Change... for the better, we hope

( Old post from Archives, dated  Sun , May 22,2011 from Viewpoints;  http://chronicler-abhi.blogspot.in/2011_05_01_archive.html )

The world’s longest- running democratically elected, communist, government is out of power. And that is a revelation, a tsunami, and an indicator of the times that we live in, which reminds us that nothing is constant, everything changes. Especially power, as Mr.Buddhabeb Bhattacharya would be understanding now.

It is hard to believe that the hammer and sickle has been vanquished. Even after the debacles of the 2009 Lok Sabha polls and the subsequent Panchayat and Municipality polls, it is hard to believe the red flag will not flutter over the state proudly, as has happened since 1977, causing an entire generation to believe that there was no viable alternative to the “Baam front”( Left Front).

What happened to this aura of invincibility of 34 years ? And why? Will things change for the better, for the beleaguered state of West Bengal?

To start off, a few insights into the state of affairs today :

1. West Bengal is the 4th most populous state of the Indian Union, but 17th in terms of Per Capita Income.
2. Revenue deficit has increased from INR 1,019 Cr in 90-91 to an astounding INR 17,940 Cr in 2009-2010.
3. Between 2000 and 2007, cumulative FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) flows into West Bengal amounted to INR 1,587 Cr as against INR 38,867 Cr for Maharashtra, the leading FDI state.
4. In 2010, funding was withdrawn from the INR 2,885 Cr Bakreswar power project (unit 6) by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).Following this, World Bank and ADB loans were also stalled, leading to projects worth INR 35,000 Cr being held up in health,power,urban development, municipal affairs, transport and environment departments.
5. In terms of job creation, Kolkata lags behind cities such as Delhi and Mumbai by miles, but also behind Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennnai, Ahmedabad and Pune!

But then, industrial growth and wealth creation had never been a priority for our homegrown communists, lip service in the last few years notwithstanding. Their claim has been the reduction of rural poverty levels and transformation of the countryside. For starters, the low percapita income belies their claims. Additionally, if one has to examine the social parameters of development, which the Left Front claims to have espoused, and some of the vital infrastructural aspects, let us look at the following facts:

1. Literacy stands at 71%, that is at 17^th position in the country.
2. Percapita health expenditure is at 16^th position in the country.
3. The state is at 11^th position in terms of the number of PHCs (Primary Health Centres), the cornerstone of the Indian public healthcare delivery system. Bihar , with only 14% more population than West Bengal, has 74% more number of PHCs.States such as Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Gujarat, Karnataka , Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, with lesser population than West Bengal , have more numbers of PHCs. Similar is the state of other public healthcare infrastructure.
4. The District Information System of education in its report for primary and upper primary schools for 2008-09 shows higher dropout percentages from Classes I to V, higher student-classroom ratio, lower mid-day meal coverage and much lower percentage of computer use, compared to earlier surveys.
5. The Central Statistical Organization estimated in Dec 2010 that West Bengal shows a below All-India performance in creation of roads, irrigation facilities, electrification and tele-density.
6. West Bengal has been bracketed with the lowest performing states of the country in terms of poverty and underdevelopment. In 2004-05, from the Planning Commission's estimates, the percentage of population below the poverty line in West Bengal was 24.7 per cent. Only 10 other Indian states, which included Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand , did worse.

The paper ‘A Story of Falling Behind’ (2009), by economists Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari,put Uttar Dinajpur, which is West Bengal’s poorest district, at a per capita SDP that is only 33.6 per cent that of Kolkata (the richest district). So much for equality!

Jean Dreze, a Left-leaning social scientist, has pointed out that, "West Bengal has the highest rate of hunger in rural households among major Indian States.” The figure for all of India is 2.5 per cent, for Bihar it is 3.2 per cent and for Orissa it is 5.9 per cent. In West Bengal, however, 11.7 per cent of rural households go hungry every night.

Thus, the Left Front government, which has, over the years, claimed its espousal of the causes of the rural poor, has in fact propelled this very segment deep into poverty and disarray. Some of the pointers are (and they have been so long before Mamata Banerjee stormed into Singur) – below-average health indicators, crumbling infrastructure, fragmented land holdings, declining yield from agriculture. Add to that rural violence and political and economic disenfranchisement, and one has a recipe for a disaster.

