TRIPURA : WHERE THE LEFT TRIUMPHS

by SUDHANVA DESHPANDE and VIJAY PRASHAD

COUNTERPUNCH, MARCH 04, 2013

During the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Lecture in 2011, the Swedish novelist Henning Mankell recounted an incident from Mozambique, where he lives for part of the year. During the worst days of South African apartheid and the civil war in Mozambique, Mankell visited the north of the country. He was walking on a path toward a village. He saw a young man coming towards him, a thin man in ragged clothes. As he came close, Mankell saw his feet. “He had in his deep misery,” Mankell told his Delhi audience, “painted shoes on his feet. In a way, to defend his dignity when everything was lost, he had found the colors from the earth and he had painted shoes on his feet.”

In Tripura, the small state tucked into the north-eastern corner of India, no-one goes without shoes. A keen eye, even on the briefest visit, would find everyone shod – a remarkable fact for a state where poverty has not been banished. But government data on poverty has shown something remarkable. Between 2004-05 and 2009-10, the Planning Commission numbers show a decline in Tripura’s poverty rate from 40 percent to 17.4 percent. That is a drop of 22.6 percent: the highest decline in poverty figures for the country during this past decade. The Tripura decline is not shared by its neighbors: Manipur (from 37.9 percent to 47.1 percent), Mizoram (15.4 percent to 21.1 percent) and Nagaland (8.8 percent to 20.9 percent). Pointing out this data last year, the financial columnist Manas Chakravarty noted, “The state must be doing something right, although we don’t have the faintest idea about it. We need to find out fast, so that the nation can learn from Tripura and adopt its model of development, whatever that may be.” One of the indices is that despite the poverty rates, people seem to have access to their basic needs – such as shoes.

It is because of the small gains that the Communist-led Left Front won a landslide victory in the recent Assembly elections (the Left Front won 50 seats in the 60 member Assembly, with the Communist Party of India-Marxist winning 49 of those seats and the Communist Party of India one). This is the seventh time the Left has won in Tripura; five of these wins have been consecutive, and each of these has been with a two-thirds majority. In fact, but for the 1988 elections, widely believed to have been massively rigged, this would have been the eighth successive Left victory.

The politics of basic needs and of peace play a very large role in the Left’s success in Tripura. While the rest of India whittles away at the Public Distribution System (PDS), Tripura has enhanced it to the betterment of people’s lives. Not only can one get basic foodstuffs at subsidized prices, but one is also allowed to procure light bulbs through the PDS system. Bread alone is not enough for human dignity. Education is one of the most sought after public goods with schools as one part of it and reading at home another. Without light bulbs and electricity, there can be no intellectual development. By making sure that the PDS system is not simply for the survival of people, but also for their enhancement, the Left dignifies the role of the State. Such improvements are widely commented upon inside Tripura, where the development model has struck a chord with the public. The slogan for the Tripura Model is simple: people’s growth before the GDP.

As with the other states in India’s north-east, militant separatism tore through the society from the 1980s onwards. The Tripura National Volunteers and the Tripura Tiger Force and the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) wreaked havoc in the state. They targeted the Bengali population, trying to sow the seeds of division between the “tribals” (the Kokborok speakers, the Reang, the Jamatia, the Chakma, the Halam, the Mog, the Munda, the Kuki and the Garo) and Bengalis, as well as between the Christians and the Hindus. That the Communists comprised people of all communities, and had been leaders in the early rebellions in Tripura against the King and for tribal rights in the 1940s and 1950s has always threatened those who believed in sectarian politics. Turning to the gun was a sure-fire way of trying to undermine the politics of amity that had begun to define the state.

Here is a sense of the violence over October-November 1998:

October 7: NLFT fighters kidnapped seven-year old Keya Debnath from her home in Bagna in Udaipur.

October 19: NLFT fighters fired into a market in Dhumacherra (Dhalai district). Abducted Badal Roy, a laborer.

October 20: NLFT fighters abducted five passengers from a bus near Kusumbar.

November 3: NLFT fighters fired into a market place in Maynama, killing three people, including Subodh Kuri. Militants killed nine-year old Rupali Adhikary and Haradhan Debnath in a village in Madhya Barjala. Gunmen fired into a jeep on the Assam-Agartala National Highway, killing Jagdish Saha.

November 4: NLFT fighters killed six people, including a nine-year old girl in Dhalai district.

The habits of the modern State should have sent in the armed forces and pushed for the annihilation of the NLFT and its allied groups. This is the approach that the Left Front rejected. The high point of the insurgency was between 1996 and 2004. During this period, the Left was in power. It was through the strategy adopted by the Left that the insurgency wasted away after 2004 (unlike in the rest of the north-east of India). Certainly police actions were used against the insurgents, but as the governor D. N. Sahay wrote in 2011, these were not used in an “exclusive, hawkish, one-dimensional” manner. The Tripura government used its police force for these actions, and, according to Sahay, “Their conduct was under close observation at the highest level (including at the level of the Governor and the Chief Minister), in order to check personnel from going berserk and being ruthless, trigger-happy, oppressive and violative of human rights. This paid off: no complaint of human rights violation, except one or two and that too minor, came up in the course of operations. No antipathy against the security forces or the establishment surrounded the minds of citizens.”

Armed force was not the main instrument used by the Left Front government. Instead it pushed for a political solution, urging militants to give up their arms and take their views into the political domain, showing militants that their own leadership was less interested in their well-being than in an endless militancy that enhanced the lives of neither themselves or their enemies. The Tripura government used Central Government money in the insurgency, not to fatten the pockets of its privileged classes, but to build roads into every part of the state. This was not just to allow the police access to remote areas, but also to bring people from those remote areas into active contact with the rest of the state. The dividend from these roads in the long run has been immense. Apart from the police and the political leadership, the Left Front turned to its allies for help in the counter-insurgency. The All-Indian Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) worked in the most difficult circumstances, building confidence among women who had turned to militancy to come back to the politics of persuasion. “I had to stop school after standard ten as my father could not afford to pay my fees,” said Shobhamati Jamatiya in 2004. “A group from the All Tripura Tiger Force convinced me that my problems, and those of the tribal population of Tripura, would be solved if I joined their organization.” Shobhamati went to the Tiger Force camp in Bangladesh, where she trained as a militant and fighter. The work of groups like AIDWA and the corruption amongst the leadership of the Tiger Force moved Shobhamati to surrender two years later in October 2002. “I realize now that there is no shortcut,” Shobhamati said, now as an AIDWA activist. “You have to be in the democratic movement.”

Former member of the Legislative Assembly from Takarjala, Bayjanti Koloi remembers how women in her district were excited that a tribal woman had been elected for the first time. As part of her work as a legislature, she held meetings with women in the district, many of whom would subsequently join with Koloi in AIDWA. “Many women who never used to go out of their homes or who never knew about government policies began to speak out strongly about their demands. Women then began to receive threats from activists of the NLFT to stop all political activities.” The NLFT tried to break the connections between tribals and non-tribals, forcing the latter to leave and the former to stop “selling rice to non-tribals. If a tribal woman wore a sari or a bangle, she was stopped and threatened.” AIDWA’s activists held fast. Their bravery broke the cultural agenda of the militants.

Careful policies against insurgency rooted in the well-being of the people earned the Left the support of the people. It helps that the leadership of the Left in Tripura has an incomparable reputation for probity. The Chief Minister, Manik Sarkar, son of a tailor and a government employee, is known as the poorest leader in India (he had $200 in his bank account, about the same amount as he earns per year – what he earns he hands over to his Party, and receives in turn $100 as a sustainer); the only comparable world figure is Uruguay’s President José Mujica, whose net work was $1,800 (he donates 90 percent of his salary to a scheme that builds homes for the poor). Sarkar’s vices are “a small pot of snuff and a cigarette a day.” When news of the massive victory came to him, Sarkar said, “This is a verdict in favor of development, peace and stability besides good governance.”

He forgot to mention the shoes. 

Vijay Prashad’s new book, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, is out this month from Verso Books.

