Conflict class

Many things are on display in Singur. The CPM8217;s incompetence at public relations; the open dissension within the ranks of the Left in Bengal; Mamata Banerjee8217;s inability to tell responsible opposition from rabble-rousing; the slow desperation of a state8217;s polity trying to dig itself out of a hole of its own creation, and failing. However, an even more worrying trend is also on display, and this is not limited to the Left or to Bengal: we see in Singur, as we did in Nandigram, the consequences of letting mainstream politics fail.

We have seen it before, recently, in Jammu and Kashmir. There too mainstream political players were careless, and myopic: chasing short-term gains, they grew intransigent, and drew lines in the sand they said they would not cross; communication broke down, and long-suppressed grievances were stoked into blazing fires. And then the mainstream political players suddenly found themselves losing control of the forces they had unleashed, forced to try and maintain their own relevance amidst the hijacking of the issue they had created by those who had larger battles to fight, some against the state itself. In J038;K, Amarnath was a boon to nobody but the separatists in the Valley and the fundamentalists in the Sangharsh Samiti. Likewise, the only political gains from Singur will accrue to similarly obscurantist forces, the Maoists and anti-industrialisation Luddites.

There is no reason why it should not by now be clear that irresponsibility of this sort helps absolutely nobody 8212; neither the people it is supposed to help, nor the leaders that claim to represent them. More, the consequences of irresponsibility are not always visible in years, as they were when the Congress played with fire in 8217;70s Punjab; they are visible within weeks, sometimes days. Given this, the same mistakes must not be repeated again. Lines of communication should be kept open 8212; it should not need a governor to step in to tell two parties that they need to compromise, something they should already know. Political leaders should have a clearer idea of what the crowds acclaiming them are composed of 8212; this requires them to pay more attention to their own grassroots.