Who would have the last laugh? Buddha or Mamata

On a day when Mamata Banerjee was addressing a public meeting in Nandigram first time after her much hyped Lok Sabha win in the state, her bete noir Buddhadeb Bhattacharya was holding a press conference to announce the schedule of the Kolkata film festival. When Mamata was saying Buddhadeb was a ‘Moaist’ and hands in gloves in killing people in the state’, Buddhadeb was philosophically justifying the timing of holding the Kolkata film festival. ‘Even hungry people sing songs and the film festival will bring in creative work in the state that would show them path in this time of crisis’. ( read a time when there is disturbance and discontentment all over the state.)

This was no Gandhigiri. Buddhadeb has pretended to overlook even grim situations many a times. From the uprising in Nandigram, to ration riots in Birbhum, Bankura, Murshidabad, Singur, to political riots all over the state, he has tried to play cool and hence been caught in fire in most of the cases. The state now in turbulence even as the ruling Left blames the opposition for lighting the flames along with the Maoists while the latter led by Mamata Banerjee trying hard to keep the flames lit so as to char the thirty year old Left rule in the state completely.

Here comes in the big question as to who will have the last laugh in this turbulence. Be it either, the state is in flames and the situation grim. There are political riots everywhere in the districts from Hoogly to Midnapur, to South 24 paraganas to Burdawan. Maoists are on a free run dictating terms, political activists unleashing a phase of terror, arson and killings, state agricultural productivity gone down and development static. Where is the state heading towards and what is being achieved?

Buddhadeb had not banned the Maoists despite their growing menace in the state since last couple of years. During Nandigram’s capturing and recapturing mode it was a state of war ie fight for ‘ Dakhal’ ie ‘the political dominance’ leading to political riots in that area. He looked the other way until his own supporters and followers fell prey directly. Finally his party lost the people’s support but rather than counting his own failures he concentrated blaming his opposition parties for conniving with the Maoists in unleashing violence.

On the other hand, Mamata has been spitting fire always. She knows populist slogans can set fire against Budhadeb particularly at a time when most in the state is disillusioned by Buddhadeb’s philosophical attitude. And all the violence in Trinamool dominated areas now are also as a result of that old war of ‘political dominance’. Had it not been so, Nishikant Mondal the Trinamool Congress panchayat pradhan of Nandigram whose killing Mamata was mourning in Nandigram yesterday would not have been a victim of brutal killing in the area he ruled and ensured the wipe out of the CPIM there. His killing has not come with the CPIM goons but the Maoists who have now returned as Frankestein’s Ghost in Nandigram and started to haunt Mamata. And it is for so that Mamata has had to approve for the first time in public that military action should be taken against the Maoists. Until now she had proclaimed that she wanted the joint operation to stop at Lalgarh and security forces to be withdrawn. Does this means she has changed her stand after realizing that the Maoists are back to bully her now. She seems to be particularly sure now after the ‘Rajdhani hijacking’ in Banstala last week where Maoists leader ‘Kishenji’ wanted to talk to her and do the bargain.

Moreso, be it the Maoists or no armed political activists. Clashes turning to rioting have become just another common part of everyday life in West Bengal now. That which had started with Budhhadeb’s ‘paying back people in their own coin’ to Mamata’s joining hands with the Maoists and capturing and recapturing Nandigram, has turned into a total era of anarchy and it will not be easy for ‘Budha babu’ or ‘Mamata didi’ to calm down Bengal now. And the one who would have the nerve to reinstate faith back in the democratic values will only have the last laugh. As for the present the chances for which is quite dim.