Sudhanva Deshpande is part of Jana Natya Manch and is an editor at LeftWord Books. 

Link: 

Where the Left Triumphs » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Towards a Seventh Left Front Govt in Tripura

By Prakash Karat

THE Left Front in Tripura held a central rally in Agartala on January 20 to launch its election campaign. The state assembly elections are on February 14. I participated in this rally which saw one lakh people attending, a huge number, considering that the total population of the state is only 37 lakhs.

Tripura is in the north-eastern part of the country. It is surrounded on three sides by Bangladesh. It was here in the nineteen forties that the Communist party worked among the tribal people and organised them to fight against the Maharaja and his feudal rule. Nripen Chakraborty, Dasarath Deb and Biren Datta were the pioneers of the Communist movement. The first two later served as the chief ministers of the state.

Tripura has had a Left Front government since 1978. In the first two terms of the Left Front government, there were two major achievements: the implementation of land reforms and the setting up of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council under the sixth schedule of the constitution. There was a break only in 1988-93 when there was a Congress regime. The Congress came to power through a rigged election with the help of the central government headed by Rajiv Gandhi. This was one of the most sordid episodes in Indian politics.The five year period saw semi-fascist terror unleashed against the CPI(M) and hundreds of the Party members and supporters were killed. It was after an arduous struggle that the Congress was isolated and the Left Front regained office in March 1993.

Since then, in the three subsequent elections in 1998, 2003 and 2008, the Left Front won with a two-thirds majority. All in all, the Left Front has been in government for six terms since 1978, except for the one term in 1988-93.

The history of the Left Front government in the last two decades is a remarkable and inspiring one. In the first decade, in the nineties, the state was still affected by the violent insurgency by armed extremist tribal groups. Their attacks had begun in the early eighties. Sheltering in camps across the border in Bangladesh, these groups wreaked havoc in the tribal and hill areas. They were financed and equipped by imperialist agencies and the ISI of Pakistan. They demanded an independent Tripura. Thousands were killed in the three decades of terrorist violence and hundreds of CPI (M) tribal cadres and supporters laid down their lives defending the unity of the people and the country.

The Left Front governments could tackle this armed insurgency by adopting a three pronged approach. First, the political one, of preserving the unity of the tribal and Bengali communities which was sought to be disrupted. Second, by raising and equipping a state armed police (Tripura State Rifles) which could effectively counter the armed gangs. Third, the government stepped up its development and welfare activities once the violence was curbed in the tribal areas.  The Tripura Tribal Autonomous District Council was revitalised for this purpose.

Today Tripura is a peaceful state and there is harmony and unity between the majority Bengalis and the minority tribal people. Tripura stands out in the entire north-east for achieving this, whereas there is ethnic and tribal strife in other states like Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya and Nagaland. The CPI(M) and the Left’s role is the key factor in Tripura.

The record of the Left Front government under the leadership of Manik Sarkar is also outstanding in the developmental and welfare activities. It is acknowledged by all that Tripura is the best governed state in the north-east. In the 2001 census, Tripura was in terms of the literacy rate the 11th among all states; in the 2011 census,Tripura had reached the 4th position with 88 per cent literacy. There were no farmers suicides and no starvation deaths in the last ten years.

Tripura has an excellent record in the delivery of various schemes. Tripura stood first in the country in 2011 by generating 86 average man days under the rural employment guarantee scheme (MNREGA). Tripura has also done justice to the tribal people by being in the forefront in implementing the Forest Rights Act. By mid 2012, 1,19,342 pattas had been distributed to forest dwellers securing their land. There are 16 pension schemes that cover almost all BPL families.

As far as infrastructure is concerned, 90 per cent of the total of 8,312 habitations are electrified. 90 percentage of irrigable land has been brought under irrigation facilities and 50 per cent of the total cultivable land is now irrigated.

The biggest step taken by the current Left Front government was the introduction of 35 kgs rice at Rs 2 per kilo for all BPL card holders which is 2 lakh families. In the north-eastern states, rice is supplied at Rs 5 to 6 per kilo due to the higher transportation costs. It was so in Tripura too till August 2012. The supply of rice at Rs 2 has been welcomed by all sections of the people. The Tripura government is bearing the cost of the increased subsidy.

The Left Front was the first to announce its list of candidates for the 60 assembly seats, 20 of which are reserved for scheduled tribes. The CPI(M) is contesting 55, the CPI-2, the RSP-2 and the Forward Bloc-1.

The Congress party finalised its list of candidates among squabbles and open rifts. It has maintained its alliance with the tribal organisation, the INPT which is the body which incorporated the TUJS and some other tribal groups. The Congress traditionally had no base among the tribal people. It therefore allied first with the TUJS and later the INPT.

These tribal organisations have had separatist platforms at various points of time. The Congress had the dubious record of encouraging the tribal separatist and extremist forces just to isolate and weaken the CPI(M)’s strong base among the tribal people.

Today, these tactics stand discredited before the people. The Left Front stands for unity, peace, progress and development – a platform which is attracting the youth in large numbers.

At the rally on January 20, wave after wave of people, marched into the ground raising the slogan “We will bring the Seventh Left Front Government”. This is a pledge which will be in all certainty fulfilled on February 14. 

People's Democracy,January 27, 2013

WEST BENGAL: A JOURNEY AGAINST THE CURRENT

By Amiya Kumar Bagchi

BRIEFLY, from the time India became independent, many major countries of the world adopted policies that benefited the peasants and workers. The world, especially the increasingly hegemonic capitalist world, turned against the poor from the 1970s. From 1973 the USA, in collaboration with the UK and other members of the G7 group, launched a determined assault against the rights of their own workers, and against the legitimate claims of developing countries to gain a less inequitable share of world output and more equitable terms of trade. The rulers of India were also turning against the poor and their democratic rights from the 1970s. Indira Gandhi’s Emergency had as its backdrop the brutal suppression of the strike of the railway workers in 1974, and even more brutal suppression of the democratic rights of the people of West Bengal from 1971. The victory of the Left Front parties in the elections of 1977 demonstrated that the ruling Congress party had lost its legitimacy in the eyes of the people of West Bengal. With all the rhetoric of self-reliance, Indira Gandhi’s government had begun to formulate better conditions for foreign investors, and the Janata government following it went further in wooing foreign capital.

From the very beginning, the West Bengal government, led by the Left Front, was marked out as an enemy by the rulers at the centre not only because the Front had no place for the unprincipled policies of the ruling parties in New Delhi but also because it represented a threat to the pro-rich, clientelist politics of those parties. When the Left Front came to power, the state was in desperate straits, socially and economically. There had been massive de-industrialisation of the economy, with profits generated by existing private sector companies being directed outside the state from the beginning of independence. This was caused mainly by the massive dislocation of communications, transport and markets due to the carving up of Bengal into two regions in two separate and hostile States. The trend of outflow of capital from West Bengal was aggravated by the policy of equalisation of prices of coal and steel, which robbed the whole eastern region of India of the natural advantages it enjoyed in respect of the basic ingredients of fixed capital formation. Public sector investment up to the beginning of the 1960s made only a weak compensation for the virtual cessation of large-scale industrial investment by the private sector.

SITUATION IN THE 60s &70s

The coup de grace to West Bengal’s industrial prospects was given by the deep recession in the economy over the period 1966-69, the period of the plan holiday and a famine-like shortage of food supply in the country. The recession and West Bengal’s plight were aggravated by the drastic fall in public investment, including investment in railways, which was the major customer of West Bengal’s engineering industry. In 1972-73, the year which is taken as the base year for defining the poverty line and making estimates of the number of people below that line, the proportion of persons below poverty line in rural areas was more than 73 per cent, far above the corresponding all-India figure of about 56 per cent. Taking urban and rural areas together, the proportion of persons below poverty line was about 55 per cent for India and 63 per cent for West Bengal. By 1993-94, the proportion of people below poverty line in India and West Bengal had come to very nearly the same figure, with most of the contribution to poverty reduction being made by people in rural areas.

