The problem with Bengal....

Someone told me today that the problem with Bengal is Bengalis. Interestingly enough I have heard many a people’s takes on what constitutes the problem that is Bengal today. Most are pretty strong in their convictions. The Bengalis themselves are to be blamed for their horrid lot in life cos they’ve elected the same government for the past 30 friggin years!!! All Bengalis are pseudo intellectuals. They think they know it all. The same someone who said that Bengalis are Bengal’s problem also told me that the entire place is characterized by red flag dadagiri- or in the more recent context didigiri.

Why then am I writing this as my first post…I ask myslf the same question even as I start penning this down…I mean its no secret that im no big fan of the place. I am not a Bengali, nor a Bengali sympathizer…I don support the Left or the center or the very non existent right in this place…why then??? Think…think…No reason in special. Just thought I should start my journey back to writing by writing bout the place where I grew up and spent my whole life except a vagrant and lets face it weird year in Delhi.

I realized just a few days back, Bengal is not just about Kolkata. It is not just about the city. It can never be just about Kolkata. Yea so wat!!! Bengal today is about Singur, Nandigram, Darjeeling, Lalgarh and many others like it. What has happened to the state? Its gone to the dogs some say…it went to the dogs some 30 years back say others. It’s a dog eaten state with no industry and no hope…stinking fish eating pseudo intellectual residents who don even know about the good life. I think im rambling a lil bit now…the tirades of a sad soul who is trying to defend something indefensible...

Why then is Bengal different? I am still trying to search for an answer. Lets try and talk about the land acquisition issues…Singur, Nandigram and Mamata. Lemme reiterate, I do not support the lal jhandadharis. Bengal has the lowest private average landholding size in any state in India. Till 2002, the government of Bengal had distributed about 1.045 million acres of land among 2.544 million beneficiaries. This would then make the average landholding size in Bengal as small as .20 ha in size. This would also then mean that over 40% of the farmers in this godforsaken place own land. Small tracts of land..barely enough for sustanence but land nonetheless and their own land at that...I hate numbers, always have…but I needed to understand this in terms of numbers couldn’t do this widout them. So back to the issue at hand. In Singur, the land under dispute was about 180 acres much less than the 400 everyone heard of. And in trying to get back just 180 acres of land, the government had to deal with over 2500 families.

The point im trying to make here in all my ramblings is that it was the government which had through its land reforms given land and thus giventhese ppl a taste of what empowerment could feel like. The problem here therefore is not of land. It was about power. power once given to people cannot be taken away. Power that had been given to them by the much criticized, much maligned Left. The problem was and remains that the Bengali people, the villagers the poor gaw-walas are the most empowered villagers anywhere in India. They are poor yes but an astonishing number are happy in their relative poverty. The issue therefore was the taking away of the power.

Bengal is now a scapegoat. Everyone laughs at either Buddha or Mamata…well who am I to argue I laugh at them as well…hell they bring it upon themselves. But one needs to now understand and accept the fact that this is a norm that will continue for a while to come…Bengal with its culture of extremes…be its academics or militancy is probably all set to become the next most violent state in the nation Iarguably it already is) given the fact that change is bound to come. And this change will not come to Kolkata..it will come to Bankura, to Murshidabad, to Midnapore…to Nadia and many others. Wait, I think I just made an error the change may or may not come. What is bound to come now are efforts at change. These may be made by Buddha or by the verrry eccentric Mamata…no matter who tries and makes these changes, there are many a Singur waiting for this state…cos ppl will not give up their right to their power...Will keep writing it as I see it and hear it…hope there would be at least some who would rise above the pettiness of Red Bashing, Mamata bashing and Bengal bashing in general and read with an open mind….signing off…tata