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Mainstream, Vol XLIX, No 19, April 30, 2011

Bantala and After

Tuesday 3 May 2011

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The following is the text of the letter received by the Editor, Mainstream, from the Minister of Information and Culture, Government of West Bengal, and the Editor’s reply.

West Bengal Minister’s Letter

MINISTER

Information & Cultural Affairs, Local Government, Urban & Metropolitan
Development Departments,

Government of West Bengal

D. O. N. 401/M/90

Calcutta, the 30th June, 1990

Dear Shri Chakravarty,

Kindly refer to your eassay, “Danger Signal of Degeneration” (Mainstream, June 23, 1990).

There is not the slightest doubt that the reprehensible incident at Bantala has worried the people of our State deeply just as the event has caused anxiety among the people of the country at large, as in your case. We are worried all the more because such incidents are exceptions rather than the norm in our State. Kindly allow me to put down my impressions of your reporting and understanding of the incident.

You would have your readers believe that the heinous deed was perpetrated by a handful of “gangsters” and that the people dared not come out to stop the incident from occurring because they stood terrified of the criminals involved. May I say that things have never come to such a pass in West Bengal, as they have in some other parts of the country which you may perhaps have occasion to witness, and which may have influenced your view of the event at Bantala. It hardly needs to be over-emphasised that it has been the people of West Bengal which had kept successfully at bay the riotous forces of communalism. And it has been the people of the State who have come boldly forth to put a stop to persecution of women and of backward castes. Again, it has been the people of the West Bengal that have effectively prevented the domination of public life by gangs of mafiosi. It is important to remember that in motivating the people into making such endeavours, the Leftists have been playing a stellar role—and the hundreds upon thousands of the activists of the Left political parties have worked ceaselessly through large mass organisations towards this end. I may note that in the act of motivating the people, the newspapers and magazines have had little or nothing to do, for the overwhelming majority of the masses do not get to read such publications. In evaluating the event at Bantala, thus, the reality of the situation prevailing in West Bengal must never be lost sight of.

The morphology of what had actually happened at Bantala, as revealed by Government investigation so far, has had to do with the backdrop to the incident as to the circumstances in which the deed was done. For some weeks preceding the incident, an unorganised and degenerated group of the rural poor of the locale has spread the ugly rumour regarding mysterious acts of ‘child lifting’. In their warped thinking and in their antipathy to and hatred against the urban milieu, a section of the local populace—again, rural poor—was, unfortunately, willing to believe this hearsay. One may say that this acceptance and belief emanated from the same attitude of perversion that encourages killing of ‘witches’.

The kind of social-spiritual anarchy which is the inevitable fall-out of counter-progressive tendencies inherent in the present capitalist feudal structure is present in West Bengal as it is in the rest of the country, but at a much smaller scale. The violent explosion of retrogressive emotion that rocked Bantala was the consequence of such derangement. It is not a fact that whilst the ‘gangsters’ committed the crime, the people stood helplessly by. For, unfortunately, it had been a mob that had participated in the gruesome incident—and the degenerate mob had included young men and women, daily wage earners, in its ranks. The ‘model’ prevalent in other parts of the country, where gangs of criminals, in connivance with higher-ups in the ruling party and administration, perpetrate crimes on a helpless populace, has been sought to be super imposed on the situation actually prevailing over here.

You have presumed that the State Government was not able to realise the dimension and implications of the public anger and anguish over Bantala. At the cost of repetition I would venture to say that you appear not to realise the true significance of the State Left Front Government as an instrument of the aspirations of the people. The impression is sought to be created in your essay as if the State Government stays ensconced on the, so to speak, other side of the barricade, away from the sentiments of the people at large. We may state unequivocally that the State Government is in full realisation, and sharply so, of popular feelings and we have taken appropriate initiative without brooking any delay. It is not correct to say that the reactions of the Party Secretary, the Party Members of Parliament, and other Party functionaries have differed from the ‘official’ version. We may be allowed to posit that this mistaken notion has perhaps risen out of reading coverage of the incident by the big Press of Calcutta. And the misconception has been stretched by you to generate the view that we were suffering from covert feelings of guilt over the incident, taking place as it did on the very eve of the civic polls for the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. May we request you to kindly bear with us and to note the direction that the rule of law takes.

Some of the lines in your essay have pained us. Let me give a few examples. “…nobody seems ready to go and pin down the criminals.” (p. 29) “Whenever there is public uproar, some people are rounded up or challanged and sometimes judicial enquiries are sanctioned.” From such postulates you go on to conclude: ‘What is missing in all this is the demonstration of determination to confront such an evil force and to exterminate it.” (p. 30) And, you have also served a stern reprimand on those of us who “do not spend sleepless nights” over the issue.

We have no way of getting of know whether you choose not to sleep over the incident. But how could you possibly discover whether we have decided to sleep over it? I am inclined to believe that in looking at things from the standpoint of your new thinking (perestroika) on the Indian situation, you have upset the yardstick against which white is differentiated from black, and truth from untruth. Perhaps the same extenuating circumstances have confused your sense to judge whether you are awake or we have chosen to sleep.

If you have respect and regard for the tradition of the Bengali intelligentsia of the State, and if you have been able to repose your confidence on the Leftist struggles in the State in the subsequent years, in the teeth of a vicious campaign of slanders and untruth from the big Press, the spirit of your anxiety, I am sure, would have been of a different disposition altogether. And one had better remember that should this have been true that it is only Editors like M.J. Akbar, Aron Shourie, and Nikhil Chakravarty et al who have the exclusive right to ‘moral authority’, and not so the political functionaries, it would have been a great misfortune, and more, for the Nation itself. Whatever is the so-called ‘truth’ that the Editors seek to foist on the people, they do not have to face the verdict of the people which we have, and shall continue to have to. And yet, it is you who presume to pontificate in terms of installing ‘moral authority’.