The disastrous material conditions in rural areas down to the 1970s were reflected also in literacy rates and health conditions. As I had written a few years back: “In 1951, West Bengal had a literacy rate of 24 per cent and was second in terms of literacy among the major Indian states, Kerala being the top state with 40.7 per cent... Three states were close behind West Bengal, Gujarat with a rate of 23.7 per cent, Maharashtra with 20.9 per cent and Madras with 20.8 per cent. By 1961, all the three states had overtaken West Bengal. ..[During the decade 1961-1971], for India as a whole, the literacy rate advanced from 24.03 per cent to 29.45 per cent and for West Bengal from 29.8 to 33.20 per cent only. West Bengal has not been able to close its gap with the more advanced states since then..” (‘Studies on the economy of West Bengal’, Economic and Political Weekly, November 21-28, 1998, p. 2973).

In 1961, according to the information provided by the Registrar General of India, the infant mortality rate (IMR), that is, the number of children per thousand births who die before their first birthday was 95 for West Bengal and 115 for India as a whole. By 2005, the IMR for India had come down to 58 but that for West Bengal had come down to 38. The IMR for West Bengal is still unacceptably high, but its rate of decline has been faster during the period 1981-2005, since the IMR for West Bengal was as high as 91 in 1981, according to figures compiled by the State Bureau of Health Intelligence.

ADVERSE FACTORS

As we will note soon, three of the top priorities of the West Bengal government since 1977 have been expanding opportunities of gainful employment as a means of raising the purchasing power of ordinary people, and advancing their levels of education and health. In pursuing these objectives, the government has had to struggle against a number of adverse factors. First, there are the usual constraints in a class society. West Bengal, after all, is part of the semi-feudal and semi-capitalist society of India, with vestiges of the colonial ideology pervading the consciousness of many sections of the people and the resurgence of a neo-imperialist and inegalitarian mindset being propagated by an increasingly aggressive array of print and electronic media, penetrating into every locality, if not every home. That ideology has to be fought continuously. The neo-imperialist and neo-liberal propaganda machine also makes use of communalist sentiments and can lead to intense discrimination against the targeted minority leading to riots and pogroms, as has been seen repeatedly in Gujarat and Maharashtra from the 1980s. One of the signal achievements of the Left Front government has been to withstand the repeated assaults of that communalist ideology and prevent any major communal riot since 1977. But there is no room for complacency in this regard. We must recognise that there is a naturalised distrust of ‘the other community’, sleeping even in apparently secular breasts and that distrust can take a demoniac form when insidious whispers penetrate into the chamber of that sleeper.

Secondly, there is a historical legacy of inequality, combined with ascribed religious and ethnic or caste affiliation, in the composition of the population of West Bengal. According to the Census 2001 data, the proportions of Muslims, people belonging to Scheduled Castes and those belonging to Scheduled Tribes formed 25.2 per cent, 23.0 per cent, and 5.5 per cent respectively. For historical reasons, these communities, who together form the majority of the people of West Bengal, were less advanced than the Hindus of upper and so called Other Backward Castes (OBCs) in respect of education and material conditions of living. Facilitating equal access of the underprivileged groups, as indeed of other poor and illiterate people to public health care and public education involves not only spending money on infrastructure but also continuous campaigns to make them aware of their rights and to combat the influence of many retrograde ideas (such as the killing of ‘Witches’), which often masquerade as tradition.

Thirdly, the geo-economic location of West Bengal also is a factor against rapid transformation of people’s lives by arming them with employment with dignity, education and reasonable standard of health. West Bengal is surrounded by regions, in which by and large, the condition of the labouring poor is worse than in West Bengal. So West Bengal attracts migrants from these states, and an overcrowded countryside and towns with squatters’ colonies become even more crowded, with unmet needs of infrastructure and facilities for education and health care. Even though West Bengal has been experiencing a rapid fertility transition, it is largely because of these flows of immigrants that West Bengal has become the most densely populated state in the country and one of the most densely populated regions of the world.

Fourthly, the post-independence history of West Bengal’s economy left it with enormous burdens. Since there had been very little net investment in the older agro-processing industries of West Bengal, the mill areas had derelict infrastructures and obsolete equipment and technology.

Fifthly, under the Indian Constitution, there is a serious imbalance in the division of responsibilities and powers, especially financial powers, of the constituent states and the central government. The major responsibilities for providing education, health care and infrastructure are vested in the states, whereas all the financial powers, such as decisions regarding income and corporation taxes, customs and excise duties, and the regulation of banks, the borrowing of money from the market, the regulation of external payment systems rest with the central government. Usually, in order to defray their expenditures the state governments have to borrow from the central government. But once they are indebted to the central government, the states cannot borrow a single rupee from the banks or the capital market without the permission of the central government. Under the neo-liberal regime of so-called ‘economic reforms’, the financial powers have been further concentrated in the fist of the central government and correspondingly, the state governments have become highly dependent on hand-outs of the central government and the donor agency programmes sanctioned by the central government. Thus the financial powers of the West Bengal government were totally inadequate to tackle the needs of industrial and urban renewal. The attitude of a generally hostile central government totally opposed to the egalitarian, pro-peasant and pro-worker ideology of the Left parties further aggravated the government’s problems. In agriculture, the refusal to legally implement the minimal measures of land reform by earlier governments and the resistance of peasants against the forcible re-possession of the lands they had earlier occupied through militant movements created a huge problem of incentives on both sides. As a result, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the peasants of West Bengal failed to secure the benefits of the Green Revolution and agricultural productivity stagnated. James Boyce wrote a book covering this period and predicted an agricultural impasse for West Bengal.

II

THE Left Front government, after coming to power, set about to change the political equation between the remote villages and towns and Writers’ Buildings in Kolkata. The instrument for that was the proper installation of a three-tier Panchayati Raj system on the basis of universal suffrage. The laws for installing that system were on the statute book. But West Bengal was one of the few states, if not the only state, to have conducted regular elections for the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) since 1978. One of the first notable achievements of the newly elected PRIs was to tackle the devastating floods of 1978, with a minimal loss of life. The government also then modified the tenancy reform laws to give effective rights to the sharecroppers and seize the lands of the landlords above the legal ceiling. The linking of the PRIs with an effectively implemented pro-peasant land reform dramatically changed the agricultural growth situation. From being a laggard in growth, West Bengal began to record, from around the middle 1980s, the highest rates of agricultural growth among all major Indian states. It was estimated, in a paper by Manoj Sanyal and others (published in the Economic and Political Weekly, November 1998) that the rate of growth of West Bengal’s agricultural output (in real terms) between 1977-78 and 1995-96 was nearly 5 per cent per year. For the shorter period of 1980-81 and 1990-91 Anamitra Saha and Madhura Swaminathan estimated that rate as 6.4 per cent per year. From the middle of the 1990s, partly under the onslaught of the one-way free trade regime and the slowdown of public investment implemented by the central government, the rate of growth of West Bengal’s agriculture declined. On the basis of data published by the central government, the agricultural component of West Bengal’s Net State Domestic Product (NSDP) growth has been estimated as 3.30 per cent per year for the period 1993-94 to 2003-04. But this has been partly compensated by the faster growth of industry and especially services in the recent period. Between 1993-94 and 2003-04 West Bengal’s NSDP grew at the rate of 6.48 per cent per year whereas the net national product of India as a whole grew at the rate of 5.73 per cent over the same period.

TOPPER IN LAND DISTRIBUTION

The government has been the top achiever among all Indian states in requisitioning ceiling-surplus land and distributing it among the poor, and pattas have been given to landless women, though this has been rather a late development. That the distribution has been overwhelmingly biased towards the most deprived sections of the population is indicated by the fact that of the nearly 2.9 million beneficiaries of land distribution until November 2006, more than 1.6 million belonged to the Dalit and Adivasi communities, and this proportion is about double their weight in the aggregate population of the state. The overwhelming proportion of operational as well as ownership holdings belong to the size classes of two hectares and below. Moreover, it has also been revealed through research conducted by Vikas Rawal, Aparajita Bakshi and others, that unlike in other states, in West Bengal, the net buyers of land are small and marginal farmers. Thus despite the continual working of market forces pushing resources towards the richer sections of population, in West Bengal, in most cases the attempted equity of land distribution still holds (Frontline, 20 April 2007).

