Birthday wish for Shri Somnath Chatterjee

Shri Somnath Chatterjee, one of the veteran politicians of India and South Asia celebrated his 80th birthday on Friday (July 25, 2008) last, in an exceptional way. At the age of eighty he was not wished by his old fellows and comrades, for many causes Mr. Chatterjee was very close to them at least for 40 years.

It should be mentioned that, only three days before Shri Somnath Chatterjee was a beloved comrade, experience advisor and personal friend of many leaders, workers and supporters of CPI (M). What a cruel behavior it is!

Politics is more a power game than a noble commitment to the people, if it is spelled by any human being, politicians must say that it is an activity of de-politicisation. It is an anti-people concept and of course reactionary one. But questions could be raised that a progressive comrade of yesterday how becomes a reactionary enemy today? Answer could be that the concern people is a traitor or has done any heinous action which is against state, people, society or humanity. If not so, why and how a person could be abandoned by friends and comrades? Only for the difference in opinion a friend could be a foe? Probably it is possible in power game. Which is a bad experienced in the political arena of India, Bangladesh and also in the region of South Asia.

In the history of the left politics of India and Bangladesh, there is a long tradition of party breaking and splitting in several parts, though all of the splits were of the claim that they are the mainstream in terms of ideology and organisations. And of course every split was the victim of hatred by others.

As of a book written by Comrade Azizul Haq of West Bengal, ‘the memoirs on the 18 years of imprisonment’ he was expelled by two of the splits of the party he belongs to, when the party was involved in the process of fragmentation.

Comrade Ahasaf Uddin, a left legend of Bangladesh, who has passed away before a decade, told that when he was in under ground life, his party was in the process of splitting. He and few other comrades were living in a rental house together and those comrades were not in his line of thinking. Comrade Ahasaf Uddin was expelled with the charges of misappropriation of cutleries.

It should be said that those people are involved in left or any radical politics have very much love for people in to his heart, have extreme hate to those are not in the line of their thought and of course they have a blindly convinced political philosophy. As a result most of the comrades started to think that beyond his line of thinking no one could be a good man. Shri Somnath Chatterjee, Comrade Azizul Haq and Ahasaf Uddin and many more comrades of South Asia, are the victim of party-line revulsion.

It was my personal expectation to the CPM leadership that, as they are not involved in a extra constitutional politics for revolution, if Shri Somnath Chatterjee acted against party line, he could be expelled, should not abandoned personally. As a man in his eighties he crossed many examinations of gluttony and greed. He spends 40 years of life for the cause of party and people.

As news reports published in Bangladesh quoting Indian media organisation that old fellows didn’t greet Somnath Chatterjee on his birthday, it was a personal painful experience for me as I have experienced many splitting process of left party in Bangladesh and saw many compatriots roaming around as victims of the party-line revulsion.

Personally I would like to greet the old, wise and experience politician on his birth anniversary. Wish you a very happy, healthy and active long life for you.

By Kazi Mohoshin Al Abbas

The author of this article is a senior journalist based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, who writes for various news organisations across the world. His special focus area is in the domain of socio-political developments in Bangladesh, India and South Asia as a whole.