A middle-aged employee of the finance department in the state secretariat has developed a habit of asking a colleague the same question towards the end of every month. “Ei mashe maina hobe to? (Will we get our salaries this month?)” has been his question since the past few months. His consistency in hurling the same poser raises several questions. Is everything alright with the Bengal government’s finances? Why will a government employee, with a secured job, doubt so much his employer’s ability to pay? A state government defaulting on salaries may sound an exaggeration. But a look at Bengal’s balance sheet will reveal that all is not well with the state of its finances. As the beleaguered government never tried to clear the air on the fiscal mess, Mamata Banerjee got the chance to refer to Bengal as a bankrupt state in rallies after rallies this poll season. “For the past 34 years, the Left government has made the state bankrupt. Bengal is knee-deep in debt. The government cannot pay the salaries anymore,” Mamata has alleged umpteen number of times these past few months. Even as the stoic finance minister Asim Dasgupta has claimed on many occasions that most of the problems were “temporary” in nature, data available in the public domain do not support this claim. The report on state finances, collated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), revealed that the liquidity crunch has become a regular problem for the Bengal government, which has to use the ways and means advances (WMAs) and overdraft facilities of the apex bank to pay for daily expenses. Till March 18, the Bengal government had to approach the RBI on 109 days for normal WMAs, which help states tide over a temporary mismatch in cash flow. The state government had to resort to overdrafts — borrow more than the stipulated amount — from the RBI on 62 occasions. This is the highest among all states in 2010-11. Other states such as Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra did not have to knock on the doors of the RBI even once in the same period. (See box 1) “The reliance on WMA and overdraft is a clear indication that the government cannot match its income and expenditure. Knocking on the doors of RBI has become a regular feature and it explains a structural problem,” said a senior state government official. According to sources in Writers’ Buildings, the state government did not miss out on any opportunity to raise funds from other sources, which further pushed up interest payment liabilities of the state. The total outstanding liabilities are now over Rs 1.98 lakh crore. (See box 2 ) The RBI report on state finances highlighted that out of its revenue collections, the state was spending over 33 per cent on interest payments. “This approach of raising funds without bothering about repayment is pushing the state to the brink of bankruptcy,” said a senior state government official. In April, the government borrowed Rs 4,667 crore from the market and is about to take another Rs 2,575 crore this month. The accumulated market borrowings will then touch Rs 7,242 crore, almost half of the annual ceiling of Rs 15,390.64 crore. “This means that the government has laid its hands on around half the loanable funds available to it for the whole year. Where will the next government go to access funds?” asked Amit Mitra, billed as the man to replace Dasgupta if there is a change of guard at Writers’. The fiscal mess in Bengal will be among the first things Mamata will have to address if the winds of change catapult her to the seat of power in the state. Pro-change economist Abhirup Sarkar said the number one priority would be shoring up revenue mobilisation. Traditionally, the state has had a very poor track record in revenue mobilisation, which is reflected in its poor ratio of tax to the gross state domestic product (GSDP) — the total value of goods and services produced in the state in a year. (See box 3). “A better tax administration and crackdown on corrupt practices can significantly increase the revenue collection,” said Sarkar, worried about the rising debt burden of the state. According to the 2011-12 budget estimates, Bengal has among the highest debts as a percentage of the GSDP at 40.8 per cent (See box4). Although that figure has improved in the past few years, the critics argue that delay in adopting the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act compounded the problems for Bengal. The Centre had passed the FRBM legislation in 2004-05 to help the states improve their fiscal situation. While other states adopted the act, Bengal waited till the vote-on-account this year to commit itself to the FRBM. “Had the government adopted it earlier, the state would have got substantial relief from the Centre and that would have significantly improved its finances,” said M. Govinda Rao, director, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP). Not just the delay in adopting the FRBM, the state government also failed to provide a road map to fiscal consolidation to the Union finance ministry, which has come to the rescue of the state government several times in the past few months. The state finance minister, however, claimed