Thursday, March 29, 2007

Bengal Politics: Polity without Ethics

Polity was originally a term used in Ancient Greece refer to the many Greek city sates that had an assembly of citizens as part of the political process. This did not include women, slaves, serfs, or metics. Thus, voting citizens usually included only a minority of the adult males.

Today it is usually a general term that refers to political organization of a group. It is often used to describe a loosely organized society such as a tribe or community , but can mean any political group including a Government or Empire, Corporation or Academy .
Thats what defines Polity. We were always told Polity and Ethics are the combination what formulates what we call POLITICS. Or at least thats what our Professor wanted us to believe.
But today i just cant believe in whatever I learnt in my 5 years stint of studying Political Science as a subject.

I don't know if I should be Proud or Ashamed to call myself the " Intellectual Bengali" given the situation in Bengal today. ( Some People will by cynic enough to say why are you not talking about India as a whole, well the answer is simple I choose not to, may be some time else, when i will be awestruck in negativity again, i will, and i very sure i will be given the chance much before I expect it.)

The first incident brought a smirk on my face, bloody Hypocrites i thought when i called up Pro-Left Family in 2004 when NDTV flashed that CPI(M) and Left will support a Congress left Government in the Center from out side with their 60 odd MPs( mostly from Bengal) to convey the message.

what quizzed me and i asked them " did you not fight the congress for Last 50 years in Bengal" and today the left had no inhibition to lend them their support."
The reply was no, they wont join the Government.
That could not have been better for the Left I thought:


You Support the Government as long they follow the CMP(Common Minimum Programme), Build pressure on them and pose threat to their chair, if things dont go your way, and yet you dont take responsibility for things going wrong at the Center, as you are "Out Side the Government".... Left front take a bow.. you just took the most Politically Correct decision ever...even though not the most not ethical. but then again Indian General Election is WAR.. and i save you of the Cliché, but what I did not get was is it a victory for Left or the Defeat for Congress.( Worth A blog)

The second incident was funnier still: A Communist Goverment seeking FDIs and Private Green feild Investment for Manufacturing sector on Agricultural Land .
( Damn Karl Marx Must be turning in His grave right now)।

Well i thought it was better late than never to think straight and give impetus to Industrialisation, and more so to the Auto-Sector, as that not only employs a huge chunk blue collared workers, but also is an industry with high incidence of backward and forward linkages। Well if there is a car plant, there will be Auto-component plants around, and so will be the distributors. CPI(M) political and ideological Idiosyncrasy was at last paying for Bengal .


The third being the funniest of them all : Trinamool Congress leader Mamta Banerjee's Gimmick to come out of political Oblivion, they won just 29 seats in the assembly and Speaker had to use his Discretionary Powers to name the Party as the main opposition। The left, theoretically can fulfill quorum in the assembly even if Trinamool walks out.


TMC who always had accused the left of depriving Industry in Bengal as a political manifesto, suddenly went Pro-agriculture when CPI(M) was seeking Industrialisation. She went on Hunger strike for months ( with out any effect on her body weight though) was the hight eccentric behaviour.
By the time it ended Tata's had already started the construction of their new Car plant.

All was fun to watch as an outsider, till Nandigram happened, it was now that slowly the frustration was seeping in. It was a clash of political parties where innocent citizens were made pawns.

While the police firing could have been uncalled for , the KJUNC was no innocent cog in the machine as well. The question that arises, why did the villagers think the Police was coming to take their land , while they were coming to bring Nandigram back under administration. How come The CMs decision to of the Land acquisition notice not trickle down to the farmers, and the villagers, why were they instigate the police? were they asked to instigate the police? these are few questions that arise.

What seeped in the frustration, was which sane headed investor/ conglomerate / Company will invest in state with such political turmoil ever again.... the question that arises.Is the road for Industrialisation over for Bengal?

The Master Blow: Today Morning the CM played his master strike.

No Industrialisation for Nandigram, but Chemical hub will happen at Land Earmarked by the Center.

Bingo.. center earmarking means State Congress out of action, suddenly the gun is centers shoulder which the State will fire..

