12-25-2005, 10:55 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Congress must shed sham secularism and join </b>
Pioneer.com
Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister
I am 85 years old and not expected to live very long. Even though I have retired politically, an unquenched desire still coerces my mind. I wish I could see the end of this repressive Marxist regime.
In fact, that vigorous wish still keeps me awake as a political person. Recently<b>, many eyebrows were raised and quite a few people thought I was stupid in sharing the same platform as BJP president LK Advani, who was to address a Trinamool Congress Youth convention.</b>
Some have assumed that my advanced age has robbed me off my acumen and I was harming my status as a secular politician who had a long association with the Congress family. The truth is, I still have faith in the principles envisaged by the Indian National Congress. However, I have no political aspiration; and, as such, I rule myself out of any electoral rat race.
My weakness for the Congress party notwithstanding, I strongly oppose their refusal to join the "Mahajot" or a grand-alliance comprising all the Opposition parties, <b>including the Trinamool Congress, the BJP and all other smaller groups who are as eager to pull down this ruthless 28-year-old Marxist regime in West Bengal.</b>
The Congress leadership seeks to hide conveniently behind the veneer of secular politics. But, in Bengal, secularism, or for that matter communalism, is not the issue. <b>The"Mahajot", for sure, does not brook reconstruction of Ram temple or pushing through the Article 370. Rather, the core issue is whether or not we can shoo away the Marxists</b>.
Ostensibly, Congress leaders tend to project an anti-Marxist face with all those blank promises of building up a united struggle against the Red regime. But, in practice, it is hard to predict their real gameplan. I suppose the chemistry in Delhi would not allow them to go against the Left Front. Though they call it" Left Front", I wonder how many of them in the Front are still willing to cohabit with big brother CPI(M). They aren't really, if one goes by the recent scuffles and remarks issued by the Forward Bloc and the RSP leaderships.
None of these parties have an iota of faith left in the Marxist regime. Furthermore, the Forward Bloc can never be considered a subscriber to the Marxist ideology. I have never known them doing so in my long political career. With a little bit of hope and persuasion, I am sure, many smaller Front partners would join the "Mahajot". They won't do it on their own for lack of confidence and political will. And that confidence will only be produced if a big party like the Congress joins hand with the Trinamool-led Paschimbanga Ganatantrik Front.
The Congress is clearly guilty of shirking a benevolent duty. That is, to liberate Bengal. My hopes of bringing the two groups together were dashed to the ground when I saw reports of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Mr Pranab Mukherjee sharing the same platform at Farakka. The twosome surprised me because, amid all that talk of a grand coalition and the Congress' possibilities of joining it, they congratulated each other for doing good work for the State. There is no better example of bizarre bed-fellowship. I am for secularism, but I hate dishonesty as much as the Marxists.
The Marxists are the manufacturers of the biggest lies. They claim that the economy is coming round, whereas the State has a debt of more than Rs 1.3 lakh crore.<b> The Marxists tend to have liberally peddled stories of development, but not even a tenth of the number of industries set up during my term (1972-77) is existing today. </b>Unemployment has increased. The impression one gathers is: All the initiatives in the current Government start and end at the Chief Minister only. And, despite those high-sounding slogans coined by him, no one seems to perform down the line.
As I am told, <b>there is only 0.5-1 per cent growth in the number of jobs. In my time, however, the rate was well beyond 5-6 per cent. The health scenario is bleak as well. They have opened no new primary health centres. To say the least, they have been forced to close down the ones opened during the Congress regime</b>.
Similarly <b>the government has ruined the primary education system of the state. One big lapse has been the discontinuation of English language at the primary level.</b> Knowing full well the importance of knowing English, they wilfully deprived our students from picking it up and created a generation of non-performers who ended up failing not only at the international level, but also nationally.
The upshot: Bengal that once sent plenty of civil servants to the all-India cadre, today does not even produce enough to fill its own vacant posts. Resultantly, most of the bureaucrats here come from outside the State. I don't profess any linguistic prejudice, as I was the only one who had protested the implementation of the Bengali Language Bill, 1961, that strove to implement Bengali as the only official language in Bengal. My point is to show how shabbily has the Left Front dealt with the education sector. <b>Thank God, Buddhadeb has brought English back in the schools. I remember telling him once about the daunting task he faces because his predecessor, Mr Jyoti Basu, had left him sunk neck-deep in the slush of bad governance.</b>
<b>I must ask those in the Government - as well as in the Congress - who wax eloquent about their secular credentials as to how many Muslims have found jobs in the past three decades. When I was the Chief Minister, I ensured each police station had at least one Muslim police officer. I also ensured jobs for Muslim women</b>. And, yet, the Left Front claims to be a secular regime. Muslims have remained the most neglected lot under this regime. They have been used as pawns in the hands of the Marxists. This regime has no right to blame others as communal.
The summit of hypocrisy was scaled when this government called the Salim Group to invest in the health sector. Though fearing backlash during the elections, they have shelved the project, it is public knowledge that they have decided to give away thousands of acres of agricultural land for the purpose. And, yet, this claims to be a government of the have-nots. The Salim Group, I am told, is here also to manufacture motorcycles. I suspect whether this group has the requisite skill to manufacture quality motorbikes. At least I have never heard of any such group manufacturing motorbikes. I wonder what will be the fate of the group when it starts competes against the players like Bajaj, Honda and others.
Time has come to uproot this column of falsity by a true representative government. The Congress must come forward to discharge its duty by forming a "Mahajot" with the Trinamool Congress and its associated parties.
