Search the Internet           Tips

The puppet CM of Bengal

With great power comes great responsibility." The states of India are always demanding more powers and more more money from the Union government. Up to a point -- given the history of Centre-state relations -- I agree. But has anyone asked the states in general, and the regional parties in particular if they are capable of exercising those powers responsibly?

The irresponsibility with which practically every state has handled its finances is a disgrace. If unchecked, it will effectively nullify any economic reforms initiated by the Government of India. However, I shall concentrate today on a subject where the Constitution gives the state considerable leeway -- law and order. Can you aver that the states have handled this area responsibly?

In the past couple of months, we saw Karnataka and Tamil Nadu kowtowing to a bandit and murderer. If not for the Supreme Court, the two states might have released several hundred of Veerappan's associates. As it is, and no matter what anyone says on the record, I remain to be convinced that no money was paid by way of ransom. We have not heard the last of this sorry story; both states will pay an even heavier price if that money lands up in the hands of the LTTE.

But let me now move away and focus on a party that, I believe, has just regained its status as a 'national' party -- the CPI-M. What is its record in tackling anti-national elements?

While Kerala is undoubtedly one of the strongholds of the Marxists, the state has a history of switching sides with every election. Let me, therefore, target two states which have been returning the Communists to power with startling regularity over several assembly polls -- West Bengal and Tripura.

Yes, that is right, West Bengal is now a hotbed of anti-Indian activity. Buddhadev Bhattacharya, the new chief minister, will never have the guts to acknowledge this publicly, but in private he too is concerned about the growing influence of pro-Pakistan elements in his state.

Bhattacharya came to Delhi recently on his first official trip to the capital as chief minister. Ostensibly, his objective was to demand more funds -- over Rs 1,400 crore -- by way of relief after the recent floods in the state. (Predictably, he used the opportunity to make some nasty remarks on Mamata Bannerjee.) But there was something else he wanted to discuss, behind closed doors and off the record.

Madarsas, those institutions of 'traditional' Muslim learning, have begun to mushroom on the border that West Bengal shares with Bangladesh. The Left Front government turned a blind eye to infiltration for several years. (Don't forget that under Jyoti Basu the Marxists have been in power for over 23 years; two decades is a long time.) These were the years that the locusts ate.

For years, the Marxists preferred to be deliberately obtuse because they thought that these illegal immigrants would be a vote-bank. While the Communists attacked schools run by the 'Hindu' Ramakrishna Mission, they kept strictly away from the madarsas for fear of smearing their 'secular' credentials. The danger with that attitude, of course, is that madarsas are, by definition, anything but 'secular' themselves.

This criminal stupidity is now coming home to roost. While Jammu and Kashmir is undoubtedly the major focus for Pakistan, that country has not neglected to attack India in the east. And let us be honest in admitting that this insane quest for 'secularism' at all costs has played straight into Pakistan's hands. Eastern India -- West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, and all the other states -- have become conduits for our wretched neighbour's Inter-Services Intelligence.

Rather late in the day -- too late some pessimists are saying -- the Communists in Calcutta are discovering that they have sown bitter fruit. It is not just the fact that they deliberately ignored illegal immigration, it is also the madarsas which have been inculcating a particularly virulent fundamentalism in their students.

So what does Comrade Bhattacharya do? Does he utilise the powers of his office to crack down on anti-national elements? (Not necessarily all the madarsas, but some of them!) Does he at least venture to speak up against them? Or, if that is asking too much, to preach the virtues of 'secularism' to them as much as his party does to the monks of the Ramakrishna Mission?

If you thought the answer to any of those is 'Yes' then you know little about the pusillanimity of the Indian Communist. Chief Minister Bhattacharya admits that action needs to be taken. (This, by the way, is something of a step forward; that aged Jyoti Basu would not as much as accept the necessity!) But if the chief minister accepts it, then the partyman in Comrade Bhattacharya holds him back.

He wants the Union government to take action! Why? Because he feels that the Bharatiya Janata Party already has an anti-Muslim image and he wants to shine by comparison! After all that proud talk of greater responsibility for the states, all that insistence that law and order is a subject to be handled by the states, is that the best that the 'intellectual' chief minister of West Bengal can do?

I had hoped that the timid Bhattacharya would have had the courage of his convictions to speak out. His counterpart in Tripura, on the other side of Bangladesh, proved marginally better. Manik Sarkar admitted on the record -- to the BBC no less -- that missionary activity was a growing problem. He specifically cited the Baptists as supporting militancy in the state.

Even an admission on those lines would have been useful. Not much, but as a first step anyway. But Bhattacharya, as his party general sSecretary Anil Biswas put it, 'is proud to be the puppet of the party.' I wonder if the citizens of West Bengal are equally proud to have a puppet as their chief minister?

T V R Shenoy