LONG MARCH FROM COLLEGE SQUARE

The organised brutality by the CPM in Nandigram has yet again brought out the best among the people of Bengal and Kolkata.  In the days to come, one only hopes that the civil society will continue to move from strength to strength, from dissent to resistance, from despair to hope, writes Rajat Roy, Hardnews in Kolkata

The CPM has recaptured Nandigram. But in the process the party has lost its support base among the urban middle class. A huge silent march was led by Kolkata’s artists, intellectuals, students and ordinary citizens, outside all political affiliations, banners or slogans, in the heart of the city. The march was in protest against the State-endorsed operation of organised brutality unleashed by the CPM cadres and musclemen in Nandigram leading to killings, while thousands of villagers were rendered homeless, with many homes burnt.

The protest march was led by filmmakers Mrinal Sen, Aparna Sen, Rituparno Ghosh and Goutam Ghosh, poet Sankho Ghosh, Jay Goswami and Utpal Kumar Basu, writer Mahasweta Devi, stage personalities Saoli Mitra, Bibhas Chakrabarty and playwright Badal Sarkar, painters Jogen Choudhury and Shubhaprasanno and others. The unique feature of the march was that political leaders were asked not to take part in it. Hence, bowing to public pressure, the leaders of Trinamul Congress (TMC), Congress, the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) and even Left Front partner Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), though initially keen to join it, kept away from it. Indeed, the space vacated by the political parties was eagerly filled up by the civil society and a spectrum of individuals and icons from across Bengal’s mainstream intelligentsia and cultural scene.

Scientists from the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics and other scientific establishments, social
 scientist Partha Chattopadhyay, historian Gautam Bhadra and others from Calcutta's prestigious Centre for Social Science and Research, academicians and students from Calcutta and Jadavpur University, students from various colleges, NGO workers and ordinary citizens came forward in tens of thousands. They recorded their intense anger, disapproval and disgust at the way the ruling party's vigilante cadres, openly flaunting brutality on unarmed men and women, including reported sexual assaults and rape, as they muscled their way into Nandigram while the State administration and political establishment remained a silent and patronising accomplice.