This, of course, is not unique to West Bengal- many of the same factors are present in the poor-performing so-called Indian BIMARU states, some of which incidentally, score better than West Bengal on some counts, as some of the data mentioned above shows. What was unique to Bengal was the refusal of the electorate, through coercion and conviction, to accept the truth or at least desire for change, leading to 34 years of hegemony. We saw each new promise as a new beginning- a Selim here, a Tata there, a new factory somewhere else, a new bridge or road elsewhere, and heralded the elusive coming of the second Bengal Renaissance. The promises made by Buddhadeb Bhattacharya were spectacular, probably he even intended them; however there was no firm planning on how to transform industry in West Bengal. Worse, there was no plan on transforming work culture and sensitizing the bureaucracy to the need of the hour. All people heard were facile slogans such as” Do it now.” Now, the iron wall has broken and the flood gates have opened on the lies and the myths that were perpetrated in the name of industrialization.

The assumed invincibility of the Leftists, which came from unstinted rural support and a powerful cadre base, gave rise to unbridled arrogance. This was apparent from the Government’s attitude after the victorious 2006 polls, and the sheer disdain for the opposition. From this, grew the attitude that they could bring in industry by force, turning people forcibly landless in a state where the ruling government had sustained their base through land reforms and where people are unequivocally conscious about their rights. No one disputes the need for industries; however forced acquisition of land through archaic laws, and terrorization, murder, arson and rape is hardly the way forward for a state. One cannot starve a person for decades and then suddenly try to force-feed him one fine day, when he has lost the capacity to absorb food. The pity is that the Left Front understood it too late. Power corrupts- absolute power corrupts absolutely- the Left Front government is a manifestation of this fact.

A peek into the social history of West Bengal provides some revealing insights. Communism and Leftism have been dominant forces in West Bengal since the 1940s. Perhaps it has got to do with the natural intellectual inclination of the Bengali, and it is no coincidence that West Bengal is amongst the more politically aware states of India. Even the Ajoy Mukherjee-led United Front government of 1967 depended on the Leftists for support. Attached to this, is some sort of a disdain towards capital, at least in the older generation, who have never been vigorous in the pursuit of material prosperity as a society and have left money-making to other communities. The recent generation is a shade apart, but I think it is hard to think of another society where Das Kapital and Bill Gates could survive at the same time. To the extent that there was talk of unionization of the IT Sector, an unheard of concept elsewhere.

It was thus natural that the early Left Front, under the leadership of irrepressible (and irresponsible) Jyoti Basu, went on an anti-industry rampage. Militant trade unionism, violence and rapidly declining standards of work culture drove industry out, so that from 16% of India’s industry in the 1960s, West Bengal’s share fell to 6% by the turn of the century. The rotting closed factories of Howrah, Barrackpore and virtually the entire northern suburbs of Kolkata are a testimony to this fact. Howrah, the “Sheffield of the East”, became the dustbin of West Bengal.

Abolition of English at the primary level, opposition to computers and unionization of college and university campuses all combined to put the nail in the coffin of the educational infrastructure, and therefore the lack of educational opportunities and job opportunities gave rise to a new class, the “economic refugees of Bengal.” You find them everywhere- Gurgaon, Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune- in virtually every place where there is progress and growth. It is interesting to note that while English at the primary level was abandoned as a “bourgeois” language, Jyoti Basu’s own grandchildren attended English medium convent schools.

Jyoti Basu’s brilliance did not end here. He ostensibly “understood” his follies in the 1990s, and began to look towards capital. Probably a late awakening and trying to emulate Deng Xiaoping, albeit unsuccessfully! Hence his visits abroad, which would even keep him away on 15^th August each year. It is, of course, another matter, that capital thought it wise not to venture into West Bengal.

Finally, after the handing over of power to Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, who subsequently got elected in 2001, the idea of change began to trickle in, albeit slowly. The state got its industrial policy in 2003, and there was an active period of wooing of capital. Buddhadev Bhattacharya attracted media attention, headlines and TRPs with his pro-industrial approach and was overwhelmingly voted back to power in 2006 on the slogan of change, a.k.a “ do it now.”

Do exactly “what?” After the landslide Left Front victory in 2006, Buddhadeb became the God of All Things (West Bengal). It went like this, “ To bring in the IT revolution, bring in Buddhadeb; to get social justice, bring in Buddhadeb; to open a factory, bring in Buddhadeb”…..etc ad nauseum. The aura around a single man, when the middle order ( bureaucrats and politicians alike) were resistant to change, was too good to last. The exuberance after the 2006 elections that Buddhadeb would change everything, was a dead give-away that something was wrong- one man cannot change everything when so much has been wrong for so long. The atrocities at Singur and Nandigram were a testimony that the government had become desperate. One cannot grow industry by holding people ransom to terror, violence, arson, murder and rape. The shining credit for trying out this unique approach must go to the Left Front government under the likes of Nirupam Sen, Lakshman Seth, Gautam Deb and definitely by omission or commission, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. The Left Front learnt its lesson the hard way. The skeletons are still coming out of the cupboard, but the facts that are coming out with frightening regularity point towards a lumpenization of the Left Front (primarily CPIM ) apparatus. It was as if Lenin and Rasputin shook hands, collaborated and decided to oppress the people for their own narrow benefits.

