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Does Corruption makes the 'C' in the party name ?
Subir Bhaumik Former BBC Correspondant
Subir Bhaumik Former BBC Correspondant
PHOTO : Tripura CM Nripen Chakrabarty funeral procession at Agartala.(inset Manik Sarkar) File Photo
I belong to the left generation. When we were students, Che Guevera and Mao fired our imagination, not Bill Gates . Locally, we idolised the likes of Nripen Chakrabarty , Benoy Chowdhury and Promode Dasgupta of CPI(M) , Asoke Ghose and Chitta Bose of Forward Bloc , Makhan Pal of RSP and countless others for whom the party and the movement was wife and mother , temple and heaven . I have been personal witness to their simple lifestyles .
I still vividly remember a headline in a Hindi daily newspaper about Nripen Chakrabarty. "Mukhyamantri ko milne gaye to Kapra do rahe the" ( CM was washing clothes when I went to meet him).
The Nai Dunia delhi bureau chief had gone to meet the revered Nripen da and found the chief minister was washing clothes , so asked the journalist to wait for a while until he finished.
Tripura's current chief minister Manik Sarkar is a product of the Nripen Chakrabarty school . The stalwart took Sarkar under his wings as a young college student and built him up as an apparatchik , running a party office under his stewardship with some efficiency. But unlike Chakrabarty who exercised strong control over the lifestyle of his colleagues , Sarkar seems to be losing control over a party now plagued with corruption. Nothing symbolises the prevailing corruption in the party any better than a local functionary in an Agartala outskirt rolling over a sea of currency notes to bask in the glory of his ill gotten wealth. Even bourgeoisie party activists who make money on the sly will not attempt such a brazen worship of Mammon -- they will prefer keeping their ill gotten wealth safely locked up in faraway Switzerland if not in some of our own safe havens. When a pidly local party functionary dares a roll-over-cash selfie and that goes viral on the Net and TV channels, the CPI(M) should stand alarmed. This is not a problem that can be wished away by the dismissal of the errant functionary. Corruption has eaten into the vitals of the cash-rich Communist Party and influenced lifestyles of a new generation of cadres who know more about investment in Calcutta real estate, stock markets or even put their money in some business in Bangladesh than about Marx, Lenin or Mao.
I am not suggesting the bourgeoisie Opposition parties are any better -- we caught a glimpse of their corruption during the brief coalition interlude in 1988-93 phase. But how can expect Communist cadre so brazen in flagging his ill gotten wealth than he fancies selfies as he rolls over his stash of currency notes ! The question I would seek to raise with the party leadership and the 'clean' chief minister is whether the CPI(M) in Tripura has undertaken any formal drive against corruption , any sudhikoron ( rectification) to purge corrupt cadres and leaders. Generally when the CPI(M) in West Bengal would launch such drives, they would do it with some fanfare and publicity . We have not heard of any such development in Tripura. The absence of Opposition has made the party so complacent and the leaders have started believing in their power until kingdom comes that they are not worried about controlling corruption and keeping the party clean.
Far from it. Rather we see a whole host of scams bursting forth on the stage . Though some lesser functionaries , administrative or political, seem to be implicated initially, there is no doubt the tentancles of this corruption goes to the top. Widespread corruption cannot sustain unless the top is corrupt and pandering.
Once Nripen Chakrabarty took to task a senior minister for carrying comfort pillows in his official car . He wanted to impose his spartan lifestyle on everyone. The fact that the late leader only found no takers is evident from the rising expenditure of the current Chief Minister's household. Someone had talked about the heavy sums needed to keep Gandhi in poverty. Times have changed and the Chinese Communist Party has accepted the 'decisive role of the market' in its last plenary. The evidence of mounting corruption in China, where an intelligence chief is found to have lived in a 44-mansion house with 42 mistress , is appalling and seemingly rubbing on to the comrades in far-off tiny Tripura.
Since this is the only state run by the Left now, the pressure of generating funds to run the party nationally may be weighing on the comrades in Tripura. And as they say, line your own pockets when you fill up the party coffers.
(Mr. Subir Bhaumik is a veteran journalist, former BBC correspondant and author of two well acclaimed books ‘Insurgent Crossfire’ and ‘Troubled Periphery’ )
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