One of the favouritest past-times of the argumentative Bengali, usually over noisy slurps of tea, bites of aloor chop and intermittent puffs on Gold Flake, is to apportion blame for Bengal’s marginalization in national politics, the economy and even culture in post-Independence India. For politics, the schism between Subhash Bose and Gandhi is considered to be the starting point of Bengal’s steadily decreasing influence over Delhi. The freight equalization policy that took away much of Bengal’s locational advantage and the Congress-party-held Center’s discriminatory fiscal policies towards CPM-ruled Bengal, both as retribution for repeatedly electing a non-Congress party as well as to favour Congress-held states (or states where they had a decent chance of winning) are considered universally (and rightfully) to be two of the major factors for Bengal’s economic marginalization. And lording over these factors is the ubiquitous, inexorable CPM-led militant trade unionism from the 60s to the 90s that led to a massive flight of industrial capital from the state—-though this contributory factor is likely to be debated vehemently by the hard-core Leftists, a breed that is thankfully being slowly supplanted by the pragmatic Leftist as exemplified by Buddhadeb Bhattacharya.
But what usually happens during these heated discussions is that possibly the single most important cause for Bengal’s decline is overlooked—the ‘passion’ of the Bengali, a passion which the present interlocutor is frequently not above.
Perhaps the best realization of the passionate Bengali spirit is the character of Apu, the quintessential Bengali young man of Bibhutibhushan’s “Pather Panchali” and “Aparajito” (subsequently immortalized by Ray), a romantic, supremely idealistic intellectual whose passion for life enables him to rise above the death and poverty all around him.
In pre-Independent India, it was this kind of positive passion that led to Bengal emerging as the frontline of violent revolutionary struggle against the British and fuelled the cultural Renaissance of the early 20th century.
But once India attained independence and the intellectual base of the great Bengal awakening started whithering away, this passion found expression in trade union violence, jingoism and stultifying intellectual pride. An unhealthy obsession with culture and the glories of the past started paralysing the Bengali working classes—action was for those “other unenlightened states”, we Bengalis were content to argue, score debating points and discuss Fellini and Bergman. After all we had the “cultural capital” moniker to uphold. Let the state economy go to the dogs—we are above such corporeal concepts.
Bhabotosh Dutta, the great economist and teacher, in his autobiography talked about a man in Writer’s Building who did no work. When he enquired why he did not, his colleagues told Bhabotosh-babu, without any trace of irony “Please do not ask him to work. He does ‘culture’.”
Had there been less of this passion and more of the pragmatism, workers would have realized that while striking work for bonuses even while the plant suffered financial setbacks may seem like classical Marxian class struggle against the bourgeoisie, it would be they who will be the worst sufferers once the company cuts it losses, locks its doors and goes elsewhere. No matter how much we blame Jyoti Basu for running the state to ground, he and his CPM goons weren’t aliens flown in from Vulcan. What sustained Basu’s populist policies and rhetoric against multinationals and Western capital was the misguided idealism of his people, the people who joined CPM trade unions in large numbers because CITU was sh taking revenge for all our comrades in Vietnam by kicking Western-capital controlled businesses out of Bengal. That it was Bengal’s economy that was suffering as a result and not the multinationals was lost amidst all the hot air and the ‘Inquilab Zindabad’s.
A small experiment to convince yourself of how the Bengali has contributed to his own decline. Go to a sari shop run by a Bengali. Look at one sari or kurta. Look at another. And another. And another. By this time, the average Bengali shopkeeper will become irritated (again note the word “average”, there will always be exceptions). You will be lucky if you can escape without a scowl or a grumble or sometimes downright rudeness. Go to a similar shop by a Marwari. He will patiently and silently do the same things with not even a slight gesture of anger. Unlike the passionate Bengali, the Marwari shopkeeper realizes that this is simply ‘business’ and an expression of ‘passion’ would lead him to a loss of a potential customer. Which is why Marwari businesses have flourished in Kolkata at the expense of Bengali ones. However the passionate Bengali refuses to acknowledge the root cause of the success of the Marwaris and react by grumbling how all the nice houses have been taken over by those ‘rich Marwaris’.
As another example, consider the latest hullabaloo over Tata’s land acquisition in Singur. In a cruel twist of irony, it is the CPM which is now on the side of the industrialists and firebrand Mamata who is adapting the old-school CPM style of political expression that consists of disruption, destruction and vocal chords to win over popular support for a cause that is clearly detrimental to the economic progress of the state. The party may have changed and so have the times but the perceived political benefits of appealing to the passionate core of the Bengali heart has not.
If Apu symbolized the romantic, impulsive and intellectual Bengali, it is in many ways Mamata Banerjee who represents the twisted bastardization of the ideals of Apu in today’s Bengal. Shorn of the intellectual foundation of the Apus of years gone by and yet keen to come off as supremely enlightened, she touts her fake PhD as a certificate for her intellectual bonafides. Her heightened emotions do not lead her down the path of enlightenment but to hysteria—one day she resigns from the cabinet, the next day she is in tears, the day after that she is yelling down the Speaker and then over the weekend she flies off into sullen silence. She has little by way of new ideas. Her weapons are rhetoric, theatrics, bandhs, disruption and vandalism.
In that she mirrors a vocal section of the Bengali bhadralok of today whose lack of substance is covered by a smokescreen of passionate iconization and self-congratulatory bluster. While these people will gladly twist the windpipe of any philistine who may hint that he prefers Raj Kapoor to Satyajit Ray, they will let the Charulata DVD gather dust on their shelves along with the multiple volumes of Rabindranath’s collected works. While they will claim to be true connoisseurs of cricket, they will stay totally silent when an opponent scores a century and indulge in the worst form of crowd violence and pelting of a player with rubbish when he feel “cheated” by his team, in the process refusing to acknowledge the personal dignity of a sportsman, the cornerstone to understanding and appreciating sport. Incidentally, I am not implying that the true Bengali intellectuals are dead, as a matter of fact they are very much alive. All that I am saying is that the people making the most noise about Bengali culture are not them.
And worst of all, these faux intellectuals will hark back to Bengal’s glorious past at every opportunity and take solace for the state’s loss of influence in India’s economy through ridiculous assertions like the one made by Suhel Seth (who incidentally is not a Bengali by birth but considers himself an honorary one)
Bengal produces more civilised people in a day than Delhi will produce till 2012 - if and when we host the Commonwealth Games.
What a load of crap ! And we wonder why anti-Bengalism is such a strong feeling in most states of India.
