Political vendetta and prejudice

-Kajal Chatterjee
Bengal — the latest “hotel topic” in national sphere right from Centre to media!  If the sorry picture of rest of India gets cleverly swept under the carpet and all focus get directed towards the state of affairs in Bengal by the Who’s Who of BJP, Central Government, biased section of the media and vested interests; naturally Bengal would come in centre stage!
Political killings! Be it in Kerala or Odisha — political killings are rampant!
As far as medical field is concerned, physical assault on doctors is an all-India, even international phenomenon with such incidents also reported from Pakistan to China to USA.  None other than Indian Medical Association had reported that 75% of Indian doctors have experienced physical assault at workplace in 2017!
More than 100 children  have died in Bihar due to encephalitis within a few days. Had it happened in Bengal! Centre to national media would have taunted and abused Bengal and Mamata Banerjee in most vulgar fashion possible  projecting “collapse of medical infrastructure” in the state!
During the last 5 years, Haryana to Karnataka,  Gujarat to Assam(specially the BJP-ruled/influenced states) had seen how absolute innocents been cold-bloodedly murdered in the name of “Gomata”, intellectuals to journalists shot to death for protesting against communalism. Less said about the atrocities on Dalits or spate of “honour killings” the better!
Immediately after the start of the second innings of “Good Days”; cow-related  lynchings have been witnessed in Madhya Pradesh, a poor Muslim has been shot at Bihar’s Begusarai with the diktat of “Go to Pakistan”, a youth iön Haryana has been beaten up for wearing skull cap! While a Hindu Doctor somehow escaped the wrath of the “nationalists” in New Delhi(who gheraoed him) by uttering “Jai Sri Ram” as demanded,  no such luck for a group of Muslims in Assam’s Barpeta who have been severely thrashed for refusing to bow down to their diktat.
Not to forget arrest of Jitrai Hansda(professor cum drama personality) in Jamshedpur for his protest against  infringement on dietary rights of tribals(beef) through a Facebook message posted as many as two years ago! What about detention of journalist Prashant Kanojia in Uttar Pradesh for a mere tweet deemed “objectionable” to some high profile person!
And saffron-led Uttar Pradesh — land of the BJP “stalwarts” and hosting the Lok Sabha constituency of none other than the Prime Minister! Not a single day passes when gang rape, torture on minor girls to Dalits to minorities don’t take place there!
Yet neither to UP nor to the other states Centre ask for any sort of report despite series of scandals failure and violence!  Also media(a large section) do not make it Centre piece of news unlike the happenings in Bengal!
If this selectime  portrayal  of one and only Bengal in bad light where “democracy has got throttled” is not a bizarre specimen of political vendetta, if this is not biased journalism; then what it is! It is high time BJP-led Centre learn to act liberal enough to view all states, irrespective of the colour of the local regime in an absolutely equal footing because Central Governance should reside above all norms of petty parochialism and political bickering. And a large section of the media should also learn to exercise their neutrality instead of acting biased and prejudiced in favour or opposed to any political party/state.
The writer is based in Kolkata