But the situation is still fraught with contradictions. Driven partly by the low level of literacy and relative lack of opportunities of employment for women in rural areas, and under the continued working of patriarchal values, the pressure to marry off daughters quickly, many patta-holders of ceiling surplus land have to sell that small piece of land in order to pay the daughters’ dowry. Secondly, the National Sample Survey (NSS) 59th Round (January-December 2003), found that while the vast majority of the farmers (more than 90 per cent) of West Bengal operated land measuring less than one hectare, even farmers owning 2-4 hectares of land could not meet their consumption needs from the net earnings of their cultivated land alone. There has been diversification of occupations of rural people away from agriculture: many of the farmers supplement their earnings with wage labour, artisanal work or working in the services sector. According to NSS 61st Round (2004-05) on employment and unemployment, 45.8 per cent of the workforce of West Bengal is still dependent on agriculture, but the per capita income of the cultivators is considerably lower than that of non-cultivators and the incidence of poverty is greatest among agricultural labourers, casual workers and marginal farmers.

While attempting to improve the earnings of people dependent on agricultural work, a determined attempt must also be made to find alternative occupations for people in industry and services. Agriculture and rural development are intimately connected and the government’s programmes have spanned a large variety of activities. Extending minor irrigation has been one of the principal means of raising productivity. In order to make the agricultural sector a part of a sustainable development plan, watershed development and afforestation programmes need even more serious attention as the area of cultivable land is squeezed further by the progress of urbanisation. Initiatives have been taken by the government to promote storage and processing facilities for perishable products such as potatoes and tomatoes and fruits and vegetables in general. Under the neo-liberal regime, farmers’ credit was severely restricted in order to improve the bottom line of public sector banks and bring down subsidies to poor and marginal farmers. The co-operative banking sector, with the support of NABARD, has tried to stem this blockage of farm credit. Fortunately, under central government directive, very recently, agricultural credit flow has increased again, so that growth of commercial bank credit at 33 per cent in 2007, over a similar period of 2006, has overtaken that of co-operative credit flow. But the increased flow is mainly for crop loans and mechanisation. It must be seen that farmers’ allocation of resources do not become distorted by the imposition of priorities of commercial banks.

BENGAL GOVT INITIATIVES

In order to help farmers in distress, the West Bengal government has taken the initiative of procuring rice in areas and seasons in which the Food Corporation of lndia fails to act. It has also linked the procurement and processing of rice to local self-help groups (SHGs), which in turn supply the mid-day meals to the schools in the locality. This initiative would help ensure the supply of good-quality rice to children and generate employment, and especially employment of women, who are the primary agents in this kind of activity.

The growth of SHGs is also aiding the process of upgradation of facilities for short-term and long-term credit in rural areas. In my opinion, the large number of SHGs can be grouped into federations that should be equipped with accounting, marketing and technology specialists. Many of them can then start medium-scale industries, with the help of specialists in food-processing and other technologies, and graduates of management institutions who have specialised in marketing. The West Bengal Finance Corporation operates two schemes, namely, the Technology Upgradation Fund and the Equipment Refinance Scheme. The possibility of extending the span of their activities can be seriously explored.

Besides the SHGs, extending proper help to PRIs in accounting has become a major need. Now a very large fraction of development expenditure takes place under the rubric of centrally sponsored schemes. In a large majority of cases, the culpability for unspent funds lies at the door of the inadequate capacity of the implementing bodies in keeping proper accounts and submitting utilisation certificates. The peculiarity of blaming the victims, when funds remain unspent because of the complicated procedures demanded by many central government (and state government) departments, and then denying further assistance to them, only perpetuates deprivation of the already disadvantaged groups.

Are there other kinds of initiatives that can be taken in encouraging the growth of industry? In answering that trillion-rupee question, the first point to signpost is that any growth should be seen only as a means of improving the standard of living of the people. Ideally, it should generate more employment and cause no unemployment. If there is any unemployment, the state should provide unemployment insurance and training for credible new employment. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, a centrally sponsored scheme, which started in February 2006, can be used to provide employment to displaced persons. In case of persons who are threatened with displacement from agriculture, the compensation package worked out by the Commerce and Industries Department, with local modifications wherever necessary, can be offered. But this negotiation should be treated as a democratic process for obtaining consent and not as a matter of administrative fiat. It must be recognised that the West Bengal government is operating under multiple constraints in trying to chart a path to industrial transformation. First, it cannot try to set up large-scale industry on its own, simply because it does not have the resources, under the current dispensation of totally unequal centre-state financial relations. Second, under the current neo-liberal regime, the central government will not set up any industries even in a region rich with mineral resources. Third, in the nanny State for the rich that the central government has become, constituent states are being pushed into showering enormous subsidies for attracting private industrial projects and the West Bengal government is being pushed into that rat race. Fourth, if the West Bengal government does decide to subsidise a big private industrial or real estate project, it has to calculate the costs and benefits carefully. Would an equivalent subsidy for medium-scale industries spread into the interior have generated more employment and income for the poor? But however carefully they are done, there are always uncertainties involved in such calculations. Will petrol cars remain viable and affordable if the price of oil rises further? Will the ancillary units in West Bengal remain operational, if the Myanmar junta provides even more attractive lollies to the same entrepreneurs or their rivals? Finally, convincing poor peasants, who have obtained their minuscule pieces of land after decades of struggle, that they will get more profitable earning and employment opportunities after losing their land and getting the compensation package, will remain a formidable political task. People who do not have any recognised rights as cultivators or sharecroppers may join protest movements, however misguided they may be, as happened in Singur, even though, according to Mrityunjoy Mohanty, the majority of the people there have only a tenuous connection with agriculture. But the fact remains that just allowing the market to take its own course under a neo liberal regime is not an option for a responsible, democratic government.

STATE OF EDUCATION

Let me now turn to some areas and those are the most important ones, in which there is still a lot to be accomplished and in which further determined efforts in the directions the government has chalked out can make a very great difference. These are the areas of education and health, which are, in Amartya Sen’s evocative formulation, both ‘constitutive’ and ‘instrumental’ elements of human well-being. West Bengal’s literacy rate increased from 48.64 per cent in 1981 to 68.64 per cent in 2001, which is considerably lower than I would have hoped for in 1981. Apart from the structural factors I have alluded to earlier, and shortage of resources for investment in basic facilities in schools such as school rooms, toilets, especially for girls and rural roads, there was an unexpected failure of motivation among teachers. Once teachers’ salaries were protected and raised to reasonable levels by the Left Front government, many of them displayed unattractive features of a semi-feudal work culture. They shirked their work, treated poorer students with contempt and acted as moneylenders, besides engaging in private tuition to the neglect of the work they drew their salaries for. Many surveys also found rampant absenteeism in schools. The government’s introduction of Shishu Shiksha Kendras was partly meant to address this issue of incentive failure, although fund scarcity under the neo liberal dispensation also played a part in the decision process. Several surveys have found these Shishu Shiksha Kendras, mostly run by women, performing better than or at least as well as, the formal schools. I would plead for more recruitment of women teachers in primary schools and, wherever necessary, providing them with school quarters. Already the spread of the Mid-day Meals scheme, which now covers nearly a crore of school children, and its linking up in many instances with the ICDS programme, has reduced the problem of absenteeism of teachers and student dropouts. Now, the issue of the quality of teaching should be addressed properly. In all these cases, involving teachers’ unions in improving attendance and quality can be a positive step. In our interactions with teachers’ unions, we found the leaders fully aware of the issues and willing to mobilise their members for better performance.

The West Bengal government’s initiative in modernising Madrasha education and endowing it with more funds is leading to the training of several lakhs of students in education that is no longer imbricated in a particular strand of theology and helping to raise the average level of education of the minority community.

