People's Democracy

WEST BENGAL NEWSLETTER

Cong-Trinamul Criminals Murder CPI(M) Workers

B Prasant

CRIMINALS in the protection and patronage of Pradesh Congress and Trinamul Congress shot and then hacked to death two CPI(M) workers, Comrades Sudhangsu Roy and Narayan Das in the district of Nadia. The murder took place on September 5 in the Hingnara gram panchayat and at Metiapara under Chakdaha police station. 

The gruesome event was a sequel to a brave act by the two CPI(M) comrades. Comrade Sudhangsu and Comrade Narayan, on their usual early morning run, stumbled upon a gang of criminals enjoying the patronage of the Pradesh Congress and the Trinamul Congress murdering a young man, and reported the matter to the local office of the CPI(M) and to the administration. The criminals saw this happen as they fled away.

On the night of September 5, the hooligans armed with guns and sharp weapons raided the house of Comrade Sudhangsu, dragged him out, and then shot and hacked him to death.

The murderers then went to the nearby residence of Comrade Narayan, pulled him out and stabbed him several times on the chest and abdomen and left him dying in a pool of blood.

Since the assembly election this year and the consequent erosion in massive way of what remained of the base of the Pradesh Congress and the Trinamul Congress, assaults on the CPI(M) workers have increased manifold. CPI(M) MP, Alakesh Das said that the attackers enjoyed the support and pay of the Pradesh Congress and the Trinamul Congress.

The incident is part of a development that has affected this border district abutting Bangladesh. A gang of smugglers here who are engaged in bootlegging, drug pushing, and cattle theft all enjoy the patronage of the Pradesh Congress and the Trinamul Congress. State-level leader of the Pradesh Congress Shankar Singh, defeated in the assembly elections this year, was arrested by the police some weeks back on a variety of charges and one witnessed national level Congress leadership pleading with the authorities to release him from custody.

The CPI(M) has been building up a district-wide movement against smuggling, drugs, and boot legging. The anti-socials would realise soon enough that it was the CPI(M) and the Left Front that stood in the way of their getting to enjoy the kind of business dealing they do. Hence, the attacks on the CPI(M) workers have increased in an alarming manner.

The murder of two more CPI(M) workers some weeks back under the Kotwali police station was the start of chain of murderous attacks by the gangs of smugglers using the political patronage of the right as well of the extreme left, to wit, the self-proclaimed Maoists.

The CPI(M) organised a big protest rally on September 9 against the murder of Comrades Sudhangsu and Narayan, and called for an early arrest of and exemplary punishment for the guilty.

TRINAMUL CONGRESS’ DISHONESTY EXPOSED

THE frank dishonesty practiced by the Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and a section of her lackeys over the issue of industrialisation in Bengal was thoroughly exposed by CPI(M) leaders Biman Basu and Benoy Konar recently. In addressing rallies in north 24 Parganas and Hooghly, both CPI(M) leaders depicted and defined Mamata’s ploys as duplicitous and anti-people.

Biman Basu said that the recent attempts by the Trinamul chieftain to woo industrialists in Bengal with a confused and self-contradictory message which was thoroughly anti-people and anti-development. Biman Basu added to point out that by assuring industrialists with an ingratiating smile about an industry-friendly political outlook, and at the same time, fighting industrialisation, tooth-and-nail and in any manner possible, was worse than a mere flirtation with the truth.

In his address, Biman Basu said that the industrialisation policy of the Bengal Left Front government was being politically opposed by the likes of Trinamul Congress, the Pradesh Congress, and the BJP. The people must be vigilant against all ploys and conspiratorial moves in this direction. Biman Basu pointed out that some of the impractical suggestions of the Mamata followers for industrialisation in Bengal bordered on the foolish and the ridiculous. 

The CPI(M) Polit Bureau member said that taking full advantage of a flourishing ambience of democracy in Bengal, the opposition here was seeking to make a great and unpopular noise against industries and industrialisation. The Trinamul Congress would go to the length of bringing in an inconsiderable bunch of people from outside of Hooghly to organise the semblance of a violent if brief and spasmodic demonstration at Singur against an ongoing process where the kisans were handing over land to the Bengal LF government for industries to be set up.

Rebutting the lies and the pieces of disinformation spread by the Trinamul Congress on how the industrialisation of Bengal would bring in food shortage and even famine, Biman Basu said that thanks to the land revenue and agricultural policy of the Bengal Left Front, food shortage was something that belonged to the Congress-ruled past. The flow of industrialisation was bereft of interfering with the solid and sound agricultural base the province could build up over the past three decades of LF governance. 

