Congress invades red bastion of Nala

Santanu Saraswati
Nala (Dumka), May 16—A definite streak of tri-color is what was once considered a “sea of red” is not only a clashing color scheme. It also indicates that the red corpuscles of the Left movement are now facing the onslaught of the tri-color virus.
If nothing else, these elections have brought into focus the Congress in an area where it was always on run. What could be termed as the most surprising swing the tri-color flag, till now associated with the domination of the “uncultured cow belt” has become a part of Nala’s political consciousness?
Irrespective of the electoral outcome, the Congress and its think tank can take credit from the fact that today in a changing polity looking for an alternative they are definitely in the contention if not front-runners.
The north Bihar entrepreneurs dominated coal heartland of Dumka-Nala was always sympathetic to the free wheeling economic philosophy of the Congress and its accent on “secularism”.
This was further strengthened by its recent focus on “anti-privatization of insurance sector—which interpreted as a continuous protection to home industry, Gujarat mayhem, where the Hindu fundamentalists killed the minorities and development of the banking sector instead of opening it to the foreign companies, which has come under threat from transitional due to BJP’s new industrial policy.
Surprisingly, even in red bastions like Dalahi on the outskirts of Nala and Bengali-dominated Kundhit, the Congress candidate Simon Marandi has not merely made his presence felt but is also seen as an alternative to the BJP’s autocracy. And the internal tie-up between the CPI and the Congress can make some difference in the forthcoming Lok Sabha by-polls scheduled to be held on May 31.
At the local sweet shop in Dalahi village the talks generally is: “Enough is enough…let’s look after an alternative.” In the main market area of Nala, the Ghosh family members were undivided Communist party workers and sympathizers. They came as refugees in the late Fifties and worked their way up—to become a part of the elite.
The abrasiveness of the CPI at a time when the head of the Ghosh family struggled to establish his business made him turn to the Congress. Today, his educated son and daughter-in-law talk a politics.
What is real reason behind the sudden acceptance of the Congress in a constituency where people have always shunned it? What has to be well understood is the popular perception of the failure of the present political system to cope with the changing nature of polity.
Bisheswar Khan was sent to the State Assembly not as an alternative but as the challenger who was seen as being outside the present “corrupt system” of this newly curved out State. Due to its proximity to Bengal, the CPI here largely lived up to this image as a rebel coupled with this was feeling that the Marxists were moving forward.
Unfortunately, the limits of the system were reached by late 1998. Rebellion, especially in the organized working class, created a situation of demanding rights without duties and sharecropper having got his share of land was assimilated in the new rural bourgeois. His children, who had the benefit of education, spearheaded the revolution.
The focus now shifted to what Khan had not done to satisfy rising ambition rather than what he had been able to do. Good road, round-the-clock supply of electricity, promise for well-developed water supply system are failing to attract the general voters, because Simon has promised to rout out the BJP from this State and helping them to dream a new Dumka parliamentary constituency.
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