Gopalkrishna Gandhi, the former Governor of Bengal, who visited the UK to celebrate his grandfather Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary spoke about India's recent elections at the House of Lords on May 30, Thursday. Gandhi who was the Governor of Bengal from 2004-09, shared some anecdotes from his years in governance and spoke about how the lack of a strong Opposition led to the recent shift of voters in West Bengal.
Bengal that was ruled by the strong left or CPI(M) party for around three decades, has been entirely wiped off, by the right wing BJP who have claimed 18 seats. Speaking at a gathering hosted by Lord Bhikhu Parekh and CB Patel, Publisher/Editor of Asian Voice, Gandhi said-
“The Left front voters moving to Right has been a phenomenal event in Bengal. It is caused by the lack of large and active Opposition in the last five years and before. If BJP becomes a responsible Opposition in Bengal, it will keep the State government (run by TMC) on alert. However, if BJP as an Opposition wants to be respected in West Bengal, then the BJP in power in Delhi also needs to give the same respect to the Opposition there.”
Answering a question from the audience about Rohingyas migrating to Bengal from Bangladesh allegedly used as a vote bank, he said-
“The arrival of people from what was East Bengal and East Pakistan is not new. It's an epic migration. It has happened over many phases. The latest is the Rohingyas. It cannot be put down to any simple categorisation. It is very simple to say that treat it as a human crisis and do nothing about and leave it to the State government to deal with it....It is this practicality that forced Indira Gandhi to take the steps that she took in 1971…
“It is not something that could be left to Mamata Banerjee alone. Between accusation claims of 'instigation' and 'appeasement', I think it has to come from the Constitution of India and it should be interpreted as the Constitution should be interpreted, without any religion. Citizenship Bill has been opposed by someone like the Chief of Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, who is a member of NDA, and it speaks volume on the stand.”
The event was attended by Lord Meghnad Desai, Lord Ranbir Suri and Baroness Shreela Flather along with other dignitaries. While Gandhi portrayed a very grim picture of India with water crisis, top soil erosion posing threats to agricultural lands, he added that he did not doubt that PM Narendra Modi will come back for a second term but had no clue it would be such a 'torrential success', applauding him for it.
However, he criticised the 'intemperate speech' and 'mushrooming hate speech' during this 17th Lok Sabha election campaign but assured the audience that “India is larger than politics.” While touching upon the issues of education, health, employment and women, he particularly focussed on the deep agrarian crisis and farmers' suicide.
He urged the Prime Minister to address India's drought crisis as the immediate ‘Drought Commissioner’. He added, “Food scarcity and agricultural decay, intensive irrigation and fertilisers, digging borewells suck up the water rain gives to the ground, faster than it replenishes it. That loosens the agricultural top soil...Who is going to be PM or CM are secondary. India has an earth problem and the earth is losing itself. What happened in Kathmandu will happen in northern India in the coming 100 years in a greater velocity. Something can be done to cushion it,” he concluded.
Gandhi also gave a lecture under the auspices of Mahatma Gandhi Foundation at the Nehru Centre and delivered a lecture at an event organised by the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Committee of Hull, before heading back to India.
