The Chief Minister of West Bengal,in a press conference:
“When I was the Railway Minister once at Farakka I saw a train suddenly fill with water. It had to be dragged out with ropes. The Railway officers told me,Madam,this is a man made flood…”
My 23 years of Railway service,
a lifetime as a Civil Engineer,all gone in vain!
Yesterday she called the extensive flooding of the Ghatal area of Pashchim Medinipur district a ‘man-made flood’. Because Damodar Valley Corporation had released water without consulting the state government. It is a ’crime’,
according to her.
I tweeted back (in Bengali) that if there is heavy rain in the catchment,neither Modiji nor Mamata didi can stop the release of water. If it is stopped the water will simply overtop the dam and come down the river following the laws of nature and cause
floods anyway.
There is no such thing as ‘man-made flood’. By human being can cause a flood or drought to take place.
This is the West Bengal we live in.
Not ‘by human being’ but ‘no human being’. Typo.

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More from @tathagata2

2 Oct
Today is Mohandas Gandhiji’s birth anniversary. I had been re-reading his biography by Louis Fischer over the last few days. In the process I had posed myself a few questions which I have also tried to answer in my own way.
Q. Was Gandhiji a saint or a politician?
A. The two are
completely incompatible. No one can be both. Gandhiji was every inch a politician,though he did have some saintly thoughts (which don’t make him a saint). He made very skilful use of these thoughts,actions and pretensions in furthering his politics.

Q. What do I make of his
basic creed of non-violence?
A. His firm belief in non-violence was based on kindling of the conscience of his tormentors. It would not have worked on anyone who began the process with a CLEAR CONSCIENCE. Examples are Jihadi Islamists like Islamic State or Taliban; Hitler’s SS
Read 13 tweets
30 Sep
Yes,have guts and some more.

Injustice and oppression by the police are nothing new. Police are a law unto themselves. That does not excuse the act,but merely explains it. But their act becomes truly reprehensible when there is political intent behind it.
On 30 October and
2 November 1990 at Ayodhya the selfsame UP Police,under instructions of the Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav,fired live ammunition upon unarmed Kar Sevaks and killed 16, among them two Kothari brothers from my city of Kolkata.
There are many cases for police harassment in
West Bengal for just criticising the state government or Mamata Banerjee. Two very prominent cases were of Ambikesh Mahapatra and Sanmoy Banerjee. Slapping of false cases and pushing into custody are a dime a dozen in the state. I,then 66 and a retired university professor,was
Read 4 tweets
13 Sep
আজকে আমার প্রিয় দুজন বাংলা গদ্যলেখকের একজন সৈয়দ মুজতবা আলীর (১৯০৪-১৯৭৪) জন্মদিন। অন্যজন রাজশেখর বসু। এই অবিস্মরণীয় মানুষটির সঙ্গে কয়েকদিন কাটাবার সৌভাগ্য আমার হয়েছিল। তাঁর সম্বন্ধে কিছু লিখি।
সিলেটের মানুষ, কিন্তু সামান্য কিছুদিন পূর্ব পাকিস্তানে চাকরি করে
ভারতে চলে আসেন। কবিগুরুর পায়ের কাছে বসে লেখাপড়া শিখেছেন। এমন বিশ্বনাগরিক বাংলা সাহিত্যে আর জন্মাননি। ফ্রান্স থেকে বাংলাদেশ পর্যন্ত পটভূমি করে অসাধারণ রম্যরচনা লিখেছেন। আমার প্রিয়তম রচনা ‘দেশে বিদেশে’, ‘চাচা কাহিনী’, ‘ধূপছায়া‘, পঞ্চতন্ত্র।
ওঁর সম্বন্ধে একটি কিংবদন্তী
বলে শেষ করি, সত্যমিথ্যা জানি না। একবার ভোরবেলা সরস্বতী পুজোর দিন। কোনো একটা নদীর ধারে বসে আছেন, পরনে ধুতি, গায়ে কোঁচার খুঁট, টকটকে গৌরবর্ণ চেহারা। এক বৃদ্ধা এসে হঠাৎ বললেন “ঠাকুর, আমার বাড়ির পুজোটা একটু সেরে দেবে ? সকাল থেকে নাতনীটা না খেয়ে বসে আছে, এদিকে
Read 4 tweets
8 Sep
77 years back,in September 1944 Mohandas Gandhi did something upon the advice of Chakravarthy Rajagopalachari (CR) that enormously strengthened Jinnah’s hand and brought about partition of the country and untold suffering for millions.
As soon as the Quit India movement
was announced in August 1942,the British Government put all Congress leaders in jail. But CR was spared because he had opposed the movement. The British released Gandhi from jail in early 1944 because his health was failing. Now CR went to work on him and convinced
him that he should speak to Jinnah with a proposal called the ‘CR formula’ which more or less conceded Pakistan. Gandhi,without a chance to talk to his party colleagues,and purely on the advice of CR alone and guided by his so-called ‘inner voice’ asked Jinnah for talks
Read 6 tweets
18 Aug
Why do the people of India love @narendramodi so? Because he,and Atal Behari Vajpayee before him,made us Indians proud,taught us to hold our heads high,be honest and upstanding,not to pander to any group!
Look at the others! Jawaharlal Nehru,unquestionably the worst we’ve
had,compromised our safety and security by one horrible mistake after another
Also made us a beggar nation. Indira Gandhi JUSTIFIED CORRUPTION before the whole world and paved the way for it by laws like FERA and 97% marginal tax; Rajiv Gandhi did Bofors and Narsimha Rao had to spend his time undoing the damage that Nehru did. Manmohan Singh ran
Read 4 tweets
16 Aug
Around this time today,16th August 1946,Hussein Shaheed Suhrawardy (HSS),last premier of undivided Bengal,was breathing fire at the Calcutta Maidan. The gathering was all ‘peaceful’; but lo and behold,they had all come with lethal weapons! HSS was telling them he had
made sure the police and military will not ‘interfere’. Interfere in what? The crowd knew very well,it had been made known thru word of mouth and newspapers like ‘Morning News’ and pronouncements by leaders like S N Usman,Mayor of Calcutta.
They began to fan out as the
speech was ending. Then began Jinnah’s ‘Direct Action’ aka Great Calcutta Killings. When it ended on 19th August it left an estimated 15,000 dead. No reliable count of casualties,because many dead were pushed into manholes or thrown into canals. Maiming and arson were
Read 6 tweets

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