquiry headed by a fellow retired high court judge. Partha Chakraborty and Sudipta Banerjee led a deputation to ventilate grievances of health employees to superintendent Dr. Ujjwal Biswas in Murshidabad in 2007. As a gesture of courtesy, tea was offered over discussion to the two leaders who turned it down saying, 'We do not accept tea from scheduled castes'. A school teacher's wife offered puja to a temple after a bath in a pond adjacent to it in Hooghly. The panchayet levied a fine of Rs. 50,000 on the poor low caste teacher for polluting the pond as well as the temple used by superior breeds. An erudite Bengali editor of The Statesman, Calcutta in an article in the edit page blamed the Namasudra caste, erstwhile Chandals, as being wholly responsible for supply of 'manpower for West Bengal's politico-criminal underworld', besides 'collapse of civic amenity of Calcutta metropolis'. Caste-specific crime data were collected during colonial rule and a perusal of the administrative reports would batter the ego of the bhadralok vis-a-vis chotalok despite the former's tremendous ability for mounting pressure on the police, magistracy and judicial officers through various questionable means even in colonial era. Lord Macaulay's portrayal of the Bengali resorting to perjury, forgery, chicanery and falsehood is still relevant. Nevertheless in Bengali literature, chotalok and minorities are routinely portrayed as rapists, arsonists, rioters, pickpockets, contract killers, pimps, brothel keepers, etc. A cure for malice is yet to be invented by the scientific world. A society that believes out of simplicity or good faith that bhadralok were custodians of their interest and well-being, is destined to suffer and be betrayed in the long run. Outraging the dignity of so vast a population gave them pleasure without parallel. Safeguarding one's dignity is most crucial to a person's humanity and survival. Those who surrender to others to guide their destiny live the life of slaves. History bears testimony that slaves cannot regain freedom without shedding blood.
Darjeeling has been in turmoil since the 1980s. Agitation of Rajbanshis for separate state in North Bengal is older than the Gorkha movement. Now tribal communities in districts of Jangal Mahal are in ferment. Mere fact that discontent has been brewing among vast sections is pointer to criminal negligence of the ruling class towards them. Stifling domination of every inch of space - social, political, administrative or cultural life - by the same narcissistic bhadralok clan is accountable squarely for all the ills the state confronts now.
True, there is no room for abdication of political aspirations by class in favor of the less privileged communities. Nor does a class ever forgo pecuniary interests for upholding principles and honoring moral conviction towards the underprivileged in the society. Vested interest is out to bedevil relations in a society marked by notions of preordained graded inequality and inequity. They perpetuate themselves by means and justification that calculatedly hurt those on the other side of the fence.
And the impact of power game is all too evident, no matter whether it is noted or not by the partisan intelligentsia. What in BIMARU states is considered widely as caste politics and denounced roundly is connived at if even worse is pracised in Bengal under the garb of superior culture and sophistication. At this rate, one may apprehend, is the time far off, when the Bengalis will have nothing left to rule except a city state e. g. Calcutta only? Someone must muster courage to tell on the face that the king is naked.
The change, as the heightened hype wants us to believe, after the Assembly election 2011 may visit West Bengal, but that would, by all indication and standards, elude the masses. The bottle, the wine in it and even the stink may intuitively be comprehended to be the one and the same, save and except, the glossy label affixed thereon.
In the nick of time a Left prophet has issued a deafening warning of impending doomsday: 'Any weakening of the Left weakens the democratic revolution in our country and hence our march to 'modernity'. India's march to 'modernity' requires not 8, 9, 10, or 11 per cent growth rate; it requires a carrying forward of the democratic revolution. This is the touchstone by which all political formations have to be judged, and on this criterion the Left, notwithstanding all its weaknesses, emerges superior to all other political formations.' Thirty-five years of Left rule is long enough to judge the 'modernists'. Democracy has been turned upside down and ravished thoroughly for minority gains.
From: Shiva Shankar <sshankar@cmi.ac.in>
Date: Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 6:03 PM
Subject: W.Bengal elections
To:
'... The bhadralok apart, no other community boasts of a share of tickets even equivalent to their proportionate strength in population. Under-representation of any community distorts democratic spirit and impairs character of the polity. Here begins political injustice and political immorality that breeds discontent, precursor to violence and extremism. ...'
West Bengal Assembly Elections 2011
A perspective beyond conventional frame
Dr. A. K. Biswas*
(*The writer is a former Vice-Chancellor, B. R. Ambedkar University, Muzaffarpur, Bihar. [Mailing address: Flat B-2/310, Block-1, Kailash Dham, Sector-50, NOIDA, UP. PIN: 201301])
Every election, Assembly or Parliament in India, exposes the interiors of social panorama in original colors. The manifestation of social realities attain fullness, be it in cow-belt or in so-called progressive states. In the case of states like West Bengal, discussion of caste via-a-vis election, or for that matter on any occasion, is abhorred and considered blasphemous. A social anthropological analysis of ground realities nonetheless is worth, though such an attempt might be bitterly assailed by many hands as reflective of regressive and primitive mindset.
