PRAGOTI

Swapan Dasgupta , a “Delhi-based political columnist and  a member of the ever-growing Bengali diaspora”  actually needs no introduction. A familiar face on News Channels, is  famous for his rather outlandish views. Not  many Neo-Liberals will have the gumption to openly state  that in view of the staggering   Fiscal Deficit,  Food Security Bill should be delayed !!!  That’s Swapan for you. A dogmatic believer in  Free-Market Capitalism - the poor can starve while the rich enjoy tax breaks .

 

Swapan was fairly close to the BJP but gradually drifted away. The root cause I guess lies in the fact that the BJP’s economic policy is no longer in sync with his brand of  Milton Friedman / Tea Party style  Right-Wing Cowboy  Economics. After all , unlike him,  BJP has to face the hustings once in five years   !!!  

 

Swapan of course continues to  retain his membership of the Narendra Modi Fan Club in spite of  repeated defeats at the hands of  Mani  Shankar Aiyer .It  is thus strange  that in spite of Mamata’s known ”populist”  stand on economic issues  – anathema to the likes of him – he does not hesitate to display  unalloyed  admiration for her and her policies. We are   referring to his article  published in the latest edition  of “India Today” . It seems that for Swapan and his ilk, any stick to beat the Communists with is good enough so long it's a stick.

 

The title itself betrays naiveté . Suffering from Bush's Either-Or syndrome (am not comparing the Intelligence Quotients here) , for him it’s either Tagore or Marx. Am reminded of a recent ET article authored by  Shiv Viswanathan’s from where I quote just one sentence  : “The Indian mind seems full of different ideas which cohabit happily, but do not converse with each other.” Tagore and Marx can of course not just coexist but converse  and enrich themselves  through mutual interaction.

 A few months back, we had the   fortune of attending a mellifluous rendering of  “Shesher Kobita”  by Soumitra and Sharmila Tagore . The recital, organized, by a Charitable Trust, was preceded by a short speech by its President, a middle-aged and dignified lady .She was narrating an   incident  a few years back  on the occasion of a presentation by  a Lat Am  poet of  his  Spanish translations of Tagore at Kolkata . The erstwhile CM had requested for a few minutes at the end  to  recite from   his favorite  poem “Africa”  also recited in Spanish  a while back. Swapan of course is the last person expected at such events  but then it's common knowledge that a BB speech hardly  concludes without a Tagore quotation . So Marx and Tagore can actually coexist !

 

It is  true that Tagore’s songs  were not played at traffic intersections those days – most of which have in any case  stopped working.   There are myriad ways to display one’s love and admiration for Tagore and all he stood for – some sober and others frivolous.

 

For him, “struggle” is a romance – not a battle of existence for the have-nots, “suffering” is “beautiful” ,the slogan ”Cholbena” not a call for  protest against Injustice but an occupation for an “army of professional agitators who see every capitalist venture as a blood-sucking exercise” For  the Stephanian of the early seventies known for his Leftist views those days,  the recent incidents in  Greece, Italy, Spain and even the US have left no visible mark . 

 

 A Restaurant opening in Bondel Road is newsworthy as Kolkata seemingly gears up as a “normal” city to forsake contrarianism while striving  to become a London ! Unfortunately, apart from the CM and her incorrigible sidekicks , he is the only person who believes that  this is possible. In the process he does not mind throwing  elementary Economics out of the window. 

 

In one year, “ Kolkata has ceased to be an urban nightmare. Indeed, for the average middle class resident, the city has become a rather attractive place to live. The new Chief Minister's contribution has not been insignificant.”

 

In what way?

 

“Thanks to the thousands of cactus or trishul-shaped lamp-posts installed on the main roads and even side streets, and funded from the mplads grants of Trinamool Congress's Rajya Sabha MPs, Kolkata must surely count among the best-lit cities in India.”

 

He either displays  pathetic  ignorance or is  indulging in falsehood for  Kolkata , even in its worst days of power cuts and  Infrastructure breakdowns dating back to the  Eighties , carried  its reputation as a brightly-lit city. When our Company shifted base in 1991, the  MD , a resident of Vasant Vihar, an upmarket locality, used to fondly remember Kolkata’s  brightly-lit streets. Another senior colleague had an eye problem and refused to drive after sunset which he used to do  freely  while in Kolkata.

 

He continues :” Coupled with the improvements in the quality of roads, an elaborate metro network and the mushrooming of modestly-priced flats all over the city, Kolkata is experiencing a new normal, centred on the re-establishment of civic order.” Even the Metro Network and modestly-priced flats all around (which even the best Civil Engineer of the world  could  not  have constructed in less than in a year) are touted as achievements of the present regime!!

 The symbols of enjoyment ? Garish Christmas lights in Park Street.  Thousands of revelers  stalking  Park Street for 34 years during the Christmas – New Year week never really enjoyed themselves because the lights were not as garish.

 

And there was  no creative juice flowing for 34 years – no Satyajit Ray, no Mrinal, no Buddhadev Dasgupta, no  Rituparno,  Rudraprasad, “Galileo”  , Shombhu Mitra , no Film Festivals, no “Nathabati Anathabath” , no  “36, Chowringhee”no Kabir Suman, Bhoomi or Chandrabindu.

 

 Creativity of course  had to wait for 35 years  till D-day - Eden Gardens on 28th May, 2012 . 

 

No – he has not finished as yet .The last punch will surely hit you  under the belt . “Even the College Street Coffee House has changed. "I went there after a long time," said a long-time Kolkata resident, "and I saw students gorging on plates of chowmein. Revolution R.I.P.”  Chowmein-gorging students symbolize for him the end of Revolution !!!!!!!

 

It is only towards the end that he injects  a modicum of  sense into an otherwise banal essay “Ironically, it is this liberation from ideological profundity that may better equip her to guide a state that is most content seeing itself in the light of Bhutan's innovative Index of National Happiness.”

 

He does accept – albeit unwittingly - that there are ways other than crass consumerism to attain happiness . And it is this inherent feeling of  happiness that  will see Bengal through. I guess it does not need sagely advices from  the Swapan Dasguptas of the world.