There are many ways to remain relevant in politics.
One way is to make realistic promises before elections and working hard to fulfil
them once the electorate handover their trust to you by electing you. But come
on, that happens only in Bollywood. So the second way is to make exaggerated promises,
offer bribes in form of television sets, laptops, smartphones and so on and win
the election. However there is a third way, a time tested one at that. In here
you identify the block of voters who can be manipulated, nurture them by offering
irrelevant but perceived goodies like a stipend for their religious leaders,
land grants for their schools and turning a blind eye to crime emanating from
the places they live in. You become so dependent on them for your political
relevance that there comes a time when, what seemed like patronising looks more
like appeasement but it actually is giving up control.
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| When fire engulfs your turf. Picture Courtesy - India Today |
This is what has happened in West Bengal. The government
of Ms Mamata Banerjee has lost control over a large territory in the state. West
Bengal was never a peaceful state. With the first street battles of Naxal bari,
culminating into a three decade long stagnation supervised by the Communist
Party of India (Marxist), yes the same Marx, whose ideology killed millions in
Soviet Russia and Maoist China, the state has always been a den of violence. But
that discussion is for another day. To get a sense of the level of anarchy
prevailing in the state, Indian Affair conducted a simple Google search for “West
Bengal blast 2015”. The search yielded a NDTV link siting at least seven
instances of blasts where people have been killed or injured. Read the reports
here, here, here, here, here, here and here. To top this all was, the now
forgotten, Burdwan blast where two women, members of an Islamist terror
organisation, were killed. The house was owned by a Trinamool Congress leader,
Hasan Chowdhury.
If these seven instances of blasts were not
enough there were at least three instances of the police seizing arms cache,
read the reports here, here and here. If bomb blasts and illegal arms turning
up like soft serve ice cream every now and then is not losing control over
territory then what else is? Perhaps it will take something more drastic for Ms
Banarjee to see in, which drain her state is drowning. So here is more. As fresh
as today, a report from India Today claims 80,000 bigha (32,000 acres) of farm
land is being used for poppy cultivation in the district of Malda. The district
administration is scared for their lives and do not venture into these pockets
and obviously Ms Banerjee has no problems with this small poppy garden in her
backyard.
Not many news shops covered Malda in early days
of January when an estimated mob of 2.5 lakh people marched the streets, ran a
riot, burnt down a police station, set police vehicles on fire and pelted
stones at policemen fleeing the scene. Ms Banerjee was at least swift to take
action this time. She ordered immediate refurbishment of the police station and
ensured no traces of the arson and riot were left behind. She really is the Maa
in “Maa Maati Manush”, saving her kids from harm’s way.
West Bengal shares an international border with
Bangladesh, a very porous one at that. Forget flinging rice sacks across the
fence, cattle and women are trafficked with ease, sometimes one can’t tell one
from the other. Then there is the case of fake currency smuggling. Any sensible
person heading a sensitive state like West Bengal will do their best to ensure
law and order and reclaiming the lost territory. But Ms Banerjee has a
different plan. Perhaps she wants to gift India another Kashmir. A border state
with worsening law and order situation, large swathes of territory ceded to
criminals, smugglers and terrorists. A bomb blast a month, madarsas doubling up
as terrorist hideouts. And a flourishing mini Afghanistan in a poppy garden.
West Bengal is slipping away under the
supervision of Ms Banerjee and she is not bothered. The bigger question,
however is, who else can stop this?
