Firstpost:
Kolkata: Wednesday, 24 June 2015.
George RR
Martin seems to have found some unlikely fans. What else but an unhealthy
affection for Game of Thrones can explain Trinamool Congress leaders
threatening rivals with rape or other such acts of gory violence? The latest to
join the brigade of Trinamool's loose canons is Mamata Banerjee's nephew
Abhishek Banerjee who threatened to gouge the eyes out of those to dared to
cast an evil eye on Bengal. And as a tribute to the late Joffrey, he also
offered to chop off the hands of the said offenders.
In a country,
where the definition of machismo has something or the other to do with
violence, his statement is hardly unexpected. Remember Sushma Swaraj demanding
the heads of ten Pakistanis for every Indian killed? Or Trinamool's Tapas Pal threatening to let
loose rapists among political rivals' wives and sisters to teach them a lesson?
Banerjee just joins a long line of Indian politicians who are part terrifying,
part hilarious.
Seen in
isolation, it's easy to dismiss the statements by Pal and Banerjee. We roll our
eyes, shake our heads and move on. However, what comes across as stupidity for
a section of us, may actually have deeper implications for the politics of a
state like Bengal.
Few can deny
the fact that hooliganism has seen a recent spike in the state. The kind of
violence that is rising in neighbourhoods is not new to Bengal. People who can
recall the political climate of the state from the late 80s and 90s can see a
familiar pattern in Trinamool's Congress audacious violence and low tolerance
for criticism. Old timers would say, Trinamool Congress is just the CPM from
its heydays, with Mamata Banerjee leading it.
The lowest
ranks of the party have become very audacious and small time leaders flex their
muscle on hearing any voice of dissent in the neighbourhoods they 'reign' in. A
recent, horrifying example of the same came from Bardhamman district in West
Bengal, where more than 100 TMC goons allegedly gheraoed the house of a resident
who had filed an RTI against illegal constructions in his neighbourhood.
"Local
goons headed by the ward councilor and some political leaders of our area beat
my father, molested and beat me, broke my smart phone and took away the memory
card, around 10.00 a.m, in front of the main gate of Krishnasayar Park. Then a
mob of almost a hundred people gherao-ed our home, threatened us, threw stones,
broke our windows and forbade us from gong to the police. I dialed 100
repeatedly without any response. Then I called my seniors and colleagues who in
turn called the police repeatedly. Finally the police arrived and dispersed the
mob," Urmi Rupa Pal, wrote on Facebook on June 21.
Not only did
the goons threaten Pal and her father of dire consequences, the police took
ages to turn up. Now put yourself in Pal's shoes. You are an average but
concerned citizen of the country. You file an RTI, which by the way, is a means
to procure information and is hardly openly antagonistic a move against a party
or a person. You think it's just the officials in the municipality who would
know about your efforts. However, you return home to find it surrounded by 100
angry men, throwing stones at you. It something straight out of a Anurag
Kashyap-envisioned dystopia. Only, this one is very real.
So when the
likes of Banerjee, the so-called powerful leaders of the party, audaciously
threaten and endorse acts of extreme violence, they just embolden these
neighbourhood goondas who then find the hapless citizens to stomp on. A TMC
small fry who comes to know what Banerjee said and how he escaped unpunished
will think he too can get away with violence of the sort the Chief Minister's
nephew endorsed.
The evidence
that TMC leaders' lousy machismo has bred a new school of cadre unapologetic of
their stupidity and predilection for violence, is now evident in college
campuses across Bengal. Reports have suggested that campus violence has gone up
manifold in the last few years.
As recently
as January this year, 20 people were injured in clashes between TMC, RSS and
CPI in a college in the north Dinajpur district of West Bengal. In 2012,
students stormed a college in north Bengal and beat up its principal, dragging
him by the hair. His fault? He had postponed the college student body election.
Then, Jadavpur University students alleged last yeat than TMC goons had stormed
the university alongside police to molest and beat up students who were
demonstrating against the Vice Chancellor. In 2013, a student Sudipto Gupta
died in clashes with the TMC supporters. He was a Students Federation of India
member.
The same
year, TMC goons assaulted journalists in Barrackpore district when they had
gone there to cover an incident of murder. They also attempted to burn one
journalist alive, according to reports.
There is a
very evident pattern in what some of Trinamool's leaders say and what some of
their grassroots workers do. The latter only put into action what the formers
threaten verbally.
Add to that
the fact that Banerjee has traditionally gone soft on her prized MPs when they
slipped up. Though Banerjee had recently declared that she will not tolerate
hooliganism, even if the TMC indulges in it, we're not sure how she plans to
reprimand her nephew. If history and her action (or rather the lack of it)
against Tapas Pal is anything to go by, her nephew will get away too.
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