Author: Balbir K. Punj
Publication: The Asian Age
Date: July 9, 2002
A silver jubilee of holding power
for 25 years without a break is a coveted crown for any political party
these days when several governments are not able to complete even their
statutory term of five years. That this mandate might have been more due
to the unpredictable and knee-jerk strategy of Mamata Banerjee and her
Trinamul Congress in abandoning the NDA and joining the Congress that had
no popular backing is a proposition we need not go into.
Critics say that this record victory
is due to the complete hegemony the Marxists, mainly the CPI(M) has been
able to establish in the rural areas through the manipulations of the panchayat
machinery. While the Marxists claim that they have effectively implemented
land reforms, the closer view is that land reforms were used to cement
the power of the party cadres over the farmers and use the force of the
clenched fist and even arms to keep out all who challenged such arbitrariness.
Rural Bengal is clearly divided into pocket boroughs of Marxists and their
allies. Ask anyone who is not part of the Left Front about it. Sometimes
even those who are part of the Front engage in mutual slaughter over such
booties as influence over a whole village.
The ground reality thrown up by
the development statistics of West Bengal does not support the claim of
the Front that it has helped the rural areas of West Bengal. Twenty-five
years of Left Front rule have still not touched the lives of 46.59 lakh
households or nearly three crore people below the poverty line (BPL). Compare
that with the BPL households in Punjab, just 4.30 lakhs. If the two states
are not comparable in terms of population, these figures at least reveal
that it is the hard work and innovative initiative of the people that count
in alleviating poverty than the Marxist rhetoric or economics.
Whatever be the success of land
reforms in the Marxist haven of West Bengal, do the official figures about
the status of unskilled agricultural labour reflect the Marxist claim of
betterment of the rural poor under their regime? The Planning Commission
figures in its mid-term appraisal of the Ninth Plan suggest quite the contrary.
In eight years of the last decade, only in three years was the annual percentage
change in real wages positive. Even in badly governed UP, during the same
decade, in five out of eight years it was positive. In Gujarat seven years
out of eight it was positive. Average percentage change in real wages for
unskilled agricultural labour was only 1.29 per cent in West Bengal in
the last decade while in Gujarat it was 5.45.
If the Left economists confront
me with the same statistics for the Eighties, I might point out to them
that as against West Bengal's achievement of 6.59 per cent in the Eighties,
Maharashtra achieved 7.60 per cent. Clearly there has not been a change
in the situation of the rural poor that is quite different from what has
happened in some other parts of the country. In other words, even if the
Left Front government has achieved a significant change in the condition
of the rural poor, it is no more than what has been achieved - in fact
even less than what other states have, under less "revolutionary" political
parties, have achieved .
Take any other indicator of improvement
in living conditions or welfare of the poor and marginalised in the rural
areas where Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's party is supposed to have carried
out a revolution. The story is the same - of widespread poverty and distress.
Even allotment of houses to the poor is just 173,000, the poorest among
the states. No wonder West Bengal after 25 years of Left Front rule is
still at the bottom of the human development level, sharing the poor record
with such other states like Bihar and Orissa.
The whole Marxist rhetoric is punctured
in the National Human Development report for 2001 published recently. At
one level, this report gives considerable support to the claims of such
states as Maharashtra, Gujarat etc., where rural poverty has been significantly
reduced while it is not very appreciative of the attainments in West Bengal.
In effect, despite uninterrupted 25 years of Marxist regime in West Bengal,
there is little to show as unique and whatever achievements have been claimed
are nothing more than or even less than what other states without Marxist
governments or even the same party governments over two decades have done.
The report summarises West Bengal's
achievements of the Eighties and the Nineties thus: "In case of West Bengal,
there are considerably large rural-urban disparities in accessibility to
pucca housing. The coverage of population in terms of accessibility to
safe drinking water is nearly same in rural and urban areas. The accessibility
to formal education, health indicators and in alleviating poverty, the
progress in rural and urban areas has been comparable. On the whole, the
attainments in rural West Bengal on almost all indicators included in the
radar, even in the early Nineties, is less than half of the norm on each
one of them. In urban areas attainments are much better on access to amenities
and literacy, though, progress has been slow."
Translated in common man's language,
this assessment of the state ruled by Marxists clearly is an indictment
of the rulers, considering that West Bengal alone among the major states
has had the luck to have the same party regime for 25 years. While the
Marxist regime claims great improvement in the conditions of the rural
Bengalis, the expert and unbiased report on HDI finds that attainments
in rural West Bengal "is less than half" of the norm for each one of the
areas like education, health, drinking water etc. West Bengal after 25
years of Marxist rule has not moved even one step upward in the ranking
of Human Development Index. It remains stuck at rank eight in 2001 as in
1981, while even a backward state like Rajasthan has moved up from position
twelve to position nine, next only to West Bengal. Tamil Nadu under different
types of DMK governments could jump from position seven to three in the
same period, while West Bengal remains where it was. What is it dear comrades,
you are celebrating about?
If it is your contention that under
your revolutionary fervour there has been a huge dent in rural poverty,
the HDI figures show that it is nothing much to crow about as other states
under other dispensations like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu have achieved the
same and sometimes even better results in the same area. Karnataka reduced
rural poverty from 50.11 to 37.54 per cent while the West Bengal comrades
could achieve a reduction from 56 to 47 per cent only. Even backward and
feudal MP with a third of its population tribal, could give the same figures
as West Bengal revealing that the comrades' rule was nothing unique in
terms of results for the poor in rural areas.
If this is the "record" in the rural
areas, the plight of the urban areas is even worse. Once known as the foremost
industrial state of the country, it has attracted very little capital in
the last 25 years. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and even Madhya Pradesh
have better records while that of West Bengal is flagging. No new offices
have come there. The silver lining in areas like Haldia is barely scratching
the surface. Haldia Fertilisers has become a big joke with workers receiving
salary for ten years and production next to zero.
Haldia Petrochemicals has not been
a grand success as against the IPCL, the petro-chemical manufacturer in
Gujarat. Many bright Bengali software professionals planned setting up
offices and centres in Salt Lake City only to be discouraged by the prevailing
labour ethos. Compared to Delhi or Bhubaneswar, Kolkata's record is poor.
None of the closed engineering PSUs could be revived but the Left Front
has opposed permanent closure and keeps labour hanging in the vain hope
that they would be revived. The affected workers do not get regular wages
and are not allowed to seek other jobs. Meanwhile, the way the Marxists
have browbeaten the existing investors has been warning to others not to
even think of investing in that state. Of course, that gives plenty of
revolutionary under to the Marxist rhetoric but it keeps Bengal poor.
Chief minister Bhattacharjee is
now talking the language of the market, a clear admission that the comrades'
revolutionary fervour is out of place. Soon after taking over he admitted
in an interview to an English daily the need to change the work culture
in West Bengal. Look at the market economy steps he has taken against much
breast-beating by his co-comrades: the government has instituted surveillance
in its offices against the laidback work culture, specially absenteeism
on the work desk. Electronic attendance recorders have been set up against
strong opposition from other Marxist front organisations of government
employees.
At the end of the day of celebrations
at the silver jubilee of Marxist rule in West Bengal, the only thought
that it leaves us with is not very flattering to the followers of Marx,
Lenin and Mao. It is market mechanism rather than Marxism that the much
harassed Bengali babu needs - if we really read between the lines of what
the new CM says. A nice thought for the silver jubilee celebrants to take
home.
(Balbir K. Punj is a BJP MP and
can be contacted at bpunj@email.com)
