This was a requested blogpost.
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Antara, it was not surprising that your parents disliked Jyoti Basu, they were probably devoted to the CPI, which was also part of the Left Front Govt in West Bengal (while Basu was CPM).
If you somehow managed to survive in India the first three decades of your life, it was bound to get infinitely worse after the double whammy of Military Sealift and an instability threat published in a national newspaper in India, both in 2012.
American behaviour would become unbelievable then, the way they would fawn around Indians, trying to please them with the finest privileges the United States had to offer, as if bribery was the only way out of a crisis. They'd also be devising a treatment for Antara that was worse than Auschwitz.
Delhi media honchos had been told that after 2012, taking Antara hostage would be exactly identical to the Iranian US Embassy hostage-taking in 1979, there'd be no change of clothes, no permission to step outside, paltry food but instead of 444 days, it would be an eternal punishment.
Most of Antara's former colleagues and Chetla would thus be furious if Antara tried to eat several meals a day or went out to buy household necessities (she wore older clothes, bought in the noughts) and would keep attacking her health, causing physical injury, inducing long-term ailments and making sure her ailments didn't receive medical attention for over a decade.
The moment Antara tried to break out of the routine, Chetla and Delhi media would scream, "Not fair, that's our entertainment".
They'd approach the Agency for the most advanced torture tactics, those that were not used even against al-Qaeda or the Islamic State, such was Delhi media's hatred for Antara.
Delhi media honchos made great use of the politics of Antara's parents, especially their devotion to Ajoy Mukherjee of 'Bangla Congress', which had co-governed West Bengal with the CPM in two governments, once in 1967 and then in 1969-70.
Ajoy Mukherjee had studied at Tamluk Hamilton High School (Midnapur district), his relatives were close to NS Road, he, too, had exceptional ties to FDR and Gamal Abdel Nasser.
If Ajoy Mukherjee became the third chief minister of West Bengal, it was certain that American capitalism would come under severe attack from the CPI and the CPM.
Once American capitalism came under attack, western defence firms like Northrop would become easy pickings for Bengali Communists, as would be covert weapons design bureaus that firms like Northrop apparently managed.
ii. For that matter, how would you protect the sacrifice and legacy of Khudiram Bose, Ajoy Mukherjee's interpretation of what was Tamluk Hamilton High School would prevail.
Would France be able to protect the legacy of Bengal's freedom fighters from those that wanted to deny them? Any CPI attack on France was an attack on Ferdinand Foch, for Foch had asserted that Austrian technology and scientific knowledge would prevail, that the outcome of WWI was not a definitive moment in world history, that Khudiram Bose stood a chance of being treated with dignity.
However, Foch had not considered/couldn't foresee that the United States would be eternally grateful for South Asian cooperation during the Iranian US Embassy hostage crisis, it was now 46 years of gratitude. In the meantime, the 9/11 attacks of 2001 had become a far-off event, sepia-tinted in merely two decades.
The way American gratitude to South Asia had turned into a global mystery, how much risk could Antara take regarding the aspirational Dhaliwals?
What if Antara got transported to Auschwitz because the United States Govt was still feeling grateful to South Asia, in the midst of strange political realignments?
Given the way Americans voted for Trump, they wouldn't rescind such realignments with South Asia or bring up the Nazi Holocaust or even the War on Terror.
"Most Americans have not even heard of the War on Terror, there was such pressure to please the NRIs."
August 2, 2025.
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