All lines are drawn. Photo by Adrien Bruneau on Unsplash

There has not been a time in Bengal’s history, at least in recent memory, like the past two months. The death of young Rizwanur, the violence in Nandigram, the sudden riots against granting residency to Taslima Nasreen — all have created a vortex of socio-political reactions that seem to have shaken up the arrogance of the ruling CPM and mobilised the crowds.

One significant fallout of Bengal’s autumn of discontent is the apparently rising dissent of a large number of Kolkata-based intellectuals. They have always been close to the ruling dispensation but it was they who led a unique peace rally of half a million people on the city’s streets on November 14 — a march without a banner, without the lure of lowly dividends and without any eye on electoral possibilities. Kolkata’s troubled political past makes it no stranger to marches —long and short, vocal and silent, raucous and solemn. But this rally was the first time in modern India that such a huge cast of recognisable public personalities marched against an organised Left party, one that they would otherwise be sympathetic to.

Intellectual activism is not new in Bengal; neither is dissent with a ruling party. However, since the inception of the organised Left movement in the state, the intellectual tradition, once nurtured by the nationalistic Congress had turned predominantly Left. Throughout the span of the Left rule, the CPM has flirted with the Leftist intelligentsia and cultivated them. It had its own bank of embedded intellectuals and it made deep inroads into areas of intellectual activity — education, high academia and culture. The intellectuals and creative people too responded — it was a comfortable relationship.

Upper and upper middle class intelligentsia, because of its own romance with socialism, saw the Left front government as part of a larger cause. If not everyone was collaborative, they were never too critical either. It was an unwritten pact. The pact eventually became a habit when in three decades not one credible alternative emerged in Bengal’s political framework. On its part, the CPM kept the urban intelligentsia happy while reaping a political harvest in the rural hinterland. The intellectual class kept silent on the many transgressions of the left regime.

What happened in Nandigram was not new. Unfortunately for the CPM, it just spilled over into the urban consciousness, rocked the media and stirred public outrage. The media brought images to people’s homes and the new middle classes, already seething over the poor handling of Rizwanur’s tragic death, were disgusted at the sight of CPM cadre shooting helpless villagers. The intelligentsia could no longer pretend nothing was going on. In a Rip-van-Winkle kind of way the intelligentsia woke up from their extended slumber.

But all is not lost. The Left has the support of its traditional intellectual base, not in Kolkata but in other cities, most notably Delhi. Why are they still in the Left’s thrall while the Kolkata crowd has come out on the streets? Distance has something to do with it. Delhi’s Left intellectuals have the vantage of being perched at the towering centres of learning, in think tanks in the media and in other institutions. So they have (with the notable exception of professor Sumit Sarkar) happily issued statements blaming the Trinamul Congress, Maoists and everybody else for the Nandigram massacre — everybody, in short, except the CPM.

Here is the irony then — those who were cheek by jowl with the Left, enjoyed its patronage and turned a blind eye to its excesses have turned against the hand that fed them. It had to happen some day. It has happened now. But the Left intellectuals of Delhi (and to an extent, Mumbai) are so secure in their ivory towers that they refuse to step out to see what the world has seen by now.

But the job of the dissident has only begun. The Taslima issue is no less a cause than Nandigram. It demands a stand and for a Left liberal, that stand is fairly clear. The right of the individual is the overarching cause — a cause that the Left and its intellectual brigade have always fought for. Given that the party and the government have copped out on Taslima, how will the intelligentsia now react?