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Harmony Missing | |||
| Published on June 22nd, 2007 In Politics | Views 165 | ||||
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Harmony Missing Jamai Shashthi, World Music Day, Left Rule and Sartre- All coincide! Palash Biswas Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551 India: Now, Reliance dons food processing tag The ruling left coalition in the Indian state of West Bengal has completed a country record of 30 years of uninterrupted power. With the Left Front making history by completing 30 years of uninterrupted governance Thursday, the man who took oath this day (June 21) in 1977 is at the heart of the anniversary though he is no more in the government.Basu recalls: ‘When we won the election in 1977, huge crowds gathered to greet us in front of the Writers Buildings. I told them that we would not rule from Writers Buildings alone. We will involve the workers, employees, officers, and common people from all sections." Like the Congress, the Left parties, CPI(M) and CPI, have rejected the Third Front"s proposal for a second term to President A P J Abdul Kalam Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee held a public meeting at Esplanade observing the day as ‘Kalankamochon divas" (a day to wipe out shame). Quoting from the original 36-point charter of the Left Front whent it assumed State Power: What happened? Thousands of its supporters waved red flags and sang revolutionary songs as they marched to Calcutta"s Netaji Stadium to hear their leaders speak. They celebrated the government"s land, agricultural and industrial reforms. But hundreds of opposition supporters also gathered at the nearby Shahid Minar, waving black flags. Members of the Trinamul Congress Party condemned the “nightmare of three decades of left oppression". Basu waged war against the Centre. Bhattachary has waged the War against the Peasnts of Bengal while the ruling UPA in centre has become the best friend. Left Front tried its best to make Pranab, The Brahmin Cong leader the President of the Nation. Land reforms and Rural development are no more top priorties. politics itself has been corpotarised! Development for whom? This is the common question by the people of West Bengal as thousandsof acres of land are being acquired for setting up industries by the state government in its drive toindustrialization!But most experts say the opposition is unlikely to remove the state"s long-serving government in the immediate future. Jyoti Basu criticises anti-Tata campaign Indee,India’s main communist party celebrated the 30th anniversary of its rule in the West Bengal state Thursday. Next only to the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan which ruled the island nation for 38 years, CPI(M)-led Left Front on Thursday, earned the rare distinction. The Left Front Govt’s 30 years in power is a record, not just on the slippery ground of Indian politics but also in electoral politics anywhere in the world. The one man who held sway for 23 of those 30 years is former Chief Minister Jyoti Basu who said West Bengal should emerge as a frontrunner in industry in the next few years in tandem with its position in agriculture to solve its unemployment. Chief MinisterBuddhadeb Bhattacharjee spoke of the need for consensus on the question of industrialization.It’s been 25 years since Fête de la Musique (literally Festival of Music) was initiated in France in 1982 marking June 21 as International World Music Day. …Radio Indigo is celebrating World music Day on June 21 and as a part of this, the station is conducting a contest called the “Gift of music”. …And what better day to remind ourselves this than today, which is World Music Day! Today, music, like all other things, has gone digital! Bengal is known for its music. It is said that every bengali is a musician. But the Harmony is missing fro socio-cultural life of Bengali Nationality! The day also coincides with that of Jamain Sasthi of West Bengal.On the occasion of Jamai Shashti the in-laws invite their daughter and son-in law for the celebration of the occasion.A treat for the son-in-law awaits every year from his in-laws or ‘Shoshur bari"- as they say in Bengal. Bengali Ruling Brahmins know well how to enslave the majority underprevileged population and dilute any resistance whatsoever. Dalit movement is not possible because some dalits, tribals, backwards and Muslims have been kept as Ghar Jamai, Kept sons and daughter-in-laws. Resrvationa and quota and appointments as well as placement are managed by CPIM. Ghar Jamai clan is accomodated everywhere. And any possible rebellion diluted! CPIM is successful to run the government and the administration from alimuddin Street. The Police, media and intellectuals happen to be pet enough to be managed. thus, Left front is succesful to sustainpower for three decades! India"s main communist party celebrated the 30th anniversary of its rule in the West Bengal state Thursday with supporters gathering at a rally near the city center. West Bengal"s communists are the longest-serving democratically elected communist government. Communist supporters marched to the rally through Calcutta where the party leaders are expected to address the gathering later Thursday. Last year, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was returned to power for a seventh consecutive term since first being elected in 1977. Party leader Jyoti Basu, who was Chief Minister of the state from 1977 until he retired for health reasons in 2000, remains India"s longest-serving chief minister. The day happens to be also the birth day of Jean-Paul Sartre! Calling for sustaining Left Front unity on its 30th anniversary in power in West Bengal, one of its architects, Jyoti Basu, today said it was formed out of historic necessity and there was need for better coordination among allies. As the Left Front celebrates a record breaking three decades in power in West Bengal, the man who was at the helm for over a quarter century is still in demand: the irrepressible Jyoti Basu. At age 92, and seven full years after he stepped down as chief minister, Basu has emerged from retirement to defuse tensions caused by the widely flayed police action against people opposed to takeover of farmland for industry. A bitter Basu told his biographer Surabhi Banerjee: ‘I had categorically ruled out the idea of being the prime minister before but in politics there are moments when you have to rise to the occasion and you"ve got to cater to the need of the hour and the pleas of the people… I was doing just that." Basu, speaking at the Netaji Indoor Stadium here, said unity was required not only for electoral purposes, but for strengthening the struggle of the working class. Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) patriarch and former West Bengal chief minister Joyti Basu Thursday urged his party workers to consolidate the Left Front"s base at the district level. “We have to strengthen our organisation at the district level and for that we have to hold regular meetings with the Front partners in all the districts at least once a month," Basu said at a function organised to celebrate the completion of 30 years of the Left Front rule in West Bengal. “There is no scope for self-complacency. Our responsibility has increased with the growing support of the common people. Now we have to do something better for the masses," he said, expressing his gratitude to the people of Bengal for electing the Left Front in seven consecutive state elections. Criticising the opposition parties in the state, the former chief minister said they should be more responsible. “We never opposed industrialisation even when we were in the opposition. The only thing we demanded was the right of trade unionism. It"s very unfortunate that the opposition in Bengal is on a wrong track," the nonagenarian leader said. “We have done almost 90 to 95 percent of the work but some of it remains. We didn"t hide anything from the people in West Bengal. We have confessed our limitations and what we could not achieve in the last 30 years of the Left rule in Bengal," Basu said. Arguing for industrialisation, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya said the main source of power of the Left Front was the peasants" movement. “Even today 84 percent of total agricultural land in West Bengal belongs to the poor people. The panchayat is also in their control and now we have achieved the first position in agricultural production in the country," Bhattacharya said. “But like agriculture, West Bengal has to progress in industries too," he said. “Heavy industries like iron and steel, medium and small scale units, petrochemicals and knowledge-based industries - all are required for the wholesome growth of West Bengal," he said. “I still request the opposition to think over their stand on industrialisation. The young generation will not forgive them for their anti-industrialisation movement in Bengal," he said. Harmony is the use and study of pitch simultaneity, and therefore chords, actual or implied, in music. The study of harmony in Western Music may often refer to the study of harmonic progressions, the movement from one pitch simultaneity to another, and the structural principles that govern such progressions. [1] In Western Art Music, harmony often refers to the “vertical" aspects of music, distinguished from ideas of melodic line, or the “horizontal" aspect. For this reason, considerations of counterpoint or polyphony are often distinguished from those of harmony, nevertheless contrapuntal writing of the common practice period of western music, is often conceived and defined in terms of underlying harmonic motion. “Left Front partners may air their differences on various issues at their party rallies. But we expect them to stick to the consensus on general policies that we have articulated in the poll manifesto when they address the congregation tomorrow,’’ said CPM state secretary Biman Bose. Differences between the CPM and its three minor Left Front partners — Forward Bloc, RSP and CPI — are widening amidst the protracted Singur land imbroglio and Nandigram violence. The CPM is doing its bit to bridge the gap and towards this end, the party’s state secretary and Front chairman Biman Bose had convened at least six meetings of the Front during the past one and a half months. The Left Front met thrice in May alone. The meetings were held on May 7, 15 and 26. Till Wednesday, three meetings of the Front were held on June 2, 9 and 20. However, the differences between the CPM and its three partners is far from over. The CPM was particularly upset after the three minor constituents had threatened to quit the coalition Front government, in the aftermath of the March 14 Nandigram killings. The Forward Bloc, CPI and RSP had refused to shoulder the responsibility of the Nandigram carnage and held the CPM solely responsible. Ever since, the CPM’s been trying to keep the Front united by holding meetings with partners very frequently. Arithmetically, the CPM shouldn’t face any problems in running the government without the support of its partners. This is since the CPM has alone captured 176 of the total 294 seats in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly (WBLA). The party’s absolute majority in the state legislature will undoubtedly help the CPM maintain command over its tiny partners. ‘Bengal quality of life below national level’ Plea for further probe into Nandigram carnage Our Legal Correspondent