Benoy Konar noted that the agricultural production in Bengal was something to be proud of and that the success flowed from the redistributive land reforms. However, agricultural success would not alone meet the imperatives of development. Industrialisation was a necessity. Many more people could work in the industries than in the fields and meadows. 

The children of the khet mazdoors have received education. They are not quite willing to remain tied down to the land. They looked for work elsewhere, especially in industrial units. Without industrialisation, the demand for jobs could never be fulfilled, said the veteran CPI (M) leader. Benoy Konar called upon the people of Hooghly to be on the alert against all attempts by the Trinamul Congress and its running mates to disrupt the process of industrialisation in the district.

Earlier, elsewhere in Kolkata, Mamata Banerjee chose to invite industrialists to listen to her haranguing on her version of industrialisation and discontents in Bengal. There were few takers. The few who came chose to either oppose her postulates, or just ignore them. A climactic nuance of Mamata’s speech happened when, much to the amusement of those present, she stridently referred to the human chain programme that Bengal recently witnessed as ‘anti-industry’ and as ‘like a bandh.’

INTERNATIONAL LITERACY DAY CELEBRATED

BANGIYA Saksharata Prasar Samity (BSPS) that spearheads the literacy movement in Bengal has resolved to call upon the Left mass organisations of workers, kisans, women, students, and youth to play an effective role in carrying the literacy movement in the province to greater heights.

Biman Basu, who is the working president of the BSPS, said that it was imperative on the part of the mass organisations to plunge deeply and meaningfully into the stream of literacy movement. The organisations must also run a large number of night schools across Bengal to ensure that functional and total literacy marched ahead.

Biman Basu pointed out that the task of making literate elderly people of the unorganised sector was of the highest priority since because it was amongst them that illiteracy continued to eke out an existence. Biman Basu was speaking on the 20th year of the BSPS on World Literacy Day on September 8 in Kolkata at the University Institute Hall that was quite full to overflowing.

Pointing out that the CITU, both centrally and through TUs affiliated to it, had already commenced a literacy drive among workers’ families, Basu said that retired teachers must come forward to teach the learners. The literacy centres especially those run for the elderly must have provisions for a modest evening meal as well. 

It is always difficult to imagine people without adequate food and bereft of even a modicum of shelter coming forward to rise above illiteracy. He noted that a massively successful rural development programme and an urban renewal effort had combined to provide food security and food affordability to the mass of the people. However, 3.5 per cent of the people remained yet devoid of shelter of a decent sort. 

Thus, running a fully successful and fully functional literacy movement was a challenge. This is where the Left mass organisations could step in and put in that bit of extra effort to ensure that the literacy movement made further progress that what it has done already. 

In his address to the same programme, Dr Amiya Kumar Bagchi, the noted economist said that said that the target group for all literacy drives must be the people who lag the farthest behind and who are the most exploited. Dr Bagchi went on to point out how globalisation in its present avatar was an imperialist globalisation. The people’s globalisation is marked among other things by the spread of literacy and education, from country to country, from continent to continent.

Other speakers included BSPS leader Subir Banerjee and Dr Jeta Sankritayan. 

MISINFORMATION NAILED

Elsewhere, Biman Basu was critical of the report published a newspaper that Bengal lagged behind the rest of the country in terms of success in the total literacy movement. The CPI(M) leader was also critical of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on the basis of which the newspaper report was set up. He described the CAG report as inadequate.

The CAG report mentioned that 1617 of the populated areas of the 3794 ones did not possess primary schools. A similar finding was put in for secondary schools. Biman Basu pointed out that each of the 38,000-odd villages in Bengal possessed schools. 

However, pointed out the CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, unlike in other states, Bengal did never have separate schools for classes XI-X and XI-XII. A great number of villages boasted of schools having primary, secondary and higher secondary sections. Would this mean that there was no primary school in the village, or no secondary school, wondered Biman Basu. 

Those compiling statistics sometimes would not apply their minds and correlate facts with figures. Bengal possessed 52,000 primary schools. There were 16,000 child education centres as well. 

Critiquing the comments published about the standards of excellence or the lack thereof at the primary level of school education, Biman Basu said that the latest report of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) could be looked up for the correct picture here. 

The report puts it simply to say that the level of achievement in Bengal in learning at the primary level was much ahead of the rest of the country. The achievement percentage in language learning was 70.60 in Bengal as compared to just under 59 per cent in the rest of the country. 

In environmental studies the average for Bengal was 58.65 per cent and this was just off the national average. On the financing of total literacy movement, Biman Basu pointed out that unlike in other states, funds were never mismanaged in Bengal.

Education minister Partha De has already written to the concerned department in the union government stating Bengal’s position on the misinformation being bandied about in a newspaper.