“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high,” wrote Rabindranath Tagore, exemplar par excellence of the Bengal Renaissance. Yet fear is the key in the current assembly elections. Violence has marked almost every phase of the rather insulting six phase assembly poll. So far three CPM activists have died.
In an unprecedented order the EC desired that Trinamool strongman Anubrata Mondal was such a threat to peace that he be placed under 24×7 video surveillance. In Birbhum shots were fired and bombs hurled. Eight hundred companies of forces guard the Bengali’s right to exercise her franchise.
Poll violence is only an outward manifestation of a far deeper malaise: in a society Read More
