The Hindu : Back to rallies

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 28, 2003

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Other States - West Bengal

Back to rallies

By Malabika Bhattacharya

KOLKATA MARCH 27. After several weeks of relative placidity, Kolkata now appears to be back to its familiar chaotic self, thanks to a plethora of rallies, demonstrations, road blockades and effigy burnings over various issues.

Hardly a day passes without the city reverberating with cries of demonstrations or processions by political workers and activists of various groups.

On Wednesday, lawyers, responding to a call given by the State Bar Council, assembled at the Esplanade in downtown, throwing the peak-hour traffic out of gear. The sit-in was meant to force the Government to recast the recently increased court fee. There had been a bitter stand-off between the Government and lawyers for nearly three months sometime ago.

Another crisis that affected the city was the closure of a large number of petrol pumps for the last 48 hours. A large number of dealers responded to the protest strike by the employees of the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited against the proposed privatisation.

On Tuesday the city's drug stores were closed as part of a national campaign against the proposed imposition of value added tax (VAT) and introduction of entry tax in the State budget.

Anti-war rallies

To cap it all, three rallies were taken out by political parties to protest the United States'-led attack on Iraq. Cutting across political affiliations, legislators marched to the American Centre.

Since the war is the topic of the moment, political parties are working overtime to sponsor events to express solidarity with Iraq.

For many old-timers the present times are reminiscent of the Vietnam days when the city would be in ferment while condemning the U.S. A measure of the pro-Iraq mood can be had from the decision of a large number of Jadavpur University teachers, scholars and students to boycott the American Centre till the invasion ends.

Predictably, the largest event has been planned by the ruling leftists. The Students Federation of India (SFI) has called a day-long strike tomorrow. This will result in closure of all educational institutions.

The Left Front chairman, Biman Bose, has been criss-crossing the State to lend support to structuring anti-war programmes. He is set to bring out a "mother of all rallies" on March 30.

There are day-long traffic snarls, with the movement of vehicles and pedestrian traffic considerably slowing down due to construction of flyovers, bridges and widening of arteries, but the people seem to be stoically bearing with the inconvenience.

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