And for that, the electorate of West Bengal must blame itself more rather than any Left Front government. The Government is only a reflection of what we are- we fully deserve those whom we choose to elect. One must consider the factors that helped the Left Front survive as long as it did, which were:

1. Some fundamentally good work in the rural sector, notably land reforms, that earned them a mass base. The Panchayat system was also set up, though its roots were based in the Congress ( Siddhartha Shankar Ray) era.
2. A well-entrenched cadre base at the grassroots, backed by trade unions, student politicians, active party membership .Political manipulation and poll rigging played their role, though it was not the sole factor.
3. A disunited, disorganized, squabbling, influenced (by the ruling party) and sidelined Opposition (one doesn’t really picture the Pradesh Congress Leaders as a picture of resistance, a role that Mamata Banerjee took up almost single-handedly.)
4. The Bengali electorate’s natural leaning towards Communist/ Socialist ideology ( I must confess to having Communist leanings in my formative years, before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the advent of liberalization).

The first achievement is a laudable, and the land reforms in West Bengal have been widely acclaimed at having bettered the dynamics of farming and rural development. From acute poverty (symbolized by the Bengal Famine and abysmal rural poverty statistics ), the lot of rural people has improved. However, fragmented land holdings and stagnant yields, which are 100- 200% lower than the leading states for different crops, have diluted the gains. No one denies the extent of rural poverty and underdevelopment in today’s West Bengal. The Left Front needed to understand long back that change is the name of the game, and without continual improvement, we would be laggards. And so, today, despite the early gains, West Bengal lags behind the nation. It is ironical that the Bengali’s legendary appetite for fish is today met by steady imports of fish from Andhra Pradesh, a state which has managed to post impressive gains in pisciculture, poultry farming and agriculture, and is foremost today in rice production.

The cadre base is a well-documented and acknowledged fact, however the extent to which the “Party” has been allowed to interfere in peoples’ lives is abominable.For business decisions, property decisions, and in rural areas even for personal decisions, one has to depend on the “Party”. Disputes in the Cooperative Society where I lived in Kolkata used to turn into “us” (i.e. CPIM) vs “them” (i.e. Congress). Such is the polarization of society today that, in the style of George Bush, “You must be for us or against us”. There is no place for the apolitical person who wants to prosper and live his life in peace, and craves to be left alone. For this polarization, one cannot blame the Left Front alone. Also, one has to acknowledge that the Trinamool trade unions are no better than the Leftist CITU; at a hospital in Kolkata where I worked, I have seen the former as a regular source of disruption. My most vivid image of a bandh day in Kolkata is a mob (with Trinamool affiliations) advancing aggressively and smashing car screens to punish those who dared to come out of their houses. In the face of such determined aggression, braveheart optimism about improving West Bengal’s much-derided work culture may well vanish into thin air. Trinamool learnt the art of political disruption well from the CPIM- Jyoti Basu can very well claim to be the original guru in this regard. And I fervently hope, for West Bengal’s sake, that this is not the “change” that “Didi” is talking about.

Regarding the Congress Opposition, one doesn’t have much to say anyway. Probably they saw the futility of swimming against the tide- certainly they did not bother to turn the wheels the other way, the way Mamata did with raw courage and political opportunism. One can only hope that the likes of Manas Bhuniya, Deepa Das Munshi, Adhir Chowdhary et al will learn their lesson now and not get carried away by electoral success- they would do well to remember that this was a vote for change and Trinamool- Congress (mainly Trinamool, with Congress playing the younger sibling’s role) is merely the symbol of that change. Ironically, in the words of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, “perform or perish.”

The last factor, that of Communist/ Leftist inclinations, will never change if I assess it correctly. The mindset of a people does not change. Bengalis are naturally attracted to idealism, and the Left will stay. The time to write the political epitaph of the Left Front has not come. And if they manage to reinvent themselves and genuinely contribute to the progress of West Bengal and the nation as a whole, instead of disrupting the political atmosphere with their silly and antiquated ideas, that time may never need to come. It is up to the leaders to introspect, and it is upto the likes of Biman Basu ,Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Prakash Karat to decide what is better- false optimism and unrealistic ideas coupled with unbridled arrogance leading to self-annihilation, or genuine self-introspection leading to improvement.

