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Introduction: Bardhan's reply was that Sonia Gandhi should advise her colleagues to “mend their ways.” Why Dr Singh did not ask Bardhan to mend his ways remains a mystery.
If there is one daily that has the courage to take on the communists, it is the Kolkata-based The Statesman which has been constantly under heavy pressure from the CPM-led government of West Bengal. But that has never deterred The Statesman to tell the truth about the Jyoti Basu-Buddhadev Bhattacharya administration, fairly, squarely and above all, boldly.
Thus, on February 11 it published an editorial page article that lambasted the Reds in no uncertain terms. The CPM had come to power in 1977 and has been continuously in power since then. But with what results? Writes B.K. Bhattacharya, a retired joint secretary to the Government of Assam: “They (CPM-led Leftist parties) have brought chaos, confusion and indiscipline in different walks of life. They have destroyed national institutions like Presidency College, Calcutta University, Calcutta Medical College, Viswa Bharati, the National Library, Asiatic Society and Bangiya Sahitya Parishad. They have brought industrial ruin, have destroyed the Calcutta Police-once a prestigious organisation and considered to be India's Scotland Yard. They have destroyed the administration and derailed the state and above all killed the soul of Bengal which the British government failed to do during their 200-year-rule of this country. Bengal was once heard with attention and respect in other parts of the country. It lost its primacy several years ago...”
But what do the Reds do? CPI General Secretary A.B. Bardhan speaking in Hyderabad said “bad days are ahead of the UPA government” if it persists with its economic policies. What the communists apparently want to do is to bring all the country-and not just West Bengal-to its death-bed.
According to The Telegraph, poor Dr Manmohan Singh, our dear Prime Minister, called Bardhan on his mobile to ask what he meant by ‘bad days’ and what the provocation was for making such a remark. Bardhan's reply was that Sonia Gandhi should advise her colleagues to “mend their ways”. Why Dr Singh did not ask Bardhan to mend his ways remains a mystery. Not only is West Bengal in a total mess, Kolkata has been turned into the pornographic capital of India, if a report again in The Statesman (February 11) is any indication.
The report says that while Playboy magazine is banned in India, Playboy VCDs are freely available in Kolkata, in leading retail outlets. Like to watch Sinful Intrigue, Virgin Hunters, Indecent Woman and Turkish Delight? Ask the Commies in Kolkata, they'll get it for you. But then, why go to Kolkata when one has Hindustan Times available in Delhi? How much of the female anatomy is one eager to see? Hindustan Times is there to feed the needs of lustful eyes. HT City Sunday had one full page (February 6) of pictures. Has anybody heard of Eva Mendes? Paris Hilton? Lindsay Lohan? Missy Elliott? Clare Kilney? Does it make any reader more knowledgable and better informed reading about them? Evidently Hindustan Times thinks it does. And it devotes an entire page to their activities. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what is known as New Journalism. Never mind if a few hundred farmers in Karnataka have committed suicide. Never mind Anantpur district in Andhra Pradesh is known for the largest number of political murders committed in the country. That is not news. What is news is actress Jada Pinkett Smith (who is she?) striking a pose during the premiere of Hitch.
Our modern editors have fancy ideas of what constitutes news. To say the least, it is sickening. Can one imagine New York Times or Le Monde of France or Die Welt of Germany wasting one whole page showing pictures of Indian teenage girls displaying their navels? Those papers are run by top class editors. Our papers are run by voyeurs, who lack self-respect. Our smaller newspapers are hugely better in that sense.
After the dismissal of the BJP government in Goa, Gomantak Times went to town, telling it like it is. It gave the politicians the kick in the area they deserved. It said in a front-paged editorial that ‘the horses are ready’, start trading. “In one stroke the Governor of Goa has managed to inaugurate the auction for the trading of MLAs... what will follow is the shameless stripping of democracy and the naked dance of avarice” the editorial said.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi apparently has never heard of principled politics. For the celebrated tyaagi, power is everything. Meanwhile, doubts are being expressed in many quarters about the release of the Nanavati Report on the 1984 riots in which over two thousand Sikhs (men, women and children) were slaughtered in cold blood-incidentally, a number larger than those killed in the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat. Will the Nanavati Report be released in full? Says The Indian Express (February 12): “There is something of an oddity in the fact that the Home Minister has been exercising his discretion already in discussing the report with the Congress President, Sonia Gandhi... The very party, whose members are the object of the Report, will now exercise the discretion to make it public.”
Does the country have to wait for the approval of Sonia Gandhi to know what the Report says? What have we come to? Says the Express: “Political parties should demand that the Report be made public... They should, if need be, press for more investigations... The point should not be to score facile political points but to earnestly strive for truth and justice. They ought to remember that it is not the Congress Party that is on trial... the whole nation is on trial on every measure of moral decency. The Nanavati Commission may not have all the answers. It may not even be convincing. But we owe it to the victims; we owe it to ourselves as a nation, to discuss these matters in full measure. Make the report public.”
Well said and one hopes that the Congress has moral courage to do what is right. Truth is Congress is fast losing credibility. Consider what The Hitavada (January 4) wrote about the events in Goa. It said: “The sequence of events indicates that a plan had been hatched to have the Parrikar-government dismissed on any ground whatsoever and install in its place a Rane government. In love or in war, everything may be fair and the manner of today's politics shows that love for power has led most political parties to adopt patently unfair means and brand them as fair on some flimsy excuse...” Tell that to Sonia Gandhi, the tyaagi.
Congress technique is to snatch
power in Goa by any means, fair or foul. One suspects, mostly foul. Some
tyaag, that. But you can't tell that to our besotten intellectuals. We
live and learn.
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