“I can simply say they were paid back in their own coin. Do you think those who evicted our people were peace loving unarmed people? Our people just retaliated. For 11 months our people who were evicted and could not return home despite several efforts at initiating peace talks with the opposition."
With these words, the Chief Minister of West Bengal finally withdrew his mask of neutrality and emerged as the person he really is. He thus dispersed all doubts regarding his intentions and responsibilities and clarified that his loyalty towards his party comes before anything else. With this revelation, many a heart broke, many a tear fell and many a hope crumbled, for foolishly enough, millions had tried to believe otherwise through all these years. Anyone who has followed Indian politics, even with a passing interest, however, would probably have realized such an eternal truth long ago. The peculiarity of the situation wasn't the revelation itself, but its acceptance from the culprit himself.
Barring a very few exceptions, the fundamental aim of any politician of our society is to secure power and remain in power, power for himself and power for his group. The hunger for power and the thirst to repress have been the chief motivations for most post-Independence Indian politicians. To achieve this goal, politicians usually resort to the age old trick of promises: promises of food, of running water, of roads, of jobs, of electricity... and of everything that India still lacks. And of course, such promises are seldom kept to ensure that there are always plenty of things left to be promised during the subsequent election campaigns. A second element adds variety and strength to the arsenal of the politician. It's that of fear that is to be injected in the minds of people. An able politician uses both his weapons appropriately and skillfully to strengthen and lengthen his hold on the throne. Responsibility to people or humanity never is a priority. But still, most politicians at least officially maintain a neutral face, and the chief minister was noted for the same.
The ruling party of West Bengal has hold on to this doctrine for the past three decades; it has used a perfect mixture of lure and fear to hold its ground. An impeccable organization of the party throughout the state and a conspicuous absence of any political opposition, either strong or respectable, have helped them achieve their goal smoothly. However, there have also been a few hiccups, and the developments at Nandigram would certainly classify as one.
They first started it all by planning to sell a huge piece of land to industrialists, disregarding the fact that this land was inhabited by farmers who would have nowhere to go after the proposed eviction. The villagers united and began anti-government agitations. With a clumsy administration, things quickly went out of control, and at some point the dissenting villagers drove away the machinery of the ruling party along with a horde of their supporters from the disputed territory. The height of the crisis was reached in the middle of the night on March 14, 2007, when the state police shot down several villagers. Clashes between the ruling part and the protesters turned more and more ugly with the passage of time, with regular cases of murder, rape and destruction of property, mostly on the agitators' side, and with anarchy prevailing across the region. Finally, an army of cadres of the ruling party regained control of the area by brute force as they stormed in with firearms and re-installed the evicted villagers, with the police ordered to stay out of the entire operation. The seize of Nandigram finally ended in arson and bloodshed, with several dissenters brutally murdered and severely injured, and many rendered homeless.
Resort to violence and brutality to strengthen position is not a rare phenomenon in post-independence politics of Bengal or India. What made this particular case different was the extensive media coverage of events. Despite repeated half truths, suppression of facts and lies from the government, people this time had the opportunity to see videos that showed firing, armed processions and villagers being interviewed; and videos and images have a much stronger impact on the human mind than newsprint. This lead to a general awareness among people and excited especially those who still had some faith left in the government, as Calcutta subsequently witnessed a protest rally of a 100,000 people, headed by eminent intellectuals of our time. This was something out of the ordinary, for a rally without any political affiliation was something rarely hard of in our city.
The state and the ruling party were not prepared for the same, and the mass criticism from different apolitical sections injected a fear into the minds of the politicians, which readily surfaced as fury. The top leaders resorted to a volley of curses and personal abuse that further tarnished their characters before the civil society. As ministers threatened to literally "throw protesters into the sea", and as apologistic pseudo-intellectuals raised their voices against the protesters and for the government, arranging a counter rally, the party workers, perhaps unintentionally, lost all their camouflage of courtesy and exposed their vicious tooth and nail, and found, to their utter dismay, that they now had the governor, the media, the high court and a large part of the population criticizing them. The demarcation between the oppressors and the oppressed became distinct at this point.
The line that seperates us, the people, from them, the rulers, is now clear for everyone to see. They rule and we are ruled; they order and we obey; they are the repressers and we are the repressed. All this is practiced under the pseudonym of democracy, where they only act as if they work for us. As long as we act the way they want us to, the system gets along smoothly. When we resist, or even criticize, calamity strikes. In the post-Nandigram scenario, politicians find themselves cornered with all the neutral forces against them, and they resort to slandering everyone who voice a single word against their atrocities: be it the law, the media or the most respected poets and movie directors of our time.
In all probability, the events of Nandigram that unfolded through 2007 would not have a major impact in the politics of West Bengal. However, they would still be remembered for their role in bringing into light the often-unseen line of separation that exists eternally between the chair and the ground. A line that is based on fear: on one side of which dwell the fearsome, and on the other dwell the fearful. The two can never be united, for the prosperity and growth of them depend on the suppression of us. The chief minister should be thanked heartily for making this as clear as daylight.
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