Dear Budhhada,

We are writing to you with some questions about what is happening in Bengal.

No, Budhhada, our questions do not have anything to do with you as a person, even though we must admit that we feel ashamed when we hear you, a refined and cultured bhadralok, justify the 'action' in Nandigram.

Our questions are not even about your role as Chief Minister, although we were shocked when you, as the Constitutional head of a state, openly admitted the failure of your own government in restoring the rule of law in Nandigram and invoked the categories of 'we' and 'they' in celebrating the exchange of a thousand CPM homeless for an equal number from Trinamul.

Our problem is that we cannot fathom why your party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), is unable to foresee the consequences of its actions in Nandigram: first in notifying land acquisition, then using the police to tackle farmers and now displaying your muscle power in this brutal and bloody fashion.

The Nandigram peasantry resisted the acquisition of their land. Like many of us ordinary mortals, they put their own interests above the 'public good' when faced with the danger of losing their homes and livelihoods. You might not have found their decision palatable, but it should not have surprised you. Had you forgotten about Singur so soon after it happened? 

You say "they" are a Trinamul front. So what? We thought Karl Marx taught us to tell 'we' from 'they' on the basis of class and the relations of production—not on the basis of party affiliation. Why should a Marxist party set peasants against peasants in a bloody war to get land for the capitalists? Is your party trying to stand Marxism on its head?

You have said that you are not above the party. We do not understand what you mean.  How can any individual be 'above' the party? She or he may be to the left or right or ahead or behind but surely never 'above'. We thought nobody had the right to speak of a communist party in those terms—what gave you that right, Budhhada?

Anyway, what difference does your being or not being above the party make to anyone? We would like your party to live up to its ideology—we do not look up to you, or any individual party leader to prove that the ideology is worth living up to. Atal Bihari Vajpayee made a name for himself as a moderate in an extremist party. Did that help anyone or change anything?  Is he your benchmark?

Yes, we understand that jobs have to be created. Yes, we understand that the middle class is important to you and has to be kept happy. But the protests by intellectuals in Calcutta should leave you in no doubt over how the middle class has reacted to the violence in Nandigram, or the crude and repeated criticism of the Governor by your party. Can the damage be undone by taking out a counter-procession, or by creating five thousand more jobs at Salt Lake? We think not.

Many middle class people remain wedded to the Left all their lives but do not join active politics because they know that there is a seamy side to party politics. They know that your party has to maintain a network of 'dadas' who can mobilize ten thousand people at a day's notice, or change the course of an election at the snap of a finger. Until now, they fondly believed that the people who control this ugly 'machinery' are not the ones who take critical party decisions. Not any more.

Nandigram has shown everyone the power of this party within your party. Look at the way it started. The land acquisition notice was the handiwork of people who were confident that they could 'control' any adverse reaction. Look at the way it ended. The poor farmers of Nandigram who waited for eleven months to get back their homes would surely have waited two more days for the CRPF to come. Why could you not wait? Was it because their return under government supervision would not carry the message that your "boys" had recaptured at least some of the ground that they seem to have lost recently?

You say the people of Nandigram have invited the Maoists into their area. If this is true, have you asked yourself why they did it?  Let us tell you: it is because they know the ways of your party, and they knew that this was the only way of dealing with you. If you had accepted their decision and left them in peace, they would not have needed to do this.

You think you have paid them back with their own coin? Turn that coin over, Buddhada, and see whose face it carries.

Kalyani Menon-Sen