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Push towards Extremism?
The arrest of Shiladitya Chowdhury, a farmer who raised some uncomfortable questions at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s rally in Belpahari, is a clear manifestation of a gradually evolving police state. Shiladitya was summarily tagged as “Maoist” for asking an innocuous query on the rising price of fertilisers. It seemed that the close-to-the-bone question of a poor farmer from the poverty-stricken Jhargram area enraged Banerjee.
The arrest of Shiladitya Chowdhury, a farmer who raised some uncomfortable questions at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s rally in Belpahari, is a clear manifestation of a gradually evolving police state. Shiladitya was summarily tagged as “Maoist” for asking an innocuous query on the rising price of fertilisers. It seemed that the close-to-the-bone question of a poor farmer from the poverty-stricken Jhargram area enraged Banerjee.
The allegation against Shiladitya of entering the “high security zone” was preposterous, since our chief minister claims that she is proud to listen to the complaints of the villagers of Jangalmahal and alleges that her Marxist predecessors avoided this interaction in their tenure. In reality, she has made her public meetings into one-sided homilies delivered from the rostrum.
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