Column: Bengal halted, again

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

• Discount UK Shopping

: Writers’ Buildings workers have used every excuse in the book to beat the new work ethic that makes it compulsory for everyone to be at office by 10 am and leave only at 5.30 pm. Last week, when the code came into place, some blamed latecomings on trains, others on traffic jams, and some simply on old habits.

But on Tuesday, they didn’t have to think hard. Bengal came to a halt for 12 hours from 6 am, thanks to a bandh called by the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI), which is against perestroika, clings on to Stalinist ideals and is violently anti-CPM. It called the bandh to protest against spiralling food prices—it had called a bandh last April, too, to pin down the Centre for rising prices of essential commodities—and the state government’s inability to control it. Surely, Bengal is not alone in suffering from the price rise.

Then again, is a bandh the answer to this problem? Railway minister Mamata Banerjee—the SUCI has an alliance with the Trinamool Congress—recently lashed out at the state government because she found out that prices of essential commodities varied from market to market. The least the bandh supporters could do was ask municipality inspectors to check why prices were different at different places.

Of course, good sense didn’t prevail. What’s more, in typical SUCI style, workers threw banana plants on overhead power supply lines, disrupting trains at many suburban stations, thus robbing lakhs of their daily bread. Even at a key station like Sealdah, all the morning local and long distance trains were delayed.

The bandh culture runs so deep that nowadays in Bengal, it doesn’t really matter who is doing the calling—the people will ensure it’s a success because no one will venture out. On Tuesday, banks, offices and schools were open, though attendance was thin at schools. If the response to the SUCI halt call was mixed, it was not because the people dared to challenge it, but because the Trinamool Congress didn’t lend it wholehearted support, unlike last April when the shutdown was total.

Now, for the next one: the BJP has called a bandh on November 30, a Monday, to protest against price rise. It’s perhaps not surprising why Bengal is not being able to attract big-ticket projects to the state.