Change in West Bengal : Diagnosis and Prognosis

Change in West Bengal: Diagnosis and Prognosis

Nidhu Bhusan Das



Is West Bengal poised for a change for the better? Is a socio-economic rejuvenation in the offing? These are the questions agitating every critical and curious mind in the state even as a political change is underway. On the political front, the opposition and those who feel they have been in a claustrophobic situation under a virtual dictatorial regime see a new horizon emerging with hope. Those who believe there has been enough of democracy and a lot of progressive measures benefiting the common people since the regime change in 1977 apprehend bad days are ahead in case the present regime is thrown out in the 2011 Assembly elections.

What has led to the change underway? The trend for change is loud and clear – maybe cataclysmic in the sense that after the resounding victory of the Left Front in the in the Assembly polls in 2006 a sudden reversal set in and the 235 -30 arithmetic started to work the other way round. Ms Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress (grassroots congress) resurrected from a moribund state in the wake of the dismal showing (won only 30 seats against 235 of the Left Front) in the Assembly polls. The events of Singur and Nandigram were the immediate cause for the reversal. Mamata won the public trust and emerged redoubtable leading the resistance of the rural folks against atrocious measures of the government.

Now, the Marxists in the state after about three decades and a half are most likely to be voted out in 2011.They romped to power in the eastern Indian state in 1977 riding the Janata wave raised by Jayprakash Narayan against the Emergency of Mrs. Indira Gandhi which brought the first non-congress government at the centre of the largest democracy of the world.Janata experiment soon failed and in the mid-term polls to the Lok Sabha (the lower house of Indian parliament) Congress under Mrs. Gandhi returned to power in 1980.Marxists remained secured on the saddle of West Bengal politicizing the bureaucracy, the institutions and even social relations. In the process they monopolized power. What the former Governor of the state Mr. Gopal Krishna Gandhi on 9 November 2007 in a press release from Kolkata Raj Bhavan termed ' territorial assertion' and consequent intimidation in Nandigram of East Midnapore is perceived to be true of the whole of West Bengal. It helped establish the Marxist fiefdom in the state and the results of elections to different bodies including the state Legislative Assembly seemed to be foregone conclusions for a long time till the panchayet polls after Singur - Nandigram episode which catapulted Mamata and her Trinamool Congress to the centre stage of state politics as Ms Banerjee with her rebel and good Samaritan image could knock on the mass psyche and inspire people to fight against the totalitarian-like dispensation of the left under CPI-M.

The lone voice of sustained protest against the ' misrule ' of the Left Front led by the Marxists (CPI-M) has been of Ms Banerjee, their albatross, and is the catalyst for the political change. She came of a humble family of Kolkata and does not have political pedigree like many leaders in South Asia e.g., Aung Sang Suu Kye of Myanmar, Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, late Benajir Bhutto of Pakistan.
She started her political career with Congress (I) in 1970s and soon came to be a firebrand leader with rebel image which the people of Bengal nourish and worship as found in the case of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.Mamata's popularity is unparalleled. She won it through her relentless struggle against injustice coupled with her clean image. Her life style is simple and she speaks the language of the people and her rhetoric consists in the intonation, pitch and nuances that mark her articulation. After a series of ups and downs, Mamata appears to be steps away from the Writers' Buildings, the seat of West Bengal Government. Her parent party, Indian National Congress, reasserts that she is the leader of their opposition alliance going to the polls to unseat the Left Front. Meanwhile, a couple of ministers, including the Industries Minister Nirupam Sen,while speaking at the Assembly sessions, appeared to have sounded valedictory notes, reported leading Kalkata dailies.

Mamata began her legislative career winning against Marxist stalwart Somnath Chatterjee at Jadavpur (Kolkata) Lok Sabha constituency in 1984 and became one of India's youngest parliamentarians ever. She lost her seat in 1989 in an anti -Congress wave. She returned to the parliament in 1991 winning the South Kolkata constituency which she retains till to-day with waxing popularity for selfless service, a rare phenomenon in Indian politics now. She boosted her rebel image resigning ministership more than once and could not remain with the Congress which could not go with her all - out offensive against the left ‘misrule’.

