Mamata Banerjee's TMC trashes iconic Presidency College, students thrashed

NB - Hooliganism on and off campuses is not new in West Bengal. For decades, every significant political party has indulged in it. The shameless assault on Presidency's Baker Laboratory by the Trinamul is one more example of the brazen use of violence by so-called 'mainstream' political parties. The Naxalites even murdered a vice chancellor, Gopal Sen,  on Jadavpur campus in December 1970. The Left Front contributed to this atmosphere  with its own brand of state-supported intimidation. People are not likely to forget the CPM's 'recapture' of Nandigram in a hurry.  Nor the violent riots engineered in the name of 'minority sentiment' in December 2007, to hound out the writer Taslima Nasrin from Kolkata.

These are all examples of a deep rooted hatred of dialogue, of the capacities of mind. 
A bitter irony for Bengal

The recent custodial death of the SFI member Sudipta Gupta is an outrage, as was the Chief Minister's reaction to it, but how long can we carry on viewing political violence with Nelsonian vision. Was it right for the Delhi SFI cadre to engage in physical intimidation of the CM and FM of W Bengal at the Planning Commission two days ago? Why could they not have kept to peaceful protest? How long will we persist with the habit of selective outrage? When will Bengal, with its much vaunted love for wisdom overcome its attraction for tyrannical practices and authoritarian leaders? It is high time for Bengal's elected representatives (beginning with Mamata Banerjee) to call for restraint and non-violence in political disputes.

Choose your enemies carefully, for you will soon become like them 
- Ashish Nandy

Students allegedly belonging to Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad (TMCCP) entered the Presidency College breaking the lock of the main gate and ransacked the historic Baker Laboratory even as the policemen watched like mute spectators. The lab, which was recently renovated, was inaugurated by former President APJ Abdul Kalam on March 11 this year.

The Trinamool student wing had organised a protest march against the heckling of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Finance Minister Amit Mitra by SFI supporters in Delhi on Tuesday. Witnesses said that around 11 am, 150 students belonging to the TMCCP broke the lock of the main gate and entered the campus with iron rods. They headed straight to Baker laboratory where students of Physics Department where attending their class. They also beat up three students and three teachers. The condition of two students, who received injuries on their heads, was stated to be critical. It is also being alleged that some TMC men chased girl students across the university campus and threatened them with rape and assault. Vice-Chancellor of the university, Malabika Sarkar, questioned the role of the police into the entire incident: "It was an unprovoked attack on the students, and despite police being posted inside the campus, how can outsiders enter the campus? As Governor is the Chancellor of the university, we have informed him," she said. An FIR has been lodged by the police in connection with the incident.

Both SFI and Independent Consolidation, the two students' union of the university, have called a strike on Thursday to protest the assault on the students and teachers by the TMCCP members. Meanwhile, violent as well as non-violent protests by Trinamool workers continued in the state as they ransacked several Left Front party offices. Fresh violence erupted in North Dinajpur, South Dinajpur, Cooch Behar, Malda, Siliguri, South 24-Parganas, Birbhum, Bankura and Burdwan. According to police, as many as 36 CPM party offices were ransacked on Wednesday. Cooch Behar district bore the maximum brunt as 86 CPM party offices and 19 Forward Bloc offices were either ransacked or torched on Wednesday.

In Siliguri, supporters of CPM and Trinamool clashed, and police resorted to lathicharge and used water canons to disperse the crowd. Police, also detained CPM leader and former municipal affairs minister Ashok Bhattacharya and party's district secretary Jibesh Sarkar. Along with them, 25 CPM party workers were also picked up. Bhattacharya said Trinamool minister Gautam Deb had led a mob which attacked the CPM party office in Siliguri. "Over 1,000 Left Front offices across the state and 105 in Cooch Behar alone were ransacked," said Left Front chairman Biman Bose.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/mamata-banerjees-tmc-trashes-iconic-presidency-college-students-thrashed/1100769/0

Mamata in clinic, CPM in ICU

Vandals rough up students, ransack lab
Poriborton, the change Mamata promised, remains a slogan in violence-hit Bengal
Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has reason to decry the rough handling she and Bengal's finance minister faced in Delhi at the hands of members of SFI, the CPM'sstudent wing. Those who orchestrated the attack outside the Planning Commission office must be condemned. But will Mamata be as willing to say Trinamool workers had no business going on a retaliatory rampage in Bengal? Not only were CPM offices ransacked across the state, some former Left ministers were attacked and their cars damaged. Yesterday, clashes spilled over into Kolkata's elite Presidency University, injuring several students. It isn't enough for Mamata to call for calm after the event, as if her partymen running riot need no harder rap. People expect a tough stand against hooliganism, whether of the Left or Trinamool variety. As Bengal CM, it's Mamata's primary duty to ensure administrative efficiency and impartiality in maintaining law and order. On this score, she's come across more often than not as unwilling to lay down the line.

Besides following a see-no-evil policy vis-a-vis partymen, Mamata repeatedly appears dismissive towards allegations of crime — be it rape or, more recently, an SFI youth leader's death following arrest. That too bodes ill for the rule of law in Bengal. Even before a probe could establish whether police brutality caused the SFI leader's demise, Mamata dubbed the case a "petty matter". She's demonstrated similar irresponsibility and insensitivity in the past, virtually rationalising gender violence or attributing popular outrage over such cases to conspiracies hatched by political foes. That's apart from the intolerance she's prone to exhibiting towards any form of criticism. Of course, the Marxists too have institutionalised Bengal's lawless culture. Political violence is an unfortunate legacy of three decades of Left Front rule, when Trinamool loyalists were routinely persecuted. By the time their arrogance of power culminated in bloodletting by armed CPM cadres in Nandigram, the communists were in decline with even their hold on rural Bengal considerably eroded. Yet, if lawbreaking continues to be politically patronised, surely Mamata's slogan of "poriborton" — change — has remained just a slogan. So long as the ruling Trinamool winks at cadres taking the law into their hands to settle political scores and the opposition Left fuels the fire for its own ends, the cycle of retributive violence won't end. Bengal deserves better.

See also: 
A Hard Rain Falling (on private armies and political violence in India) (EPW, July 2012)

Where the mind is without fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Rabindranath Tagore