Again let me repeat. Bengal has had it bad after independence because of several external factors. There has been discrimination and pretty severe ones at that — whether it be for allocation of Central funds or selection in the cricket team. But too often these injustices are used to explain away our personal shortcomings and our self-serving agendas. For instance when we skip office and shout on the street corner for Dada’s inclusion, we convince ourselves that we are not cheating our employers by leaving work but merely discharging our duties as true-blue, passionate Bengalis. When we strike work and get an extra holiday, we justify the losses suffered by the government and industry as a sacrifice necessary for recognizing the “spontaneous display of emotion” by the people.
But there are positive stirrings now. People like Buddhadeb have realized that the “cultural capital” spiel is beginning to wear thin and we need economic growth. And we need it fast. Buddhadeb is trying to do something good, bring back the industries that once fled, trying to change Bengal’s horrible industry image as a hot-bed for red hot trade unionism. He has realized that roads and trade zones are more important than an extension to Nandan, Calcutta’s cultural complex and a library for Trotsky. But still there are people like Mamata and her cohorts who are dead eager to push Bengal back to paradoxically the darkest days of CPM rule.
What has been encouraging is that for the first time in many years, public sentiment is with Buddhadeb , on the side of the pragmatists and against the disrupters. Which is undeniably a good thing.
Cause it is high time that we got off our cultural highorses and realized that all the intellectual hot air, the generational hurt, the cultural feel-good and the “what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow” wishy-washy cannot compensate or justify the lack of jobs and opportunities in our beloved state.
Great Bong, brilliant post as usual. Have been reading your blog for a year now, but this is the first time that I am commenting. Am just too happy to be the first to comment….
Mr Bong..
in between the happenings at Singur, what is interesting to note is CPM’s Man Friday Yechury playing a defining role in the parliament in support of Buddhadeb. The fact that this is the same man who holds Dr Singh’s government by their collective balls on all economic related issues is not lost. Moreover his party has always raised opposition when similar stance taken by other state govts — terming them as decisions taken against public interest. Well what it displays is that the Left has the right to define “public interest”…. ‘LEFT is RIGHT’
A very good post. Difficult to think that a person can write in such a neutral way on topic so close to his heart. Simply great work.
Wonderful comment on the current state of affairs in Bengal and the public sentiments! We, Bengalees fail to comprehend that we are no longer a force, sometimes a subject of joke outside Bengal, for our constant harping about our glorious past and rich tradition. And the ‘Kalidas’ attitude of disruption of self development is probably possible only in Bengal. People from the most backward states in India also seem to understand better what is good and and is bad for them. The fault is not with Mamata Banerjee. THe fault is with our system of idolizing the superficial heroes, the intellectuals, the people with always a different point of view. Mamata with her ‘firebrand’ image is just a symbol of our own destructive nature. And how she has inherited the glorious image of Left in the 70s, 80s and mid 90s.
You said that the public sentiment is with Buddhadev. But the alarming thing is, the more the Singur episode is gaining prominence in national media, the more political opportunists are joining in to cash on the populist track. And because of this coverage of the ‘Farmers beaten by Police’ more and more people outside of Bengal are getting a distorted view of the actual things happening in Bengal. And with the possibility of Medha Patekar joining the fray it is getting even worse.
Mamata’s political ambition and approach baffles me. But what baffles me more is that there are still people around who would not hesitate to create havoc in the Assembly for a wrong cause. Who are these people? Do they actually believe that what they were doing was right? The fact that there is still a large section of the society who would destroy anything related to the industrial development in Bengal is really alarming. Mamata is jsut the face of it. CITU is not too different from it. But the existance of the people behind these forces is the driving factor for it. As long as we have these people with the disruptive and destructive nature in them among ourselves, Bengal is destined ot go downhill in terms of development. And it will probably not be possible for a dozen Buddhadevs to turn things around, for it will be too late by then.
GB,
Provoking post,
My “do aane”
1. While I think freight equalization was an asinine policy, I doubt its intent was specifically anti-bengal.
2. I will agree with that usually Congress punished states who dared to defy its writ.However there was one additional factor which was flight of entrepreneurship capital which hurt bengal more than flight of MNCs.
3. I think while Bengal was (and is) foremost in intellect, Bengali culture lacks in entrepreneurship.
It is not unique to Bengal, same is the case with Marathis.
In mumbai commerce is dominated by marwaris, gujaratis, and parsees.
I meant thought provoking post
Gaurav,
Freight equalization was aimed at taking away Bengal and Bihar’s advantage in favour of certain other states (that shall go nameless) that had a strong presence in Congress-decision-making circles. I do not think GB anywhere said that freight equalization was done to victimize Bengalis. It was done to favour others at the cost of Bengal and also Bihar.
GB,
An excellent analysis. It is the mark of the true intellectual to be able to introspect and criticize, dispassionately and yet without attention-grabbing self-flagellation, that part of one’s identity that one values the most. You do it beautifully. Thank you for this lovely post. I am forwarding this to all my ‘thinking’ friends.
I think the same argument would hold for many states. Progress and development issues are never raised and a lot of noise is raised on trivial regional issues.
@Gaurav
Having lived in Mumbai for quite a time, I doubt if you could make general remark like that for Marathis. But the issue is used quite a lot to create a feeling of alienation towards people from other states.
Good article.
As an outsider, I am stunned at the social composition of Bengalis vis-a-vis the southern states. It seems an inexpicably large number of bengalis are outside the social justice net. Normally, this would not be a problem and would be a cause of celebration. However, as idealistic as this is, it is going to result in lost opportunities because no one else (not even the Kerala CPM) is playing the “class” game. The 18,000 crores spent on the OBC quota in AIIMS/IIT/IIMs is not going to do much to bengalis because only 6 out of every 100 bengalis are going to be eligible for the quota (compared to 72 tamils, 55 keralites, etc). Assam shares this problem with Bengal.
Coming to Muslims, I am reading the Sachar report and I am quite stunned that the elite Mappilah of Kerala muslims are classified as backward but 97% of bengali muslims are not. I am afraid Sachar has a valid point here, quite indisputable.
These are the practical issues that matter on the ground. Bengal is increasingly irrelevant in national politics because it is not in the team that plays the social game. It is not even in the stadium. It is like asking why Mexico is irrelevant in cricket. (Maybe a bad analogy but close enough)
An excellent post Arnabda. Couldn’t agree more with your viewpoint, especially since I have grown up outside Bengal and have had the chance of observing the system from the outside without becoming a part of it.
I would like to comment on one particular point that you have raised about the sari shop owner. While agreeing to your observation fully, I would go one step further and say that sometimes it has happened that we have become uncomfortable in a Marwari’s or Punjabi’s sari shop as he himself pulled down more and more saris. We would sometimes say (being passionate Bengalis), “Leave it, don’t show more. You’ll have to pick it up again, after all we’ll take only one.” But the owner would only smile and say that it didn’t matter, and we should see everything before we bought. This not only helps him to make that sale, but also increases the probability that the same customer will return to his shop the next time.