that the Centre was not releasing its legitimate receivables and that was one of the reasons for the state’s poor fiscal health. Data available from the finance ministry revealed that the total release from the Centre — Rs 3,20,38,78,21,000 (over Rs 3,200 crore) —in the last fiscal was among the highest in the country. “If Bengal claims that the Centre has discriminated against it, the accusation is false. Data for the last 10 years clearly show that fund devolution for Bengal was among the top states in the country,” said Sarkar. Though the enactment of FRBM and the promise of revenue mobilisation have raised the hopes of a better balance sheet for Bengal, the mission will not be complete without keeping tabs on the expenditure side. Many economists believe that Bengal slipped into a difficult fiscal situation as the government increased its expenditure by creating more jobs in the government sector and taking on the responsibility of paying almost all the teachers — including those working in private schools — in the state. A quick comparison of education budgets in 1976 and 2011 can drive home this point. From an education budget of Rs 114 crore in 1976-77, it swelled to Rs 13,622 crore in 2010-11 and over 90 per cent of the budget was spent on paying salaries and pensions. Against this backdrop, Mamata’s promise of creating over 10 lakh jobs has raised fears among fiscal purists. “The new government will have to keep tabs on its expenses even as they will have to face demands for more spending. They can think of appointing an expenditure commission to tackle the situation,” advised Rao. Unless the next government balances its income and expenditure, the finance department employee will keep asking the same question. Deng admirer who hit a Great Wall | | ASHIS CHAKRABARTI |  | | Bhattacharjee leaves Alimuddin Streeton Thursday. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya | In 1994, when the question, “Who after Jyoti Basu”, first surfaced in public debates, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s common response would be: “Who, me? Not for that chair.” To comrades in the CPM and friends outside the party, he would say that the chair — of the chief minister — involved making too many compromises and that he was not quite cut out for that role. In five years on that chair and into that role, he had made compromises that he never thought he was capable of. But to those who had known him since he was a young communist, his change was nothing short of a transformation. From a novice picked up by party strongman Promode Dasgupta and moulded into one of the PDG boys, he was to shape up as a future leader with the purist party touch. For the record, the party changed its line on economic development even under Basu. But the man who had been the most popular face of Indian communism for more than five decades was never an ideologue of any kind. As on most matters of theoretical or ideological importance, he remained rather nonchalant about the challenges of a new economic regime unfolding in India or about the party’s responses to them. He showed no special interest in the new situation or no special skills to bring into governance in Bengal that he ruled for 23 long years. Bhattacharjee, by contrast, gave the impression of a man in a hurry and also in real earnest about his role in steering Bengal in a new direction. He was the opposite of Basu, who became his mentor after PDG’s death in Beijing in 1982. Basu was cold, cynical and let things be run by the party apparatchiki while he reigned at Writers’ Buildings and generally enjoyed being the leader. Bhattacharjee has been a warm, transparent, passionate man who threw caution to the winds if an idea caught his fancy. In the 10 years that he ruled Bengal, the one idea that not just caught his fancy but became a driving passion was industry. Those who had known him for a long time were often bewildered by the transformation of the typical middle-class Bengali bhadralok — a lover of Rabindrasangeet, Shakespeare, football and of course, Marxist literature — into a full-blown capitalist-roader. But he had long been an admirer of Deng Xiaoping. The CPM may be blowing hot and cold on capitalism, foreign direct investment or the opening of the banking and insurance sectors to foreigners and sundry other issues of economic reform. But once plunged onto the capitalist road, Bhattacharjee was no vacillator. His resolve to promote Bengal's industrial resurgence surprised old-time party comrades and impressed local business circles and even visiting high priests of capitalism. His zeal often ran into the party wall. But, unlike Basu, Bhattacharjee was not afraid to resist or even defy the party line. He tried to put a leash on the Citu’s militant trade unionism, went against the party’s education satraps in order to allow private players in education and partly unshackle Presidency College from the party’s and the government’s control and even take on the central leadership on the need for accepting more of economic reforms. Many in the party even got alarmed and found him to be turning into something of an overreacher. And, they were proved