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Journalism of Courage
Up through luminous paddy fields, dominating the landscape of mud huts and strolling cattle, rises the giant yellow-painted Jamshed Ali Smriti Bhavan or the CPI(M) office far in the interior of south Bengal.
In the rest of India, communism has become a bad joke, almost everybody has stopped putting up pictures of Lenin on the wall, and the word ‘comrade’ has become a caricature. But here in the depths of rural Bengal, with a still nascent Trinamool challenge, the party office is gigantic, decorated with a brightly flowered circular garden, with forests of bicycles parked in the front yard and motorcycles revving in the back courtyard, and it flies the red flag triumphantly. Inside, the comrades are having hectic meetings, for the Left Front’s Lok Sabha candidate for Pashkura, Gurudas Dasgupta, is expected in the afternoon.
This is Keshpur, killing fields of the Trinamool Congress and the CPI(M). It was here, in ghastly panchayat violence in 2000, that approximately 100 people were killed, 1,400 homes were burnt and 2,500 were made homeless as rival cadres of Left and the TMC fought for control of the panchayats. Entaz Ali, a schoolteacher in Keshpur and an area committee member, comes to the party office every morning. Ali is a stocky mustachioed man, with an impatient manner and sharp-focussed eyes. In Keshpur, they say, he is a man who is feared.
Sitting in his office, surrounded by portraits of Lenin, Engels and Marx, Ali says the reason why Keshpur was so crucial a “battle” with the Trinamool is because “the class struggle is very deep here.’’ ‘‘We know exactly which jotdar (landlord) has got how much land. How many are being made landless. Here we are united as poor against rich. We have smashed caste. We have smashed religion. Just rich versus poor, that is the mark of Keshpur,’’ he says.
He reels off a list of welfare measures that the CPI(M) is undertaking in Keshpur. And he adds for good measure, ‘‘We are not a party of goondas. We never rig polls. See these fields? See the mustard, the rice and wheat, potatoes? All because of us.” From roads, to Internet, to health, to social relations, name it and it is because ‘‘the CPI(M) and nothing else.”
Mamta Banerjee? Ali waves an impatient hand and points to a statue in the lobby. Comrade Jamshed Ali, reads the label under the statue. ‘‘He was killed by the Congress in ’84. Murdered with an axe when he was sitting in the office. That’s why we have named this office after him. Does Mamta Banerjee even know what sacrifices we have made?’’ he yells. ‘‘We believe in spilling our own blood. No social transformation can take place without the spilling of blood. We have ever hestitated. Amra rakta debo. (We will give blood) Since ’77 we have been here. Mamta Banerjee? Hah!” Tarit Khatua, Gram Sabha Samiti member, says nobody can take over the panchayats of Keshpur and then try to be the chef minister. ‘‘Keshpur is a citadel of Bengal. If Keshpur falls, we will be defeated. But Keshpur will never fall.” He says the CPI(M)’s organisation is so strong that it is invincible and believes that in this election, the Left Front will increase its seat share. Outside the office, a bullock cart pulls along the road. A naked child skips into the fields, herding his cow away from a dog. A woman sways by with water pots balanced on her head. But in Jamshed Ali Bhavan, the comrades roar out ‘‘inquilab zindabad,’’ into their mobile phones. A pair of sturdy young toughs bound out of the meetings, jump on their motorbikes and roar away. Women in starched cotton saris and scraped back hair, stand and salute each other then stalk off into the paddy fields to spread the word of Lenin.