Another aspect of Bengalis that really irritates me is the inherent aversion to adopt modern technology. Recently I went to the biggest photo studio in Salt Lake (Kolkata) and told them to print some photos from my digital camera. They told me that they would deliver the prints after two days as they did not have the machine. The same job was done here at a tiny studio in Hyderabad instantly.
While I agree that “culturally” Bengal is superior to many parts of India, the Bengalis have become the laughing stock of the nation over the recent years due to brooding over their cultural superiority, Mamata’s antics and the bandh politics (of every damn party) there. I hope things are taking a better turn now.
Just an observation: Bengalis use the word “non-Bengali” a lot. Have you heard a similar pharase in use by any of the other people of India?
Just a clarification: I also meant the “average Bengali”. Exceptions exist everywhere.
My first experience with a bengali was when I had a room partner from Calcutta. He generally used to smoke a lot, and mention “It’s not a taboo in Bengal to smoke. It’s accepted unlike these Maharashtrians’..
Another thing he used to stress often is “Bengalis ko dhanda karna nahi aata”..
Both of them have been confirmed by your post.
GB…
I Still feel Bengal has it old world culturally forward intellectually forward society intact today.(That is probably becuase I am a south Indian who has never been there and the only Bengal he knows is what he read in standard 7 History books).Interesting to know things might not be as good as I thought they were
@Sudhher
All generalizations are false including this one
Nice. A systematic exposition of the obvious, but reasonable.
But why have you been reduced to quoting (holds nose) Suhel Seth?!
J.A.P.
A very insightful, honest and introspective post.
Idealism is all cute and full of promise during a revolution but once the (political) change has taken place - reality sets in. Idealism is of little use to tackle ground realities and like you said anyone ignoring practical implications and blindly following ideals to the letter is more interested in the “feel-good” component than any actual results. Pointing the compass a little southwards - the sympathy for the LTTE in TN falls into this category.
YOURFAN writes:
@GB: Excellent, unbiased post.
I don’t think all the Apus of West Bengal are lost – they are still there in villages, dark corners of the cities about whom we don’t know that well. You still can find them if you want to look closely and that is why we still see the bauls who have the passion to just sing on in spite of abject poverty, we see half fed teachers still showing the magic light of knowledge to their ill fed students, filmmakers making ‘intellectual no noncommercial films’ etc. It is not that they are not aware of greener pastures of life but are not willing to go to the greener pastures because of their idealism – which some might think to be stupidity on their part. But to them it is their idealism. I must admit the numbers of Apus are dwindling because unlike 60s/70s now people are judged not by their convictions but by the money they make.
Have you ever thought of what our children will learn say after 20 years? Not that we have any dearth of talent but the talent needs nurturing by good teachers. Where are the good teachers– with all the good students gone to greener pastures? If you look at any college and universities of WB (barring a very few and I am not talking about IITs and IIMs) - they are all full of second rate teachers and they are at the helm because the first rung are gone. That is why who ever can afford does send their kids to other places and they stay back there. That is the reason you can see so many successful Bengalis outside Bengal.
That brings me to the next point. With this background all the mediocre people are running WB. So what can we expect? A vast majority of these people don’t have the knowledge or the inclination to know about the realities that if they strike and fight for a non existent bonus then the company will eventually move out. Besides, it is average human psychology to get paid without working (just a bit of slogan shouting for a few days of the month – that is all that is needed) – they don’t feel ashamed to take the wages without actually working for it. Same human psychology plays even more strongly for people with lesser education. Besides with the look at the birth rate of these less-educated people vs. the mediocre people one finds that the first category will outnumber the second category in near future.
That brings me to the next point. These mediocre people are not to be blamed fully because for generations they have been brainwashed by people like JB to think that everything is their right – having fake ration cards, taking councilor’s fake certificate to get a free bed at the hospitals etc(the list goes on) only because the ‘rich’ are getting away with murder’. Yes JB and his ilk didn’t fly in from Vulcan but they used their perverted logic by exploiting human psychology only for their own gain. Don’t you think that is idealism too – but I must add idealism of worst kind. So what can BB do all by himself when there are Subhas Chakravarti-s with all their mediocre people who have nothing better in life than converge to a meeting within a short span of time? And having MB as an alternative – that is no alternative at all. She is good for nothing although she is not a corrupt politician.
That brings me to the last point. There still are educated, sensible, observant people in WB who are not partial but are silent. Silent because they are not goons so can’t fight at the level of goons; silent because they can’t act like those mediocre people and these are the reasons they have created a cocoon for themselves and that is definitely not good sign for WB. I might sound a bit despondent here but that is exactly how I feel for my WB.
We need many many GBs but ‘kothae paabo taare’(Rabindranath Tagore)? Sorry for the long comment – ‘Bengali Passion’ working overtime.
Arnab
This a long rant, so bear with me. I’m a probashi (pravasi for outsiders
) Bengali and my views (based on my observation, jumbled and not in any specific order) may not be too pleasant with many. Anyway.
1.
This penchant for nonsensical idealism is usually prevalent among the Bengalis born and brought up in Bengal (you are an exception of course!). A typical native Bengali is very good example of Amartya Sen ’s “The Argumentative Indian”.
The real trouble begins when these types travel outside the state and peddle their traits, ending up irritating a whole lot of people. Seriously, not everyone has time for discourses on Latin American politics.
Native Bengalis, I’ll say are stuck in the 60s, 70s time wrap.
Last years example, I was at a Puja pandal while at my in-laws place in Salt Lake. One elderly gent had put up a stall displaying ‘party literature’. Among the assorted titles (with Che prominent in many covers) one caught my attention. A cover had a picture from the WWII. A young Red Army soldier atop a broken statue, trying to fix a Soviet Flag somewhere in Leningrad during the famous seize by the German northern Army.
I casually commented that the picture had nothing to do with commies, but should be a part of any military historians collection.
Oh man, all the hell broke loose after that. Do I belong to Kolkata? Am I even aware of the commie movement or its ideals? Do I even have the credentials to handle such lofty topics?
What the fuck? First of all the man had the weird thought to peddle commie smut in a Puja pandal. He does not even had the idea as what truly the picture represents.
Sense of false superiority and argument just for the sake of it.
2.
I’ll agree to an extent with many comments here that culturally Bengal still has an edge over many states. Yeah, I agree given my daily interactions with the Haryanvi gentry here in Delhi (apology to educated and well groomed Haryanvis…but your rustic folks suck).
