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Journalism of Courage
The Left Fronts that is,the CPMs big project in its 32-year reign in West Bengal was to replace government with the party and re-staff the state administration on the grounds not of competence but loyalty to the party. This Stalinist method of consolidating and retaining power had served the party well till recently albeit under a democratic Constitution at the expense of the polity and governance. But there was always a rider following a cyclical logic,the partys grip on the administration and its hold on political power had to feed off each other. One day,the cycle was bound to break; and it happened on May 16,2009. Defeated through the ballot finally,the CPM was at last perceived to be vulnerable,in fact at its weakest in three decades,by its constitutional and extra-constitutional adversaries. Having systematically destroyed the operational competence of the administration,the party didnt know how to handle the crisis when it,along with its government,was suddenly attacked on all sides. But theres a story here that runs deeper: given the rotting structure and instruments of governance,the Maoists had been moving in and lying in ambush since long before May 16. In Lalgarh itself,they had reportedly begun establishing themselves since late 2007; once the failing and partisan administration and the state police withdrew,the residual CPM personnel who symbolised that administration were sitting ducks for Maoists on the rampage.
The CRPF and state police assault on Lalgarh finally began on Thursday morning. But once the operations over,Chief Minster Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee must not brush the dirt under the carpet. There are two big questions he must confront,and now: first,does he intend to rejuvenate a state administration that had abdicated its responsibility in Lalgarh and had proved hopelessly incompetent and indecisive? Second,if so,does he intend to persist with the CPMs hitherto practices or draw a thick line between party and government,at last? Thirty years hence,history might otherwise remember the CPMs tenure in government as a swing from bullying to wimpishness.