COMMUNITY HEALTHCARE

I am a strong believer in the active participation of the community in education, environment and health. But that community must be an open one with the involvement of democratic State institutions as monitors and facilitators. In joint forest management, West Bengal showed the way. Now in health care also the initiatives for facilitating community participation are beginning to yield a rich harvest, although given the enormous burden on the state, and media propaganda for privatising health care, the results do not appear to be miraculous.

In recent years, the government has started implementing a community healthcare management initiative with gram sabhas, SHGs, anganwadi workers, auxiliary nurses and midwives, NGOs and health supervisors for managing the primary health care units in rural areas. A scheme of this kind, but in an urban setting, has been in operation for a number of years in New Barrackpore. The municipality has managed the Dr B C Roy General Hospital and Maternity Home and other public health care units with community involvement. The participation of the municipal residents in the operation of the system is ensured through women voluntary health workers belonging to the locality, and through committees on which elected members of the municipality as well as the doctors and other technical persons are represented. The outcome is that through the operation of this system, the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) of the municipal population has been brought down from 68.29 in 1994-95 to 9.58 in 2006-07, the maternal mortality rate has come down to zero, immunisation against tuberculosis, DPT and polio has been universalised from levels of 33 to 40 per cent in 1994-95, and ante-natal care of pregnant women now covers 100 per cent of expectant mothers, instead of only 35 per cent in 1994-95. Hospital delivery now covers 97 per cent of births instead of 73 per cent in 1994-95. In urban areas, New Barrackpore is exceptional today, but it need not remain an exception if the municipal bodies take the initiative and continuous participation of the people of the locality can be ensured in every case.

The government of West Bengal has tried gradually to extend the coverage of the public health care system especially in rural areas. All health department properties in the primary health care sector in rural areas have been handed over to the PRls for maintenance. The government has also allocated funds to these institutions for special attention to pregnant mothers and children, and has set up separate neo-natal care units in two district hospitals. It has also connected the local government institutions to self-help groups and village health committees. It appears that these initiatives are leading to a higher percentage of birth deliveries in rural hospitals and even sub-centres, which are the lowest tier of primary healthcare units. Some recent work of Subrata Mukherjee of the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata, and Frederic Levesque of the University of Montreal has shown that in recent times the utilisation of the public healthcare system in West Bengal, has improved and the rate of utilisation has become more evenly distributed among different income groups. Recognising that maternal mortality rate and IMRs even in Kolkata and other urban areas remain unacceptably high, the government has increased the facilities for neo- and ante-natal care in many major government hospitals.

In an egalitarian society, it is human development that should drive the growth process rather than human development being treated as only a byproduct of growth. It happens to be the case that improvements in health, education and substantive freedom in general also help growth. A beleaguered country such as Cuba has managed to improve all indices of human development while being under illegal siege by the US administration. Unfortunately, West Bengal is not a socialist economy like Cuba. The Left Front government of West Bengal has to deal with the multiplicity of constraints that I have sketched above. I have struggled, along with many other citizens of the state, to see that the basic egalitarianism that it carries on its masthead is not torn by squalls of false propaganda and misleading advice. I hope that both the government and its egalitarian creed will outlast me.

People's Democracy, March 13 & 27, 2011

LEFT FRONT ELECTION MANIFESTO 2011

LEFT FRONT MANIFESTO IN PDF FORMAT:

http://ganashakti.com/bengali/manifesto.pdf

BUDDHADEB BHATTACHARJEE ON WEST BENGAL LF GOVT COMPLETES 31 YEARS IN OFFICE

'We Must Clearly Spell Out Our Policy Of

Land Acquisition & Rehabilitation': Buddhadeb

West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee recently spoke to Ganashakti on a variety of developmental issues that are reflected in the policies of the Left Front government. During the course of the interview given on the occasion of Left Front government completing 31 years in office, Buddhadeb also commented on the Darjeeling developments.

Special successes

The focal point of success of the Bengal Left Front government is the regime of redistributive land reforms because of which the rural poor is in possession of land parcels of varying sizes. The success has been achieved through a series of hard struggles and not merely through administrative regulations. The work of the administration also comprised the physical transfer of land rights in the shape of patta deeds to the rural poor and the landless.

Around 84 per cent of the total mass of agricultural land (amounting to 1.35 crore acres) is in the hands of the rural poor. There has also been the setting up and the running of panchayati raj institutions. The panchayats could be organised and run by the rural people because the land belongs to them now. This has in turn influenced the great success we have had in agricultural production. We lead the country in terms of producing rice, jute, potato, vegetables, fruits, flowers etc.

On the opposition to industrialisation

We gave a slogan that we shall consolidate our successes in agriculture and on that foundation shall build up industries. This was done as part of the pre-election call in 2006. Certainly, the people had agreed to the implicational content of the slogan that we raised. Nevertheless, the transition was never an easy task. We frankly expected opposition to be forthcoming as a compulsion from those whose land would be transferred. Thus, the task now is that we clear up further the issues affecting land acquisition and rehabilitation.

Consensus on the issue of development

The task of land reforms and transfer of land to the kisans and the rural poor was certainly done based on the widest possible consensus. The consensus was available because the programme was of anti-zamindar character and was also an exercise in democracy. However, on the issue of private capital that is connected with the process of industrialisation (we do not have any viable alternative to this) a confusion has been created amongst the ranks of the opposition parties, the LF constituents, and even amongst a section of the mass of the people.

At the same time, there is consensus in that everybody would say that they, too, would like to welcome industrialisation, and that they do not stand opposed to it. The debate is principally built up around the mode and method adopted. We have to reach a consensus here through discussion. We are fully seized of the indecision that the LF constituents are affected by on the question of private capital, big capital, and capital of the MNCs.

On the confusion among the poor

The orientation and direction of every programme of the LF government is towards the welfare of the working people who are poor. This is our major difference with other state governments.
We have always held that the Left alternatives of the Left Front government comprise:

* Land reforms, panchayati institutions etc
*Industrialisation aimed at increase of employment, with emphasis on the manufacturing sector and on the small and middle-level industries
*Total literacy, total health, self-help groups, social security especially for unorganised workers etc

These are the directions of our programmes. It is true nonetheless that despite all this, we are not able to reach out to every section of the poor. The state government, the panchayati raj bodies, the municipalities, and especially the Party must specially look to this on a basis of urgency.

On the reduction of mass support

We are presently in the midst of going about a comprehensive review of the results of the rural polls. The preliminary review has revealed that there are several common reasons why our support was eroded where it did. These include, for example, weaknesses of the Party and the mass organisations, the disunity amongst LF constituent partners, the weakness of our campaign against the propaganda of the opposition, and above all, the spread of a baseless fear on the issue of land acquisition. We have to discuss thoroughly all these issues before fixing our next steps.

Darjeeling issue

We have to proceed with great caution and patience in dealing with the Darjeeling problem for the issue is very sensitive and is also connected with the question of nationality. A political solution must be found through discussions. We can and shall remain, solidly bonded together - the people of the hills and the people of the plains.


The basic pre-condition of development is peace and amity. The avenues of discussion with the leadership of the Darjeeling agitation must be kept open. We have kept the union government aware of the issue on behalf of the state LF government. The resolution of the issue, as we have said, must be forthcoming through an amicable discourse.


PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY, June 29 , 2008

Left Governance in Bengal: The Prize and the Price

Sakyajit Bhattacharya
Created 2008-06-15 18:14

There have been some debates and discussions about the role of the government and a communist party after the election setback in panchayat. This article tries to explore the issue, not as an isolated subject in post 2000 period, but as a continuum from the 1964 policy formulation of the CPI (M).

In this context we should not forget that protecting the Left Front government is itself part of the class struggle. Having to tackle bourgeois landlord state oppression and capitalist aggression all over the country, the party as well as the government formed by the party must play an exemplary role of an alternative social structure, because such a government could offer an alternative to the bourgeois-landlord ruling coalition at the centre, challenging the whole basis of the ruling classes' consensus on economy and policy represented by the present regime in power in the centre. It must be a pro-poor/ people's government, and hence protecting the government also means protection of the interests of the oppressed class. That has been the understanding of the party for long now.