3.
Native Bengalis must forge a modern identity, different from the usual butt of the joke image caused by commie rule. Learn a bit about your cultural history from neutral sources (i.e. beside commie text books), take pride in it and throw away cynicism. Others will come around to respect you.
Another example. A colleague of mine transferred from Kolkata office permanently to Delhi office at lunch table. We (i.e. parents/grandparents ) apparently hail from some locality in pre-partition Dhaka. Casual discussion on use of swords was an eye opener. My friend dropped a piece of wisdom “Bengalis won’t any hurt you with a needle, what to talk of sword”.
A quick retort from a North Indian colleague (a history buff) goes like “But I read that the Pala kingdom stretched upto NWFA in present day Pakistan and they used to gather tributes from whole of North India and some kingdoms in SE Asia as well. Sure, Palas were Buddhists, but do you mean to say this all was accomplished by wandering monks?”
Maybe my friend used to bunk history classes. But shouldn’t the high points of our cultural history be a part of our folklore?
As I see it such ignorance on part of masses by effectively exploited by the British to fabricate and sell martial race theory.
GB,
Very interesting article.I’d like to share an experience I had while in IIT Kharagpur. There was this bank branch just outside the campus which used to cater to all our banking needs. It also *so happened* that it also catered to a whole lot of pensioners. This meant that usually in the first week of the month , a long line of pensioners used to form a line almost unto the campus gate. So, we used to ensure that we didnt need to go to the bank in the first week. Having spent nearly 2 years like that, I ended up in an occasionw here I needed to draw cash on the 2nd day of a month. Left with no choice, I joined the queue near the campus gate. 20 minutes passed. Not an inch moved. 30 minutes. ditto. One hour passed and I found myself near the gate still. Curious, I a bandoned the queue and went in to see what was happening - and there was this clerk happily jotting down 1,2,3..on a paper. He had reached 600 when I watched and continued to jot. It was just his whim that had kept the queue not moving. The pensioners were really afraid to question him as they hadd to come back every month and were fearful of upsetting him.
It really gave a bad impression on bengal to me - though ofcourse I knew it was unfair to form that image.
BTW, you cannot question bengalis’ fair-mindedness in cricket. Contrary to your claims, they did indeed cheer the opponents -forget century, they even applauded a SA win :-). My tongue is ofcourse firmly on its cheeks
Arnabda & Others,
A very well balanced and almost perfect analysis at the onset. But subjecting it to critical evaluation would indeed bring to light some grey areas, some weak links of an otherwise strong chain of thought, like any other masterpiece of any maestro.
Lemme shed some light on one aspect which quite surprisingly got overlooked in your analysis: The Naxal Movement.
No place has done more harm to its parent state than the small and (previously) innocuous naxalbari. In their heroic mission of reforming the system Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal ended up wiping away a complete generation(or at least the best of it) from the map of not only bengal but most of eastern India. Make no mistake those who got sucked into the ‘Black Hole’ were the best, the creme-de-la-creme. Jadavpur, Shivpur, Durgapur, Kharagpur all came inside the blanket of Naxal Revolution.
I am a ‘Prabasi’ Bengali, born and brought up entirely outside bengal and yet thanks to my parents and the social circle I often got to hear about the ‘naxalites’ and those ‘dark uncertain days’. The immediate damage is something almost all of our parents/uncles/aunts would harp upon. Widespread killings, police indiscriminately picking up anone in the target age group of 21-28 for interogation and them never been seen or hear of again and so on and so forth.
But what I would like to stress is the wider implications, the far more mortal ramifications on the running of the state. The effect this had was similar to taking away the main propulsion jet engines of a rocket or say the locomotive engine of a Rajdhani Express.
It almost brought the progress of that generation to a jittery halt, immediately bring to an almost perfect stop the chain of developments in all arenas. This was the time when these people were most required, the time when the system was in ‘Emergency’ mode a time when the normal social fabric had taken a heavy beating and pro-active efforts of the erudite was needed to get it back on track.
It was like a full generation which got wiped off creating a VOID which would prove disastrous in the recovery of the state from the already mess it had fallen to.
The Bengal saga is undoubtedly incomplete without understandoing that this is what stopped the ‘auto-correction’ mode of the ‘auto-pilot’ called ‘Bangla Society’. Had this not have happened I am quite sure the story of decadence would not have reached such dismal levels as of today. Many more of Buddhadeb’s would have been at at charge and probably much earlier. It would be indeed unfair to overlook this ill fated occurence whiole analysing the cause of such downfall.
(Remember, this was not a normal ‘herd mentality’ society built out of CONFORMISTS who would rather follow then quention the norms, terribly uncertain of themselves and incredibly lacking the confidence and the courage. This was a state which had a gluttony of such ‘thinkers’ and ‘compulsive debaters’.)
Arnab,
Well written sir. My first reaction was to take an opposite view- Bengali sentiment, I presume.
But I do agree about certain things , including the example of the Bengali shopkeeper and the typical Bengali attitude of being superior to all.
However, one does feel a certain change today. ( Incidentally, I am a probashi now settled in Kolkata for 10 years).The change comes in small forms like people tending to work late without being asked to do so, people attending work on Bandh days ( today being one )and small scale Bengali enterpreneurs slowly making their presence felt.
I work in the Real Estate sector( in a Bengali run organisation in what used to be a total Marwari domain) and I daresay, that one can feel a change in the attitude of the ‘non-bengali’ investors towards Bengal today.
About the Singur incident, it may be said that it was turned into a circus by the firebrand lady and then the government walked into a nice little trap laid up by the extreme left!! However, resistance to giving up farmland for industry is not unique to Bengal. The scenario is much the same for SEZ lands in Andhra Pradesh ,Haryana, etc.
So, though you make strong points , I see some hope somewhere!!Even Dada is back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don’t know the entire Singur story, but I find it delicious that the BJP, which calls any movement against the Narmada dam and the relocation/displacement of tribals there an anti-national act, is now firmly set with Mamata against the Left Front in protest against the displacement of farmers! Ah, sweet irony…
I think the basic point here is that if the farmers are willing to sell their land for a reasonable compensation, there is no need for any protest. But if they are forced to sell their land under some “eminent domain” sort of law, then supporting this becomes difficult.
That is why the Narmada issue is a real one, regardless of the contempt on which we hold Arundhati Roy. And that might just be the crux of the Singur imbroglio.
We tend to support the governments in each case because we instinctively are on the side of “progress”, and I am guilty of that myself, but there are times when I think, what my reactions would be if the government decides that my house was perfect for a new road leading to the SEEPZ (Software Park) and therefore should be demolished for “progress” of the country. So it can give me some money and ask me to settle down in Mira Road or Bhiwandi or somewhere.
