The high-voltage support from the official Left — the CPI(M) in particular — to the unimpeachable crusader against corruption Anna Hazare reminds one of the Bengali adage, ‘Behave yourself first before telling others to behave.’
The civil society that unflinchingly supports Hazare should spare neither the BJP, which defends Yeddyurappa, nor the CPI(M), which possesses incredibly large tracts of real estate in West Bengal.
The total value of real estate owned by the CPI(M) and its mass fronts at market prices in West Bengal is estimated at Rs5000 crore-plus. The lack of transparency about the financial source of this mammoth real estate possession snaps fingers at the hidden assets of India’s largest Leftist party.
The CPI doesn’t lag behind either. Its state headquarters, Bhupesh Bhavan, named after the ascetic communist and ace parliamentarian Bhupesh Gupta, was built in the early 1990s for the party’s state council free of cost. In return, the promoter constructed and sold 30-plus apartments in half the remaining land. The CPI bought the land at an unbelievably low price from the Calcutta Municipal Corporation.
The high probability of bonhomie between the realtors and immoral party leaders is undeniable. A ‘strictly confidential’ circular (no 32/2007) of CPI(M)’s Kolkata district committee in 2007 read, ‘There are some workers inside the party who use the party’s link for their livelihood and socio-economic gains. They are involved in the sale of land, houses and building materials, filling-up of water bodies, meddling and taking sides in the landlord-tenant disputes and resort to intimidation.’
Those powerful functionaries, it added, ‘create obstruction to setting up of factories, discover grounds for artificial troubles in factories or establishments tendentiously, sacrifice workers’ interests for personal gains, indulge in monetary extortion using the party connection without receipts, set up real estate-promoting business areas by virtue of their positions in party organisational hierarchy or setting up discreetly unethical relations with realtors, illegal occupation of land on the plea of helping local clubs, booze and get drunk in the open and create bonhomie with the police and dreaded anti-socials.’
At the Sarkar Bazar bus stop in east Kolkata is a two-storied centrally air-conditioned building. A discreetly made inquiry reveals that it is owned by the former secretary of a local committee of CPI(M), a sweeper at the West Bengal Surface Transport Corporation, a state government undertaking, set up during the CPI(M)-led Left Front regime. He doesn’t attend most of the days nor undertake a sweeper’s job but is present on pay-days. After the debacle in the Lok Sabha polls in 2009, honchos at MA Bhavan promised an intra-party anti-corruption drive in a tearing hurry albeit in cosmetic fashion. The nouveau riche LC secretary was removed but was catapulted to the status of a zonal committee member as if the honchos didn’t know that he used to part with a share of the booty with the party treasurer and some local biggies.
According to a conservative estimate, the average daily turnover out of extortion of vendors of vegetables, fish, meat and three/four-wheeler carriers thereof was Rs10,000.
The aforesaid is one of dozens of aberrant practice groomed in the party. Criminality of various traits in CPI(M) exists in Kerala too, according to official admission.
The mantle of leadership in the struggle against corruption — as the Anna Hazare crusade teaches — must be with the civil society or human rights bodies and individuals. Official Marxists in conflict with the civil society should note, unlike Lenin, Stalin and Mao, Marx’s emphasis is emancipation of individuals — ‘free individuality’ — the motto of civil society.
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