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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.

People praise Army for protecting

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah interacts with displaced border residents at a shelter camp.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah interacts with displaced border residents at a shelter camp.

Garkhal (J&K): Men and machines of the armed forces worked meticulously to ensure the interception of Kamikaze drones and missiles fired by Pakistani troops targeting Jammu, drawing widespread appreciation from people.


India on Thursday night swiftly thwarted Pakistan's fresh attempts to strike military sites with drones and missiles, including in Jammu and Pathankot, after foiling similar bids at 15 locations across the country's northern and western regions, amid a military conflict between the two neighbours.


Looking after the operational area of Jammu under the command of the 9 Corps, the 26 Infantry Division, nicknamed the "Tiger Division", had put in place a robust air-defence system, virtually carving out an Israel-type Iron Dome to protect Jammu from a Hamas-style attack by Pakistan.


An official who was privy to the developments said it was a meticulous combination of men and machines in defence that thwarted such a massive Pakistani attack.


In the dead of night, Pakistan unleashed its most audacious assault on Jammu since the 1971 war, deploying a swarm of more than a hundred Kamikaze drones and missiles in a sinister attempt to devastate the city. But what followed was a show of unmatched precision, courage and resilience.


"We are indebted to our armed forces who have saved Jammu from a major attack by Pakistan. We appreciate them for their missionary work. We never thought these bombs could be neutralised in the air," Garkhal resident Sikender Singh said.


Singh, whose family, along with more than 500 villagers, has shifted to safer camps set up by the government in Mishriwala on the Jammu outskirts, said had the bombs not been intercepted, they could have caused massive deaths and destruction.


Finest system

The Army, backed by one of the world's finest air-defence systems, intercepted the aerial barrage with astonishing accuracy -- virtually every hostile object was destroyed mid-air. Not a single vital installation was touched. Not a single civilian life was lost.


"Eight missiles from Pakistan were directed at Satwari, Samba, R S Pura and Arnia. All were intercepted and blocked by air-defence units. Visuals over Jammu reminded exactly of a Hamas-style attack on Israel, like multiple cheap rockets," an Army official said.


He said the Pakistan Army is operating and behaving like Hamas. "Drones were sighted at multiple places along the western front -- confirmed to be hostile. They are being effectively engaged by our air-defence systems. Pakistani drone attacks have been reported at various locations along the western borders and are being effectively countered by the Indian armed forces," he added.


The multi-tier air-defence system, with a twin technological security architecture of Russian and Israeli surface-to-air missile setups and the indigenous Akash, was a game changer against such attacks.


Former Jammu and Kashmir director general of police S P Vaid appreciated the armed forces and their technological security systems for effectively dealing with the Pakistani attacks.


He said 50 to 60 air attacks by Pakistan over Jammu and other places were neutralised on Thursday night by the impregnable air-defence system of the country.


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