Adds to my reputation as a
procrastinator. It’s already 8th January 2013.
So we have come to the end of yet
another year. I am older by one year, that much further away from my birth,
that much closer to my inevitable end. But the interesting thing is, I draw
great comfort from the fact that I don’t know when and how that end is going to
be. This is very different from normal human behaviour – at least middle-class
behaviour – we draw comfort from certainties. Not in this case.
But enough of macabre thoughts. Let's
see how the year went, what was and wasn't done, what should have been done or
undone.
Right now, as most people who know me
know, I’m wearing three hats: Politics, the profession of dispute resolution in
construction contracts (called Arbitration for short, which is 90%, but not
fully correct) and writing. The second is my bread and butter, the last gives
me great pleasure, and the first – it provides me with the hill that I must climb,
without which to climb I’d be miserable. I can write any time – it is a
no-threat thing. I now know, at the risk of presuming upon fate, that I will
continue to get cases to arbitrate upon or otherwise resolve. In any case the
ones that I have will see me through for quite a few coming years. But
politics! And doing BJP in West Bengal ! Ah,
that's some hill to climb.
Nobody would be interested in my
profession, except to know what it is all about, and how did I chance upon it.
Construction Contracts (big sums of money, a middling-size contract in India
But politics? But the point is not that.
The point is, after a gap of two decades, things are again beginning to look
good for the BJP in West Bengal .
Why do I say so? Several reasons.
Consider:
1. The CPI (M) have been out of power for more than a year and
by now almost all the men who worked as their instruments of terror, having no
brand loyalty, have faithfully moved to the Trinamool Congress. Otherwise, the situation
obtaining at the end of 2011 still holds good. What is that situation?
(a)
First,
the bulk of CPI(M) members had joined the party after it came to power in 1977.
They know what it is like to ‘do CPI(M)’ while it is in power. Most of them don’t
know how to struggle for power, and I suspect most of them don't want to know.
because, unlike the Communists of earlier generation they are not ideologically
indoctrinated. They were in CPI(M) because it was in power, and if it isn’t
they’ll go to whoever is. As simple as that.
(b) Secondly,
leadership: the last two great leaders -- both absolute &%$#@&*$ --
were Jyoti Basu and Anil Biswas. Also, arguably, Subhas Chakraborty. With them
dead, the ones that are left, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Biman Bose, are
frankly, not much. They can’t nurse the party back to power. Nor can Shyamal Chakraborty,
Suryakanta Misra or Shyamali Gupta, or for that matter Mridul Dey or Abhik
Datta or anyone else.
(c)
And
thirdly, the CPI(M) had grown so accustomed to winning elections by misuse of
the government machinery and spreading terror that today, with both weapons
gone, they are completely out of their depths.
2. What about the
party that’s in power? Fortunately for us, and very unfortunately for the people
of the state, Trinamool Congress has smeared its own face with egg.
(a)
First
of all, the party has no structure, and Mamata runs the party like her own
personal fiefdom. There is no organization tree and nobody works under anybody
else except Mamata. She is less afraid of losing power in the state than of
losing her grip on the party. That’s why she sacrificed Kolkata Municipal
Corporation in 2005, because she could not let Subrata Mukherjee, the Mayor,
grow too big for his boots.
(b) She has an incredibly
jealous and suspicious nature – she won’t let any minister work independently
or even well, for fear that that
person may steal the thunder from her and loosen her grip. Good governance,
thus, is out of the question. That is why she keeps second-rate or even
third-rate people like Mukul Roy, Sobhan Chatterjee or Dola Sen close to her
and better people like Subrata Mukherjee, Saugata Roy or Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay
at arm’s length. This is why she had driven Subrata out of the party in 2005 because
she thought that after his good performance as Mayor of Kolkata he might pose a
threat to her. This even applies to bureaucrats – the transfer of Damayanti Sen
after she began to crack the Park Street gang-rape is a case in point. I also
suspect that since most of the accused were Muslims she must have told
Damayanti to go easy on the case and Damayanti did not listen.
(c)
Then,
she can’t take any criticism. An extreme example of this is is the arrest of
Ambikesh Mahapatra for e-mailing a cartoon. She sincerely believes that since
she has been able to dislodge the Left Front, she is now above criticism.
(d) Her financial indiscretions
are at some point of time going to come home to roost. When her Finance Minister
says every now and then that he’s worried sick all the time about how to meet
the salaries and pension payments at the end of the month, she merrily goes on
distributing largesse, like grants to families of hooch-dead, grants to clubs, allowances
for Imams and Muezzins, Dearness Allowance for State Government Employees, etc.
3. So with CPI(M)
discredited plus unable, and Trinamool fast on its way to being thoroughly discredited, who remains? The
good old Congress? Ah, let’s not talk about them – even their central
leadership don’t want them to win, would much rather have CPI(M) win, now that
it is easier to make Karat see reason. That’s why the central leadership does
not let a single leader emerge in the state, perpetuates the quarrels within
the party, and doesn’t criticize the CPI(M). Apart from that their supporters
and cadres are demoralized and their support base is decimated, at least in
South Bengal. The Congress, no way.
So, as I said, for the state BJP it is
now or never. therefore I have to work very hard.
Everything is fine on the family front.
Anuradha is fine; so are my daughters Malini (Coco )
and Madhura (Momo) both in the US of A; so are Coco 's
husband Kiran Rao and children, our dearest grandchildren, Surya and Uma and
Momo's husband Ajinkya Khedekar. Thank God for everyone being well. However, my
mother-in-law, Mrs. Arati Guha, a sprightly 86, living with us, sustained a fracture
in her thigh-bone – the second one at the same location. She’s been operated
upon, successfully, is back from hospital and is now recovering.
The year went pretty fast, as all years
go these days – progressively faster, in fact. We made our annual trip to see
our daughters in the US, and I along with a bunch of friends and a couple of
relatives took off for a cruise to Alaska. Sailed from Seattle, called at
Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway, and took bus trips around. Then got down at
Victoria BC, saw the town, took the ferry to Vancouver and took a bus trip to
the Canadian Rockies. Jasper, Banff, Lake Sulphur, Lake Louise, and a few more
places. Dispersed from Calgary. Incredible. I have always l-o-v-e-d to travel –
it appears God ordained that my dreams will come true, though a little late in
the day. I wish Anuradha had accompanied me, but she preferred the company of
her grandchildren.
My second book, a complete biography of
Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, a man I have always immensely admired, has come
out, and was released in Kolkata by Manishankar Mukerji (Shankar) and Justice
Chittatosh Mookerjee; two months later it was released, with a Hindi
translation, at Delhi by L.K.Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Kumar,
Saha-Sarkaryavah.
So far so good. Can't complain. Let it
stay this way – but of course it won't. Change is the law of life.
Happy
New Year to everyone. May you all have a wonderful 2013.
