Passionate About India

So the fiery and often unpredictable “Didi” of Indian politics, Mamata Banerjee is all set to do what many felt was inevitable. Even as I write this, I honestly don’t know if the Trinamool Congress will actually walk out of the UPA or not. Nor do I know how Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati and Karunanidhi will act. Some friends tell me that the countdown to the end of this UPA regime has begun and that it is a matter of time before the Manmohan Singh government falls without completing its full term. Some other friends tell me that the Congress has legendary “management” skills in this field and will ride out of the storm. They point out to how a minority Manmohan Singh government won the trust vote in 2008 and how a minority P.V. Narashima Rao government won the trust vote in 1992. I really don’t believe that the survival-or-not of the UPA government is the most significant problem confronting India at this time. I think the real problem and the real challenge is the direction that ...

Have you ever wondered why a Mulayam or a Mayawati is ready to extend the olive branch to UPA from time to time? Or why Karunanidhi, despite going through utter humiliation, ends up standing behind the UPA? Or how the UPA manages everyone so smoothly, except Mamata Banerjee? Well, the answer is in the central government’s massive manipulative control over the CBI, which can in turn then be used to blackmail anyone with any kind of shady dealing and existing CBI investigation; and given that most of our political leaders are corrupt, they can all be easily manipulated, minus rare exceptions like Mamata. Let’s look into some cases. Let’s start with UPA’s biggest problem, YSRC President Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy. He accused the Congress of using the CBI as a tool to harass its political opponents. Sakshi TV channel owned by Y. S. Bharati, wife of Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy, aired an hour-long program defaming Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. Following that, the CBI accused Jaganmohan Reddy of having disp...

Yes, she has been in the news in the recent past for all the wrong reasons. It’s outright insecure and almost suicidal for a national leader of an intellectual and free-thinking state like West Bengal to target a professor for forwarding a cartoon! There are no two ways of looking at it. Leaders are supposed to let their work do the speaking and not their might. We aren’t living in the Hitlerian era. It’s also ridiculous to talk of turning Calcutta into London by painting the trees blue. London is about its democracy (freedom of forwarding cartoons), equality in access to health, education and justice, its high life expectancy, negligible infant mortality and a far more equitable society apart from its astounding standard of safety and cleanliness in comparison with Calcutta. In all these respects, West Bengal and Calcutta are at least 25 years away, assuming we get a government led by a sincere leader who works genuinely day and night for its people. Apart from arguably destroying the...

Is Mamata the best Indian Political leader ever? Also, the challenges ahead! Writing today’s editorial gives me immense pleasure! My professional area of interest, where I take all my workshops and seminars, is leadership. But with so much rotten occurring around with our leaders, when it came to writing, I have mainly been writing about the pathetic deeds of our leaders instead of what makes a good leader! After a long time, I have got this wonderful opportunity to write on leadership! All thanks to one lady who has finally emerged as a symbol of magnificent leadership in this country! Yes, it’s too soon to be talked about perhaps! But what the heck! I have never been too late to criticize; then why be afraid of praising great work, even if it might be too soon! So let me start with a brief background. Having personally interacted with a considerable number of senior leaders who were taking keen interest in Bengal, I know there was one key speculation that was happening around Mamata ...

Yes, it’s 20 years since Rajiv Gandhi’s death. And all my readers are very well aware that if there was one prime minister in my adult lifetime who ever made me feel proud as an Indian, it was him. I wish I could write this edit only on him, but I think many brilliant people, in Rajiv’s memory, have written on him in this issue; so my writing on him is of lesser importance – especially given the most likely fact that by the time this magazine reaches your hands, a huge and significant chapter in Indian politics would have come to an end. Yes, I am talking about the rule of CPM in Bengal. As far as all exit polls are concerned – except for some ludicrous CPM channel polls – it’s Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool party which is all set to sweep the polls in Bengal. In fact, if the leading channel is to be believed, then the current chief minister Budhdhadeb Bhattacharya is expected to lose too! So I think I can safely say it’s the end of CPM in Bengal. Or should I say the end of Stalinism in B...

