The Enemy Within

I had once heard of an upcoming politician based in Siliguri, his father used to be a CPI (M) MP and thus, this young leader whose name was Suraj Pathak was rumored to have the so called “links and political clout.” I was then at the University of North Bengal and some of our Gorkhali friends were mercilessly beaten up by local CPI (M) goons who were threatening other Gorkhalis as well… Since I knew some people who knew Mr. Pathak… I got his number and pleaded him to ask his comrades to back off…. Well! I should have known better… Mr. Pathak did nothing… Luckily we managed to solve the problem with the help of some local Bengali friends….. That day I wondered, was this person really that effective as we were made to believe? Today I can say with confidence that, he is nothing more than a mere puppet, a token Gorkhali face… used by the CPI (M) for appeasing over 15 lakh Gorkhalis of the region…

I don’t know how far it is true, but I heard this rumor long time back, that the same Mr. Suraj Pathak was once Reported Against (RA-ed) as he was caught cheating in the exams… Not surprisingly enough, Mr. Suraj Pathak changed his name to Saman Pathak, so that he could be involved in active politics… and involved he is… he is the current MP for Darjeeling Rajya Sabha seat… but even now he is nothing more than a token Gorkhali face… and as a popular music label reads… poor Mr. Pathak still has to follow His Masters Voice….

I have nothing against a person who seeks personal benefit… but I resent someone who goes against his creed or his community to reap personal gains… I could have understood Mr. Pathak supporting CPI (M) for ideological reasons… but ideology he has none… his only concern is himself and his personal wellbeing…  

The Sabhadipati of Siliguri Municipal Corporation Mrs. Mani [Moni] Thapa is another person who is a slur in the name of great Gorkhalis…. She knows no politics; she has no say even in her own party’s workings…. However, she is the so called “Sabhadipati”… if she was a real politician… would she have not reacted when peaceful Gorkhali soldiers were mercilessly beaten up last April by the West Bengal police in  Darjeeling More? Would she not have spoken against the near rape of our woman in Court More? Would she not have sheltered the harmless Gorkhalis students in NBU… when they were mercilessly beaten up and even peed upon by CPI (M) goons in Shivamandir?

The convener of the Left Front for Darjeeling district is a person called Sangdopal Lepcha… a veteran politician or so we are told… I wonder what happened to his politics. When the tide was turning towards Gorkhaland in Siliguri and Dooars, the Left Front needed to appear taking concrete actions for assimilating the Gorkhalis… so instead of Jibesh Sarkar [who was elected as the convener first], the Left Front decided to put another token face… and that token face was Mr. Sangdopal Lepcha….

Trust me… if it was me… I would have thrown the offer right back at these conniving leftists… but loyal as the Gorkhalis are… Mr. Lepcha took up the offer… if he was a politician at all… forget a veteran one at that… wouldn’t he have understood that he was merely being used as a tool?

If tomorrow Ashok Bhattacharjee is able to divide areas in and around Siliguri along ethnic lines… do the likes of Mr. Pathak, Mrs. Thapa and Mr. Lepcha think that they will be even offered the token post that they currently hold? I wonder, when will these “token representatives” understand that once their masters have… used them, abused them to fulfill their goal… they will be thrown away like an old rag doll…

The great Roman philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero once said…. “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within…. A murderer is less to fear… The traitor is the plague... for a traitor rots the soul of a nation”….  

Needless to say, we have traitors galore and it is high time we took notice of these scum of our society….

Balkrishna Narayan
P.S: At times I feel Mr. Madan Tamang could be another such traitor