However, we firmly believe in the freedom of expression and opinion, even though the views expressed may stray from facts. I have no desire to show any personal disrespect to you but I thought I would vent my feelings on the issues you have chosen to raise in your present essay. Should you be inclined to believe that my thoughts may perhaps not be kept apart for the perusal of the Editor alone but exposed to the discerning eyes of your readership, you may kindly print the letter in your publication.

Kind regards,

Your sincerely,

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee

(Minister-in-charge, Department of Information and Culture,
Government of West Bengal)

Shri Nikhil Chakravarty,

Editor, Mainstream

Mainstream Editor’s Reply

July 10, 1990

Dear Shri Bhattacharjee,

Thank you for your Demi-official letter (D.O. No. 401/M/90) of June 30, 1990 which reached me during the week-end.

Let me respond to the different points raised by you in your letter regarding my impressions about the Bantala tragedy which appeared in Mainstream under the caption “Danger Signal of Degeneration”.

First, you have emphasised that the situation in West Bengal is much better than in some other parts of the country with regard to social tensions, what has come to be known as the law and order problem; and you have indicated that the sorry state of things elsewhere “may have influenced” my view of what happened in Bantala. In fact, it is just the opposite. I am painfully aware of the frightening happenings particularly in the countryside in some other States, and therefore in the context of the expectations raised by a Left Front Government, I felt like focussing on an issue which I strongly feel is distressing. No doubt the Left Front Government had held back communal tension and have at many places prevented atrocities on the underprivileged sections of society. Precisely because we expect a higher standard of public morality from West Bengal that many of us think it legitimate to point to the danger signals that are discernible.

Secondly, your analysis of the root-cause behind the Bantala incident. You have referred to “the ugly rumour regarding mysterious acts of child lifting” spread by a “degenerate mob” that was responsible for the tension that led to the gruesome attack. Would it not be more accurate to acknowledge that an anti-social group was operating in that area? You have stated: “It is not a fact that whilst the ‘gangsters’ committed the crime, the people stood helplessly by.” Apart from the fact that no report, not even any from police and official sources mention of any spontaneous local intervention to stop the crime or catch the criminals, I have got this impression not only from press reports but from persons of integrity close to the Left Front, including an eminent member of your government. There was no pre-conceived notion which I have sought to super-impose in my reference to the situation. However, this is a matter on which the promised judicial enquiry will, I hope, throw light. I may add here that you have conceded that “the kind of social-spiritual anarchy” prevalent in the rest of the country is also evident in West Bengal “but at a much smaller scale”. Does this not warrant a warning in time from all of us?

Thirdly, you have questioned my statement that “the authorities in West Bengal did not anticipate the welling up of public anger at the Bantala incident” and have claimed that “the State Government is in full realisation, and sharply so, of popular feelings and we have taken appropriate initiative without brooking any delay”. I observed in my article that “the West Bengal Government reacted in the normal routine manner”, but frankly I had expected something more from it. May I ask you if the immediate reaction to the incident of the Health Minister of your government, known for his dynamism, left nothing to be desired, particularly his amazing offer of Rs 15,000 as compensation to the murdered lady’s husband? I would have expected a Minister responsive to the enormity of the crime to have at once called upon his entire Department to mourn and pay homage to the victims who were on official duty. And I would have also expected the Left Front Government on its own gone in for instant and widespread publicity of the ghastly incident to alert the entire people of West Bengal against such misdeeds, since it is “an instrument of the aspirations of the people”, as you have put it. I would have been happy if the Bantala tragedy had been made by the State Government the starting point for an all-out drive to weed out and exterminate such pockets of anti-social activity. However, if you are satisfied with all that has been done by the authorities, I obviously cannot do anything more than plead with you in all sincerity that I want you and your government to do much more.

Fourthly, you have expressed more than once your disdain for the community of media practitioners. According to you, in the act of motivating the people in the crusade against communalism and social injustice, “the newspapers and magazines have had little or nothing to do”. I would expect every government in our country, particularly with an enlightened outlook, to strain its utmost to sensitise the media on this important issue and thereby harness them in such noble endeavour. The tradition of our freedom struggle brings out how intrepid communicators helped to rouse the masses about the imperatives of that struggle.

Regarding the disparaging references in your letter to me personally, it would be unbecoming of me to react or get provoked by them. I would not like to cross swords with you over my thinking about the Indian situation. Perestroika or new thinking is a serious subject of historical importance and I would not be so bold as to treat it with cavalier contempt. If anything, it has reinforced, instead of upsetting, my yardstick for differentiating black from white, truth from untruth.

Let me, however, submit that those who come to office by the verdict of the people have certainly the authority to rule and it is for all of us to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but Caesar does not necessarily have the monopoly of moral authority. There are occasions when those who raise uncomfortable questions of moral authority may be a minority in their own time.

In connection, I would repeat word for word, what I had written in my article:
Bantala stands as our danger signal of degeneration—degeneration of not only the perpetrators of the crime, but those of us who do not spend sleepless nights over how to combat what it stands for.

The time has come to wake up, to bestir ourselves, to reinstall that moral authority which is at the very heart of any true abiding politics.

This applies to all of us, you and me and all those who love our country, our great city. On my part, I have not the least intention of disturbing your sleep in your capacity as the Minister of Culture, Amen.

With warmest regards,

Your sincerely,

Nikhil Chakravartty

Shri Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee,

Minister-in-charge, Department of Information and Culture, Government of West Bengal,

Calcutta

(Mainstream, July 14, 1990)

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