A close relative came down to our house the other day. Throughout her stay in the house it was as if she had taken it on herself to inform, enlighten and educate us on the grave political situation in the state.
“Will be great if the TMC comes to power” she fumed, “these people will realise the grave mistake they have made and will pay for it”. ….” Anti-socials and goondahs… that’s all there is to this party…. Will serve these people right!”
She went on to tell numerous ‘facts’ about the challenger party and how they are destroying the state already. What took the cake was her last statement before she closed her campaign- “wait, do you think even if they want to work CPM will let them work? We will not let a hair budge if they come to power”…..
I was strictly withheld by my folks and also I did not have the courage to face such an aggressive and spirited personality. But her histrionics set me thinking. Here was a person of acceptable intelligence and intellect. Not a political worker by any means. A typical Bengali bhadra-mohila (female version of bhadralok). In a nutshell- an informed, neutral, intelligent voter in a democracy. And yet, her conduct was nothing short of a enthusiastic and emotional party cadre. What was most intriguing was her absolute disregard for the welfare of the state – something which directly affected her own well-being and the sadistic pleasure which she was drawing from her doomsday predictions on the event of a change of hands in the state. She was happy at the prospect of the state getting destroyed simply because the political party which she fancied was to get voted out.
Most of us bongs remember our childhood with some degree fear and askance. The words of our guardians keep ringing in our ears- “bablu!!!! Okhaney gele kintu jujutey kheye phelbey- bhalo hobey!” (bablu- if you go there then juju will eat you up; will serve you right- will be good). “piklu!! Sweater na porley thanda legey jabey! Takhan bujhbey thela!”(piklu- if you don’t put on the sweater then you will catch cold and then you will face the music!)
Most of our mothers have been paranoid individuals. Any deviation from the straight line would result in disastrous and horrific consequences. This fact has been drilled deep into our head. And to ensure a proper appreciation of the same threats, horrific consequences and doomsday predictions have been utilised. In fact sadistic pleasure is taken to imagine the consequences of any deviation- with complete disregard to the thought of well-being of kid in question. The effort at proving the hypothesis is more important than the well-being of the kid. Just like the way my relative was feeling about her “rightness” over the well-being of her state.
Any kind of experimentation, change, new dimension has been systematically wiped out of our brains. No wonder that after 35 years of a shoddy governance we still think about whether there is any need for any change or not. After numerous Netais, Singurs, Nandigrams, Morichjhapis, Bantalas we still fear the antisocial threat of a new party. We are absolutely fine to keep living in our present misery in fear of the unknown dangers which might come in with any change. I can bet all my money on the fact that 90% of Bong kids catch cold due to heat caused by over-clothing and they have more accidents as they have never learnt to walk on their own. But this fact has not led to any change in our attitude towards our kids.
TMC means Grass-Root Congress. They have gained power through the grass roots. The rural less educated and less caring citizen. The citizen who has little to lose and less fear, thus. The citizen who is a tad higher in his risk taking abilities. Even today the mass support for the party comes from that segment. The segment where mothers do not have the luxury of over-clothing their children or watching out for them 24*7. For this very reason TMC has managed to invoke the spirit of change in rural Bengal in spite of the fascistic reign of terror which the present party has been exercising in there for the last 2 decades.
Frankly I am not very sure how the new party will be in governance. However I am dead sure on the 3 decades of mis-governance of the present government. A period which saw our hospitals being reduced to horse-stables, schools and colleges being reduced to institutions of political violence, an education system which has gone extinct a few decades back, infra-structure which is worse than the trouble hit states of North-East and a state which is in financial doom. The question is whether people of this state will finally shut their ears to their mothers’ doomsday predictions (like the ones which my loved relative was making) and vote to give a new government a chance. Or will we keep looking at our mothers in the fear of “JUJU” and keep subjecting ourselves to the masochistic ritual of torture by this present government…. Only time will tell. 3 more weeks to go.
May we get the government we deserve…..
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