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July the 21st

Kolkata was “turned upside down” last Friday, to use a variant of the committed radical scholar and one of the…

July the 21st

(Photo: Facebook)

Kolkata was “turned upside down” last Friday, to use a variant of the committed radical scholar and one of the finest historians, Christopher Hill’s seminal work on the 17th century English Revolution ~ The World turned Upside Down. Whether or not the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre is dumped by 18 Opposition parties in 2019 ~ as Mamata Banerjee hopes ~ it is time for the Trinamool Congress leadership to reflect on how Martyrs’ Day on 21 July has over the years become progressively disruptive.

To the extent that this time, Kolkata was thrown out of joint as seldom before, surely never in recent years. Much as we mourn the deaths of 13 Youth Congress activists, who fell to the police bullet in the Chowringhee area in 1993, it is hard not to wonder whether the focus of the occasion has been thoroughly deflected, with the difference that obligatory ranting at the CPI-M has now given way to a robust denunciation of the BJP.

The aversion towards the saffronite is apparently the thread that marks the political philosophy of both the Marxists and the Trinamool Congress. Little or no thought is spared for those who were shot; the presentations, amplified through the tannoy, were intensely political, verging on electoral rhetoric.

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Of course West Bengal’s Chief Minister has fairly cogent reasons to condemn the Centre’s policies ~ from demonetisation to gau raksha that has assumed mortal proportions. But was it really necessary for her party’s footsoldiers to hold the city to ransom and withdraw all modes of conveyance ~ even the ambulance ~ for the better part of the day to transport people from the far-flung areas of the state and thus put in place almost a readymade audience? We do know the dislocation that the city had to endure was akin to that of a bandh, made worse by police curbs on free movement of pedestrians who were forced to take a circuitous trail even to walk short distances.

The city’s hoi-polloi was acutely inconvenienced by the withdrawal of transport and closure of the arterial stretch from north to south Kolkata.

Of course, the Metro followed its normal schedule; but commuters had to walk several kilometres to reach the nearest station.

The cascading effect was overwhelming, so very unlike previous occasions when traffic would be diverted, but not withdrawn. Only those buses that had come to the aid of the party were allowed to ply.

Twenty-four years after the Chowringhee shooting, it is time to consider whether the venue of the Martyrs’ Day rally must of necessity be shifted to the Brigade Parade Ground.

That essential change could mark the 25th anniversary next year, and shorn of such irrelevant sideshows as the Chau dance and the presence of the cultural glitterati on the dais.

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