The CPI (M) had visualised the possibility of forming governments at the state level which would be challenging the class policy of the bourgeois-landlord governments at the Centre. Here is the much discussed article 112 of the party programme in 1964:

The Party will obviously have to work out various interim slogans in order to meet the requirements of a rapidly changing political situation. Even while keeping before the people the task of dislodging the present ruling classes and establishing a new democratic state and government based on the firm alliance of the working class and peasantry, the Party will utilize all the opportunities that present themselves of bringing into existence governments pledged to carry out a modest programme of giving immediate relief to the people. The formation of such governments will give a great fillip to the revolutionary movement of the working people and thus help the process of building the democratic front. It, however, would not solve the economic and political problems of the nation in any fundamental manner. The Party, therefore, will continue to educate the mass of the people on the need for replacing the present bourgeois-landlord state and government headed by the big bourgeoisie, even while utilizing all opportunities for forming such governments of a transitional character which give immediate relief to the people and thus strengthen the mass movement. (Author’s emphasis)

The party acknowledged the government to be a transitional one and admitted that the government will not solve all fundamental economic and political problems. For that, we have to walk in the path of extra parliamentary struggle.

But the idea somewhat changed with the possibility of forming a new government in West Bengal in 1967. In 1967 the CPI (M) CC, in a report named ‘New Situations and New Tasks’ once again emphasized the possibilities and limitations of these governments. It was mentioned that:

Our ministries, without either entertaining undue illusions about giving relief in a big way, or courting despair that nothing can be done under the present set-up, should always bear in mind that they as the Party's representatives, should strive to tender our bonafides to the people. Any failure on this score compromises the Party's political line in the eyes of the people; adversely affects the independent mobilization of the people, and their activities; and all this in turn, will not help us to resist and overcome the vacillations, wobbling and sometimes even possible backsliding of some democratic parties in the UFs and their respective governments. In a word, the UF governments that we have now are to be treated and understood as instruments of struggle in the hands of our people, more than as governments that actually possess adequate power that can materially and substantially give relief to the people. In clear class terms, our Party's participation in such government is one specific form of struggle to win more and more people, and more and more allies for the proletariat and its allies in the struggle for the cause of People's Democracy and at a later stage for Socialism.
(Author’s emphasis)

Here the party formulated a twin struggle against the rightwing elements within the party who were under the illusion that relief could solve all existing political and economic problems and the ultra-left elements that utterly dismissed the idea of treading the parliamentary path.

Also, the party differed significantly from its 1964 formulation by acknowledging the role of the government as not only giving relief, but playing as an instrument of struggle in the hand of the oppressed people. So, relief, though the main and immediate task, is not the only purpose of the government. The long-term task is to further the struggle of PDR.

Now, what should be the party’s standpoint regarding a left government that emerges under its leadership? In Namboodiripad’s words:

These should, on the other hand, be seen as a stage in the process of the further intensification of the conflict between the mass of the people headed by the working class on the one hand and the ruling classes symbolized by the Congress government at the Centre on the other. There is no question of the ruling classes permitting the 'peaceful replacement' of their regime by a new popular democratic regime. The only question is the method through which the ruling classes would try to subvert the popular democratic governments. Marxist- Leninists should therefore carry on a simultaneous struggle both against the negative attitude to the struggle on the parliamentary arena as well as against the illusions of a 'smooth and peaceful' advance through the parliamentary path disseminated by right opportunism. (Chile and the Parliamentary Road to Socialism, 1973)

The insufficiency of the relief programme has always been stressed. The CPI (M) made it clear that relief can’t be a permanent solution to the existing problems, and the communists must pursue the extra-parliamentary struggle towards the goal of PDR.

But still, the party decided to join the government in 1977. The common understanding was that the government won’t last long due to the conspiracy of the bourgeois-landlord ruling class. The bitter experience of the two Namboodiripad governments in Kerala and Juktafront (United Front) was still recent. In the internal period, the task was to popularize the government as much as possible through the relief programme so that people could have an idea about an alternative system. People could have an idea of how oppression by the semi-capitalist semi-feudal state structure can be toned down by the relief activities carried by a Leftist government. It would not be the permanent solution, but a populist approach that remained a path not experimented by other bourgeois governments.

Even in the seventies, the party was not sure about forming a government and about the longevity of the government even if they were formed. Namboodiripad, in the above article, time and again drew parallels between the experience of Chile, of Allende, and his own experience in Kerala and concluded that an elected leftist government had high possibility of being bought down by the ruling class conspiracy. B.T Ranadive, in 1978, expressed his opinion that the bourgeois ruling class will never voluntarily hand over power, and if communists come into government without changing the semi feudal structure, the ruling class will positively put all its effort to topple the government (Carrillo’s “Eurocommunism and the State”, 1978). The general understanding, even after the formation of the left front government, was that the government will be short-lived, and so the party quite logically stressed on the task of providing the oppressed masses as much relief as it could with its limited power and tenure in the government. The understanding remained unchanged in the first few years of the Left Front government in West Bengal.

But the apprehensions of the communists were refuted by the people of West Bengal. The Left government remained in power for years. Each election was won with landslide margins, and the relief activities became so popular, especially in rural areas, that the opposition parties went on to become organizationally demobilized through the popular appeal of the Left Front government policies. Land redistribution programme, especially Operation Barga, and the restructuring of the Panchayat Raj, helped the government to concretise its position almost permanently in rural Bengal.

This might be looked upon as not only a story of immense success, but also a source of ideological problem. If mere relief activities can help the party stay in the government for years, then what is the need to talk of PDR, of extra-parliamentary activities? The party was now in a dilemma: it did not, for a single time, deny the necessity of PDR. But at the same time, relief proved to be a sustainable path to form an alternative system that was hoped to serve an exemplary role to the oppressed masses of the country. The party talked so much about the insufficiency of relief, about why relief or such kind of ‘transitional’ governments can’t bring the real solution-and now the relief showed to be sustainable, at least with regard to the vote bank, and the government perhaps remained no more transitional.

As a rational being, the party went on combining the path of relief with left-democratic governance within the existing set up. It acknowledged that relief was insufficient to solve the basic socioeconomic problems, and at the same time went to explore more and more the possibilities of gaining peoples’ support by left governance, even within this existing system and with limited power.

This was perhaps best described by Jyoti Basu in 1985:

The Left Front government in the state of West Bengal has limited powers. It has to operate within a capitalist federal economy. The constitution, contrary to federal principles, does not provide for the needed powers for the states and we suffer from a special disability because the union government is ill disposed towards our government. In such a situation, we have been explaining to the people why we cannot bring about fundamental changes even though the ideology and character of our government are different from those that characterize the government at the Centre. But we do hold that by forming the government through election it is possible for us to rule in a manner which is distinctly better and more democratic than the way followed by the Congress party at the centre and in many other States. It is also possible to give relief to the people, particularly the deprived section, through the minimum programme adopted by the Left Front. We have been attempting to do so by motivating the people and enlisting their support and sympathy. Our objective is to raise their political consciousness along with giving them relief so that they can distinguish between truth and falsehood and friends and enemies, and realize the alternative path which will free them from the shackles of Capitalism and Feudalism and usher in a new modern progressive society…..The left and democratic state governments can help and expedite this process even with their limited powers. It is with such a perspective and objective that we are functioning in West Bengal.
(Left Front Government’s Industrial Policy: Some Aspects, 1985)

So, there had been a fine shift from the 1964 stand. Twenty years ago a ‘modest’ relief programme was thought of which was admitted to not solve the basic problems. In 1967, the party document made the allusion of the feasibility of doing something ‘more’ than relief. In 1985, though relief was still looked upon as insufficient, it is admitted that state governments can do a considerable work in order to expedite the task of PDR. It is not only relief, but educating people so that they can identify the real danger and struggle to make a progressive society. While in 1964 the aim was to popularize the government within limited time span, the vision now widened. The relief is seen to be sustainable and the government is seen to be a powerful weapon to bolster the mass movement, even within the bourgeois-landlord structure, because now the government was not transitional anymore. Other factors were the hostile nature of the Centre and the discriminatory policies which made the government explain more and more to the people the odds against an elected left government. The common understanding prevailing was that the current set up and the bourgeois ruling class will block the activities of a left democratic government though there is much scope for development works (a significant shift from the 1964 formulation).