In weeks, results of the Assembly election 2011 in West Bengal will be before the country. The main contenders for power are the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) on one hand, and Indian National Congress (INC) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) on the other. The lists of candidates, though, pregnant with immense social significance have escaped attention and analysis. Psephologists and academics engage themselves animatedly in such exercises if it concerns BIMARU states. Alarm alleging politics of caste against major players is sounded. Unbridled criticism, sarcasm, admonition or condemnation are reserved for Laloo Prasad Yadav, Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav as avatars and also benefactors of caste politics.
The spectrum in West Bengal usually remains strangely enveloped in golden silence on such occasion, for reasons not intelligible though. No questions, no inquisitiveness whatsoever on this front is ever entertained or evinced. This defies explanation. Such an attitude presupposes that things are perfectly harmonious. But Bengali electoral politics ab initio is as much steeped in caste and suffers dominance by microscopic social aristocrats as elsewhere in India, not excluding BIMARU states!
A section of the Bengalis feign that caste is anathema in politics as it is in their life and culture. Truth, however, belies the claim. Democracy cannot be divorced from demography. If so, the balance of benefit is cornered by a minuscule minority and democracy is a mere tool in their hands. West Bengal has since decades defied demography, and democracy is applied to suit advantage and benefit of an oligarchy. A cursory look at the list of candidates fielded respectively by the LDF as well as INC-TMC combine for the forthcoming Assembly election reveals embarrassing ground reality aimed at dominance and subversion of the cardinal principles of democracy. The ruling Front, for instance, has favored 59 Brahmans and INC-TMC 58 of the same breed with tickets. TEN Left Front candidates bear surname Bhattacharya and have captured the top slot among the priestly flock; SEVEN Mukherjees and FIVE Chatterjees, THREE Chakraborty in order followed suit. Banerjee, Maitra, Bagchi, Ganguly, Mishra, Mahapatra, Roychoudhuri, Roy, etc. supply the rest of the Left luminaries from the sacred community.
In the seventh LDF government, there are ELEVEN Mukherjees who are MLAs, belonging to CPM. No other party, including opposition, boasted of a Mukherjee as MLA. Alas! the Bhattacharyas this time have pushed the Mukherjees out of the position of primacy in nomination under the red banner.
The rival INC-TMC coalition together have deployed 58 Brahmans including SIX Bhattacharya, SIX Chakraborty, SIX Mukherjee, FOUR Chatterjee and FOUR Banerjee in the hustings. Others of the opposition brigade are Roy, Batabyal, Mishra, Pande, Majumdar, Ghatak, Ghosal, etc.
Caste enumeration in census being stopped after 1931, we have no reliable data save and except the scheduled castes and tribes. In 1931 Bengal returned Hindus, 2,32,12,069 including 14,47,691 Brahman, 15,58,475 Kayastha and 1,10,730 Baidya and Muslims 2,78,10,100. The three upper caste, euphemistically called bhadralok, aggregated 31,16,905 souls and accounted for a mere 6.1% of population in 1931. In absence of up-to-date data, we assume that the same ratio of bhadralok in West Bengal population prevails even now, notwithstanding the havoc of partition in 1947.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharya Council has sixteen Brahmins as ministers, accounting for 48% of his outgoing cabinet. With the Kayastha and Baidya, he has packed 69% of his ministry with bhadralok alone.
There are 40 Muslim MLAs in this Assembly but only five ministers, though they comprise 23.6% of state's population. Fifty eight assembly constituencies are reserved for scheduled castes and 17 for scheduled tribes. Excluding those 75 reserved constituencies, the LDF Brahmin candidates account for 20.06% of unreserved seats where as INC-TMC fielded the priestly class to the extent of 19.72%, a shade less than their political rivals.
For 2011 elections, 57 Muslims have been favored with nomination by LDF. Bonanza of INC-TMC for them is same too. 43 Kayastha and Baidya have made into INC-TMC candidate list whereas 36 of them seem to have bagged LDF tickets. There was a time under Jyoti Basu, when Baidya and Kayastha didn't play second fiddle to the Brahmans as they do nowadays under their prince Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. INC-TMC have granted 14.6% of their ticket to Kayasths and Baidya, who together account for a mere 3.5% (approx.)of the population. LDF has been less generous by allowing 12.3% seats to Ghosh, Bose, Guha, Mitra, Dutta, etc. who embellish the list of the main contenders.
The tri-castes (bhadralok) alone account for candidates in election more than its proportion to population. This perverts democracy, denying legitimate share to others in proportionate to their communities and creates vested interest. The bhadralok apart, no other community boasts of a share of tickets even equivalent to their proportionate strength in population. Under-representation of any community distorts democratic spirit and impairs character of the polity. Here begins political injustice and political immorality that breeds discontent, precursor to violence and extremism. In a situation as this, political injustice cannot be reformed by awakening moral conscience. That is why the wronged communities resort to violence to undo the mischief of the minority.