PROMISED IN 1977 Basu speaks on 30 years of Left rule On June 21, 1977, Jyoti Basu laid the foundation of the first Left Front government in West Bengal. And it is with not little pride that the veteran Communist leader puts forth the claim today that the Left Front has created history. ‘"First of all, I would like to say that it is a tribute to us, the Left Front, because the government has been in existence continuously for seven times. People have voted for us and in the last election I remind you - the seventh election - 80 per cent of the people voted.'" ‘"It doesn"t happen anywhere in India. And out of that 80 per cent, we got 50 per cent, which itself is a tribute to us. In parliamentary democracy, history has been created and an example has been set.'" ‘"Now I go back to 1977 when we came into the government. We had a programme in which the first thing was land reforms in which 11 lakh acres of land was distributed to the kisans. ‘"After the land reforms the three tiers panchayat law we passed with reservation for women. This has happened nowhere else in India,'" said Jyoti Basu, CPI-M Leader. However, there have been problems most recently in Nandigram and Singur where the Left Front"s drive towards industrialisation has confronted the government with its toughest challenge yet. ‘"Some difficulties have arisen. Misunderstandings are there. I think we also made some mistakes in not explaining to the people about this industrialisation. The mistake was that we didn"t understand the reaction of the people would be such.'" ‘"But they are understanding. People are coming back. Without industrialisation, how do we give jobs to people, where do we give jobs to them,'" said Basu. The veteran leader also sounded a warning on the need to keep Left unity intact, unity that again in recent times shown signs of strain. He says that Buddhadeb Bhattacharya must go the extra mile to keep the flock together. ‘"There is some trouble in the Left Front. I want our Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya in particular and Nirupam Sen, our industry minister, to attend their meetings for a little while and talk to them and answer their questions and so on. They complain, and I think sometimes rightly, that we don"t take them into confidence,'" Basu said. On his own contribution to the Left, Basu - the Communist who almost made it to the prime minister"s post - is more or less content. ‘"We believe in collective leadership, but in the collective we can"t stop there. In the collective, every individual has a role to play. And I think the role which I have been asked to play, I have played efficiently. That is recognised by the party and I am happy about it,'" said Basu. (For the full interview with Jyoti Basu, watch our special report on the Red Juggernaut at 10 pm on Thursday THIRTY YEAR RULE In a field of human activity in which a week is a long time, thirty years should be measured in terms of eternity. The Left Front’s uninterrupted rule in West Bengal for over three decades is paralleled only by the record of the Liberal Democratic Party, which has been in power in Japan for nearly fifty years. This parallel has received insufficient attention from academics and political commentators. There are no apparent similarities between Japan and West Bengal that can help explain this parallel. The Left Front’s triumph in seven successive elections mirrors in many significant ways the priorities and preferences of the society that votes it to power.
With far-reaching achievements in the fields of agriculture and industry to its credit, the Left Front completes 25 years of uninterrupted rule in West Bengal. Prabhat Patnaik THE Left Front"s success in winning the elections to the West Bengal Assembly for the sixth consecutive time is remarkable by any standards. With the exception, and that too a very questionable one, of the PRI in Mexico, no political formation anywhere in the world has continuously held office through elections for as long as the Left Front would have done at the end of its current tenure. Commentators have naturally been working overtime to provide explanations for this unique phenomenon, but none of their explanations has come to grips with the basic fact that the Left Front"s electoral achievement derives from its success in tackling the profound and protracted socio-economic crisis that had engulfed Bengal earlier and assumed critical proportions after the mid-sixties. The crisis in Bengal of course was not specifically confined to Bengal. It was an integral part of the crisis of the Indian economy. But it appeared in Bengal in a particularly accentuated form, because every “depressor" of the Indian economy had a particularly severe impact upon Bengal. The Left Front government of West Bengal claims that in foodgrains production the state is the best in India. However, the total foodgrains production in India in 2003-04 (Central Government Economic Survey 2004-05) had been 212 million metric tons of which 44.18 million MT came from UP and 18.05 million MT came from Rajashtan, and West Bengal’s contribution was only 7 per cent. It is not known how West Bengal could be adjudged as the best in the country in foodgrains production. The leftist leaders claim that because of all round socio-economic development of West Bengal under their rule, the Left Front is winning successive elections. According to them the accusation of the Opposition that the Left Front wins elections by rigging is untrue and baseless. The former chief minister of the state Jyoti Basu also said that they won the Elections six times and each time the election Commission certified the election to be free and fair. The EC is the constitutional authority to conduct elections in India. Its certificate about the fairness of the election is expected to be acceptable by the people. But the leftists hardly accept the fairness certificate of the EC if it relates to the election success of any opposition party. In 1972, the Congress under Shri S.S. Roy won the elections and the EC certified the elections to be free and fair. But the leftists condemned the elections claiming it to be ‘rigged election’. This speaks of left’s double standard. It may be worthwhile to consider the leftist’s claim of West Bengal’s emerging better socio-economic condition under the Left Front rule. Earlier, the deputy chairman of the Plainning Commission wanted to ascertain from the Left Front government whether the Central projects aimed to improve the socio-economic conditions of the rural poor in West Bengal had properly been implemented during the last ten years. The State government’s reply in the matter not only failed to satisfy the Planning Commission, but it was found that the State government showed little interest fo |
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