Time went by, a whole new neo-liberal arena opened up for the country, the one party dictatorship in the Centre went to oblivion, but still the Left Front continued its regime in West Bengal. Huge mass popularity, along with concrete organizational force and weak opposition, helped the government to continue its popular relief policy. But after 2000, the party programme aimed at something more than relief or task of PDR. It acknowledged the huge achievement of the Left Front government and admitted that an exemplary alternative social system can be formed even within the existing structure that will serve as a lighthouse to the toiling mass in the ocean of capitalistic and feudalistic repression.

The huge success story of the government made the following change in the party programme:

the Party will utilise the opportunities that present themselves of bringing into existence governments pledged to carry out a programme of providing relief to the people and strive to project and implement alternative policies within the existing limitations. The formation of such governments will strengthen the revolutionary movement of the working people and thus help the process of building the people’s democratic front. It, however, would not solve the economic and political problems of the nation in any fundamental manner. The Party, therefore, will continue to educate the mass of the people on the need for replacing the present bourgeois-landlord State and government headed by the big bourgeoisie even while utilising opportunities for forming such governments in the states or the Centre, depending on the concrete situation, and thus strengthen the mass movement. (Change is shown in Italics)

So, the party now envisioned a left democratic alternative which is more than relief, or at least projected to be.

The problem is what task this alternative government will carry on. Can it set up any alternative structure in the existing set up, or any alternative social system? Within this bourgeois landlord set up and more so in the neo liberal arena, the state governments have very limited power to go in the path of human development. What a Left Front government can do at best is to consolidate the relief programme and strengthen the mass movement. It is only relief that can be possible within this existing structure. Without an entire change in the system no alternative governance can be set up. If a Left government is there, it would then go with mere alternative ways of relief which would popularize the party more and more, but it is certainly not an alternative set up.

The problem lies here. If we talk about alternative government in the current set up, we basically recognize the sustainability of the relief programme, (might be in some alternative way). The party, in post 2000 period, is perhaps not considering relief as a transitional phase (very natural formulation, because the government is no more transitional!!). Rather, through alternative governance, the party now theorizes the possibility of remaining in the government for a long term. That might be problematic. As long as we know that relief is transitional (1964 formulation) and so is the government, it is the path of revolution, through extra parliamentary struggle, that remains with us while the scope of relief gradually decreases in this neo-liberal regime. We could then explain to people that relief can’t ultimately solve the basic problems. It is the PDR that is the only solution.

But once we formulate that the immediate task is to remain in the government and thus make an alternative government, we in fact recognize the permanency of relief. The reality that relief is bound to fail is denied. No explanation on the ultimate fruitlessness of relief is floated in the grass root, and the realization of this fruitlessness in lower level is gradually lost. This is evident even in the party documents where no mention about the transitional character and ultimate failure of such state governments in the existing set up, which would compel the mass along the path of PDR, is penned down. The realization that protecting the Left Front government is itself a day to day class struggle for the interest of PDR, not for the interest of remaining in power or mere relief, is lost in the lower strata of the party.

The idea of relief has also changed significantly. In the first half of the Left Front governance, relief was something that was related to a regime better and more democratic than the Congress rule, as apparent from Jyoti Basu’s speech. But later, the idea was transformed in providing a human solution to the suffering of the masses under the neo liberal policies. The common idea is that there is no alternative of the New Economic Policy imposed by the Centre, but the Left government can work out a human face of the big capital which will provide the toiling mass limited relief. The TINA (There Is No Alternative) mentality is now deeply connected with the idea of alternative government. Previously, the alternative seemed to be the path of PDR when the transitional relief programme failed. But since the permanence of relief is given legitimacy, now the idea is how to work out a humane solution of the neo-liberal structure, without changing it.

Therefore, when big capital sharpens its aggression, no radical alternative comes out. The government goes on with consolidating relief which proves to be insufficient in the face of neo-liberal attack. A surrendering policy then becomes dominant in the entire socio-political sector, and the TINA (There Is No Alternative) mentality becomes triumphant. Then the government has to walk down the same path of the neo-liberal industrialization dictated by big capital. The mere difference lies in making it more human, more sensitive to the peoples’ cause. But no radical policy of rejecting the path and working out for some alternative policy comes out.

It is the task of the party, not the government, to be much more cautious in directing the government to educate people in identifying the basic problems. The Communist Party, we believe, will be ultimate victorious in the struggle of poor peoples’ quest for a better society. It is the duty of the CPI (M), as the vanguard of the proletariats, to aim its directives towards PDR and to not, at any rate, deviate from this goal. The Left government led by the CPI (M) is an instrument in the hand of poor people. The party must not sacrifice this powerful character. Each election, each path of the extra parliamentary struggle is a necessary stone in the path of PDR, a class struggle. The very essence of this class struggle must not be sacrificed.

Source URL: http://www.pragoti.org/node/1465
Links:[1] http://www.pragoti.org/node/1262

THIRTY YEARS OF SUCCESSFUL LEFT FRONT RULE

30 YEARS OF SUCCESSFUL
LEFT FRONT RULE

M K Pandhe

On June 20th 2007 the Left Front Government completed 30 years of continuous rule defending the interests of the toiling people in West Bengal. Within the framework of the capitalist system, no party in India could overcome the anti-incumbency factor for such a long time in any state since independence. There is no example of any left party remaining in power in a province of any capitalist country in the world for such a long time.

This unique experience in West Bengal needs to be studied properly. Despite discrimination by the ruling party or combination of parties at the centre, the Left Front Govt. continued to develop the economy of the state despite all limitations of the capitalist system and made a mark of its own in the national situation. Defeating all conspiracies to topple down or weaken, the Left Front Govt. in West Bengal could raise its head high with the determined support of the people of the state.

Left Front Govt came into being in the process of prolonged struggles by Left forces with the people and for the cause of common people's life, livelihood and democratic rights. With "Operation Barga" it introduced genuine land reforms in the state for the first time in the country. Lakhs of share coppers got their right to till the land which resulted in remarkable improvement in agricultural productivity as well as expansion of rural market. Since it came into being in the process of struggle by the toiling people, people remained with Left Front and It has been the massive support of the rural masses that sustained the Left Front Government in Bengal for three decades, mocking at the lousy noise of so called "scientific rigging". The successful introduction of Panchayati Raj empowered the rural poor to have a role in developmental activities in the State. It cannot be a fault of the Left Front Government that the opposition parties could not get even candidate to contest election against the left front candidates in some places! The Panchayati Raj in Bengal even attracted some foreign countries who sent representatives to study the operation of the system in the State.

The total number of beneficiaries of agricultural land distributed among the land less in Bengal is now 29.14 lakh. The total number of recorded share croppers have now reached 15.08 lakh.
In a memorandum to the 53rd meeting of the National Development Council on Food and Agriculture held on May 29, 2007 at New Delhi the Govt. of West Bengal noted, "In our state, the total production of rice, despite the adverse effects of floods, has been estimated to reach 144 lakh tones in 2006-07, which is higher than the requirement of the State (presently 139.6 lakh MT) and West Bengal occupies the first position in the States in production of rice. Moreover, the production of potato is also estimated to reach 77 lakh MT which is again much higher than the requirement of the State (43.4 lakh MT) and in this regard the States position is second among the states. In addition the total production of vegetables is estimated to increase to 125 lakh MT which is substantially higher than the states requirement (86.7 lakh MT) and in this case also, West Bengal occupies the highest position among the States".

The Left Front Government came in a wake of several struggles conducted by the working class and the toiling masses in defence of their rights. With intensification of class struggles in West Bengal the ruling Congress launched a severe repression on the trade union and democratic movement in early seventies. During the semi-fascist terror launched by the Congress party more than 1200 trade union activists had to lay down their lives braving the attacks by the gangsters and police. Several thousands of activists were evicted from their residential areas and had to take shelter in far away places.