Thanks to the constitutional safeguard, the SCs and STs get due share of representation. But then Buddhadeb Government does not have a tribal as cabinet minister, on presumptuous incompetence albeit merit. Democracy is not all about merit; it's about participation of all sections in governance.
What have been the actual and potential upshot of disproportionate acquisition of political muscle by 6.1% people in colonial and post-partition Bengal? Bengal suffered and Bengalis slided down the slope in accelerated speed to the doom. The minority wielding unbridled political and administrative clout has virtually turned everyone against them, manifesting fissiparous tendencies since early twentieth century. No other province suffered as much political disasters as Bengal. A minority tenaciously dominated the commanding heights of political and administrative tools exclusively to their advantages. They blamed the British for 'divide and rule' under the Imperial rulers' feet with brazen disregard for fellow Bengalis at large.
The language, literature and cultural celebrations or visual media of the Bengali ruling class smacks of acerbic arrogance, blind prejudice, or vile innuendos against the masses through subtle signs or gestures and cryptic language beyond their comprehension. A professor described a girl, first ever graduate of her tribe in a university classroom as a criminal tribe. Her protests against continued harassment over three years went unheeded leading her ultimately to commit suicide in 1993. The tormentor, a Brahman was exonerated by a commission of inquiry headed by a fellow retired high court judge. Partha Chakraborty and Sudipta Banerjee led a deputation to ventilate grievances of health employees to superintendent Dr. Ujjwal Biswas in Murshidabad in 2007. As a gesture of courtesy, tea was offered over discussion to the two leaders who turned it down saying, 'We do not accept tea from scheduled castes'. A school teacher's wife offered puja to a temple after a bath in a pond adjacent to it in Hooghly. The panchayet levied a fine of Rs. 50,000 on the poor low caste teacher for polluting the pond as well as the temple used by superior breeds. An erudite Bengali editor of The Statesman, Calcutta in an article in the edit page blamed the Namasudra caste, erstwhile Chandals, as being wholly responsible for supply of 'manpower for West Bengal's politico-criminal underworld', besides 'collapse of civic amenity of Calcutta metropolis'. Caste-specific crime data were collected during colonial rule and a perusal of the administrative reports would batter the ego of the bhadralok vis-a-vis chotalok despite the former's tremendous ability for mounting pressure on the police, magistracy and judicial officers through various questionable means even in colonial era. Lord Macaulay's portrayal of the Bengali resorting to perjury, forgery, chicanery and falsehood is still relevant. Nevertheless in Bengali literature, chotalok and minorities are routinely portrayed as rapists, arsonists, rioters, pickpockets, contract killers, pimps, brothel keepers, etc. A cure for malice is yet to be invented by the scientific world. A society that believes out of simplicity or good faith that bhadralok were custodians of their interest and well-being, is destined to suffer and be betrayed in the long run. Outraging the dignity of so vast a population gave them pleasure without parallel. Safeguarding one's dignity is most crucial to a person's humanity and survival. Those who surrender to others to guide their destiny live the life of slaves. History bears testimony that slaves cannot regain freedom without shedding blood.
Darjeeling has been in turmoil since the 1980s. Agitation of Rajbanshis for separate state in North Bengal is older than the Gorkha movement. Now tribal communities in districts of Jangal Mahal are in ferment. Mere fact that discontent has been brewing among vast sections is pointer to criminal negligence of the ruling class towards them. Stifling domination of every inch of space - social, political, administrative or cultural life - by the same narcissistic bhadralok clan is accountable squarely for all the ills the state confronts now.
True, there is no room for abdication of political aspirations by class in favor of the less privileged communities. Nor does a class ever forgo pecuniary interests for upholding principles and honoring moral conviction towards the underprivileged in the society. Vested interest is out to bedevil relations in a society marked by notions of preordained graded inequality and inequity. They perpetuate themselves by means and justification that calculatedly hurt those on the other side of the fence.
And the impact of power game is all too evident, no matter whether it is noted or not by the partisan intelligentsia. What in BIMARU states is considered widely as caste politics and denounced roundly is connived at if even worse is pracised in Bengal under the garb of superior culture and sophistication. At this rate, one may apprehend, is the time far off, when the Bengalis will have nothing left to rule except a city state e. g. Calcutta only? Someone must muster courage to tell on the face that the king is naked.
The change, as the heightened hype wants us to believe, after the Assembly election 2011 may visit West Bengal, but that would, by all indication and standards, elude the masses. The bottle, the wine in it and even the stink may intuitively be comprehended to be the one and the same, save and except, the glossy label affixed thereon.
In the nick of time a Left prophet has issued a deafening warning of impending doomsday: 'Any weakening of the Left weakens the democratic revolution in our country and hence our march to 'modernity'. India's march to 'modernity' requires not 8, 9, 10, or 11 per cent growth rate; it requires a carrying forward of the democratic revolution. This is the touchstone by which all political formations have to be judged, and on this criterion the Left, notwithstanding all its weaknesses, emerges superior to all other political formations.' Thirty-five years of Left rule is long enough to judge the 'modernists'. Democracy has been turned upside down and ravished thoroughly for minority gains.
--
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/
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