ABG has been ousted. Their withdrawal will mean that the two berths they used to operate in Haldia will now go back to the days of shovels and manual labour. Productivity in terms of clearance will nosedive. The income of the port authority will plummet. Cargo ships docking into Haldia will need to spend more time to get their cargoes off loaded which will negatively skew the entire cost structure. More time will have to be spent at the sand heads as congestion increases. Shipping companies will be held at ransom by the so-called politically patronized “labour suppliers”. The riverine port system which had given birth to the thriving metropolis of Kolkata with a hinterland larger than many a country in Europe, already dying a slow death by natural silting and socio political apathy will continue towards the inevitable.
With an empty treasury, a debt burden that it cannot service, a central government that has been spurned, any sane state could hardly let such an imbroglio to take place. But sanity is something that is not one of the strengths of the current government and as the raving, ranting and posturing continued, the die was cast, damning the economic fate of the state, yet again.
Even a cursory glance by the most uninitiated in port politics will clearly identify those that stand to economically gain the most from what has happened. It is a sad fact that coincidentally, the two people through the maze of entities and associations who are the clear gainers are closely linked to the ruling party. It is natural that they put their personal vested interests before that of the party and the state. But why did the party allow them to get away with the high murder at high tide in Haldia? Why did the state turn a blind eye to what was transpiring over a reasonable of time – certainly reasonable enough for good governance to reign in the rogue? What political compulsions where there for the Government to commit this hara-kiri? That too, with the kind of a sweeping mandate that, it has ridden to power with?
Ever since the winds of change brought the current government to power the rats that had abandoned the sinking ship of communism have crowded behind the ruling banner. The lumpen have switched loyalties which is natural fallout in the political process. Auto unions have continued with their dreaded ways, albeit under a brand new flag of patronage. “Syndicates” that once flourished and funded the red march have overnight turned green. Sundry goons too have donned their green “super-hero” costumes for survival and growth – that’s pure Darwin and I have no argument against nature taking its course.
What I must point out and I do it for the sake of the state is the curious (callous?) way in which these turncoats and fortune hunters are being embraced by the mainstream, giving them legitimacy and a clean chit to plunder.
Nobody doubts the honesty or the integrity of our leader. Yet, why is the voice of the poor silent when people in power are clearly misusing their positions of influence for pecuniary gains at the cost of the party and the state. People who were so vociferous in their condemnation of the “honest but weak Prime Minister hemmed in by the compulsions of coalition politics” too are strangely silent when Bengal is repeatedly raped. If that was corruption, then is this not an economic offence? At least here there are no such compulsions of keeping coalition partners happy by throwing morsels at them? Are we to believe then that Seth the evil brother of Osiris was ousted only to capture his revenue streams, that too, not by the state but a few well placed individuals?
Is this not a case of “justice crying in the corner”? Will “good governance” continue to be an oxymoron in Bengal even as she is plundered and pillaged? Who gives a damn, come, let’s celebrate the next birth anniversary!