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Correspondent

21 August 2024 at 10:20:16 am

Grim Reckoning

The heckling of Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee during the latter’s visit to Sonarpur is a stark reminder that fear has an expiry date. For years, West Bengal’s politics has been defined by intimidation. First the Communist, and later during Mamata Banerjee’s TMC regimes, the state’s political discourse has been overwhelmingly accompanied by violence, cadre dominance, partisan policing and a culture in which dissenters were expected to keep their heads down and their opinions to...

Grim Reckoning

The heckling of Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee during the latter’s visit to Sonarpur is a stark reminder that fear has an expiry date. For years, West Bengal’s politics has been defined by intimidation. First the Communist, and later during Mamata Banerjee’s TMC regimes, the state’s political discourse has been overwhelmingly accompanied by violence, cadre dominance, partisan policing and a culture in which dissenters were expected to keep their heads down and their opinions to themselves. Whether in villages, municipalities or university campuses, countless Bengalis, especially the Hindu community, have complained that political power was exercised not only through the ballot box but through fear during the TMC rule. Against this backdrop, the scenes that unfolded during Abhishek Banerjee’s Sonarpur visit was a symbolic moment. The TMC political class that once inspired fear suddenly found itself confronting fearlessness and the ire of ordinary citizens. Trinamool leaders accustomed to hectoring and threatening the public were forced to face its ire as Abhishek was heckled and pelted with eggs. The Trinamool Congress would be mistaken if it dismisses the episode as an isolated incident. Across West Bengal after the polls, there is a palpable anger against TMC leaders and their henchmen. That simmering rage appears increasingly difficult to contain. For years, Abhishek Banerjee had projected himself as the heir apparent to Bengal’s ruling establishment, speaking haughtily with the confidence of a man convinced that power was permanently on his side. Now that the TMC is out of power, Sonarpur offered a starkly different picture. It showed what happens when politicians who are accustomed to commanding the public are suddenly confronted by it. From the horrors of Sandeshkhali to the public fury unleashed after the R.G. Kar outrage, West Bengal witnessed episode after episode that laid bare the TMC’s intimidation and moral corruption. The crowd that confronted Abhishek Banerjee at Sonarpur was venting years of accumulated resentment against a political culture many Bengalis had come to associate with arrogance, patronage and strong-arm tactics. They reflected what a significant section of the public has increasingly come to see as the moral bankruptcy of a political order that believed it could rule indefinitely through fear and organisational muscle. Abhishek Banerjee, more than any other TMC leader, had became the face of that system. The hostility he encountered in Sonarpur was political payback delivered by a public no longer willing to whisper its anger. While no civilised society should endorse mob violence, no politician can expect public sympathy after years of bullying and intimidating citizens. He or she must realize that political arrogance has consequences and that public anger, when it finally erupts, grinds even the most powerful dynasties to dust. Abhishek Banerjee’s reception in Sonarpur may therefore prove to be more than an embarrassing political episode. It may become the defining image of Trinamool’s final decline and fall.

Crack down on fake godmen scourge

Mumbai: As outrage continues across the state over the revival ‘babas’ and ‘buwas’ – self-styled fake godmen on the rampage targeting people, especially women, a social activist has called for a crackdown on this scourge by the government, coupled with awareness and grassroots support at the village-levels.


Towards this end, Mahatma Phule Samaj Seva Mandal (MPSSM) chief Pramod Zinjade submitted a memorandum to the Rural Development Ministry seeking a state-supported initiative to curb such evil social malpractices rampant in the mofussil areas.


Zinjade urged the government to move swiftly as superstition-loaded exploitation is not only spreading but cutting across caste-religious lines with such fake babas preying on the vulnerable village folks – and must be curbed with an iron hand.


“The recent case of Nashik, involving Ashokkumar Eknath Kharat, as well as others in the recent past in the state and other parts of the country, has highlighted how these unscrupulous persons trap people in the name of miracles, healing powers, divine engagement and occult practices,” Zinjade told ‘The Perfect Voice’.


There are other similar instances in some parts of the state where ‘tantriks’ forced gullible women into physically exploitative rituals - ostensibly to ward off curses, effects of dark spells or evil spirits, saving the lives of their husbands or kin - and other such superstitions.


Black Magic Act

Referring to the Maharashtra Prevention & Eradication of Human Sacrifice and other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, 2013, Zinjade said in his memorandum that existing legal provisions are underutilised or not fully enforced, and need to get a boost from the state.


“The law has already criminalised such acts and also mandated stringent punishment, besides encouraging the citizens to develop a ‘scientific temper’ to prevent abuse by so-called bhondu babas. The government should issue a state-level circular directing all district and local authorities to mandate the Village Panchayats to take up ‘Superstition Free Village’ as a formal agenda to be implemented within a time-frame,” explained Zinjade.


All the villages can pass suitable resolutions, form Superstition Eradication Committees, launch awareness campaigns involving the youth and school or college students, vigil by women’s groups to keep an eye on any resident or roving godmen and enforce the law at the grassroots with the help of the local police along with the district administration, he added.


He expressed optimism that if the state government intervenes in the matter, there could be a drastic reduction in incidents of superstitious, fraudulent, spiritual and aghori rituals-practices, preventing the exploitation of womenfolk plus ensuring the rural societies are rendered safe and secure.

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