Sloganeering - 6

********************************************************************************************************************************

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/thumb/msid-4395738,width-640,resizemode-4/jawaharlal-nehru.jpg

Throughout the 1950s when I was living in AP, I never heard any slogans nor seen any sloganeering mobs. 

That was the decade when Nehru's popularity was at its pinnacle and he was building (give the Devil his due) Free India brick by brick and bridge by dam (including the IIT KGP which became my home soon enough). 

There was this boast that Nehru's Congress would win any election even if the candidate it puts up is a lamp-post.  

This was not true by any means. AP was having a strong Communist presence in our Assembly and we heard the awe-inspiring names of its stalwarts like Puchalapalli Sundaraiah, Chandra Rajeswara Rao, and a young chap with an exotic name Jyoti Basu. And many budding revolutionary poets like 'Sree Sree' (short for Sreerangam Sreenivasa Rao) all of who wrote excellent new poetry and died of starvation.

But they didn't take street processions shouting slogans...they did their job quietly.

The Nehru magic died with him after we got that terrific drubbing from across the Himalayas. And soon enough the CPI split into two much like the uranium nucleus undergoing fission.

http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1962/1101621130_400.jpg

And I left AP and took refuge in Bengal in 1965 when the Congress was still in power though BC Roy died by then, 

http://www.japi.org/june2002/stamp.jpg

leaving his dusty bust perched on a gravel jug in the Lovers Circle at IIT KGP:

http://www.shunya.net/Pictures/NorthIndia/Kharagpur/IIT01.jpg

It was there in 1965 that I saw street-processions led by slogan-shouting bhadralogs. I couldn't make out what it was since I knew no Bengali then but I learned that the most popular slogan:

"Inquilab Jindabad! Jindabad!! Jindabad!!!"

was hardly Bengali.

Pretty soon there was this Hall Employees Union and then IIT Employees Union and then IIT Teachers Association (the last one didn't shout slogans since they felt too shy...they boycotted invigilation though).

By then CPI (Moscow) practically died in Bengal to be replaced with CPI (Marxist) led by Jyoti-da (I was getting to learn the -da and -di and -didi culture of Bengal). 

They were soon overtaken by what we came to know as Naxalites, and inquiries revealed that they sprung up in a remote village called Naksalbari (which has a railway station though may not be then...any railway station would have been blasted as reactionary):

http://images.indianexpress.com/2009/10/m_id_114746_naxals.jpg?w=300

IIT KGP didn't have any Naxalite presence except that some faculty were suddenly shifted to Cal which was under the throes of the so-called CPI (Marxist-Leninist, now Maoist). The bonus we got was that the cream of Cal students shifted to KGP because their parents feared they would be shot dead by the Congress and CPI (M) goons.

Naxalites with dreaded names like Kanu Sanyal and Charu Mazumdar were laid to rest duly and the movement shifted back to AP (!).

While it was going great we read muted slogans like:

"Amar Bari Tomar Bari Naxal Bari!"

and

"China's Chairman is our Chairman"

written up on walls and blackboards.

Even when CPI (M) was in power they didn't desist from street processions and slogans...they became their habitual symbols of power. But the slogans lost all meaning and power, to me at least. Because, the leader would chant a long mantra in Bengali which ended with slogans joined by his followers:

"Kortey Hobey! Deetey Hobey! Cholbe naa! Cholbe naa!! Lal Salam!"

The slogans were just put-up jobs for getting jobs and promotions and maybe votes.

http://ganashakti.com/english/admin/uploads/9f8c7692e9355087a05d1f086400d710.jpg

Sigh! What a fall, my countrymen, from Bande Mataram!

...Posted by Ishani

******************************************************************************************************