Where is the will of the commune....?

The Nandigram incident just doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to get over. More than eight months have passed, but the flames are just as hot, and the violence simply refuses to abate. The cadres of the ruling Communist Front government in West Bengal and the resisting Nandigram locals have been involved in a horrific ‘war’, to use the term in its most deplorable manner, which has caused the deaths of countless innocents, deprivation of the most basic forms of justice and law, and more than anything, has perhaps demonstrated the high-handed approach of the State towards its denizens.

The SEZ at Nandigram may be a harbinger of development, of the progress that has so far eluded the state of West Bengal, is all fine, but the people responsible for this sad state of affairs are not the common people of the state, who stand the risk of being asked to surrender productive agricultural land to industrialists; rather the ruling Communists, who have held the reins of power for the last 30 years are the worst culprits in this entire drama. They, by their intransigence, ensured that West Bengal was never perceived as a region of stable industrial growth, and in the process, ensured that the people remained poor and deprived, and hence dependent on the mindless political machinations of the Communists.

I have never found the Communists to be a reasonable crowd, and to those who should read this blog, this may appear to cloud or even prejudice my views on this issue. But the point is that the Communists could not have made a bigger mess of what was essentially a simple case to handle. The Communists often vaunt themselves as the guardians of the people, as the protectors of the weak and the downtrodden. I fail to see how compelling a group of individuals to surrender their livelihood is equivalent to protecting their rights. But then the Communists believe in the creed of ‘the commune before the individual’. And perhaps that creed has now been extended to ‘the party before the commune, the commune before the individual, and the individual before no one’.

Which in itself won't be a new thing, considering the forced migrations of Stalin's time, and the other expulsions in other Communist establishments. It isn't as if non-communist governments do not indulge in these acts, but then they don't parade themselves as the establishment of the proletariat, do they?

That CPI (M) cadres prevented the entry of the CRPF forces dispatched to maintain peace in Nandigram is a most deplorable and most reprehensible act, and surely warrants censuring the party concerned. Don’t tell us that this was a simultaneous act of expression; the Communists often have had us believe that nothing in their organization is ever simultaneous; they think out everything, discuss everything and only then act. So if the CPI(M) cadres are out, rampaging on the streets of Nandigram, then I hold the CPI(M) to be responsible, and by extension, the incumbent government of West Bengal.

The Congress curses and heaps with opprobrium the government of Gujarat, and only their lack of a significantly large majority in Parliament prevents them from dismissing it. But I am shocked at their silence at the carnage of Nandigram. Perhaps, the faults of an ally are permissible, but that of an enemy never so, no matter even if the faults of both are comparable. I am not an apologist for Mr. Modi, for I find his brand of politics to be equally reprehensible and abominable. But I implore upon people: at least, be unequivocal on what constitutes an abomination.

The Communists are losing their grip over what they had come to believe was their personal fiefdom. These acts of wanton disregard for the people will ultimately serve as their swansong, their last futile attempts at snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.