ARINDAM CHAUDHURI ANALYSES HOW CPM MIGHT JUST ABOUT DO THE TRICK AGAIN, BUT THIS TIME ON THE BASIS OF A COMBINATION OF WELL PLANNED STRATEGIES AND PRO-POOR PROMISES! Lack of development, apathy towards the poor, scientifically implemented mass rigging, muscle power, murders, guns and goons... These have been the things that made the Leftist people of Bengal angry and furious, and made them think seriously of an alternative after decades. These are the things that made the people to come out and vote against CPM in the elections that have been happening of late, including the Parliamentary elections last year. Of course, that can’t take away the credit from Mamata Banerjee, who has been fearlessly taking the CPM head on! She felt the pulse of Bengal, had the courage and gave the alternative that Bengal was looking for. And it was only after the setback that the otherwise arrogant CPM leaders of Bengal received due to their loss in the general elections last year, that they really starte...

There is mayhem in Bengal. In fact, that’s been the other name of Bengal since years of CPM rule. Open a Bangla news channel and all one sees are murders after murders. All political murders. Complete unrest. And it is so unfortunate to see the interviews of the helpless relatives – they can but do absolutely nothing. Really, opening the TV channels is so disheartening. Not that the rest of India is far better. But what’s happening in Bengal is unbelievable and never seen before in any part of the country, including Bihar. The CPM government – seeing their end coming nearer – has gone berserk and increased their complete total gunda raj by many folds. In between all this mayhem, there are some other interesting developments. The old man who was the man behind the whole mess, Jyoti Basu, has suddenly decided to get more active issuing two requests! One, to the Congress Party to stop supporting the Trinamool Congress and start supporting them to preserve peace! He has also appealed to Co...

As I watched Mamata Banerjee’s rally in Calcutta on 21st July, I was forced to wonder where her courage comes from! It was simply amazing to see a lady managing an entire show all on her own in the middle of quite a heavy rainfall. She was drenched and so were all her members on the stage. But she carried on. Kept giving her simple and honest speech! Kept inviting on the stage and felicitating one after the other of her still honest party members. And the thousands of people present kept watching it all and applauding it all amidst the rains – some under umbrellas and some completely drenched. But no one seemed to be interested in going back! The crowd further had the presence of one of CPM's ardent past supporters Mahasweta Devi, who, despite her deteriorating health condition, had made it a point to be there! And the crowd had another old woman too! 43 years ago, a 12-year-old boy had fallen to police bullets when students hit the streets for food, kerosene and exercise books in ...

If anyone has destroyed CPM, it is the CPM itself. I can personally bet that most workers of Trinamool Congress are also communists at heart because in Bengal, most hearts beat for the masses. The revolutionary fervour is a part of Bengali blood stream. It’s no wonder they tolerated a rotting communist party for so many years rather than vote for anyone else. The amazing thing is that even in these elections, out of a total population of 5.73 crores who voted in Bengal, Trinamool Congress got only five lakh votes more than the communists. Of course, rigging happened in many, many places where the communists won – from people not being allowed to leave their homes in the first place (something that can be never caught by the CRPF personnel who were posted) to threats at the voting booths, every trick in the book was rampantly used. But then, there are people who voted for CPM without coercion too. From people who actually benefitted from their regime, to their grassroots party supporter...

When the Left came to power about 30 years back in West Bengal, the then Finance Minister of West Bengal Shri Ashok Mitra had said that “we will give the capitalists sleepless nights”... That may not have been the most appropriate thing to dream about but then that’s what the Left was supposed to be. At that time a sceptic who didn’t believe that the communists in India are that dedicated had written a poem stating that in this regime, capitalists will make so much money that they will obviously not be able to sleep in the nights, busy counting their money! As Budhadeb Bhattacharya goes on to say that he is the middleman of all capitalists (of course for the benefit of his people), that sceptic must be having the last laugh… So what is the issue? Well, Ratan Tata, certainly a good hearted gentleman wants to give India a Rs one lac car – against all market realities (all researches point out that such a car doesn’t have a viable demand in India). Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, our new face of ...