offend the Congress? The' anti-social' the left patties led by the CP(M The Play's The Thing elements who blocked the entrance to in Calcutta and ate said to have the theatre carried Chhatra Parishad and e'd not to "broaden' their Ide Attacks by Congress supporters <>n Youth Congress flags and manhandled movement (where is the movem theatre groups outside Calcutta have the PLT group did not make the slight- save their cadres from attacks by been frequent. though not publicised. est attempt to hide their political affi- fascist" forces. The July 20, police raid on a group call- liation. It is cne step forward, of coune, ed Silhoutte, which used to stage short It is time resolutions passed at such the CP(M) obsession that any' rn IS , and sharp open-air political plays ir\ protest meetings stopped urging the Chief turistic' action would lead to the 'd not· Curzon Park every Saturday, highlighted Minister or Governor or Prime Minister. being banned and t~e I rompts the threat to culture.. One young man or President to redress their gnevances would have to go a team died in the lathi-charge and stampede. and 'punish the guilty'. ground perforce. Now they have than seI About 33 people were arrested. The Chief Minister and . others are loped a touching concern for their of these Stage and )film artistes formed a birds of the same feather and are them- With such ipeople around, Mr main a July 20 Committee and several well" selves guilty of evil policeis. Why Dutt and Mr Mrinal Sen shouldn Obvio known actors and directors staged pro- make people believe that they are above too optimistic about any effective to be a test plays and recited poems in Curzon the pa~ty or government? It is with front. It would be better, perha Park on August 24. In between the their encouragement. indirect or direct. cultiv~te material succe~s, as the The soc Government brought a case against that the system operattes as it does to- does, than go in for the materialist the sen mies" ti Duswapner ,Nagar,i directed and pro- day. and it is a hell of a system. The pretation of history with all the petition-mongering. ,the angui~hed sur- sities it spells. duced by Mr Utpal Dutt. Mr Dutt was prise )at 'poliGe Iaction' a~e naive. to finding it difficult, it is said. to book posh put a charitqble interpretation on them. theatre houses in central and south Cal- A Red Herring The cynical might. however, think that. govern] cutta. So he decided to move north. some of the organisers of these meet- ried pe the home of Bengali theatre. and book- ings are keen to keep any confrontation Reports of searches by tax auth allowin ed the famous. ancient Star Theatre with the rulers on a non-antagonistic of big hauls of gold and jewellery either. for a show on August 26. All the 900 plane. It is this desire to be friends unaccounted money have become have c tickets were sold out in two hours. But with top men or women of the adminis- ring the past few days almost a f capital the Chhatra Parishad and the Youth tration that takes the sting out of their of the daily news bag like the prove But wl Congress went into loud action and did ministerial promises and stories of not allow Dutt and his troupe to per- opposition. in so It is true, as Mr Utpal Dutt pointed dais and corruption. The sudden bigger form. These two organisations of the out at the meeting, that resistance to burst of alertness shown by all still 1'0 Indian National Congress have now de-. the growing attacks on cultmie must guardians of law is certainly most cided to fight it out in Calcutta, not that tl come. BUt (t begs one obviousques anythiJ because they have dev~loped the be part of a general democratic move- What were they doing all not courage of convictions but because ment. But, alas. when one thinks of be years? Smuggling or minting bI they know 'tHat !the administra"; 'democratic movement'- in Wes't Bengal. of a 1 money is no new phenomenon. ButI tion, including the police. is behind one feels like taking to opium grown in how all this was allowed 'to pass right them. fJ'heir patrons would npt mind Turkey. the nose of the authorities and, wo such diversions from the internal splits In Cooch Behar ,there was big even with the connivance of the pol' Po festering the two organisations. trouble between the CRP and students. staff. The shady operators of such What's to be done? Stage and film Many government buildings went up have in the mean time developedall Th, people met at the Academy of Fine Arts in flames. Troops were called out, a cur- expertise and the contacts that e nothiI and passed a resolution or two. The few was imposed. The situation was ex- contn one moved by Mr Utpal Dutt described plosive. In separate clashes between smooth functioning of their busin The Ministet of State for Finance, what the attack on the Star Theatre. assO- the Youth Congress and the CP (M) and ciated with the name of Girish Ghosh, at Mathabhanga. one CP (M) leader K. R. Ganesh, himself has conceded fuse as an attack on Bengali culture. .l-le was stabbed to death. and another, a the smugglers have now set up Last made, however. a rather curious state- former MLA. is in a critical condition. powerful political contacts and have West ment-that he was not prepared to be- The We~t Bengal Government sent two developed a system of tapping the lieve that the raiders were conscious Ministers, both of whom had been re- phones of customs officials to secure politica.l workers-because any conscious turned from '~och Behar. and they telligence about raids. etc. It is ra political worker would know that such were in the funeral procession of the difficult to believe that the autho' OUl an !\Ltack was in violation of what they killed teacher. Our young men. it did not know what exactly was hap Cf! professed to believe and practise under seems, are taken in by these tricks of ing. Bu~ if there were any honest the Constitution. Did Mr Dutt, in his the stage. and they quietened down. cial-a faSt disappearing breed, th accustomed subtle way, want not to Following the Cooch Behat jncidents, -in these departments, he naturally 2 to keep his enthusiasm on leash into the news department of a Calcutta walk on the some sensitive toes. daily to get information about a staff re- Talking About a pretetence of an effort is being porter who wrote a story of how a young to undo all this, And Mr Ganesh girl was kidnapped from Ballygunje sta- Population-I f is thinking of leading a band of tion and raped by some local goondas who rahis before smugglers' residences had "links with the youth front of the ASOK MITRA e auspicious birthday of Mahatma Congress", They became furious when i on October 2. His sense of con- the newsmen present there refused to dis- HOW did they come to have the is certainly appreciable, if only it close the name of the reporter concerned. families they have? L has only ot border on the ridiculous. What Mr Mukherjee and his followers were one child, a son, M a daughter and C Is an all-powerful Minister to head reported to have threatened them of the two. both sons. of peaceful volunteers rather consequences if reports of a similar nature It's curious, said M. you who people send officials into the residences were published in the future. 'the pages (If your paper with at least se people and arrest 'them will re- The, other day a cor- one hilarious child a day, sometimes as. a classic enigma. respondent of the Times of India was ar- many as four, should have imposed such viouslythe searches etc are meant rested in Uttar Pradesh. He had en- rectitude upon yourself in real life. a kind of ploy to dupe the public. raged the police and bureaucrats with What on earth was the matter, L? socialistgovernment is so careful of his reports of atrocities against the Hari- My mother. who died the other day sensibilities of its ••capitalist ene- jans in U.P. particularly in Banda dis- at 90, bore eight children to my father, ••that it has virtually forfeited any trict. The police action has been re- L tumbled out. She brought them up city to do anything against them. peated. This time the editor and printer all, and after them their children. To thepublic just cannot be let into this of a local fortnightly were hounded out' the day of her death she was never . fact.A show has to be put uplthat the of Banda because they had printed two alone, always cared for, looking after emment, while penalising the sal'a- special issues criticising police atrocities in her turn all her grandchildren, either people and the working class is not in the district, One of the two brothers visiting them in their homes or asking 'ng the bigger sharks to go free of the editor was locked up in jail on a them over. She died happy, surround- er. If the reports of such searches murder charge, while the other was char- ed by all of us, never a cloud on.