TMC can now not blame state..( But then again who chooses the land? go back to incident 1)

12 comments:

iHatEtiTo said...

well i wouldnt quite disagree with you.
but at the same time, i'd daresay you are representing a problem in your blog, from your angle. which is not very wrong. question is, do you, or can you, propose a solution?
what should be lefts' stand at the centre, for a start? if it becomes an opposition, then the govt falls and we will have by-elections, and will only cause the taxpayers more money without the gurantee that the next govt would be stable. however, staying at the supporting end without joining the govt, the left is still doing the job of a responsible opposition - giving the govt a chance to perform, while they still reserve the power to counter any deviations in the CMP. this in no way makes them a hypocrite. i would have called them one had they joined the govt.
regarding state politics, it is, well, a messy state of affairs now - with CPM recently announcing that the hub is going to haldia and not nandigram. what would you imply of that decision? the shootings in nandigram was deplorable to say the least. i couldnt agree with you more on the reasons you cited for the actions. what i am thinking is, is this in any way turning out to be another naxal movement of sorts? if so, can it be stopped before it blows out of proportions? most importantly, what would you do to handle the current state of bengal politics? dont forget, i said politics - so you have to consider the ethical angle as well bro.

a big yawn said...

CPI(M) does not seat on the opposition side of the house..an opposition does not lay down " Common Minimum Programme" .. that was politics of opportunism..and i still say that a tactical decision from CPM to grab the collar of the UPA allaince..( mind u they are a part of UPA)..andmake them work on their whims and fancies..and not joining the Government does not make them responsible to the public at large..
This opportunist behaviour is the hypocrasy i am talking about.. if they had taken the responsibilty .. i would have had some respect for them..

iHatEtiTo said...

if they had taken responsibility and joined the govt you would have still called them a hypocrite.... for going into alliance with their arch rivals for political gains... if they had stayed in the opposition then there would have been no upa govt in the first place.
no matter what would have happened you would still deem the communists to be hypocrites - thats your mind block. "you only see what your eyes want to see...... you're frozen, when your heart's not open"

Acekaybe said...

hypocrites.....thats the word for them.
and bro tito you think leftists supported congress led UPA govt at the centre bcz they care about tax payers money ???? in that case there were so many occasions they could have done that and avoided a huge burden on taxpayers in the form of general elections. and as zico has rightly asked on what basis they thought that they can ally with congress as they have been fighting against congress for ages in west bengal ??? suddenly their ideologies matched and they could see a future together for india ?

now they are going for a reservation policy for OBCs. and you know what they are using the study of 1931 for the number of OBCs.....bcz thereafter there has no studies to find out the number of OBCs in india. i am not against reservation policy as long as C in OBC suggests to Class not Caste. and dont you think there would be a huge population who were OBCs then but now would have come up the ladder ?? what was the hurry for UPA to go for it when they know they do not have the appropriate database???

this is of no relevance to the post. its sheer anger on my behalf.

avimanyu said...

The biggest problem is somewhere else. Our society has gone hayware.To build a cosicty, industry, and a parity between industry and agriculture there are two means:
1. Build form scratch : USA
2. Destroy and build: Germany and Japan.

Due to British protection we were neither destroyed and did we try to build anything from scratch. We plagarised a constitution and the absence of copying machines during those days is the driver to observing a holiday on Ambedkar's birthday!

Whatever is happening is a function of making some rightness outta full wrong ones.

a big yawn said...

@ Avi Da's view:

Thats a larger conspiracy that we are yet to even touch the tip of the ice berg.. i agree while most problems are solved my going to the base/ core/epicenter of a problem.. but the Indian problem does not have a single core. As we are multi ethnic so are the cores of the problems.
We cant blame the plagiarised constitution alone.. which has at least on good, it has a flexible amendment system. Its the lack of political will over years.. that could have responded to the different core issues, and have solved the Great Indian Divide is vehemently missing.
If any of our political parties had followed even a fraction their Manifesto while in power most of the issues could have been resolved.
I per say a strict secular person would have mooted for an Unified Civil Code..I expected BJP to address the Agenda long time back as it was one of their integral part of their political campaign.
But even they when in power did not want to bell the cat...Its just one of the many political propagandas that could have changed the nation

its the Caste/Socio/Religion politics that needs to be removed from our system.. and i will try to address these issues via my blog.. at least some body will be listening

avimanyu said...

Nicely stated Zico. My view is that there is nothing called India. Its just a smoke filled coffee house term that we use to cheer the Men in blues to score runs and let them beg for tax reliefs.

