The week that just went by was dominated by news of boiling, burning Bangladesh. The steady stream of reports flowing in from across the border was interrupted with the news of the death of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. I had a chance to interview the former West Bengal chief minister when I had gone on one of his campaign trails before the state elections of 2011 to cover it for the newsmagazine I worked for then. This was a particularly desperate time for the Left Front government which he led because it was during the days just after the Nandigram and Singur episodes and his party CPIM’s ratings had taken a huge hit in terms of popularity. On the other hand, the popularity of the chief political rival of Trinamul, led by its fiery founder Mamata Banerjee had surged substantially. The Parliamentary elections two years earlier, in 2009, indicated that dip. The number of seats of Trinamul had shot up in one go from only one (Mamata Banerjee’s herself) in the previous polls to nineteen and the CPIM’s had crashed by a whopping seventeen seats going from twenty-six in the previous polls to only nine. The Left Front comprising CPI, RSP, Forward Bloc and of course CPIM, had held thirty-five of the forty-two Parliamentary seats in the previous term and it dipped to a mere fifteen in 2009.
However, I found that the loss of twenty seats and the desperation to recover lost ground did not reflect in the demeanour of Buddhadeb Babu. On the contrary he exuded a confidence which I feel reflected his ability to count on his own unquestionable good intentions and the vigorous campaigning in the countryside which included him going from village to village saying sorry for mistakes made by his government. Though detractors dismissed such confidence, especially post the 2011 elections in which the Left Front was defeated, as the arrogance of overconfidence or even a lack of judgement as to the reality on the ground, Buddhadeb Babu clearly banked on his hard work and good will. “We had lost touch with people at the ground level,” he had told me during the interview. “But we have re-established it.” When I asked him about Nandigram and Singur he had said that these were part of the plan to usher in a better Bengal, one which would thrive in terms of industry without compromising on agriculture. “Agriculture is our foundation, industry is our future,” was his famous catch phrase at that time.
In the interview he told me, “We were merely considering building a chemical hub in that area (Nandigram). And the people had been notified to that effect. But a rebellion was stirred up and subsequently lawlessness prevailed. Roads were dug up to prevent anyone from entering Nandigram and there was no administration in that area for nearly three months. The police were sent to Nandigram to contain the situation, and not to forcefully grab the land of the people against their wishes. The killing of innocent people (in the firing) should never have happened and we are sorry for that but the circumstances under which it happened were not a creation of the West Bengal government.” About Singur, he was clear that a car factory would have improved the economy not just of the region but all of Bengal. He had said, “(In Singur), 90 per cent of the people gave up their land willingly and were provided adequate compensation, with which they were satisfied. We were also negotiating with the remaining 10 per cent, but again a fire of rebellion, inciting unrest against the government was stoked up”.
However, he was hopeful that the Left Front’s good work over three decades would be remembered by the people of West Bengal when they voted. “If you go to rural areas, you can witness the difference in the lives of the poor peasants there,” he had said during the interview. “They have come a long way since pre-1977 days in terms of land, literacy, health, education etc.”
But by then people had decided, clearly, that they wanted “Poriborton” or “Change”, Mamata Banerjee’s promise of an uphaul of the status quo and the elections of 2011 determined that amply.
In fact, the demand for “Change” is what was at the root of the rebellion in Bangladesh too. I had visited our neighbouring country a number of times. I have been to towns and cities and lived for days in Dhaka. I have gone to the verdant villages, pond-dotted, tree-lined and all loci of harmonious co-existence. I have gone to Aricha, an 88 kilometre drive back and forth from Dhaka. It was at the confluence of rivers that flow through both India and Bangladesh. Farukh Bhai, who had taken us to this amazing destination where the riverbeds were so vast that one could not see the other side, said, “This is like an ocean where all meet.” Here the boatmen still sung songs from the time of the 1971 Bangladesh War including a paean to Mujibur Rahman, Hasina’s father, who was the leader considered to be among the liberators of Bangladesh from East Pakistan and who was butchered to death in a subsequent coup. “Mujib bayya jaao re….nirjatito dasher (desher) majhey jono goner nao re, Mujib….bayya jaao re.” The lyrics are sung in the Bangal dialect and accent and mean, “Mujib….come and sail the boat….the boat of the people of this oppressed land.” The images of violent, angry mobs vandalising and breaking down the massive statue of Mujib as Bangladesh burned and boiled, did not quite comport with the sentiments of the song that had once reverberated through the open skies over the rivers of Bangladesh as boatmen rowed their own boats and sung.
How things change. The euphoria of victory eventually gives way to the enervation of anguish borne of the violence of the disgruntled and angry. If, at the moments of victory, we could all be given foresight of the truth of transience and act accordingly….without arrogance of power. However, hindsight is all that we have.