‘Pseudo’ Intellectual Mahasweta Devi and her team of hypocrites declare that they are apolitical. They are not affiliated to any one political party. They are committed to the democratic environment and freedom of speech. Anyone without a political banner can join their movement provided her/his concern about the alleged ongoing left-terror in the state is genuine.
Interesting parallels from an article written under the caption ‘The CIA and the Cultural Cold War Revisited’ by James Petras published in November 1999 in the Monthly Review can be drawn.
The article details how the CIA penetrated and influenced a vast array of cultural organizations during the cold war. Some parts of the article detailing the attitudes of intellectuals funded or promoted by such organizations are furnished below.
“What was particularly bizarre about this collection of CIA-funded intellectuals was …… their pretense that they were disinterested seekers of truth, iconoclastic humanists, freespirited intellectuals, or artists for art’s sake, who counterposed themselves to the corrupted "committed" house "hacks" of the Stalinist apparatus.” (p 2)
( Observe the parrotted allegation of ‘pseudo’ intellectuals taught by “Ananda Bazaar Patrika” that anti-CPI (M) playwrights can’t stage their plays)
“The CIA was especially keen on publishing disillusioned ex-communists like Silone, Koestler, and Gide…… None of these prestigious intellectuals dared to raise any doubts or questions regarding U.S. support of the mass killing in colonial Indochina and Algeria, the witch hunt of U.S. intellectuals or the paramilitary (Ku Klux Klan) lynchings in the southern United States. Such banal concerns would only "play into the hands of the Communists," “(p 3)
(Thespian Bibhash Chakrabarty or Kaushik Sen were once seen sticking to Shri Budhadeb Bhattacharjee like leeches for favours. Afer achieving all what they wanted, they have changed side now. They have certainly added some glamour to the ‘Swajan’ rallies. They did not raise a single voice against Trinamool Congress (TMC)-led Bhumi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee (BUPC) atrocities in Nandigram or one after another Maoist killing of CPI (M) activists in West Medinipur, Purulia and Bankura or thousands of poor people being driven out of their homes into refugee camps for the crime of being CPI (M) supporters. More interestingly, many Naxalite leaders like Purnendu Basu or Dola Sen who are close to Swajan said that such activities should not be condemned too much because that will strengthen the hand of CPI (M).)
“Many prestigious writers, poets, artists, and musicians proclaimed their independence from politics and declared their belief in art for art’s sake. The dogma of the free artist or intellectual, as someone disconnected from political engagement, gained ascendancy and is pervasive to this day.”(p 4)
(Almost all of our ‘Swajan’ intellectuals are saying that they are apolitical because all the political parties are dirty. They are only humanists, and against all form of violence. Democratic movements, according to them, would emerge spontaneously from the masses and without any political hue)
“CIA realized that, in order to undermine the anti-NATO trade unionists and intellectuals, it needed to find (or invent) a Democratic Left to engage in ideological warfare…... The Democratic Left was essentially used to combat the radical left and to provide an ideological gloss on U.S. hegemony in Europe…. Their job was not to question or demand, but to serve the empire in the name of "Western democratic values." (p 5)
(Our ultra-left politicians, along with the Maoists, are undoubtedly doing a good job in denouncing the CPI (M), the former in political and intellectual fields, the latter through the line of annihilation. And all of this is being done for the sake of democracy in this state. Even the Maoists in their pamphlets are exhorting that there is no democratic environment in West Bengal)
This Democratic Left’s anti-CPI (M) rhetorical ejaculations, humanist speeches and proclamations of faith in democratic values and freedom, were a useful ideological cover for the heinous crimes of the Maoist-TMC murderers and their lies and slanders about thousands of cases of rape and infanticide in Nandigram (whereas not a single case was found) and non-development in Lalgarh. If anti-Stalinism was the opium of the Democratic Left during the Cold War, human rights interventionism has the same narcotizing effect today, and deludes contemporary Democratic Leftists.
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