(As told to Saugar Sengupta)
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Pioneer.com
Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister
I am 85 years old and not expected to live very long. Even though I have retired politically, an unquenched desire still coerces my mind. I wish I could see the end of this repressive Marxist regime.
In fact, that vigorous wish still keeps me awake as a political person. Recently<b>, many eyebrows were raised and quite a few people thought I was stupid in sharing the same platform as BJP president LK Advani, who was to address a Trinamool Congress Youth convention.</b>
Some have assumed that my advanced age has robbed me off my acumen and I was harming my status as a secular politician who had a long association with the Congress family. The truth is, I still have faith in the principles envisaged by the Indian National Congress. However, I have no political aspiration; and, as such, I rule myself out of any electoral rat race.
My weakness for the Congress party notwithstanding, I strongly oppose their refusal to join the "Mahajot" or a grand-alliance comprising all the Opposition parties, <b>including the Trinamool Congress, the BJP and all other smaller groups who are as eager to pull down this ruthless 28-year-old Marxist regime in West Bengal.</b>
The Congress leadership seeks to hide conveniently behind the veneer of secular politics. But, in Bengal, secularism, or for that matter communalism, is not the issue. <b>The"Mahajot", for sure, does not brook reconstruction of Ram temple or pushing through the Article 370. Rather, the core issue is whether or not we can shoo away the Marxists</b>.
Ostensibly, Congress leaders tend to project an anti-Marxist face with all those blank promises of building up a united struggle against the Red regime. But, in practice, it is hard to predict their real gameplan. I suppose the chemistry in Delhi would not allow them to go against the Left Front. Though they call it" Left Front", I wonder how many of them in the Front are still willing to cohabit with big brother CPI(M). They aren't really, if one goes by the recent scuffles and remarks issued by the Forward Bloc and the RSP leaderships.
None of these parties have an iota of faith left in the Marxist regime. Furthermore, the Forward Bloc can never be considered a subscriber to the Marxist ideology. I have never known them doing so in my long political career. With a little bit of hope and persuasion, I am sure, many smaller Front partners would join the "Mahajot". They won't do it on their own for lack of confidence and political will. And that confidence will only be produced if a big party like the Congress joins hand with the Trinamool-led Paschimbanga Ganatantrik Front.
The Congress is clearly guilty of shirking a benevolent duty. That is, to liberate Bengal. My hopes of bringing the two groups together were dashed to the ground when I saw reports of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Mr Pranab Mukherjee sharing the same platform at Farakka. The twosome surprised me because, amid all that talk of a grand coalition and the Congress' possibilities of joining it, they congratulated each other for doing good work for the State. There is no better example of bizarre bed-fellowship. I am for secularism, but I hate dishonesty as much as the Marxists.
The Marxists are the manufacturers of the biggest lies. They claim that the economy is coming round, whereas the State has a debt of more than Rs 1.3 lakh crore.<b> The Marxists tend to have liberally peddled stories of development, but not even a tenth of the number of industries set up during my term (1972-77) is existing today. </b>Unemployment has increased. The impression one gathers is: All the initiatives in the current Government start and end at the Chief Minister only. And, despite those high-sounding slogans coined by him, no one seems to perform down the line.
As I am told, <b>there is only 0.5-1 per cent growth in the number of jobs. In my time, however, the rate was well beyond 5-6 per cent. The health scenario is bleak as well. They have opened no new primary health centres. To say the least, they have been forced to close down the ones opened during the Congress regime</b>.
Similarly <b>the government has ruined the primary education system of the state. One big lapse has been the discontinuation of English language at the primary level.</b> Knowing full well the importance of knowing English, they wilfully deprived our students from picking it up and created a generation of non-performers who ended up failing not only at the international level, but also nationally.
The upshot: Bengal that once sent plenty of civil servants to the all-India cadre, today does not even produce enough to fill its own vacant posts. Resultantly, most of the bureaucrats here come from outside the State. I don't profess any linguistic prejudice, as I was the only one who had protested the implementation of the Bengali Language Bill, 1961, that strove to implement Bengali as the only official language in Bengal. My point is to show how shabbily has the Left Front dealt with the education sector. <b>Thank God, Buddhadeb has brought English back in the schools. I remember telling him once about the daunting task he faces because his predecessor, Mr Jyoti Basu, had left him sunk neck-deep in the slush of bad governance.</b>
<b>I must ask those in the Government - as well as in the Congress - who wax eloquent about their secular credentials as to how many Muslims have found jobs in the past three decades. When I was the Chief Minister, I ensured each police station had at least one Muslim police officer. I also ensured jobs for Muslim women</b>. And, yet, the Left Front claims to be a secular regime. Muslims have remained the most neglected lot under this regime. They have been used as pawns in the hands of the Marxists. This regime has no right to blame others as communal.
The summit of hypocrisy was scaled when this government called the Salim Group to invest in the health sector. Though fearing backlash during the elections, they have shelved the project, it is public knowledge that they have decided to give away thousands of acres of agricultural land for the purpose. And, yet, this claims to be a government of the have-nots. The Salim Group, I am told, is here also to manufacture motorcycles. I suspect whether this group has the requisite skill to manufacture quality motorbikes. At least I have never heard of any such group manufacturing motorbikes. I wonder what will be the fate of the group when it starts competes against the players like Bajaj, Honda and others.
Time has come to uproot this column of falsity by a true representative government. The Congress must come forward to discharge its duty by forming a "Mahajot" with the Trinamool Congress and its associated parties.
(As told to Saugar Sengupta)
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