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Kolkata may not be turbo-charged. It may not have Mumbai's hard nose for money or Delhi's political intrigue or Bangalore's grasping modernity. But there is no denying that the 'Dying City' (in Rajiv Gandhi's doomsday words) can put the rest to shame when it comes to fighting for a cause.
There is probably no other city in India where life comes to a standstill because of protest marches against imperialism, the US invasion of Iraq, the Gujarat riots, the destruction of the Babri Masjid, and for all things pro-Cuba and Castro.
In the last few months, though, there has been a marked and welcome change in the kind of causes being championed. The cause is no longer a glamorous geographical location about which the average Kolkatan knows nothing.
The enemy has a familiar face and has come closer home, right into its backyard. And the city has reacted with outrage. First after the gruesome death of Rizwanur Rahman, the Muslim youth who married the daughter of a Hindu industrialist.
And then after Nandigram, where villagers were shot for trying to protect their lands from being annexed for a chemical hub. A bayonet had pricked the city's conscience. The intelligentsia, which had chosen to remain silent on home...