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This story is from May 17, 2006
When Left Is Right
Ideology still matters in Buddha's Bengal.
Many are claiming that ideology is dead or dying the world over. Others contend that the domination of economics over politics is overwhelming. Yet, the political economy of India continues to remain unique and ideologically influenced.
India defies easy generalisation and counters simplistic notions of Left-Right divisions in its polity.
This is, perhaps, best exemplified by the fact that the most important 'news' that emerged out of the media conference held by West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhatta-charjee on May 11 at the CPM's headquarters in Kolkata was an announcement that the Tata group would be setting up a new car manufacturing plant in the state.
Few doubted that the Left Front would break its own record by winning assembly elections for the seventh consecutive time since 1977. Only the margin of victory was a topic of debate. Even before it became known that the LF had won 36 more seats than it had five years earlier, the capricious Sensex had tanked.
Nehru wanted a mixed economy. We ended up with a mixed-up one, taking the worst of both capitalism and socialism. Can the country imbibe the best of both worlds? Can West Bengal serve as a role model for the rest of India?
What large sections of the anti-communist corporate media in India fail to highlight is that many, if not most, Indians are supportive of socialism. Even the BJP had talked of "Gandhian socialism" not very long ago.
Who remembers Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi describing the Congress as "India's greatest Left party"? Or junior functionary M I Shahnawaz describing Sonia Gandhi as an "extreme Left leader"? Both these comments came during the Congress plenary in Hyderabad this January.
Who recalls that it was not just the cussed communists but minister for public enterprises Santosh Mohan Deb who opposed disinvestment in BHEL?
Or that minister of state for commerce Jairam Ramesh had publicly stated that the proposed free trade agreement with ASEAN could never be concluded by compromising interests of farmers well before Sonia expressed similar apprehensions to the PM?
Manmohan Singh doesn't really have a choice. Our Harvard-educated gung-ho economic liberaliser, P Chidambaram, too, has no option but to describe the commu-nists as his "conscience keepers".
When Bhattacharjee was asked whether he believed in economic liberalisation, he said he didn't if it meant "hire and fire". He says that like the rest of the CPM he, too, is opposed to privatisation of airports at Delhi and Mumbai and FDI in retail. Reform is a nice-sounding word.
The problem simply is that the word means different (and often contradictory) things to different people. One man's meat is another's poison; yesterday's terrorist is today's freedom fighter; and the one-time reverse engineer is now a thief of intellectual property.
For the media, the sexy story is when Bhattacharjee clashes with Prakash Karat, though both claim they're bosom buddies, but not when the so-called Stalinist CPM changes its ideological position on nationalisation, trade and foreign investment.
One is not arguing that the CPM is an ideological monolith or that there are no factions within the party. If that indeed were so, 93-year-old Jyoti Basu would have become prime minister of India in 1996 and would not have had to later crib about his party's "historic blunder".
The fact is that the CPM's astonishing victory in West Bengal was preceded by a long phase of land reforms during the 1980s following which agricultural productivity grew at twice the rate compared to rest of the country. But even the impact of Operation Barga that empowered the tiller had to plateau.
Those living below the poverty line in Bengal had come down from over half to around a quarter. The focus then shifted to urban regeneration.
The strategy obviously worked, for during the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, the Trinamul Congress could win only a single seat in urban Bengal Mamata Banerjee in south Kolkata that had until recently been steadfastly anti-Left.
Over the last 15 years, the state government realised that it could not continue to blame the Centre for all the economic ills of the state, even if it is widely acknowledged that the policy of "freight equalisation" of coal and steel robbed not only West Bengal but the eastern region of its locational economic advantages.
Having secured its base in rural areas, the LF nurtured small enterprises and privatised loss-making (not profit-making) public undertakings before turning its attention to information technology and prettifying Kolkata.
The communists assiduously avoided the pitfalls that led to the sudden political demise of the erstwhile darling of the chattering classes, former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu. It is fashionable to fit Bhattacharjee in the attire of Deng Xiaoping. But the cat is both black and white. Above all, it catches mice.
The rest of India could learn the economic and political reasons why only one state has been able to remain insulated from the strong storms of anti-incumbency that have swept the rest of the country.
The writer is director, School of Convergence.