right when his industrialisation drive hit the wall of resistance, which was politically capitalised by Mamata Banerjee but which, especially after the police firing in Nandigram, became not just his but the Left’s nemesis in Bengal. It may not have been all his fault but he paid for the collapse in police and civilian administration that his party had wreaked in Bengal for three decades. When it came to power in 1977, it promised to run the administration not just from Writers’ Buildings but also involve the people at the grassroots level. In effect, the administration shifted to Alimuddin Street and the local party offices everywhere in the state. Personally, Bhattacharjee must have felt the irony too bitter to swallow that Calcutta’s cultural icons, among whom he had always felt as comfortable as among his party comrades, took to the streets, calling him a “killer of peasants”. He was the “bloodthirsty” leader whose government’s grabbing of poor people’s land, aided by state-sponsored violence, in order to help capitalists turned everything in Bengal’s Leftist political tradition on its head. He was the ultimate betrayer, said not just the Maoists but others of various Leftist faiths. And, all such critics made a common cause against him with Mamata. Voices of dissent and even anger against him were rising even within the CPM. As more and more electoral defeats eroded the party’s bases, he became the leader who failed the party. Many would now say that he never had it in him to lead a party, much less Bengal’s economic resurgence. He was at best a second-rung leader who had no mass appeal and even less leadership skills. Such views may slowly change his position and role in the party after these elections. It is not that he will be immediately replaced as the leader. The CPM has always been a hierarchical organisation and its leadership is truly more collective than that of any other party in India. But of one thing there should be no doubt — that Bhattacharjee will shrink in stature in the party and among its cadre. It is possible, though, that many observers detached from the vortex of Bengal’s contemporary politics will see him differently — as a leader who fell for what appeared to be a just cause at that historical moment. Rebels flattened but give pinpricks | | BARUN GHOSH | Calcutta, May 13: The winds of change proved too strong for the rebel candidates fielded by Congress leaders Adhir Chowdhury, Deepa Das Munshi and Shankar Singh. Of the 18 Congress rebels who contested as Independents, only one has won — Hamidul Rahman defeated Sheikh Zalauddin of the Trinamul Congress at Chopra in North Dinajpur. Chowdhury, the Murshidabad strongman who fielded Independents against Trinamul nominees in Sagardighi, Bhagabangola, Jalangi and Hariharpara, today said: “I accept responsibility for the defeat of the four Congressmen I had backed as Independents after they were denied official nominations.” He added: “People voted for Mamata Banerjee to usher in paribartan (change) and my men could not withstand this partibartaner cyclone.” But while his candidates could not win, two of them ensured the defeat of the Trinamul nominees. In Hariharpara, Adhir’s nominee bagged 44,982 votes, the Trinamul candidate got 51,935 and the Left bagged 58,293 votes. In Bhagabangola, where the Left won by over 13,000 votes, the Congress rebel polled 40,000 votes to Trinamul’s 49,528 votes. Das Munshi, the Raiganj MP, had fielded two candidates at Islampur and Hemtabad in North Dinajpur. She is also reported to have backed a rebel at Dinhata in Cooch Behar. All three lost. But Rahman’s win in Chopra buoyed Das Munshi who said he would be taken by the Congress. The party had suspended the rebels. “Rahman is very much a Congress man despite the fact that he had entered the fray as an Independent,” she said. But the defeat of all the other rebels has undermined the position of Das Munshi, Chowdhury and Shankar Singh, the Nadia district party president who fielded rebels in Kaliganj, Karimpur, Nakashipara and Krishnagar South. “We have got reports about some key party functionaries who backed rebels against alliance candidates. They will have to explain why they backed dummy candidates against our alliance nominees. But first things have to settle down,” Shakeel Ahmed, the AICC secretary in charge of Bengal affairs, said over phone from Delhi. It is unclear if the Congress will take back Rahman, and therefore increase its tally by one, but a Trinamul general secretary said they would pressure the ally to keep all rebels out. Apart from the 12 candidates backed by the three leaders, two Congress rebels contested in Malda — Malda North MP Mausam Noor’s cousin Shenaz Kadri was one — and one each in Calcutta and South 24-Parganas. Two Trinamul rebels who fought against their own party were defeated. Rebels ‘gift’ Jungle Mahal win | | PRONAB MONDAL | Calcutta, May 13: The Trinamul Congress has broken the CPM’s hold on Jungle Mahal, winning along with the Congress seven of the 14 seats in the Maoist-infested region. The CPM has alleged that Trinamul’s success was because of the “clear support” of the rebels. “The Maoists have provided massive