In 1996, Mamata alleged Congress was behaving like a stooge of the CPI-M in West Bengal and broke away from it the next year to form All India Trinamool Congress which quickly emerged as the primary opposition to the long-standing Left Front government in the state. Her party won nine Lok Sabha seats in the next general elections, a spectacular performance. In 1999 she joined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and became the Railways Minister. She walked out of NDA in 2001 and allied with Congress for the state Assembly elections amidst speculation that the alliance could unseat the Left Front.However, this move failed to yield result.

She returned to NDA and the cabinet in January 2004. In the general elections the same year her
party could retain only one parliamentary seat which she won. This was a major setback for the party.Trinamool’s bad patch continued when the party in 2005 lost the control of Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the next year its strength in the state Assembly decreased to 30,less than half the seats they had won in 2001.Fortune began to smile upon her after Singur – Nandigram and Trinamool Congress has now the winning streak.

Mamata’s political career graph began to rise again in 2006 when the Left Front Government ignored the fact that an edge of only one percent vote helped them win 235 Assembly seats, and embarked on an aggressive industrialization policy. The programme for massive acquisition of farmland for proposed industrial projects against the will of farmers and the main opposition turned the tables on the Left Front government. Back in October 2005, Mamata protested against the industrialization policy of the government. They vehemently opposed the acquisition of farmland at Howrah and other places including Nandigram for Indonesia-based Salim Group who ,claimed the government, pledged a large investment in West Bengal. The protest continued in Singur where for Tata Nano Car project fertile farmland was acquired forcibly without consent of the owners and share-croppers who were subjected to police atrocities. Renowned social activist of Narmada Movement fame Medha Patkar also supported the agitating farmers and share-croppers of Singur.Mamata went for a prolonged hunger strike against the acquisition bid at Dharmatola, Kolkata.

In the process a coalition of different sections of the people, including the intellectuals emerged against the steam rolling policy of the government. The government failed to win the support of the people for its industrialization progamme because during the long rule of the Left Front traditional industry in the state nosedived, many shutters were downed following the aggressive trade unionism of the left, precisely CITU, the trade union arm of CPI-M.Besides, it was this government which barred the entry of IT in the state for a long time.

Without taking the opposition into confidence and winning popular support the government proceeded with its plan to acquire land in Nandigram for a chemical hub supposed to be set up by the Salim Group and the people of the country saw the atrocities of the police on the people unwilling to part with their agricultural land for a hazardous and ecologically perilous industrial project. On 14 March 2007 the powerful police of the state government shot dead 14 villagers who were against land acquisition for the chemical hub. What the Governor of the state Mr. Gandhi said in anguish on the incident in his immediate reaction in a statement brings out the unnecessary cruelty meted out to the people :’ The news of deaths by police firing in Nandigram this morning has filled me with a sense of horror. The thought in my mind – and all sensitive people now is – ‘Was this spilling of human blood not avoidable? What is the public purpose served by the use of force that we have witnessed today?’ The Nandigram atrocities alienated the left from the intellectuals of the state who came out into the open and marched in Kolkata for peace. Subsequently a large section of them called for political change through ballots. Litterateur of international fame Mahasweta Devi, a number of thepsians,poets,film makers and stars of undisputable merit are now on the side of Mamata.Evidently, the process of change has set in.

Allegations of police excesses and highhandedness in the state against people who dare go against the wishes of the left-in-the-cradle-of-power are many. Chief Minister Mr. Buddhadev Bhattacharyya is also the Police Minister of the state. His police once dragged Mamata out of the Writers’ Buildings and prevented her from entering Singur when they were in atrocious action against the villagers, and dragged Medha Patkar out as she was among the helpless villagers under attack.

Thanks to Buddhadev and his party, they paved the way for Mamata’s comeback and alienated personalities like Medha.Their reversed policy scared and enraged the rural mass that formed the solid left base. The left could successfully demonstrate their antipathy to the big landlords as they had done in the erstwhile Soviet Union after the Revolution of 1917 to the kulaks. They won the heart of the rural mass, inter alia, through Barga Operation and regular panchayet (local government) activities. In the process, they demonstrated their blindness to the fact that India and, as such, West Bengal is a class society and the Constitution of the country guarantees rights to all without discrimination. Mikhail Gorbachov, hopefully, realized the unsustainability of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and, therefore, brought in Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika whereby people found the scope for free expression and action.If the political space is monopolized the ultimate results could be disastrous. The mighty Soviet Union melted away,the dictatorships of the proletariat collapsed in east Europe like houses of cards.West Bengal is in India which,after all,is a vibrant democracy that cannot allow dictatorship to survive in any form.