The recent incident of vandalizing Swami Vivekananda‘ statue at Birbhum district in West Bengal calls for serious introspection. It is extremely unfortunate that the miscreants broke the statue’s nose and fingers and placed a heavy stone on its head.
This isn’t something which the nation is going to be proud of. The statue, installed above a ten-foot pedestal, was unveiled a few years back by a local club.
Anyhow, this isn’t the first case of such a barbaric act, showing utter disrespect to the icons. On this Independence Day, a statue of Jawaharlal Nehru was vandalised in Kulti.
Another statue of Nehru was vandalized in Burdwan’s Katwa earlier this year. In fact, in another instance, a bust of Jana Sangh founder Shyamaprasad Mookherjee was vandalised by left-wing student activists from Kolkata’s Jadavpur University.
Such incidents in West Bengal have become part and parcel of the society, which is shameful as well as embarrassing in the bigger context.
Even a decade back, such incidents were not common in Bengal. It never implies that there was no specific mode to show dissent. But right now, the political mood in Bengal is very different considering various parameters.
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On one hand, ruling TMC is in a mood to dominate all possible spheres of life in the state and the party is agonizingly busy in minority appeasing. CPM, on the other hand, wants to give one last attempt before fading away from Bengal politics.
BJP has gained much self-belief from Panchayat Election results and thus they are making no stones unturned to have a grip on a political sphere in Bengal.
This has resulted in a cheap brand of Politics in Bengal. All the political parties are now busy in shaming the political and cultural icons. The rural domain of Bengal is polarized on various issues and the case of vandalizing Swami Vivekananda’ statue is yet another instance of such.
The most embarrassing part is, previously Bengal was the cultural center of Bengal where the Bengal Renaissance showcased the whole India and shaped up national intelligentsia. But the present Bengal of politics and unemployment has lost its moral values and thus such shameful incidents have become so common.