support to Trinamul,” said Dahareshwar Sen, West Midnapore district secretariat member of the CPM. “They made sure that Trinamul candidates could campaign freely in the Maoist-dominated areas while the CPM workers were on the run.” The Maoists had spread the word that voters in the region should not vote for the CPM in the hope that a new Trinamul-led government would ask Delhi to withdraw central forces from Jungle Mahal. The Maoist campaign has had its effect, the CPM claimed, pointing to the 20,000-odd votes that the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities candidate from Jhargram, Chhatradhar Mahato, polled. A Maoist leader said: “All these votes were from the core areas of Lalgarh. These voters are committed supporters of our organisation. It shows our strength in Jungle Mahal. The poll count in favour of Mahato shows that we are in a position to involve 20,000 people whenever we want to launch a mass movement in Lalgarh.” Maoist sources said the Trinamul victory in the four seats, where the party had no organisational set-up even a couple of years ago, was a “gift” to Mamata Banerjee. CPM activists were driven out from Nayagram, Gopiballavpur, Jhargram and Salboni by the rebels. Before the polls, the Maoists had also threatened the CPM with attacks. Knives out, hiss at man who went for cobra | | DEVADEEP PUROHIT AND ANINDYA SENGUPTA | Calcutta, May 13: The debacle has triggered a blame game in the Left Front, raising questions about the future of the beleaguered combine. Sources in the CPM said a section in the party had already started a debate on the “unwanted’’ role of outgoing housing minister Gautam Deb. The knives are out and chasing Biman Bose for giving Deb a free hand to launch a personal attack on Mamata Banerjee that some believe turned out to be “counter-productive’’. “During the election campaign, Gautam was the cheerleader of our party. But what we are hearing now is that large sections of the people didn’t like his move to make personal attacks on Mamata. Some of our inactive party cadres might have liked his speeches. But on the whole, the result was counter-productive as many voters went against us after he began attacking the Trinamul supremo,’’ a CPM state secretariat member said. “He got cracking after getting the support of Bimanda. But we will have to analyse whether this line of launching vilification campaigns are damaging for us,’’ the CPM leader added. A senior leader of a key ally told The Telegraph that at the Left Front meeting convened after the election results were out, Bose had to face criticism for giving Deb a free run. A question on Deb’s role in the defeat made Bose uncomfortable during a media conference that followed the Front meeting. “We have to analyse the poll results and the reasons behind the defeat,” said an evasive Bose, who attributed Trinamul’s victory to people’s trust in the change chant. The outburst against Deb in the party and the Front was just the tip of the iceberg as the unprecedented rout prised open more cracks in the party. Emboldened by his victory from Canning East with a 21,000-plus margin, outgoing land and land reforms minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah stirred an old controversy —land acquisition. “Gariber katha bashi holeyo shotyi hoy. Jodi amar katha shunto tahole eibhabe harte hoto na (A poor man’s words can become stale but always turns out to be true. If they would have paid heed to my words, the debacle wouldn’t have happened like this),” said Mollah, asked whether forcible land acquisition was responsible for the debacle. During the Singur and Nandigram controversy, Mollah had told the party that the state government shouldn’t forcibly acquire land from farmers. The CPM top brass summoned had him to the party office and cautioned him against deviating from the party line. Asked whether Bhattacharjee was responsible for this debacle, Mollah said: “Hele saap dhorte pare na, keute dhorte gechhe (can’t catch a harmless snake, but went to catch a cobra),” possibly alluding to the outgoing chief minister’s efforts to get big ticket investments. Even as the CPM leaders tried to come to terms with the debacle, Mollah, who has crossed swords with Bhattacharjee several times in the past, made it clear that he was not surprised with the loss of the outgoing chief minister. “Many ministers are losing. Why talk about the chief minister only?” asked Mollah. Though Bose tried to iterate that the party and the Front would be united in this hour of crisis, Mollah’s comments on Nirupam Sen belied that claim. Asked whether he was pointing fingers at Sen for forcible land acquisition, Mollah burst out: “Arre, oi to nater guru… Ota harbe ta bishwer ardhek lok janto (He is the villain of the piece… Half of the people in the world knew that he would lose).” Bose told the media that he would inquire about what exactly Mollah had said. But unlike in the past, Bose did not send out any warning signals to Mollah, who some believe is in the contention for the post of the leader of the Opposition. Mollah, however, was non-committal. “What can I do with this leader of the Opposition’s post? In fact, in my party I am in the Opposition,” he said. Left Soviet moment, Part II