The holding of regular elections in all elective organizations/institutions ensured the democratic process to empower the people and gave them a voice to elect representatives of their choice. The left front Government proved its growing popularity not only in Assembly and Parliamentary polls but in Municipalities and Gram Panchayats. Despite attempts to form Mahajot combining all anti-Left forces, the left front Government continue to win support of the people in the State. The bankruptcy of the Congress policies in the state has brought its strength down to a lowest possible level. The Congress party which ruled the state for several years has become a smaller force than even the Trinamul Congress.

The Trinamul Congress with the backing of lumpen elements and financed by dubious sources has repeatedly tried to destabilize the Govt but failed miserably. Instead of achieving the dream of entering writers building Ms. Mamata Banerjee lost her support among the people. Her ranks are deserting her seeing her maverick policies which only is making her more violent and resorting to gangster methods to prevent further erosion. Her unreliable political behaviour is making her allies skeptical about her policies. The BJP got some foothold in Bengal due to Mamata Banerjee's support to the communal outfit. Within erosion of her own influence in the state politics BJP is facing difficulties to mark its presence in the state politics.

When the Left Front came to power the opposition combine and the press in Bengal initiated a virulent campaign that due to the role of CITU in the state, the industries would not come to invest in West Bengal. They also were campaigning about sickness of large number of companies in the state which they ascribed to the militant trade union movement in Bengal. As a matter of fact most of the units became sick during the Congress regime and refusal of the Central Government to give orders to public sector units in the State and their discriminatory policy against the state.

WHY INDUSTRIALISATION?

Decades of Congress rule brought in widespread industrial stagnation in West Bengal. On the eve of independence West Bengal was second in industrial development which came down fifth due to this policy. After achieving land reforms it was now an urgent task before the Left Front Govt. to develop industrial base and generate employment for lakhs of new entrants in the employment market. Public sector investment came to a standstill due to the policy of neoliberal globalization adopted by the Central Governments. Naturally private sector investment came to the forefront. With the lack of resources with the state Govt. which is further aggravating owing to neoliberal policies, the Left Front Government had to rely on private sector investment. However when the Government adopted a policy of encouraging new investment in the state, the opposition parties made a common cause to oppose every proposal for starting new industrial activities in the state. Singur and Nandigram became symbol of opposition parties' resistance to industrial development. The unfortunate police firing on March 14 at Nandigram was regretted by all and the West Bengal Govt. gave up the proposal to establish a chemical hub in Nandigram; but still the violent agitation continued and law and order was thrown overboard. The proposal of the Left Front Govt. to hold talks to work out consensus on issues of development is being turned down only to continue a situation of lawlessness in the state.

The people will have to counteract such disruptive move of the opposition parties who have made a common cause to create difficulties in the process of industrial development. We are confident that the people of West Bengal will defeat the game of Congress Trinamul Congress, extremists and BJP to obstruct the process of industrial development without affecting the agricultural development.

SECRET BALLOT FOR UNION RECONGNITION

While making serious effort for employment generating investments in the state, the Left front Government never hesitated in upholding the rights of the toiling people including right to organize and right to strike. It was the first Govt. to pass a legislation in the Legislative Assembly providing secret ballot for recognition of a union in the industry. The central Government took more than several years to endorse the Bill and obtain presidential assent to it.

Even now the central Government has not provided through legislation the right of workers to determine their representative union through the mechanism of secret ballot. The desire to impose scab unions on the working class by the management is still preventing such a legislation at the national level. The Govt. of West Bengal did this three decades ago and honoured the commitment given to the working class.

The scheme to pay Rs.500 rupees per month for 6 months for workers who became jobless due to closure of their unit is a pioneering scheme initiated by the left front Government. Despite severe financial constraints, the Left Front Govt introduced provident fund schemes for agricultural workers and unorganized sector workers. The provision of payment of contribution by the state Govt. to the lakhs of unorganized workers in West Bengal is the testimony of its pro-people commitment. This is yet to be implemented by most of the UPA or NDA sponsored Governments in other States. The welfare Scheme for construction workers has also provided much needed relief to these unorganized sector of workers is also another significant step taken by the left front Govt.

While the majority of the working people all over the country are being subjected to repression and widespread violation of labour laws being indulged by the both the state and central administration, the Left Front Govt of West Bengal has always taken forthright stand in support of all the struggles of working class against such repression and violations and also passed a legislation to plug the loopholes of the labour laws for effective implementation. The West Bengal Assembly has already passed legislation containing provision for Recovery Officers to be appointed by the Labour Department for recovery of money due from an employer through attachment of properties, arrest of the employer and detention in prison etc. The legislation is still awaiting assent from the President. The Left Front rule did always remain with the toiling people in all the sphere of its governance which demarcates it from other non-left governments and such demarcation is the source of its strength - the continued support of the mass of the people.

A PASSING PHASE

B.T. Ranadive characterised the Left Front Government as revolutionary outposts of our movements. They fight for alternative policies to the Central Government and oppose the policies of globalization by the Central Government.

However, formation of Left Front Government is only a passing phase of our revolutionary movement. Within the capitalist framework the State Govt. has limited powers since all financial powers are within the Central Government yet the Left Front government is trying to give maximum relief to the working class and the toiling masses.

The ultimate objective of the working class movement is to strive to organize a peoples' democratic revolution in which working class will play a leading role. This will pave the way for building a socialist society, which will abolish exploitation of man by man.

The workers peasant alliance has to play a crucial role in such a revolutionary social transformation. The policies and programmes of the Left Front Government has to encourage the people to move in that direction.

Formation of Left front Government in one state or in a couple of states will not automatically lead to such a revolutionary transformation. The democratic movement must be strengthened in other weaker states so that revolutionary forces become stronger in these weaker states.
There is urgent need to pay attention to these aspects if the left movement has to acquire an all India character in real terms. The people oriented alternate polices pursued by the left front Govt should continue to demarcate it from others. Working class in other states should popularize the achievements of the left front Govts of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura so that people are mobilized in defence of alternative policies. This alone will make the democratic movement achieve a popular character and develop a nationwide democratic movement for a real democratic change in the present exploitative social system. The strong movement in Left Front led states will be a powerful force to help strengthening of the left and democratic movement in other states.

The socio political developments in the country during last couple of decades point to that tremendous potential of the Left movement and the frontline role of the Left forces in the struggle against communal and divisive forces on the one hand and in combating the onslaught of neoliberal economic policies. In the present correlation of political forces, following defeat of the NDA regime and dependence of the UPA Govt on the Left parties, the contribution of the Left movement has been immense and our Left Front and Left Democratic Front Governments played crucial role in making such contribution effective. The Left-led governments in the three states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura are pursuing developmental strategies towards horizontal expansion of the economy based on simultaneous growth of agriculture and manufacturing; they are upholding the democratic rights of the toiling people. They are pursuing such a line, despite all limitations imposed by the policy framework of the government at the centre. Thus, they bear the stamp of clear demarcation from other non-Left-ruled states. This demarcation is the source of their strength to resolutely fight the designs of imperialism and neoliberalism.

In such a background, it is but natural that the right reactionaries, the real votaries of neoliberalism and their cronies, will not miss any opportunity of maligning the Left. Their design is to isolate the Left and weaken their opposition to disastrous neoliberal policies. We must analyse the post Nandigram developments in this backdrop. We have to realise in depth the real import of and the ulterior design behind the recent countrywide vigorous anti-Left tirade by the reactionary forces and counter the same. We must, however, patiently explain to the common people, the importance of the role of Left forces in maintaining and strengthening the democratic secular fabric of society and the political system and in advancing the struggle for a pro-people economic regime and the cruciality of the Left Front Govt's role in the same.

Let the left and democratic movement surge forward so that the objective of ending the present exploitative system by the toiling masses can be achieved as soon as possible.

Defence of the Left Front Govt. has become an important task before the revolutionary movement in our country!