This article was published in The Statesman a couple of weeks after the November violence in Nandigram. As the reader will find out, it was written with a lot of angst, and couldn't escape the Kantian sleight of hand -- the categorical imperative of pure reason subsumed me!
West Bengal is smoothly operating as a ‘state of exception’ – where state repression co-exists with a hogwashed support for civil liberties. The state will kill people, and also selectively allow people to protest against the killings. The repression, however, will not stop. But finally in response bhadroloks and bhadramohilas (gentlemen and gentlewomen) have risen to the occasion. November 14, 2007 has been historic – not because Kolkata saw yet another rally – but for the first time ever it saw a rally which was not organized by a political party, and yet had a turn out that overwhelmed all previous rallies by any political party. The young and the old, and other common people – office goers, housewives, shopkeepers – and intellectuals, all walked together to protest against the brutal acts of state repression that the Buddhadev government carried out in Nandigram. Prior to the rally there has been unprecedented activity on cyberspace – people mail bombing online petitions, meticulously up-to-date blogging of all events that are unfolding in West Bengal, and citizens’ statements urging people to rise in unison against the arbitrary violence carried out by the state. Post the rally several people have blacked out their profile photographs on the social network site Orkut as a mark of dissent. The born-again Bengali Protestor seems to have woken up from his/her slumber of indifference. The Bengali Protestor of contemporary times has finally arrived. Or so I would like to believe.
I am sitting far away in the comfortable confines of a Toronto apartment, getting suitably agitated with the affairs in my home state and feeling frustrated for not being able to be there with my friends and fellow Calcuttans who are organizing – finally, collectively, visibly. I do the same as several others can being so far away – mass mailing petitions to people urging them to sign, and trying to find out what can be done here. First I contact the local South Asian group asking them to circulate petitions; then I find out that there is a Bengali Film Festival happening sometime soon and decide to carry out some signature campaign there. I call up some probashi (immigrant) Bengalis here, but to my utter dismay find out that they are least interested. I see the probashi Bengali still content with organizing massive functions like the North American Bengali Conference – where they spend millions of dollars – and imagine themselves as the sole bearers of Bengali culture – without any connection to the realities back home. Which explains why Sunil Gangopadhyay, despite being openly supportive of the government’s actions in Singur and Nandigram is a regular feature at the conference, and so is Soumitra Chatterjee who walked the state sponsored rally which was organized a day after the public rally in Kolkata. I guess a heightened sense of privilege makes apathy grow on us like poisonous creepers. And it suddenly struck me that this isn’t necessarily true of the probashi ilk only – it’s true of almost all Bengalis like me – educated, English-speaking, moderately moneyed and ostensibly socially concerned.
Where were we when Gujarat 2002 happened? Where was our support for Medha Patkar when she was fasting in front of the Supreme Court demanding rehabilitation for the evicted people of the Narmada Valley? Where were we when farmers kept committing suicides in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra? Where were our protests against the virulently casteist anti-reservationists? Where was our concern when the bar dancers of Bombay were rendered jobless? Where were we when millions were being evicted from Nangla Machi in Delhi? Did we respond when the AFSPA’s reign of terror scarred Manipur? Where is our concern for the rule of law with emergency declared in neighbouring Pakistan? Where was our support for human rights during the recent Junta crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Burma? Where were we when the Kalinganagar massacre happened in Orissa? Do we feel a need to extend solidarity to the Chengara land struggle in Kerala? In response to Nandigram protests were organized all across India – in Mumbai, Chandigargh, Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram and not necessarily by Bengalis – but where were the Bengalis of Kolkata when all the above happened? It was only Mamata who sometimes took centrestage by perversely paralyzing the state through bandhs (strikes). The people of Kolkata behaved as if nothing was happening elsewhere, oblivious to the fact that our silence was in effect condoning the occurrence of these events, including what has been breeding in our own backyards. We did not talk about the pogrom in Gujarat when it happened, but have started comparing Modi with Buddhadev now! So much so that one of the posters at the rally cried out: “It’s West Bengal. Not Gujarat!” Evil’s caught up with us finally – is that why we need to take notice now?
This doesn’t only go for the Bengali in Kolkata, but also for the Bengali like me who is transnationally wired and is a virtual yet equal participant in this. For instance, a networked community of Bengalis across North America, Europe and India who have created a web space for themselves called ‘Sanhati-Fighting Neo-Liberalism in Bengal’, which an excellent forum for engaging discussion on economic and political issues that mar West Bengal. But Sanhati emerged only when Singur happened – as if that was when history was created. Their website powerfully declares: “We may be the last generation to be able to realistically organize. We may be the first generation to drive back the ‘development’ beast”. This claim tends to valorize their emphatic achievement as the first-of-its-kind, but at the same time does not acknowledge that there has been several before them, who are also their contemporaries, who have been fighting the beast for a long long time. It might have been more modest to make a humble declaration about being inspired by the several young people who left their education/ work to join people’s movements like the Narmada Bachao Andolan, and vowing to build on the foundations they have already laid. This attempt at claiming the first-of-its-kind status emerges out of a typical Bengali ethos: we mark the beginning and end of time – an explanation that is used to highlight the contributions of Tagore to Ray to Ganguly! A similar claim was also made in the announcement circulated to publicize the November 14 rally, where even before the event took place it was declared that it will be ‘historic’. It was like a seductive call to the indifferent Bengali to become a part of history even before it was made. I am reminded of the expression ‘kupomonduk’ (the frog in the well) – it is not the actual location of the Bengali that matters here, but the conscience of ‘blinkered-farsightedness’ that the Bengali suffers from, where ever we are.
It is necessary that I disclaim taking a position of discrediting all that has been happening. After all, I was the one to write to Sanhati asking for guidance about what could be done in Toronto. With the wonderfully archived news reports on their website I put together a press note and statement that I circulated in Canada. Sanhati does also remain my most reliable source for updates on the goings on in Nandigram. I cannot dare discredit any of these initiatives, because I sincerely believe that it is high time that the Bengali made its outrage count, the way it happened on November 14. Earlier, the collective pressure built around the Rizwanur case, and the present public outrage is what needs to be powerfully sustained. And I don’t say that in a patronizing fashion – I say that as someone who claims ownership of this outrage, at least on my own count.
We are not new to protests – but we have tended to respond to injustice only when it occurs in our backyard – that too when we fear that the fire in the backyard can bring down the house. We shouldn’t be responding to Nandigram because it is about saving the face of the ‘rational’ Bengali, but to expose our own faces as participants in perpetuating the present state of affairs in West Bengal. We hailed Buddhadev Bhattacharya’s entry as Chief Minister in November 2000 because he claimed to resurrect West Bengal and set it off on the journey towards industrialization and economic development. It took us seven years to figure out how his plot has gone awry, when right through we gave into this faulty logic of ‘progress’ that got him the votes from us. Some only feebly questioned his arbitrary land allotments in the Salt Lake Township in 2006. We kept consuming what the glitzy malls offered and traveled on the newly built flyovers, never wondering if all of these came at the human cost of evictions.
My support for the mahamichhil (the great rally) is not simply because it finally happened, but because it was when I would like to believe that the Bengali held itself accountable – for things that we now see and things that we chose not to for so long. Sitting so far away I don’t wish to romanticize the mahamichhil – I want to feel that I am part of a collective Bengali society where I can hold myself accountable for being party to the creation of this ‘state of exception’ – for realizing that I am paying a price for my silence. I cannot speak for others, but I would like to believe that the buddhijibis (intellectuals) walking the rally on November 14 also felt that they were paying their price as well.