Change has to begin from the top in CPM | | MANINI CHATTERJEE | Calcutta, May 13: The ignominious defeat of the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government spells not just a change of guard at Writers’ Building but is a grievous blow to the CPM and Left forces in the country as a whole, not unlike the collapse of the Soviet Union which adversely impacted Left parties internationally two decades ago. An ashen-faced Left Front chairman Biman Bose today admitted that neither the CPM nor its allies had expected this “unprecedented debacle” and promised a “chulchhera vishleshan (threadbare analysis)” of the reasons behind the defeat. In Delhi, party leaders echoed Bose and a politburo meeting, followed by a central committee meeting, are on the cards to discuss the debacle. But such is the magnitude of defeat and so grave are its implications for the party’s future that the usual post-mortems which the CPM is adept at and the hackneyed prescription of “rectification” are unlikely to be of much use this time. Only an overhaul of the party’s ways of thinking and being, starting with changes from the top and not the bottom, may help the CPM re-invent itself and regain its strength in the medium to long term. The CPM leadership in Delhi sought to seek solace in the “narrow” defeat in Kerala to offset the gloom of Bengal but the truth is that neither Kerala nor Tripura ever measured up to the importance of Bengal for the party. Bengal was much more than just a state government. The CPM’s huge “mass base” in Bengal and seven election victories in a row made it the biggest Left bastion not just in India but in the entire “non-socialist” (i.e. countries not ruled by communist parties) world. The Bengal unit was the bulwark that nourished and sustained — materially and politically — the CPM in the rest of India and certainly in New Delhi. In the absence of MPs from Bengal, the CPM could never have influenced the working of the first UPA government at the Centre, Prakash Karat could not have become a household name by confronting the Prime Minister over the nuclear deal and the party would not have become the nucleus of various “opposition conclaves” and “third fronts” for two decades starting from the early 1980s. Much like the Soviet Union, which came under attack for not being “radical” enough, many “Left-oriented” people have been critical of the Left Front government in Bengal and often felt that its defeat could lead to a “cleansing” that would revitalise the CPM which remains, for better or for worse, the fountainhead of the mainstream Left in India. However, just like the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a retreat of “socialism” in Europe and much of the world (with China and even Vietnam embracing the market), the debacle in Bengal is likely to make it even more difficult for the Left in India to remain politically relevant at least in the short term. At the same time, unlike the CPSU or the ruling communist parties in Eastern Europe which fell like nine pins when the Berlin Wall came crashing down in November 1989, the CPM is fortunate to be functioning in a vibrant parliamentary system — never mind that the party officially decries it as a “bourgeois democracy” and still pays lip service to the idea of “revolution” and “dictatorship of the proletariat”. It is theoretically possible, therefore, for the CPM to revive in Bengal despite its dismal showing in this election. But that will not happen as a matter of course and will depend greatly on the capacity of the party leadership to understand the causes of the defeat and make fundamental changes in the party’s way of functioning. Chances of that appear bleak. The most worrying sign of the CPM’s malady, in fact, is not today’s result but the fact that the party did not see it coming. Every single CPM leader and cadre one met in course of the election campaign — whether in 31 Alimuddin Street or in some mofussil town or remote village — chanted the same lullaby of “recovery” till even this morning. The CPM was convinced that those who had deserted the Left Front in 2008, 2009 and 2010 had returned to their fold because of “anti-incumbency” against Trinamul-run panchayats and municipalities; that the 2009 reverses were a result of “national” factors such as the unviability of Third Front, that the vast mass of rural peasantry were fearful of losing their land and dignity if the “right-wing” forces took over and that — thanks to all the above — a “turnaround” had taken place. It was clear to even passing visitors that nothing of the kind was happening in either rural or urban Bengal and that the “poribortoner hawa” had become a tidal wave across the state. Contrary to what Biman Bose and other CPM leaders said today, the ordinary Bengali voter was not “silent” — she spoke out loud and clear this time, he did not mince words in telling anyone who cared to ask why “change” had become necessary after three and a half decades. Yet a party that prides itself on dedicated cadres who work “365 days a year” in every village and para failed to see the writing on the wall and dismissed all