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| Accused of doublespeak and hypocrisy over the Singur issue, the Students Federation of India (SFI) is hiring professors and eminent Marxist leaders for image makeover for itself and its parent party CPI(M) ruling West Bengal.
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professors with Left leanings are now making a beeline at the SFI public meetings to support land acquisition in Singur. Strangely, this is the same party, which had once opposed the setting up of a Nestle vending machine on the campus on the pretext that it would promote new-economy consumerism culture. |
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Little surprise, SFI's rival All India Students' Association (AISA) of CPI-ML is leaving no stone unturned to take advantage of the former's ideological turnaround.
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According to sources, noted professors like Purushottam Agarwal, Zoya Hasan and Kamal Mitra Chenoy addressed public meetings organised by the SFI last Sunday and spoke at length about the necessity of industrialisation in West Bengal.
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SFI Delhi State Secretary Prasenjit Bose and his wife Albina Shakil, ex-president of JNUSU, came to Periyar hostel at the campus and spoke in support of their comrade, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya.
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Pointing at AISA's criticism of land acquisition in Singur, JNUSU president Dhanajay Tripathi, who belongs to SFI, said, "They utilise all facilities of industrialisation but mourn over setting up of industries. People in Singur are happy. It's only the outsiders who are creating problem. These are all Naxal characteristics. These ultra Left parties take part in elections but don't believe in Constitution and Parliament," he said, adding that best compensation package is being given to farmers in Singur. SFI is the same party, which had protested against the opening of Nescafe outlet inside the campus and demonstrated against the Indo-US nuclear deal.
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"The issue is not about compensation; it is about the principle of diverting prime agricultural land for industrial use," said AISA member Sandeep Singh who is the Secretary of JNUSU. "This is sheer hypocrisy of the mainstream Left party. There is a lot of difference between what they say and what they do. They are virtually kneeling down before the Central Government's liberal economic policies and are supporting both liberalisation and globalisation, at the cost of poor and the downtrodden," he added.
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