How the mighty were humbled

Pics: The book cover; the busts of VK Mehta and Mokhtar Ali outside the office of the Port Division; Rizwanur Rehman and Priyanka Todi

Journalist Sourjya Bhowmick’s book, ‘Gangster State - The rise and fall of the CPI(M) in West Bengal’, gives a feel of what life was like during the three decades of Communist rule

By Shevlin Sebastian

During my childhood and teenage years, I grew up in a cosmopolitan locality in Calcutta. So we lived amongst Gujaratis, Marwaris, Rajputs, Punjabis, Anglo-Indians, Bengalis, Malayalis, Tamilians, Parsees, and Goans. This cosmopolitanism may be one reason why the Communist Party of India (Marxist) never entered the area, except during elections. In our day-to-day life, we never interacted with the CPI(M) on the street.

Most of us lived in a typical middle-class bubble. Our parents went to work while we attended school. Our entertainment comprised movies, family outings and celebrating major festivals like Durga Puja, Christmas, and New Year. At the end of the year, we went on a vacation. There were no bomb blasts in our area. We did not have youngsters prowling the area, with shirt buttons opened to the navel, sometimes brandishing knives and sickles.

The only moment of tension was during the riots that happened following the December 6, 1992 razing of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. There was a rumour that hoodlums would attack our locality. In the end, nothing happened. But we all had to pray hard to the various gods and goddesses that we believed in.

So, it came as a shock when Sourjya Bhowmick, in his book, ‘Gangster State—The rise and fall of the CPI(M) in West Bengal’ confirmed that in most localities, the party had a fearsome presence. They adjudicated between people who had quarrels, took a weekly hafta from shopkeepers, and sometimes they barged into houses and slapped the men in front of their wives and children.

To double-check whether this happened, I called up a couple of my friends, who confirmed to me that in their localities, the party had a strong presence.

The story is told through Rajat Lahiri. A Presidency College student, he joined the Students Federation of India and became a foot soldier. Later, Rajat became a full-fledged party member.

The style is novelistic, fast-paced and gripping.

There were no surprises to read that during elections, the party used intimidation, violence and rigging. As a result, they remained in power for seven consecutive five-year terms, from 1977 to 2011. Sourjya wrote about several incidents which ignited in me memories of those times.

One was the brutal murder, on March 18, 1984, of Vinod Kumar Mehta, 35, who was a Deputy Commissioner of Police of the Port Division. His bodyguard, constable Mokhtar Ali, was also killed.

Mehta entered a narrow bylane in Garden Reach to search for criminals. At that moment, some hoodlums stepped forward and stabbed him. He died soon after. The reason: Mehta did not condone any of the illegal activities taking place in the Port area. A minister, who allegedly had links with the criminal elements at the port, stood accused of the murder. But Kalimuddin Shams, a member of the Forward Bloc and the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly, vociferously denied his involvement. The case has never been solved. Shams died in 2013 at the age of 74.

Another unsolved case was the death of a 30-year-old graphics instructor, Rizwanur Rahman. At the institute where he worked, he met the 23-year-old Priyanka Todi. They got talking and soon fell in love. They kept this a secret from their families. On August 18, 2007, they also got married in secret, under the Special Marriage Act.

Later, Rizwanur and Priyanka began to live together at his family's modest home. Eventually, the news came to light. However, Priyanka’s father, Ashok Todi, owner of Lux Cozi, a successful innerwear company, opposed the marriage. He contacted the police.

Senior police officers put enormous pressure on Rizwanur and Priyanka to end the marriage. But Rizwanur refused. After prolonged parleys, through intermediaries, the Todi family persuaded Priyanka to spend a week at their home so that they could discuss the matter. Rizwanur extracted a promise that Priyanka would be allowed to return in a week. But she did not return. Rizwanur filed a case.

A week later, on September 21, Rizwanur was found dead beside a railway track. He had a deep wound at the back of his head. Despite this, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) concluded that Rizwanur had committed suicide. The CBI also charged Ashok Todi, with abetment to suicide. Rizwanur’s family refused to accept the findings.

Local media challenged the suicide theory. A driver, who was the first to see the dead body, said his train had not hit Rizwanur.

Today, Priyanka is involved in her father’s business, which has a sales turnover of Rs 1900 crore in March, 2021. Browsing online, I couldn’t find out whether or not Priyanka had married again.

Author Sourjya also wrote about the farmers’ agitation in Singur, 39 kms from Calcutta. The Buddhadev Bhattacharjee government had taken away 970 acres of fertile lands belonging to farmers and gave it to the Tatas so that they could build a factory to manufacture Nano cars. The farmers were unhappy because the compensation was poor.

Mamata Banerjee, the leader of the Opposition, sensed an opportunity. She launched the ‘Save Farmland’ movement. In the end, the government had to back down. Since the Tatas had already started constructing the factory, the local people could not use the spoiled land again for farming for a decade.

‘Gangster State’ also shows how Mamata’s Trinamool Congress became a rising force and decimated the CPI(M) behemoth in 2011.

It was a classic case of David knocking down a Goliath. Not surprisingly, all the hoodlums and CPI(M) party workers, sensing the winds blowing against them, immediately joined the Trinamool. No surprise then that the CPI(M) remains a spent force in Bengal today. The BJP has filled this vacuum in the opposition.

What provides authenticity is that Sourjya, a journalist today, was active as a CPI(M) party member from 2004 to 2011. So, there is a semi-autobiographical feel to the story.

This book is a must-read for those who live in Bengal, those who have left, and for outsiders. It gives a picture of how a party can grow manifold, become a millstone around the necks of the people, and destroy the dreams and aspirations of three generations.