Boycott Banga Sammelan (World Bengali Conference) in Toronto

-----------------
PETITION SUMMARY
-----------------
BENGAL IS BLEEDING... Millions of Bengalis living in the Communist state of West Bengal are condemned to a life of economic marginalization, violence, socio-cultural depravation and lawlessness by a pernicious system that thrives on the weaknesses of Indian democracy. Since 1977 the Communist Party of India (Marxist), along with its allies in the Left Front, has manipulated every election held in their corner of India to ghoulish advantage.

Now, the anti-democratic clutches of the CPI(M) partisans have began to mar Bengali consciousness abroad.

As members of responsible Bengali citizenry, it is our duty to safeguard our culture from the vicious influences of the CPI(M).

Hence, we are protesting against the participation of CPIM party members in the upcoming Banga Sammelan 2008 to be held on 4th of July in Toronto.

Please help us in maintaining the sanctity of this erudite gathering.

Please read and sign the petition below.

=======================================================

To
The Management
Prabasi Bengali Cultural Association (PBCA) & North American Bengali Conference (NABC)
Toronto, Canada

Mr/Ms Organizer:

I am writing to express my strong disagreement with PBCA and NABCs actions that are tantamount to laying out the red carpet for those who violate human rights and sustain themselves by electoral manipulation in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal.

We have reliable information that key strategists of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the party that has authored the massacre of innocent villagers in Nandigram in March 2007 and November 2007, have been invited to attend the forthcoming Banga Sammelan 2008 to be held in Toronto, Canada.

The two organizations are aware of the reservations most humanists harbor against the likes of Mr Bose and are postponing the announcement till the last moment when arrangements would have been at too advanced a stage to call off the event. Many would accept the presence of the CPIM polit bureau members as fait accompli.

While we appreciate the goal of PBCA and NABC in networking people of Bengali origin in North America and promoting Bengali culture and heritage for the benefit of the new generation, it is shattering to note the insensitivity shown to the feelings of the oppressed people of West Bengal by inviting to this years event Mr Biman Bose et al, who are related to the Singur and Nandigram massacres.

Culture, as per definition, is cultivated behavior. Unfortunately, in recent times, we are seeing that the Banga Sammelan has degenerated into a platform for US-based cheerleaders of the hated Marxist-Leninist regime back home. This is making an increasingly growing section of Bengali-origin people wonder as to their role in America. A significant question making its rounds among second generation Bengali Americans is: Should we embrace the values in our adopted land, or, are we to become the overseas cadre of the CPI(M)?

Such reactions can only be expected if Communist apparatchiks like Mr Bose are feted at the highest cultural forum of the Bengali people in North America. In the cyber world, it is no secret from us and our children that CPIM polit bureau members are giving personal leadership to a giant system of Leninist oppression. Over the past 30 years, their regime has reduced West Bengal to a basket case economically. Its once proud cultural and intellectual institutions have been thoroughly sovietised. The state of 85 million people is a haven for child traffickers, serial mass murders, drug smugglers and other operators. Bengalis in the United States and Canada cannot feign innocence at all this. News from home, delivered either through the internet and other media and, of course, the good old, accounts of relatives and personal friends, testify to the fact that West Bengal is now a Communist wasteland.

News items and articles on the misdeeds of the CPI(M)-led Left Front regime of West Bengal are all over the Internet. A book, Bengals Night Without End, written by the Delhi-based author and social activist, Udayan Namboodiri, is also available for those who want a detailed insight in the operations of the Communist regime which has ruled West Bengal uninterruptedly since 1977 without losing a single major election. Therefore, it is pointless to recall the murky history here.

However, for the uninitiated miniscule, we are highlighting here a random selection of news items from recent days.

On March 25 this year, The Statesman, which is one of the oldest and leading Indian newspapers, published a report which substantiated the fact that the students front of the CPI(M, the Students Federation of India, was involved in instigating a violent student dispute in the 152-year-old Bengal Engineering and Science University (formerly known as Bengal Engineering College) in Shibpur, Howrah district, near Kolkata. This resulted in much suffering for the students and academia. A week later, the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, a federal institution for training personnel in film techniques named after Bengals famous director, was forced to close down indefinitely following continued protests by cadre of the labour front of the CPI(M), the Centre for Indian Trade Unions. Yet the organizers of reunions at NABC 2008 are nonchalant about the Communists engrossment.

As per an Indian Express report, published on March 13, 2008, 3,429 children were trafficked from their homes in West Bengal during 2007, of which 271 are missing since 2005 and around 66.67 per cent of them are girls.

More recently, The Hindu, published the lurid story based in Nandigram: Three women activists of an outfit leading anti-farmland acquisition drive here on Tuesday alleged they were stripped by CPI(M) cadre for refusing to vote for the Marxists in Sunday's panchayat polls.

But perhaps the committees of PBCA and NABC are not to be distracted by these and countless other reports. But what we would like its patrons and well wishers in US and Canada to know is that by inviting CPIM partisans, they are slighting the very values for which their host countries are associated.

The CPI(M) is the flag bearer of Indian Communism, a movement which is more than 80 years old. The party played a treacherous role during the Freedom Struggle and even sided with the Chinese during the 1962 invasion of India by Maos armies. Its intellectuals have worked through various movements over the past 60 years to distort Indian values and traditions. As a result, Bengali expression in the performing arts, music, literature, journalism and philosophy have suffered. Over the past 30 years of Communist domination, West Bengal has come to be described as Waste Bengal.

The CPI(M) is condemned by all political formations in India, including its allies in the Left Front formation as a party that encourages violence, undermining of the state institutions, electoral manipulations, strangulation of democracy and every form of aspersion to further its hegemony in the three states of India to which its influence is limited. As recently as June 7, Mr Abani Roy, a Member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament, who is drawn from the Revolutionary Socialist Party, wrote in a signed article in the national daily, The Pioneer, that the CPI(M)s cadre carry out rigging of elections and its higher leadership openly lobbies for China. After the horrid bloodbath in Basanti, a village 100 km south of Kolkata, in mid-May, another senior RSP leader, Mr Kshiti Goswami, who is also a minister in West Bengal, said: How can we forget that our workers and supporters were killed by CPM miscreants?

Therefore, we feel that the organizers of the Banga Sammelan must come clean with the unequivocal statement that it is free of Communist influence and intervention. As such, PBCA and NABC have a responsibility to take the necessary actions to prevent CPI(M) miscreants from blemishing the sanctity of this cultural conglomeration.

We earnestly hope that the organizers would join us in a resolution that honors and values dignity and autonomy of the Bengali intelligentsia. If a resolution of intent to embrace and implement these values is ignored, we would proceed to boycott Banga Sammelan, 2008. We look forward to hearing from all well meaning Bengalis who cherish their past that lies in Swami Vivekananda, Rishi Aurobindo, Bamkimchandra Chattopadhyay, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahaman.

If you wish to contact us, please do so by email to [email protected] Unfortunately, we are unable
to disclose our identitiy for the fear of repercussions
by the CPIM cadres.

ATTESTATION
===========

I support the resolution to keep the Banga Sammelan free of political color and condemn the move to invite CPIM party members.