MARICHJHAPI MASSACRE : JYOTI BASU 100 14–16 MAY 1979 Many, many hapless and poor settlers—all refugees from Bangladesh—in Marichjhapi, an island in the Sunderbans, are raped, maimed and killed by police and CPM cadres. The marauders loot the settlers’ shanties, set them afire, rape and throw women and children into the river and kill fleeing men. An estimated 300 die. The mind-numbing brutality, the likes of which have not been witnessed in independent India, barely evokes any outrage and doesn’t elicit even a regret or comment from Chief Minister Jyoti Basu. 14 MARCH 2007 Police and CPM goons fire on villagers protesting the acquisition of their land in Nandigram, killing 14 of them, before going on a rampage, looting houses, raping women and abducting children. A nationwide outrage followed, forcing Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to repeatedly offer apologies; the massacre forced his party and his government on the backfoot and extracted a heavy political price. The stark difference between the outcomes of the two carnages is due to just one factor: in 1979, there was no electronic media, no intrepid reporters of news channels to bring the savagery to light, and no haranguing anchors to shame the CM or his administration. In 2007, repeat airing on TV of the Nandigram bloodbath provoked the public fury that singed Bhattacharjee and cost the CPM dearly in the various polls that have followed. Marichjhapi wasn’t the only bloodbath that West Bengal witnessed during Basu’s long tenure; he turned a blind eye to the murders of thousands of political opponents and even ordinary people by his party’s fiendish cadres. Yet, he remained unscathed. Imagine, for instance, an incident like the murder and torching of 17 monks and nuns of Ananda Marg (a Hindu religious order) by CPM cadres in Kolkata in broad daylight happening now instead of on 30 April 1982.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 13:20:03 +0000
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