I have a feeling my enthusiasm for national progress would be dampened somewhat…
Nothing I have said earlier condones anything the “Momota di” has done. All I am saying is - we need to get the whole Singur story straight before automatically giving Buddhadev a clean chit.
Today, 13th and 14th Kolkata Bandh! Endless cups of gorom cha, animated, heated discussions about the state of Bengal, a good book under the lep, once the heat has subsided and general lolling around the house. C’mon Arnab, don’t grudge the average lazy Bengalis of such divine pleasures of life.
Just an incidental comment, Arnab, to show the extent of stagnation of the Bong-on-the-street. The sari-shop incident finds mention almost exactly in Sayyed Mujtaba Ali’s work, I forget which, and the culture-laced jingoistic braying of the scum of the Calcutta pond is dealt with scathing disappoinment by Narayn Gangopadhay in a particular episode of Sunando’s Journal. Both Ali and Gangopadhay were, I’m sure you’ll agree, part of the intelligensia Bengal is wont to boast of and who, in their columns in Desh and their independent works, have chronicled most of the periods that Bengal is also wont to boast of.
While the latter has since gone into a steady decline, I’m buggered if the former have changed much in the last two and a half decades.
As came up in a conversation a few days back, perhaps the only thing Calcutta can actually boast of today is a relatively relaxed religious environment and social values. And we thank god for small mercies.
Simply brilliant analysis ! Much more insightful than the talking heads on IBN (that you linked to).
Excellent post GB.
There is a typo. Change “connaisseurs” to “connoisseurs”
the Singur controversy is simple: it indeed is very fertile land. but that is not the point. this is traditionally a trinamool congress bastion. the share croppers form the support base of trinamool congress. the landlords are absentee landlords and therefore, they are selling for what is a fair price. it is the share croppers who get screwed and acc. to left front’s calculation, trinamool loses its support base! it is shoddy politics both ways.
Arnab,
As a non Bengali I don’t know much about the other points you have raised. However the shop keepers attitude is not something I would associate with Bengalis, I see it everywhere where there is an environment of communism/socialism or in general a very high sensitivity to workers rights and trade unions are very strong. I see it in my home state of Kerala and I see it here in Germany where staff in larger department stores or in smaller stores will simply not help you in locating anything beyond telling you the general direction in which the stuff may be or even putting items you purchased in a cover, basic customer service that you take for granted in the U.S or most Indian cities.Blame it on socialism!
Regarding the example of a Bengali Saree shop and a Marwari Saree shop, all you have to do is replace Bengali with Marathi and the example still remains valid. Just visit Pune once.:-)
Great post GB. One of my first experiences at IIMC was a crasher from Ramu (you must’ve heard of HIM) on useful Bengali phrases - among them being “Aajke hobe na dada”. Have listened all too often to close relatives moaning abouth Marwari prosperity and always thought why blame them for Bongs not getting off their arses…
no sir, we need our adda and our afternoon nap - let someone else do “business” (a swear word in Bengali if one)
True story: Went to Behala to buy some stuff. Took care to go outside of nap hours (anything between 1-6pm). Was told by yawning shopkeeper to go to the shop next door - was too much effort for him to go to the back of his store and get what I needed!
That said, haven’t been to Cal for over 6 years. Hope the stories of change are true and Buddhada is making a difference.
“However the passionate Bengali refuses to acknowledge the root cause of the success of the Marwaris and react by grumbling how all the nice houses have been taken over by those ‘rich Marwaris’.”
at one point of time we were so jealous of marwari wealth and prosperity,that some 12-15 years back there was a ‘marwari hatao andolan’ staged at new alipore after some alteration over trivial issues…and its not that we are only envious of non-bengali affluence..time and again we hear ‘ghatis’ (original inhabitants of wb) alleging ‘bangals’ (emigrants from bangladesh) of hijacking ‘their’ riches and plum posts in workplaces…….
Frankly speaking, for all the cry about intellectual strength and intelligent thinkers that Bengal politicos seem to harp about, I think Bengal’s contribution has been fairly limited to:
Sushmita Sen (Who, I admit is the smartest amongst all models)
Sourav Ganguly
Rabindranath Tagore
Satyajit Ray
&
Greatbong
Rest…there is not much to choose from. Considering None of the above mentioned (except you!) fall into what I did call intellectual superstars, maybe its time Bengalis start realizing that they are good in other areas too.
I think Bengal was ruined by left. Your marwari story reminds me of Mumbai and Shiv Sena’s valiant attempts to throw gujjus out of mumbai.
S
Err…. not labelling Tagore has an intellectual superstar is an insult
- I take that back!
S
I once went in the afternoon to one of the small restaurants in Kolkata and was surprised to find that it was closed because it was lunch time(for the owner/workers).
@Suyog: There are quite a few intellectual superstars beyond the ones you mentioned - among poets and writers, painters, artistes and even scientists - Saratchandra, Bankimchandra, Banaphul, Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, Mujtab Ali, Nandalal Bose, Abanindranath Tagore, Ravi Shankar, Ananda Shankar, Shukanto, Meghnad Bhattacharya, S N Bose, J C Bose… The list is much longer than that (and sorry to anyone who thinks I have left out many of the pretty obviously great intellects), but you’ll get the point.
Yes, Tagore and Ray are the supernovas in our intellectual universe. But you think of S N Bose every time you talk of bosons, you think of Bibhutibhushan when you enjoy Ray’s Pather Pachali. You think of Nandalal when you see the vibrant colours of pat-paintings (or even the works of the Baroda school of art, which he set up). Can you imagine modern Indian dance without the mention of Ananda Shankar? Or Indian music in the 20th Century without at least a mention of Ravi Shankar?
But Arnab is right - great art and culture is the product of prosperity. When Bengalis became effete and forgot the generation of wealth for the sake of the arts, it was inevitable that the arts would eventually decay. I’d rather that we forget the intellectual pose and try to make ourselves wealthy. Only a wealthy society can patronise the arts. And that is what we need.
I have lived outside Bengal for all of my undergrad life, while working and even now as a postgraduate student. The misdirected passion you point out has been noticeably present in many people I’ve met — but there is something else that slowly makes one bleed: the fear that somehow has entered the heart of many Bengalis. The quintessential “amar sontan jeno thake dudhe bhaate” defines a lot in many people: somehow that makes them insecure and distrustful: makes them tame and cowardly. Your post was thought-provoking and so were many of the comments above, but I believe that unless the self-confidence, the fearlessness is bred in, unless we realise that we’re not sheep, all we do will be a farce and a supremely superficial effort in trying to live through and live up to the “good old days” which (as you point out) is the favoirite pastime of many.
