Agitated on Singur

Kisan leader and central committee member Benoy Konar refers to the common issue that the Left and the Right have made on Singur by saying it is a lesson of history that the extreme Right and extreme Left join hands against progress. About the protests, he says, 8220;They have gathered here from all over the country like vultures.8221; There is also justification for the police action from the kisan leader: 8220;The work of the police is not to make drawings or teach in schools and colleges. The police are the instrument of repression. It is for the government to decide whom they shall repress.8221; As for Patkar, with whom it has joined hands on Narmada earlier, she is obviously no longer the CPM8217;s friend. One report says Patkar led 8220;a bunch of self-proclaimed environmentalists8221; who tried to enter Singur 8220;on the sly recently in an ambulance8221;.

No one expects the CPM to be kind to the Trinamool chief and in this issue she is described as violent, abusive and even an object of ridicule for apparently holding a copy of the Constitution upside down. There is more: 8220;The media that is on sale for wads of cash is the instrument of reaction,8221; writes Konar.

The Sachar effect

CPM MP Moinul Hassan makes a detailed analysis of the Sachar committee report, saying it had succeeded in bringing forth the 8220;the backwardness faced by the Muslims8221;. Hassan refers to the William Hunter commission report, 8216;Our Indian Mussalmans8217; and points out how, based on facts from undivided Bengal, it 8220;brought forth the under representation of the Muslims in government jobs for the first time.8221; The Sachar committee report, he writes, shows that the situation for the Muslims had not changed much since. 8220;The findings of the Sachar committee completely blow the myth of 8216;Muslim appeasement8217; propagated by the RSS-BJP,8221; writes the CPM MP, adding that it had established how Muslims had fallen behind the rest of the population in terms of employment opportunities and education.

Hassan blames the NDA government for setting the clock back on the 8220;corrective measures8221; that needed to be taken to determine and alleviate the condition of minorities, especially Muslims.

Behind Dalit rage

In 8216;The Khairlanji massacre and after8217;, writes Ashok Dhawale, state secretary CPM, there was enough to stoke Dalit anger leading to the violence in Maharashtra. In the first place, he blames R.R. Patil, the state8217;s deputy chief minister and home minister for 8220;repeatedly insinuating8221; that Naxalites were behind the 8220;spontaneous Dalit upsurge8221; 8212; a reference to the protests in Nashik and elsewhere. According to him, this was a signal to the police to deal with the mass protests with a heavy hand. It was against this background that the desecration of the Ambedkar statue in Kanpur proved to be the 8220;proverbial last straw for the incensed Dalit populace of Maharashtra8221;.

The writer, however, claims that the attack on the Deccan Queen in Ulhasnagar appeared to be pre-planned and 8220;may have been instigated by anti-social elements8221;. Dhawale points an accusing finger at the BJP and the NCP for 8220;cynically using8221; the Khairlanji massacre to drive a wedge between the Dalits and non-Dalits for consolidation of upper caste votes ahead of local body elections in the state, expected in February next year.

Compiled by Ananda Majumdar