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Opinion
No Winners in West Bengal; Losers are its
People
by Amulya Ganguli
Venal and irresponsible politicians,
acting in concert with anti-social elements masquerading as cadres, have
ensured that the faint hopes of reviving West Bengal's industrial sector
have again been dashed.
First, the state government had to scrap its plans for a chemical
complex in Nandigram because of stiff resistance to the acquisition of
agricultural land led by Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee. Then
the Tatas abandoned their Nano project in Singur as Banerjee's
agitational tactics scaled new heights.
Even as she reaped the harvest of her pro-peasant policies by her
electoral success, which led to her becoming the railway minister, the
ruling Left Front in West Bengal sunk deeper into drift and despondency.
Now, the plight of the Communists has become worse with their decision
to discard their plans to set up the much-touted IT hub in the Rajarhat
area near Kolkata following revelations about fraudulent land
acquisition procedures.
With the scuttling of virtually all the state government's industrial
projects, including the move to relocate the chemical complex in
Nayachar, the comrades are facing the worst crisis of their tenure in
West Bengal.
Since the growth of employment prospects via industries was the
centerpiece of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's plans, the
successive setbacks not only mean a severe loss of face but also
highlight the government's cluelessness about the next step. Its
reverses are all the more galling because they have been inflicted by
none other than Banerjee, the inveterate enemy of the comrades for the
major portion of their rule of three decades.
Yet, it can be argued that there are no winners in West Bengal. The
hounding out of the prospective investors means that the state will sink
back into agricultural stagnation with little prospect of revisiting its
past as the first choice of the industrial and corporate sectors.
West Bengal lost its primacy of place in these fields because of the
Communists' militant trade union tactics in the 1960s and 1970s. It was
to woo back the capitalists that Bhattacharjee started his industrial
drive. But his mistake was that he depended on his violent cadres to
intimidate the peasant proprietors to surrender their land while the
police looked away.
Having established their stranglehold on the state by the use of such
belligerent tactics, the Communists thought that this was the best way
to promote the industries. The private sector, too, including the Tatas,
believed in their assurances without realizing that Stalinist methods
would not work in a democratic set-up.
What was worse, strong-arm tactics were not the only way in which the
state government tried to acquire land. As the latest incidents
involving the burning of a holiday resort, the Vedic Village, in
Rajarhat showed, there was a clandestine link between politicians,
industrial promoters and the anti-social elements.
This revelation is the last crippling blow to the Bhattacharjee
government, forcing it to abandon the IT project. But even as all seemed
lost to the commissars, there has been a twist in the tale, for it isn't
only the Marxists who have been implicated in the latest land scam but
also several people close to the Trinamool Congress. As a result,
Banerjee's pristine reputation as a doughty champion of the poor has
taken a hit.
However, the people of the state are unlikely to be surprised. They saw
how the Congress's degeneration helped the Communists to gain power, and
then witnessed the Left's decline into corruption. The reason why
Banerjee gained widespread support despite her reckless brand of
politics, such as associating with the Maoists, was her reputation for
personal integrity exemplified in an unostentatious lifestyle.
But, now, doubts may arise about her credentials as well. As it is, she
is not regarded as the most level-headed of persons. Her expertise in
the economic field is also limited, guided as she is by populist notions
of heavy government and public sector investments in "pro-poor"
projects, which benefit middle men more than the targeted beneficiaries.
Her only plus points are her seeming
incorruptibility and grit in fighting the rampaging Marxists with their
habitual recourse to the politics of threat and intimidation. But to
fulfil her obvious ambition of becoming chief minister, she will have to
demonstrate an ability to grasp the basic reasons for the state's
present sorry plight.
Since these relate to the infiltration of goons into virtually all the
parties and the influence exercised by promoters or "land sharks" over
the political class, only a leader of commanding stature and
administrative skill will be able to win the electorate's support. But
Banerjee does not measure up to these expectations.
As a result, West Bengal is again suffering from a failure of political
leadership. After the towering figure of the visionary B.C. Roy, who
built the Durgapur and Haldia industrial complexes, and mooted the idea
of satellite towns like Kalyani to draw people away from overcrowded
Kolkata, the state has seen no one with similar purposefulness.
While Jyoti Basu was hobbled by his
dogmatic comrades, who were responsible for the flight of capital,
Bhattacharjee's ham-handed attempts to rectify the mistakes of the past
were foiled by Banerjee's unrelenting opposition to anything which the
Left initiated, even if it was ostensibly for the state's benefit.
Now, she also does not seem capable of effectively addressing West
Bengal's problems.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be
reached at aganguli@mail.com)
IANS | September 12,
2009font>
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