Very insightful post. I am commenting after a long time now. All the commenters above have raised excellent points. I agree with all the points you have made, GreatBong.
I have something more to add as a non-Bengali. I agree that Bengal has contributed immmensely to the freedom struggle and produced intellectual beacons such as Rabindranath Tagore, Aurobindo Ghosh, Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Swami Vivekananda and many more. But, the, other parts of India have also produced sons and daughters of great intellect and spiritual enlightenment, be it the Marathi ‘bhakti’ poets such as Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram, leaders such as Tilak and Gokhale, or the Tamil poet-saints, Avaiyyar and Thiruvalluvar, the freedom fighter, Bharatiar, the South Indian classical giants such as Thyagaraja, or the Hindi belt’s Tulsidas, Tansen and Premchand, apart from Kerala’s wonderful film makers, the playwrights of Maharashtra and Karnataka and lots more.
As you rightly point out, by just harping on cultural superiority, the chauvinist displays not just arrogance but ignorance of the vast cultural ocean of India, stretching back to the time when probably there was no Bengali or Marathi or many other languages. So why is it that some Bengalis and a few others consider Bengal to be the cultural throne of India?
This does NOT in any way mean that I think of Bengal’s contributions as insignificant . Bengalis have much to be proud of and so do others. Speaking of the Marwari, they have their rich history of Rana Pratap, Rani Padmini, their fabulous architecture and intricate arts, not to mention their folk music and stories, to be proud of, as much as their entrepreneurship.
My aunt, a history professor, once remarked that my school history textbook displayed a strong ’sons of the soil’ policy. I feel that we don’t really teach much about the history of other states in our schools. So, there is colossal ignorance about the great kings, saints, poets, literature and spiritual achievements of other parts of India.
Coming back to the part about economic progress, your post reminded me of that memorable line from ‘Swades’ where Shah Rukh Khan says something like, “We Indians keep saying that our culture is superior and think we are therefore the greatest. Other countries have their culture, too, and they are not in any way inferior to ours.”
Thanks for the post on Kherlanji. I have added you to my blog roll. Your post has inspired me to write something related to Indian and Western culture. I’ll be linking to this piece.
But still there are people like Mamata and her cohorts who are dead eager to push Bengal back to paradoxically the darkest days of CPM rule
I agree Mamata is a throwback and always was, but on this particular issue, does no one care for property rights? They are taking farmers’ lands now, tomorrow it could be the flat in Rajarhat that you live in.
Hi GB,
1) I don’t think there is any “anti-Bengalism ” feeling anywhere in India, there is anti-left movement for sure.
2) After reading this post of yours( and two previous ones), now I can understand passion for Ganguly ( justified)
3) Bengal although never run by Congress and discriminated was never a BIMARU state, Bengal never declined but Marwari(just a observation) state was in BIMARU, so no need of pessimism. Bengal was never “poor” state.
4) Bengal cultural never declined its in fact flourishing,
if anyone needs proof watch some bollywood, I would go little overboard and say its Bengalwood( music, actress, directors etc. )
Every Kajal is renamed Kajol !
5) I feel R D Burman-Panchamda is most under-rated Bengali, it seems to me he is more celebrated outside WB.
6) Bengalis are doing quite well in trading and entrepreneurship esp. in north east India. In N.E its role reversal :-)( of sari example).
In spite of the millennia spanning tradition of heterodoxy in the Bengal-Bihar region that not only brought about myriad intellectual movements (Bauddha/Sakta/Vaishnava/Nyaya/etc.) as well as mass movements (massive rise of Islamic and Marxist followings), it is only in the context of urbanization of the 19th century last half - 20th 1st half that your *Bengali passion* can be precisely defined.
I.e, if Apu did not come to Calcutta, he would hardly be appropriate as an example of the famed passion. In particular, his coming-of-age from the shadow of orthodoxy (Varanasi/priesthood) is a nice imagery of non-innocent passion that can be defined only with respect to the harsh background of industrialization (printing press/metallic rail tracks).
I would perhaps blame the hubris (of bhadralok in the case of Calcutta) that went on to substitute and defend the loss of pre-industrilization innocence that was the very nature of the passion which had equally influenced other parts of the industrializing world, especially in contemporary Europe and Russia.
In other words, the *Bengali*-ness of this particular Bengali passion may be overrated and a parochial construct; at best it can be termed *Calcuttan passion.* The linguistic and other deeper/broader identities of the passionate bhadralok-samaj seem politically super-imposed.
Nice topic. But ‘Calcuttan passion’.
Great post.
See this
Nice post GB. I have always believed that capitalism and culture are mutually exclusive. But I had always thought of it in one direction - capitalism leading to destruction of refined culture (to take one example, compare the Gulzar’s and Sahir’s we produced during socialistic era when we had much less financial resources and compare them with the kind of inane lyricists of today). Your post has shown that it works the other way too - because Bengal had a highly refined culture and the people were passionate about it, they resisted the adoption of capitalism. Unfortunately, that resistance is going to end one day and Bengal too will go the capitalistic way. Yes, it might provide them better roads, fancier malls and more jobs, but atleast from culture perspective, it won’t be a good thing.
Just Brilliant..:)
Brilliant. Koto bar I have had this discussion with my non-probashi relatives. I did not know that Buddhadeb had support for his actions - I hope thats true…
Great post. I wonder how staying so far away from the day to day ongoings of Bengal you still manage to be so connected. I know very little about Bengal and Bengali people and it is nice to read about how people from another part of India think. I am strong believer that capitalism and being good to society can go hand in hand, it might just be a bit tough, but not impossible. And I don’t think culture and capitalism are mutually exclusive. There is nothing more disappointing than an intelligent dude sitting and talking about how crappy the world is and how its not good enuff for him (i do that a lot, lol). But sometimes u just have to stop being a smart-ass and move ur ass. And bengals gotta do that.
Nice Post. My question is isnt this expected? You take any society which starts believing in a set of values at a given period of time. Once that period is over and people who had the strength to give it direction disappear it tends to feed on itself, gathering around it all the wrong ideas, ultimately ending up in a mess. If you have a set motivated people who really dont have any direction then this is what happens. The late 19 century and early 20 century produced many people who were extraordinary and more importantly had direction. With India gaining independence, I think the direction simply shifted towards communism.
Unrelatedly I think a lot of bengalis move out of the state(I am not aware of the relative figures). This is I guess the first reminder that there is something seriously wrong.
