Note the parallels between Nandigram and Alipurduar: The Party faces a political challenge, decides to nip it in the bud and executes an onslaught in sync with the police and administration. The only difference this time was that there was unexpected resistance. And that an anti-SEZ movement makes more news today than a dalit movement did twenty years ago. There were no Gopal Gandhi or Tanika and Sumit Sarkar then to point out that the emperor had no clothes.

Nandigram may not have been the worst case of police firing. We have seen similar incidents in Orissa, Rajasthan and UP in recent times. West Bengal is certainly not the only state where the ruling party uses the state machinery to crush its political rivals. Om Prakash Chautala could still teach the CPM a lesson or two in this game. But there is one thing Chautala never did. He never talked of human rights and lofty democratic ideals. A Chautala could not have issued the injured yet clinical statement that the CPM’s Politburo did after the Nandigram killings. The cold-bloodedness of the statement reminds you of the BJP top brass’s reaction after Gujarat.

This gap between the CPM’s preaching and practice did not surprise me. I have been looking at Christophe Jaffrelot’s research on the social profile of MLAs in India. His analysis shows that the proportion of upper caste MLAs is on the decline all over the country since the 1960s. There is only one exception: In West Bengal the proportion of upper castes has increased in the state assembly after 1977, after the Left Front came to power. A coincidence? Not if you calculate the caste composition of successive Left Front ministries: About two thirds of the ministers come from the top three jatis (Brahman, Boddis, Kayasthas). Perhaps you did not notice that West Bengal was the last major state to come out with an OBC list to implement Mandal. You might say, the CPM believes in class, not caste. Fair enough, but then why is the CPM in Delhi so aggressive about championing Mandal? Why does it present itself as more Mandalite than thou?

... contd.