My total flight time was 40 hours when I reached Honolulu on August 23, 2001. An Indian came as asked me “ if I am from Hyderabad” . That was the 1st thing he asked. Unless I am form his village I cant be greeted. So after I traveled for 40 hours the difference is still measured in multiples if 15 minutes. Later in my 2 years and 4 months tenure I did feel regionalism. Indians only helped those who belonged to their regions.

This is a big problem too.

Cricket is not a good enough unifying force.

thus spaeke chico...... said...

uni fying force...????in india...???? beats the hell out of even the rocket scientists......

b)...to ihatetito.... quit being such a goddam squid and trying to find a solution to a non existant problem..... thats like a pseudo intellect bong whod chose controversy over caviare.....get over politics...its another anti"unifying force".... give he analysis....DO something instead which has a more concrete outcome....

avi da.... thou still rulest...!!!!

iHatEtiTo said...

look here! we are criticising a system we are not even convinced of! that can in no ways be called constructive criticism. well at least zix says he has some faith in the Indian constitution - thats a breath of fresh air.
My belief is, we are not really willing to do something apart from pointing out that we are ununified, our politicians are hypocrites, our mentality sucks and even in a foreign land we chose to be regionalised. I do not see a lot of truth in a lot of it. rather far from it.
the root of the indian political problem lies in the level of education and awareness of the mass. we still follow people, isms, faith and political parties blindly - in a way that we cease to appreciate the existance of every other person, ism, faith and political party. hence a TMC follower is also a CPIM hater. why so? why cannot one be respected for what one is? they can be challenged if they have done things wrong or done wrong things - but this continuous hatred does us no good. how many of the speakers have actually actively been involved in politics of any kind? i can speak for myself - i have.
I have no solution to any of the problems we have so far discussed - what i do wish is we grow out of our bias and start a culture of respect. without respect, we have no future.

a big yawn said...

way to go bro..i am liking the argument here... which again is slowly coming to matter of choice..we choose to be either left or trinamool.. what if both are corrupt or incapable candidates..i have a choice of going to the poll booth and give a no confidence vote..
that states that we dont have confidence in any of the contestants.. thats the only think we can do
any way as for regionalist.. i have . never heard you saying i that you are an indian first sorry to say.. u were always a bangali badiya
and this attitude is not just amongst bongs.. the same reason why Shiv sena wants biharis out of Mumbai..and u still dont see a truth in it..
i am sorry you have always missed the bigger Indian picture.. Indian Nation will henceremain as big a myth as perfect compition

iHatEtiTo said...

beg to differ.
regionalism the way shiv sena sees it is different from the way i see it.
consider the question - "where are you from?"
consequent answers if it was asked to you in -
Mars - i am an earthling
Britain - i am from India
Kerala - i am from west bengal
Coochbehar - i am from south bengal
Nadia - i am from Calcutta
Beleghata - I am from Salt lake
Karunamoyee - i live near tank number 7....

makes sense about my regionalism? a region is a region because it narrows down the similarity of a society. if i had answered the question in the reverse order mentioned, it would havee made no sense anyway and i would have still been tagged a regionalist.

regionalism like i see it is like a PIN code - a unique identifier so that a mail is not delivered to the wrong post office. accepting the concept and disrespecting other regions are two different things altogether.
when you say i am a bengali first - whats wrong in it? it gives me a unique attribute but at the same time it doesnt give me the right to detest a bihari.
talking of bihari - it is we - you and i - who still use words like bongs, harries, tetul, ghatis and surds. sounds similar to a nigger or a paki or a cloth-head? dont get me wrong here - if someone says paki in the UK he is tagged a racist, but if he calls a jordie a jordie, thats just a regional laugh.
instead of this remaining in a laughter level, it is you guys who induce people to go beyond this and start a regional scam. you are pointing out that we are divided based on region, and diving us further in the process. why cant you overlook this and think of joining all regions as the greater india? we all love our motherland, i am sure we do - but "look thats a parsi, what the f is he doing in murshidabad" does not help matters as much as "you are not a bengali first but an indian" does.
stop this hypocricy and start respecting the concept of regions rather than pointing fingers at its ill-effects.
in fact i think thats what is exactly wrong in you guys - you prefer pointing fingers at everything and prove everything is wrong and you are the only righteous man under the sun - say what, thats a dictatorial thought, isnt it?

a big yawn said...

now u called for it i was procrastinating if i will launch the nuclear weapon or not..
as i had believed in non proliferation
u leave me no options
wait till the End Of Day.. for the new POST:

caste, socio,and religio politics and india's internal security