Bengalis in general have a perception that given a ‘chance’ they can turn the world upside down by the sheer virtue of their inherent talent and level of intellect. And it is because of this mentality that they keep waiting for that ‘chance’ to come and knock on their door.
That there are talks that Sourav Ganguly is the last bengali icon may not be appropriate as it tries to predict the unpredictable but it should really be an eye-opener for us bongs.
That the place that had given the country icons as great as Swami Vivekananda, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Satyendranath Bose and so on is not able to produce a hero is a matter of great concern, and well, shame as well.
But, is it really so that we don’t have icons in the present era? They may not be of the same stature and charisma as the above ones but there indeed are people who can be called icons.
Apart from Pandit Ravi Shankar (the great musician, not the spiritual guru), his daughter Anoushka Shankar, Aparna Sen etc there are bengalis, who don’t reside in bengal but have made it big in their respective fields like Amartya Sen (Nobel winner), Amar Gopal Bose (Founder, Bose Corporation), Purnendu Chatterjee (CEO, TCG), Subroto Roy (Sahara Group), Jhumpa Lahiri , Amitav Ghosh, Upamanyu Chatterjee (Authors) and so on in the present era itself.
Have a look at this list please.
But then again, if we look at it and do a comparison with other parts of India from a neutral viewpoint, we clearly see that regions that didn’t have as big icons in the past as Bengal had produced have actually gone well ahead in time and post-independence, have created great stalwarts, mainly as entrepreneurs who lead big and globally respected organizations.
In these areas Bengal has slowed down drastically , mainly because the laid-back attictude and what can be termed as a ’superiority complex’ of the Bengalis in general.
I personally believe that though there was a decline in Bengal’s production of ‘icons’ considerably in the post Satyendranath Bose era, thanks mainly to the ‘RED’ government, it never stopped completely.
And to predict that After Sourav ganguly there won’t be another bong icon is not justified at all. But at the same time, there has to be loads and loads of support for Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in bringing the old glory back. This gentleman knows what needs to be done but just doesn’t have the support. There are no able alternative for this ‘RED” Government at the moment so we have to cope with the ‘RED’ part but have to back Buddha-babu all the time.
All in all, a brilliant post, Arnab.
A sore chord touched upon very gently in a very much thought-provoking yet diplomatic way.
And, “If Apu symbolized the romantic, impulsive and intellectual Bengali, it is in many ways Mamata Banerjee who represents the twisted bastardization of the ideals of Apu in today’s Bengal.” …how appropriate
i so totally agree with @Lotus eyes(and of course shahrukh khan) and the dialogues from swades….
just because you are ignorant of some other culture you should not assume superiority over them… every place/country has its own culture and its own luminaries…
Excellent excellent excellent post! Brilliant!
@ Suyog :
“Frankly speaking, for all the cry about intellectual strength and intelligent thinkers that Bengal politicos seem to harp about, I think Bengal’s contribution has been fairly limited to:
Sushmita Sen (Who, I admit is the smartest amongst all models)
Sourav Ganguly
Rabindranath Tagore
Satyajit Ray
&
Greatbong
Rest…there is not much to choose from.”
For your kind information, here is something especially for people like you if you really want something to choose from, (although I personally believe you haven’t even heard most of these names….well, may be my mistake…..that might just be too much to expect from people like you who speak about something without any knowledge about it.)
“None of the above mentioned (except you!) fall into what I did call intellectual superstars”
….as if they wait for you to honour them with the “intellectual superstar-dom” by calling them “intellectual superstars”.
Hi Greatbong,
the article is bang on target. Being a non bengali I can not agree more to some of your points. Being passionate has destroyed some of respect all other indians hold for bengali people. The problem is that everytime peolple connect issues to culture be it economic or political. And our useless politicians are more than happy to pamper this passion as it yield them votes without actually doing anything. Also the case is similar is almost every part of India be it Karnataka for Rajkumar issue, be it Pune or Chennai or Gujrat. The real unfortunate thing we indians never think ourselvs as forst humans who need development and then indians. We are always Marathi, bengali, Kannadinga, Gujarati first then we are eith MArxist, Leftist, Hiduntva vadi, Muslim wadi, Samajwadi. The country and human development never figures in dream of or politicians (with few respectable exceptions)!
@dEbOLiN: That list is pretty comprehensive… was thinking of providing something like that myself in reply to Suyog (that passion again). However, some prominent people (like Sri Aurobindo, Chittaranjan Das, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and many others) are conspicuous by their absence and some non-Bengalis have been included as well (like Rohan Gavaskar)
Dear Arnab,
I am a reader of your blog, regarding this topic I just want to add one very important point that Bengali’s lacks the Execution capacities.
Look at L.M. Mittal he studied in St Xavier’s College and IISWBM (Both under Calcutta University) look how he has utilized his knowledge has built up an empire from the so called poor Calcutta University.
Look at Late A.V. Birla (From St Xavier’s College, Calcutta)
Among all the Birlas he was the smartest.
Look at Vijay Mallya his father Late Vittal From St Xavier’s and Presidency respectively under Calcutta University.
We have a habit of saying Calcutta University is not up to the mark and the standard is very poor but if you see all the above cases it’s fantastic.
There are lots and lots of Cases who are Non Bengalis ( Marwairs)got same education from Bengal and Calcutta University and have become successful in their own fields.
Bengalis have academic excellence but very poor executional excellence;;;;
May be Knowing Doing Gap.
Hope they will be do the GAP analysis, and come up very fast.
Don’t worry we will fight back, things are changing.
Good Luck.
Though your basic point is different, the Singur issue has been touched upon by you and several other commentators. So, I am adding a few observations on Singur:
It is perfectly legal for a government to take over private property for greater public good, in all countries. However, adequate compensation should be paid, specially when the government is not giving the owners a choice to sell or not, unlike in a private transaction. Whatever reports I have seen about the method of estimating the quantum of compensation, I have to say that the return (say, from keeping the amount in a post office Monthly Income Scheme @8% per annum) on the amount of compensation money would be substantially more than the annual profit that the owners of an acre of land at Singur would make in an average year. Also remember that the return from agriculture is uncertain (some farmers have to commit suicides because of crop failure) while the return from post office fixed deposit is totally risk free and certain (except if the interest rate changes in future, say after 6 years, when the maturity value would have to be reinvested).
However, there is another class of losers. They are landless labourers who did not own the land but worked there as wage earners. They would lose their man days and wage income when the land is diverted from agriculture. Most of these people can not and will not be absorbed in the car manufacturing factory. They do not have the skills. It is not easy to train them either. At best, they can be provided priority as labourers in the construction work that will take place or in setting up small shops etc (but that needs capital or bank finance) in the township that will develop. These people may turn out to be the real losers, not the owners of land. Of course, the direct and indirect job gains from the Tata factory accruing to other people would be much more, by any kind of estimate. That’s how economic development takes place and is considered justified when the gains of the gainers are more than the loss of the losers.
