Does Santosh Mohan Dev deserve to win Silchar Lok Sabha Constituency?

Answer is no. You might have already started smelling a rat here. Let me assure you that’s not the case, I am not biased nor I am prejudiced. I would try to explain my point through this essay. To give you a brief idea about the person - Santosh Mohan Dev has been elected eight times as a Member of Parliament, of that seven times he has been elected from his home turf Silchar. He has held various portfolios and ministries of Govt. of India. His political affiliation is with Indian National Congress. You may like to visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santosh_Mohan_Dev for more information about him.

You might be thinking why I have picked up Mr. Dev of all Indian politicians. Well, I have a small connection and a common interest - both of us are from Silchar, Assam. In order to understand his success, we need to understand the people of Silchar. Silchar is in one of the remotest part of India. It is in the southern most part of Assam - not easily reachable by land route. It will not be exaggerated if I say Silchar would appear in the list of the most backward urban areas of India. Most of the population of this place is immigrants from the present day Bangladesh. Immigration has taken place through the decades. Probably it got started with the division of India, it got accelerated with 1971 Bangladesh liberation and followed by next two to three decades. That’s the story of majority Hindus, here the marginally minority Muslims are original sons of the soil.

People of Silchar are predominantly Sylheti, for most of the people the roots are in the Sylhet district of Bangladesh. They take lot of pride in themselves; they are good at Mathematics and English and consider themselves as intelligentsia. Every year some 10 to 20 students would make into the local Engineering College or to the Medical College or may be 1 or 2 students would come in the top ten in the 10th or 12th state examination. This further deepens their faith in the abilities of the people of Silchar. At the heights of discussions, the most intelligent one would prove the point that they are probably the most aggressive, intelligent and smart people in India and rest would say 'Aye'. Now with economic development of rest of India, every year a handful of local youths ventures out of the region to join the mainstream India in the bigger cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata etc. While most of them keep struggling in the rat race of corporate competition, some of them make relatively better living. Back home most of them are heroes and again vindicates the faith and belief of their elderly generation in the supremacy of the Sylheti people.

Now, in actual, how the life looks like in Silchar? All that I stated above is possible because people hardly have any work and the most enjoyable pastime there is socio-political discussions. Average office goers hardly work more than four hours a day. Lot of people is actually jobless. The whole city is full of mom and pop shops - on each street and the corners. So, Government jobs followed by the mom & pop shops are the major bread earner for the average people. Silchar has its celebrities too i.e. their doctors or the physicians and their families. They are the high earning group people and they get their share of privilege at every step of their life. A new category of private sector white collared job is Medical Representative. Silchar has probably one of the highest density of medical shops and probably the patients too.

Now how all these and Mr. Santosh Mohan Dev gets related? Well, the answer is it is the Mr. Santosh Mohan Dev who made Silchar to retain this form for past 10, 20, 30 years and the city would remain the same probably for another half a century. Silchar is not easily accessible, till this date it is not connected through broad gauge rail lines because the project never received the blessings of Mr. Dev. He is the Central Heavy Industries Minister but Silchar never got an industry during his tenure where masses could be employed. For long time he was Steel Minister but Silchar never got any thing. Well, it’s not correct completely though - he got highly publicized jobs for handful B.E. engineers in SAIL. He was the Central Minister for Tele-Communication - digital connectivity of Silchar is still pathetic. He was the Central minister for Home Affairs - most of the local goons grew up under his blessings and they continue to grow till this date.

Another great characteristic of people of Silchar, that I forgot to mention earlier, among them they prove their supremacy by proving the point that how close he is to Rana Dev, that’s how Mr. Dev is locally known. It’s a matter of prestige that one had been to Ranada's place or to his daughter's wedding. There are whole bunch of corrupt government officials and businessmen who become millionaires just by being close associate of Mr. Santosh Mohan Dev. And they in turn further spread out the stories of power and strengths of Ranada and have their own followers. For others, these officials and businessmen are the only way to reach to Rana Dev to take special care of their vested interest.

The success of Mr. Santosh Mohan Dev is his ability to retain this fabric of the society for the decades and their lies the roots of his success. Some of you may be thinking how it is different than rest of India. Difference is there is no challenger of Mr Santhosh Mohan Dev in Silchar, every one out there is a great follower of Mr. Rana Dev.