The election campaign in West Bengal has turned out
to be a slanging match. Look to your left or even to your right, it is the same
mud-slinging which is having its day. The content of the campaign has been
taken over by allegations and counter-allegations, that too in words matching
those erupting from the gutter. Even the commentators and the civil society are
so polarised that the civility in the society has been replaced by vulgar
expression of might. The irony is that this is the same Bengal which was once
considered to be citadel of civility and cultural conformation.
Over the past few weeks, I spent some time to be a
mute observer of what’s going around only to make an effort to get to the truth
behind the cumulative decadence in values that is gulping Bengal. Though not
sure if I have managed to do so, but prima facie it seems that the sharp
accusations are a function of the expansion of the sample space of the
stakeholders.
The patron-client relationship which is the
mainstay of any political formation is now utilised to its optimum level and
even beyond for the sake of distribution and redistribution of favours. In the
process what they are missing out is that there is enough redistribution of
favour but not adequate generation of resources. Majority of those who are
pawns in the process of socio-political polarisation and degeneration are
actually the stakeholders. Since their level of engagement with the stakes and
dependence over them have increased with every passing day, these pawns are
shouting their lungs out and often resorting to other vitriolic and vulgar means
to maintain their positions of prominence and privilege.
Often the media is the favourite punching bag of
every evil that engulfs the society. However unfortunate and unfair it may
sound, but in this case, the media has also emerged as a powerful stakeholder
with serious contention in rendering the politics of the land murky. The out of
proportion media explosion has created a workforce who are inept with their
knowledge, expertise, experience and insight to deal with the sharp divisions
that are manifesting a fractured polity. Conventionally being the mirror of the
society, the media with its inadequacies is actually projecting a rapturously
vulgar imagery of an already broken state.
Historically, the civil society was considered to
be an intermediary between the state and the individual. That’s how the civil
society oiled the wheels of capitalism for generations. The trade unions, the
pressure groups, the intelligentsia, the media – they all are well-orchestrated
tools of capitalism to contain systemic discontent. When the
allegiance of the civil society shifts from the objective of sustenance of the
social system and is fractured between warring factions it is the society which
turns out to be the ultimate looser.
So whatever be the outcome on the 19th of May, it
is Bengal and the Bengalis who are the real losers. The decadence and the
depletion in the values, lexicon, civility, reverence and imagery are gradually
turning out to be irreversible. It seems that in the folly of political one-upmanship
not many are bothered about the moralistic degradation.
Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay is a journalist and media consultant.
He can be contacted at tirthankarb@hotmail.com
All comments are personal.
