How the CPM used fear, violence and got a Trinamool village to turn red

Over the last two and a half years, according to official figures, the CPM vs Trinamool rivalry has left 70 dead and over 4,000 huts torched but when this reporter travelled across the villages, not a single “enemy” was found who would criticize the CPM. It seemed the 483 sq km area of Keshpur (population 2.41 lakh) has completely turned red. And anyone you meet heaps praise on how the CPM has got rid of “Trinamool terror.”

What happened, in effect, is that the CPM got rid of Trinamool workers and supporters. This drive to “re-capture” the belt began on August 28 and was codenamed Operation Cobra. The CPM officially denies all this but it’s clear that the operation was certainly no “revolution” to recover surplus land. Or a battle against the “Jotedars” as the party top brass is making it out to be in TV studios in Calcutta and New Delhi.

It was a turf battle and its goal was simple: to grab villages and chase the Opposition out.

Bikalchawk village is a case in point. In 1998, the Trinamool won this gram panchayat seat. In the Panskura by-polls too, this village stood solidly behind the Trinamool candidate.

When The Indian Express visited the village last week, there was no trace of the Trinamool’s flag. In fact, its party office at the entrance is under lock and key. Inside, a youth refuses to name himself and identifieshimself as the son of one Omar Ali. “We don’t have a TMC supporter in this village. All the 183 families in the village are CPI(M) supporters,” he says.

Asked if the village had any landless family, the initial answer was, “No.” But within moments, there were murmurs in the crowd and someone hesitantly raised his voice: “Yes, we do.”

How many?

The numbers keep creeping up from two to five to ten and finally to twenty families who have not been given even a cottah of land during the past 24 years. They also appeared to be loyal supporters of the CPI(M) now andsaid: “The Trinamool Congress has been a real nuisance.”

But what about the TMC candidate who had won in 1998?

“She surrendered to us giving in writing that she is deserting the TMC.”

In the refugee camps, those evicted by CPI(M) cadres recall their ordeal. They talk about how armed party cadres — backed by police teams — entered the village and asked residents to line up. Those who were known to be TMC supporters were asked to buy pieces of red cloth and join the procession.

Those who used to be in the forefront of the anti-CPM protests were asked to submit written bonds saying that they were fed up with the torture meted out by TMC leaders in the village and had now decided to join the CPM voluntarily.

Those who had been still more active during elections and had worked for TMC candidates were asked to pay fines. For some veritable fatwas have been issued. Sheikh Saidul (not his real name) of Sarisakhola village, for instance, was asked to either pay Rs 10,000 or lose his right hand. Saidul fled the village and is now staying in a refugee camp. “I will rather beg in Midnapore but not surrender to CPM terror,” he says.

Not many, however, managed to sneak past CPM cadres who stood guard round the clock in the village keeping an eye on every individual.

Conspicuously absent is the administrative mechinery. No district orblock level officers are to be seen. It is the party administration that rules. The verdict given by the party is final and binding.

In each village now “captured” by the CPIM, schools or party offices have been turned into godowns storing articles that were allegedly “looted” from villagers during the past two years by Trinamool goons.

Sources said the operation to capture Trinamool-dominated villges was accompanied by wanton looting. But once reports reached the party’shigher-ups, a diktat was issued to return those back to the villagers as part of a stategy to gain their confidence. In the Keshpur villages now, CPM cadres are busy returning those to their owners.