Red Ink Is Not For Defacing

Far from protesting, the state government has decided to go one step further. It has issued a notification amending an act passed in 1976 which had had banned writings on sarkari walls in Calcutta, but allowed the same on walls of private buildings. This week’s amendment extended the ban to walls of all buildings, including boundary walls, all over the state. This means electioneering in Bengal will be minus the usual forceful messages, sarcasm and the hilarious and often scathing depictions of rival candidates. Expectedly, not everyone is happy. Even within the CPI(M), which has been painting the state red all these decades, there are rumblings of opposition to the state government’s going one up on the EC. ‘Defacing’ walls (as the EC puts it) is their inalienable right, feel the politicos. But CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, eager to project a neat and clean Bengal to investors, doesn’t agree. He has asked the police to inform all political parties and candidates about the ban and ensure its enforcement. Those who have already painted their messages and slogans on the walls have a week to clean it up. Violators, warns the notification, could be jailed for six months or fined Rs 1,000.

Buddha says candidates can get their messages across just as effectively through meetings, door-to-door visits and banners. Many of his comrades assert the issue is one of basic democratic rights and not just clean walls. And, they point out, it was the CPI(M) that had vehemently opposed the act three decades ago, terming it ‘draconian’.