Unfortunately for the Left Front and for West Bengal, dominance had given rise to arrogance through all these years. The well-entrenched, well-oiled party machinery gave the Left Front rulers a sense of complacence and arrogance, so that even when the clamouring for change was evident everywhere, the leaders smugly declared they were coming back to power, the electorate had come back to their fold, and they even predicted the number of seats they would win, which they said would be above the required majority. This total disconnect with reality reminds one of the protagonist Gregor in Franz Kafka’s novel “The Metamorphosis” , who goes to sleep smugly (just like the great Left Front leaders must have done on 12^th May) unaware of impending change and wakes up next morning to find himself stripped of his limbs and transformed into a giant worm ( just like the Left Front leadership found themselves finally stripped of political power on 13^th May ).

Ironically, while politicians in progressive states such as Gujarat come to power on the basis of promises of industry and jobs, Trinamool came to power in West Bengal by opposing a mega-industry, whose origins were no doubt based in faulty land acquisition but which was also nearing completion, and by some composite dialogue and redevelopment, may have finally benefited the local people of Singur. The land has been weaned away from agriculture anyway- was the agitation at near-completion merely a better way to capture headlines? Wasn’t there a better way of coming to power? The tragedy of West Bengal is that change always comes through radical means- there is no logical transition from one regime to another, unlike, say,Kerala, which is also known to be a state with Leftist inclinations but has the sense to change the regime with regularity, so that complacence and hegemony do not set in. One cannot help wondering that Nitish Kumar, who is working wonders in Bihar, most certainly did not come to power by squatting on a National Highway and blocking it for days. Nor did Narendra Modi in Gujarat or Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu.One cannot also forget the scene of destruction unleashed by the Trinamool members in the West Bengal Legislature in 2006, against all parliamentary norms. I took pictures of the vandalism (broken furniture, scattered papers, smashed articles )unleashed that day, which was one of the lowest points in the history of West Bengal. My head had bowed in shame to see the kind of opposition party we had. Will things change from there? Only time will tell.

Now that change has come about finally, what is the way ahead? While there would be a lot of suggestions from pundits, I believe some of the priorities would be:

1. Industrial rejuvenation, which is a must. Focus not only on IT but also on steel, textiles, agro-based business such as food processing, and other industries where West Bengal has an advantage.
2. Encouragement of small scale industry, which has done quite well in West Bengal, and is one of the relative brighter spots on the industrial landscape.
3. Development of a land-bank for industry, focussing on non-cultivable land. Fertile land to be acquired only if it unavoidable.
4. Judicious land-acquisition through consensus and transparency, equitable compensation to the displaced. This is the age of sustainable development.
5. Ensure development to counter the menaces of poverty, underdevelopment and “Maoist” violence.
6. Development of social and industrial infrastructure at a fast rate.
7. Depoliticisation of all sectors, including education and health, and vigorous development in all areas.
8. Improved work culture and control of trade unions, abolition of bandhs. It remains without doubt that a better work culture is the need of the day. West Bengal has been too smug in self-satisfaction for too long, and it is time to wake up and come out of the rut, to shed Kolkata’s ill-reputation as the bandh capital of India.

The new government under Mamata Banerjee, already facing an unprecedented revenue deficit, Maoist violence and an unenviable law and order situation, carries a huge burden on its shoulders. Some positive factors, which may well help it, are:

1. Mamata Banerjee’s insistence on “Change” (badol) , not “Revenge” (badlaa). She has established positive vibes even before swearing in as Chief Minister.
2. The presence of a wide variety of people, many of whom are not professional politicians (bureaucrats, IPS & IAS officers, civil society, economists, corporate chieftans etc).
3. The presence of a vaccum where the Left Front government has done very little.
4. A clear agenda on the steps to be taken and the priorities for the new government.
5. The apparent air of sincerity about changing things for the better.

Will this government perform? One hopes for Bengal’s sake and Trinamool’s, that it does, and words are transformed into action and performance. Public confidence and adulation, as President Barrack Obama would testify to, is a fickle thing. For, in the words of Peter Parker in “Spiderman”, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” The new chief minister and her cabinet, at a historical juncture for West Bengal, would do well to remember just that.