The political truth of India.

"In Barddhaman town, a tea seller is going about his business, bantering with customers..." wrote N Sircar. When asked he said that everything is peaceful. "When pushed further, he responds nonchalantly, 'Of course there is violence here. Someone was just murdered 30 minutes from here.' 'The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) has offered to give every household in the panchayat a motorbike if they win it. But they have to win the panchayat here. That's not happening.'" A 'panchayat' is a village council in India, literally a 'group of five', which is supposed to channel government schemes to where they are required. Apparently West Bengal follows the 1973 Panchayat Act while the rest of India follows the 73rd amendment enacted in 1992. "The logic of the system implied that all citizens' access to party and state would be channeled through the panchayat -- effectively requiring total territorial control of West Bengal's villages for large scale policy implementation." Why kill for control of village councils? Because vast amounts of funds for development and for social schemes for the needy are channeled through panchayats which give enormous scope for diverting money to party coffers. Political violence has become ingrained in West Bengal since 1970, wrote A Roychowdhury. When the CPM came to power in the 1970s it distributed land and money to the village poor, most of which went to supporters of the party. This increased number of supporters of the party, and anger in those left out. Political violence has become a norm since then. "To me, panchayats are nothing but centres of empowerment, money, and privileges because most of the central government schemes are given directly to panchayats," said social scientist B Chakrabarty. "Given the fact that employment in rural areas is shrinking every day, so the panchayat is giving people money, privileges, and dignity, making it necessary for people to capture power in the panchayats in order to survive." "Politics of violence has become part of the Bengali psyche now." Political violence is not restricted to Bengal. In UP it has been famous as 'goonda raj', in that every party inducts violent criminals to fight criminals of other parties. Having encouraged criminals to become politicians you have to give similar powers to the police to control public anger. While criminals are used to fight criminals of other parties the police are used to beat up ordinary citizens protesting against government diktat. The BJP district secretary in Bengal asked Sircar, "Are you a good person?" And then said, "I can tell you are. I'm not. I'm a very bad person. Good people don't win elections." That includes all politicians.