Some are asking (like Mamata): why the W.B. govt did not ask Tatas to set up the factory in a backward district like Purulia or on land which produces a single crop.
First, Tatas themselves chose Singur over other alternatives suggested by the WB govt. Primarily because of the locational advantage. Singur is right on the Kolkata-Durgapur expressway. Cars are bulky but fancy products (unlike steel rods or cement) which need to be transported at low costs and in spotless condition to the markets. You can not assure that if cars are manufactured in Purulia and then have to be transported along narrow bumpy Maoist infested roads to Kolkata. Moreover, Tatas can not undertake the costs of new expressway construction. That would make their products lose cost competitiveness in a highly competitive automobile market with very low margins. Finally, if W.B. govt did not give Tatas their chosen location, they had other options. Many other states would bend backwards to invite the Tatas by offering the location of their choice. So, Buddhababu had no other option, if they really wanted the Tata factory (which even Mamata wants) for West Bengal’s good.
On multi-crop versus single crop, the issue is of two types. Regarding compensation, obviously, the compensation for an acre of multi-crop land would be more than that for single-crop land. So, the farmers would not lose, provided compensation amount is calculated properly. The other issue is loss of agricultural production from the national point of view. Clearly, the national loss is more if the factory is on multi-crop land. But, if the factory would not have taken place otherwise or the cost of additional resources needed (for development of access roads or power lines etc) for setting up the factory in another location had been more than the value of additional crop lost when it is on multi-crop land, then it is socially worthwhile to have the factory on multi-crop land.
Love,
Baba
Debolin thats a good list. But i wonder why one would refer to that list to feel good about Bengal. I see a lot of young achievers from that list who achieved it outside Bengal. isn’t that a worrying sign. Wudn’t u look at that list (focusing on achievers of the last 30-20 years) and go “crap! we bengalis have go it, but why can’t we make it in bengal”
How much credit can you give the state of West Bengal for what Bipasha Basu or Prannoy Roy or Sharmila tagore or Mithun or kajol or Amar Bose of Bose speakers or Jawed Kaim of you tube achieved?
And isn’t this what Greatbong talks about in this post? That “we got it but why can’t we do it in WB?” (or maybe i am just not getting the point of the post)
How many of the Bengali readers here are people who were in WB, are in WB and can say they have achieved something in WB?
I from Mumbai and my dad is from kerala and all his bros and sisters achieved whatever they did outside kerala. Kerala’s situation is very much like Bengal’s. U wud have all received this forward joke “the wonly place where a malayali works hard is outside kerala”.
When a society (or individual) thinks prosperity has ought to come to it (or them), that it is their jagir, they invite doom. And when they realize they arent propsering they starting blaming everything else, feeling jealous, imposing restrictions to other’s propserity and being a pain in the arse like Shiv Sena in Maharashtra.
pls excuse my typos and grammatical blunders in the previous post. and sorry for taking up a post asking for apology.
Great analysis. I think it should be printed in some leading newspaper. This way those people, who don’t use internet, would be able to read it as well. Why don’t you mail it to Time of India (mytimesmyvoice@timesgroup.com) or to The Telegraph (ttedit@abpmail.com)? You can think of sending this article to some leading Bengali dailies also. There are many Bengalis who hate to read English dailies due to some reason or other. For them this article should be published in Bengali.
@ Joy Forever :
Yes I know the list is not comprehensive and there are a few mistakes and ommissions….but I think it’s sufficient to get presented before bloggers like Suyog. It’s just that I didn’t get a more accurate list on the net and didn’t have the time to prepare one myself.
@ Sriram Venkitachalam :
Yes Sir. I completely agree with you when you say Bengalis have achieved very little from or inside Bengal in the recent past. In fact, in my comment I have mentioned this too with special mention to the ‘RED’ Government.
Somehow you might have missed it or may be you just went through the list and nothing else.
If you go through the paragraphs 1,2,3,7 & 8 in my comment, you’ll see I hold more or less the same view as yours.
@debolin
in fact i liked ur post “Bengalis in general have a” a lot. made a lot of sense to me. when i wrote abt u posting the list in response to suyog i didn’t relate u to that previous post and it wasn’t in my short term flash memory.
I hope I reiterated something worth reiterating.
@ Everyone :
Sorry just noticed this sentence in my comment may have created some confusion:
“I personally believe that though there was a decline in Bengal’s production of ‘icons’ considerably in the post Satyendranath Bose era, thanks mainly to the ‘RED’ government, it never stopped completely.”
What I actually wanted to say was :
“I personally believe that Bengal’s production of ‘icons’ never really stopped completely although there was a considerable decline (for the decline,thanks mainly to the ‘RED’ government)in this in the post Satyendranath Bose era .”
Sorry Arnab, for eating up more space.
@ Sriram Venkitachalam :
I provided the list specifically for Suyog because all he knows about Bengal and Bengalis is “Frankly speaking, for all the cry about intellectual strength and intelligent thinkers that Bengal politicos seem to harp about, I think Bengal’s contribution has been fairly limited to:
Sushmita Sen (Who, I admit is the smartest amongst all models)
Sourav Ganguly
Rabindranath Tagore
Satyajit Ray & Greatbong
Rest…there is not much to choose from.â€
I thought he needed to be told about Vivekananda, Netaji, J.C.Bose and so on. That’s it.
And I am not diluting the topic here when I say, how could you miss Koena Mitra?
GB
I think a detailed post on Singur is in order.
ps: the post by your father is quite perceptive.
Yep…Moi also thinks that a detailed post in the Singur controversy would be good. Didn’t find many posts regarding that in the desi blogs.
And yes, the comment by Mr. Alok Ray was really good.
Cheers,
HP
GB,
hav been a big fan of all ur posts and all… and am also a party to believe buddha has been leading the state in a right direction… But being a Bengali, don’t you feel the forceful takeover of farmlands in Singur making hundreds of farmers homeless and the atrocities carried on the helpless farmers and their wives by armed policemen is a shame to bengal as a state and society as a whole? Also I believe that you understand the describing of the opposition leader’s politics as bastardization is a below the belt term to say the least. Don’t you think the uninterrupted rule of a single government,having ailing, old ministers hanging on to their chairs just for power’s sake, moving towards half a century is catastophe enough for any state?
All the famous bengalis kayasthas
I shine in reflected glory ;-).
PS GB, I hope this comment was not casteist, if yo