Turnout contrast at protests

Two thousand teachers and students took part in a rally on Wednesday to protest the arrest of Jadavpur University teacher Ambikesh Mahapatra while a Trinamul Congress attempt to counter it with one of its own drew barely 150 people.

The participants at the rally organised by Jadavpur University Teachers’ Association (Juta) marched from the university’s central library to Triangular Park, the entire 4km stretch dotted with onlookers.

Mahapatra, who had been beaten up and arrested for circulating an Internet joke on chief minister Mamata Banerjee, joined the rally that started around 4pm. Several former vice-chancellors, such as Ashok Nath Basu of JU and Swapan Pramanik of Vidyasagar University, were also part of the protest march.

“I cannot recollect a rally like this, where teachers of so many institutions have taken part spontaneously,” said Keshab Bhattacharya, a teacher at JU.

The procession by pro-Trinamul teachers started at College Square around 4.30pm. About 150 people walked about half a kilometre to Subodh Mullick Square to condemn the lampooning of the chief minister on the Internet.

“We want to know who instigated Mahapatra to post derogatory content on a social network,” said Debashish Chattapadhya, principal of South Calcutta Law College.

Though the rally by the CPM-backed Juta saw the participation of CPM leaders Sujan Chakrabarty and Anjan Bera and pro-Left teachers’ bodies, the organisers said it was an apolitical protest.

Only posters and banners, and not slogans, were used to take a dig at the government. The participants sang We shall overcome through the one-hour walk.

“We don’t find any qualitative difference between the Left Front and the Mamata government. The issue here is assault on a teacher and his arrest on flimsy grounds. If this government is not restrained, similar harassment might befall us any day,” said Jishnu Dasgupta, a member of West Bengal College and University Teachers Association.

A group of teachers went to Raj Bhavan and submitted a letter to governor M.K. Narayanan’s office, urging him to stop attacks on teachers.

Teacher released: Partha Sarathi Roy, an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research held on April 8 for his alleged role during the Nonadanga protest, was released on bail on Wednesday. “I was at my institute in Kalyani during the Nonadanga eviction,” he said.

The above is from The Telegraph.

We have tried the CPM and its allies for 34 years and know they made a mess of everything from education, finance, industries, business and family relations.

We have had Mamta didi for almost a year now and are looking at the prospects of having her for another four years, truly appalling.

As it looks at present, we in Bengal will have no choice but to go back to the CPM after four years. Form the frying pan to the fire again.

But do we need to do that.

Can't the intellectuals who were in the above procession lead the people of Bengal out of this mess?

I am sure there will be lakhs of people who will support them to get a new government free of CPM & Trinamul hoodlums.