India defies easy generalisation and counters simplistic notions of Left-Right divisions in its polity.
This is, perhaps, best exemplified by the fact that the most important 'news' that emerged out of the media conference held by West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhatta-charjee on May 11 at the CPM's headquarters in Kolkata was an announcement that the Tata group would be setting up a new car manufacturing plant in the state.
Few doubted that the Left Front would break its own record by winning assembly elections for the seventh consecutive time since 1977. Only the margin of victory was a topic of debate. Even before it became known that the LF had won 36 more seats than it had five years earlier, the capricious Sensex had tanked.
The same media that had gone to town before the polls quoting Bhattacharjee reiterating his party's position that it would not be possible to establish socialism in one state in a capitalist country, mentioned only in passing his belief in the historic inevitability of socialism triumphing over capitalism.
Nehru wanted a mixed economy. We ended up with a mixed-up one, taking the worst of both capitalism and socialism. Can the country imbibe the best of both worlds? Can West Bengal serve as a role model for the rest of India?
What large sections of the anti-communist corporate media in India fail to highlight is that many, if not most, Indians are supportive of socialism. Even the BJP had talked of "Gandhian socialism" not very long ago.
Who remembers Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi describing the Congress as "India's greatest Left party"? Or junior functionary M I Shahnawaz describing Sonia Gandhi as an "extreme Left leader"? Both these comments came during the Congress plenary in Hyderabad this January.
Who recalls that it was not just the cussed communists but minister for public enterprises Santosh Mohan Deb who opposed disinvestment in BHEL?
Or that minister of state for commerce Jairam Ramesh had publicly stated that the proposed free trade agreement with ASEAN could never be concluded by compromising interests of farmers well before Sonia expressed similar apprehensions to the PM?
Manmohan Singh doesn't really have a choice. Our Harvard-educated gung-ho economic liberaliser, P Chidambaram, too, has no option but to describe the commu-nists as his "conscience keepers".
When Bhattacharjee was asked whether he believed in economic liberalisation, he said he didn't if it meant "hire and fire". He says that like the rest of the CPM he, too, is opposed to privatisation of airports at Delhi and Mumbai and FDI in retail. Reform is a nice-sounding word.
The problem simply is that the word means different (and often contradictory) things to different people. One man's meat is another's poison; yesterday's terrorist is today's freedom fighter; and the one-time reverse engineer is now a thief of intellectual property.
For the media, the sexy story is when Bhattacharjee clashes with Prakash Karat, though both claim they're bosom buddies, but not when the so-called Stalinist CPM changes its ideological position on nationalisation, trade and foreign investment.
One is not arguing that the CPM is an ideological monolith or that there are no factions within the party. If that indeed were so, 93-year-old Jyoti Basu would have become prime minister of India in 1996 and would not have had to later crib about his party's "historic blunder".
The fact is that the CPM's astonishing victory in West Bengal was preceded by a long phase of land reforms during the 1980s following which agricultural productivity grew at twice the rate compared to rest of the country. But even the impact of Operation Barga that empowered the tiller had to plateau.
Those living below the poverty line in Bengal had come down from over half to around a quarter. The focus then shifted to urban regeneration.
The strategy obviously worked, for during the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, the Trinamul Congress could win only a single seat in urban Bengal Mamata Banerjee in south Kolkata that had until recently been steadfastly anti-Left.
Over the last 15 years, the state government realised that it could not continue to blame the Centre for all the economic ills of the state, even if it is widely acknowledged that the policy of "freight equalisation" of coal and steel robbed not only West Bengal but the eastern region of its locational economic advantages.
Having secured its base in rural areas, the LF nurtured small enterprises and privatised loss-making (not profit-making) public undertakings before turning its attention to information technology and prettifying Kolkata.
The communists assiduously avoided the pitfalls that led to the sudden political demise of the erstwhile darling of the chattering classes, former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu. It is fashionable to fit Bhattacharjee in the attire of Deng Xiaoping. But the cat is both black and white. Above all, it catches mice.
The rest of India could learn the economic and political reasons why only one state has been able to remain insulated from the strong storms of anti-incumbency that have swept the rest of the country.
The writer is director, School of Convergence.
End of Article
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