Kolkata Korner

Civic Sense
Believe it or not, this metropolis never had a town planner since 1947. Onlylast month did those in charge of Kolkata’s upkeep and development take a hardand close look around them to discover the mess this city is in. And realisationdawned on them that we urgently need a town planner. This realisation was in nosmall measure due to Kolkata Municipal Corporation Commissioner AlapanBandopadhyay who, as I said last week, is a sensible man. And also to a lot ofprodding by aid agencies like the DFID, the ADB and US Aid that are fundingvarious projects in the city. Now, a postgraduate in town planning, DipankarSinha, has been appointed the town planner and he has an onerous mandate—toset right the problems created by unregulated and even ludicrous developmentover the past 60 years and frame guidelines for future projects to ensurebalanced and aesthetic growth across the city. As Bandopadhyay said recently,"we (meaning Kolkata’s successive civic bosses, developers, planners andrealtors) have made a mess of the name of development, be it in laying roads,setting up markets or erecting buildings". Kolkata, he rightly warned, willdie of suffocation if this unplanned development is not halted immediately. Allthis is fine, but I can’t help wondering why this realisation (that haphazardand unaesthetic development will choke this city and make it an ugly place)never dawned on all those who’ve presided over Kolkata’s destiny all theseyears. Were they devoid of any common sense? And can, or will, Kolkatans holdthem responsible for failing in their duties?

Foul Fair
Talking about sense, it seems our Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjeedisplays woeful lack of it when it comes to matters concerning the book fair.The fair ended last week, and at the fag end of the event, BuddhadebBhattacharjee visited the fair to announce that in 2008, the fair will be heldat a "better venue". He said he’d be visiting Delhi soon and will take upthe fair venue issue with the appropriate authorities. The hint was loud andclear—he’ll be requesting Defence Minister A.K.Anthony to ask the armyauthorities here to grant permission to hold the fair at the maidan. It beats mewhy the CM cannot understand that the book fair pollutes, and pollutes heavily.If he’s so keen on having a profit-making body (the Booksellers’ &Publishers’ Guild) hold the fair at a large space, why can’t he utilize the12 months’ time from now to the next book fair to create a permanent fairground? The excuse that such a venue cannot be made ready in a year is bunkum.If the state government wants to, it can. It’s just that BuddhadebBhattacharjee has his priorities wrong and won’t listen to or see reason. Tohim, holding the fair at the maidan is of utmost importance, and who cares if itadds dangerously to the pollution levels of this already over-polluted city?

A Suspicious Link
The Chief Minister’s blind support of the Guild cannot but raise questionsabout the reason behind such support. Why does Bhattacharjee stick his neck outfor the Guild, which, as I’ve written many times, is a body of 37-oddpublishers who organize the fair every year and earn crores of Rupees asprofits? Why does the government have to extend all facilities and concessionsto a private, profit-making body? Why does it exempt the Guild from payingmunicipal and other charges, leave alone taxes, when the Guild can easily affordto do so? Is it only because the CM is inclined towards matters literary andbelieves the book fair adds a lot to Kolkata’s intellectual character? Can’tbe. Or is there something more to it? It would be interesting to find out whatthe Guild does with the profits (it made Rs 22 crore last year; this year’sfigures haven’t been released) it makes. Does a portion of that find its wayto the coffers of any political party? Is the money used to fund some politicalactivity? And, is it naïve to believe there’s no quid pro quo involved inthis?

The Mess
And one more thing. What divine right does the Guild have to spoil the maidanor, as in this year, the Salt Lake Stadium grounds? That’s public property,and how can the state government allow a private profit-making body to damagepublic property beyond repair? For, that’s what the Guild did to the stadium.It poured truckloads of sand on the grass in order to soak up the rain water(that had accumulated due to heavy rains just two days before the fair was tostart) and prevent the venue from becoming a muddy mess. But the sand, saystadium authorities now, has killed the grass and will take a long time toremove. It’ll take more time to treat the damaged grounds so that grass growson it again. All these 31 years that it has been holding the book fair at themaidan, the Guild has damaged the maidan. Yet, it remains nonchalant. How canthis body be allowed to get away with this criminal act? In any other country,the Guild would have been sued out of existence. The authorities who allow thiscriminal act to go on year after year would have had to pay out huge sums indamages. But nothing happens here. Just because pretensions of being abook-loving and literary-minded society and city has to be kept up. I can’tjust understand, if Kolkatans love their books so much, why can’t they go tothe bookstores and buy them? There are a few big ones, which store all sorts ofbooks. Surely, the air-conditioned environs of these stores beat the dust andchaos of the book fair grounds!

Playing Politics
The just-concluded students’ union polls in the premier Presidency Collegeprovided another eloquent testimony to the dark deeds of  CPI(M)-affiliatedStudents’ Federation of India (SFI). The students’ union of this190-year-old college (it was set up as Hindoo College in 1817 and renamedPresidency College in 1855) has always remained beyond the reach of the SFI,save for two years, 2001 and 2002. Various students’ bodies, and now aconglomerate of anti-CPI(M) bodies that calls itself the IndependentConsolidation (IC), have been forming the union in the college. This week’selections witnessed unruly incidents, including alleged attempts by the SFI toscare away voters, rig the polls and capture the union (so what’s newanyway?). But their best efforts failed and the IC bagged a majority of theseats. But the SFI couldn’t stomach its rival's victory (naturally, as it hasdisplayed many a time). And it went on a rampage inside the college, beating upIC office-bearers and supporters, gheraoing the principal and demanding are-poll. Till today, a logjam exists in the college. And this is typical of theSFI and its parent party, the CPI(M)—autocratic, high-handed behaviour withscant regard to democratic principles. Incidentally, the students’ union pollswas fought on the plant of the Bengal government’s land acquisition policy.This, perhaps, is the reason why the SFI is finding its defeat so difficult tostomach.

Breaking Convention
Talking about educational institutions, the Calcutta University has decidedto break from its time-honoured convention of not conferring honorary degrees toany politician. A fine policy has been over-turned and the beneficiary would beJyoti Basu. The nonagenarian, we are told, has also always refused such honorarydegrees, turning down many such offers in the past from many universities,including the Jadavpur University. But this time, for reasons we don’t reallyknow, the ailing Basu accepted the offer. The reason, perhaps, lies in therationale trotted out by the Calcutta University Senate for the varsity breakingfrom tradition. The Senate said Basu deserved the honour "for his contributionto national polity and the new direction he gave to Bengal’s overalldevelopment". What was that again? Basu "contribution" to national polityis something few, if any, know about. And as for the "new direction" hesupposedly gave to Bengal’s overall development, one can’t but help notethat it was Basu who presided over Bengal’s decline since the seventies. Was‘downward’ the "new direction" the Senate meant?

Medha’s Charge
But if you thought the Calcutta University was stretching its imagination a bittoo far, wait till you hear what Medha Patkar had to say the other day. Duringthe course of a fiery speech at Singur, Medha drew a link between the TataMotors project she wants scrapped and the Calcutta University conferring adegree on Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi (Doctor of Science, for Prodi is arenowned economist). Tata Motors has tied up with Fiat for its Rupees one lakhcar. And with Fiat being an Italian company, the Italians need to be kept happy;so Calcutta University was asked by the Bengal government to confer this honouron Prodi! I don’t think such statements deserve anything more than contempt,or dismissal.