reports to the contrary as the handiwork of the “corporate media” working in cahoots with “American imperialism” to fell a pro-people government. It never realised — and may still not admit — that the main reason behind its defeat is that the people were no longer pro-party, that a sense of stagnation and suffocation with “Party rule” had reached a breaking point that desperately sought an outlet. The CPM’s “post-mortem” may acknowledge the party’s complete disconnect with the people’s mood this time but no remedy will come forth unless the leadership reviews the whole organisational principle of “democratic centralism” that led to this disconnect. The CPM may be a social democratic party in practice — and indeed can be little else in a parliamentary democracy — but clings on to the organisational principle laid out by Lenin a century ago. Lenin’s “party of the new type” with its emphasis on a vanguard and in which the leader exercised supreme control may have been necessary in a revolutionary situation but got distorted in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries itself. To adhere to that principle — where the party leaders tell the cadres what the truth is rather than formulate policy by getting inputs from below — in the Indian context today is a recipe for “disconnect” with the people, and the election verdict is a vivid example of that. A little research shows that the “Political Resolution & Review Report” adopted at the Extended Meeting of the CPM central committee in Vijayawada in August 2010 first decreed that the “corrective steps” taken by the party in Bengal following the 2009 reverses “should help in bringing about a turnaround in the situation.” Once the CC had spoken, the “turnaround” had to happen and so down the line, the party leaders kept talking about it till they led every cadre and sympathiser to believe that “recovery” had indeed happened. No one thought of checking with the “khet mazdoor” tilling the land before their eyes or the vendor in the local train whether the wave for change had indeed petered out because the party had ordered it to do so. And even if any cadre had doubts, he would never express it, lest he be accused of “right deviation” or becoming a victim of “corporate media propaganda”. No party leader is likely to question, leave alone give up, the comforting doctrine of democratic centralism because that is what allows some of them — particularly the oracles of wisdom sitting in the party’s headquarters in Delhi — to call the shots without ever being held accountable for the debacles and reverses faced by the party, for the failure of the CPM to spread beyond its three (now just one) stronghold more than sixty years after Independence. It is much easier instead to lay blame on low-level cadres, accusing them of all kinds of sins ranging from “parliamentary deviation” to “un-communist behaviour” to “alienation from the people”, and then undertake a “rectification” exercise that “weeds out” these elements — without the broom ever reaching the higher echelons of the staircase. Under the iron rule of democratic centralism, any dissent from below is controlled and sanitised if it is allowed to be voiced at all. Things can change only if there are differences, usually over the ideological line, at the top or if the leader himself decides to go beyond the party structure — like a Gorbachev or a Deng Xiaoping did. In the CPM today, only V.S. Achutananthan has dared to ignore the “Party” and go about his own way. The CPM’s better-than-expected performance in Kerala today may have come about despite the party, not because of it, and thanks largely to VS who did not let the party structure come in the way of his connect with the people. A resounding defeat of the kind the CPM has faced in Bengal today can lead to two trajectories. It can make the party retreat into a shell, become more “ideologically pure”, more rigid and insular and inward looking. Or it can provide a great opportunity for a huge churning that has been kept under the lid for decades now, a churning that would question and challenge the ideological wisdom and organisational stranglehold of leaders who have lost touch with the people. Is the Bengal CPM up to it? Trinamul win with cherry on pudding called Asok - ‘How can the winds.… be stopped at the gates of North Bengal?’ | | AVIJIT SINHA |  |  |  | | (From top) Trinamul Congress supporters flash the victory sign in Siliguri on Friday, the CPM’s Asok Bhattacharya who lost comes out of Siliguri College and Trinamul activists celebrate the party’s victory in Siliguri on Friday. Pictures by Kundan Yolmo | May 13: The north is finally catching up with the south. The Left may not have been as completely decimated in north Bengal as it has been in the south, but it has been humbled far beyond its worst fears. For the first time since the Left Front came to power in 1977, it has been left with only 16 of the 54 Assembly seats in the region. In the 2006 elections, it had bagged 37 seats. More importantly for the politics of the region, traditionally considered Congress territory, Trinamul, a fledgling party here till a few years ago, has fared almost as well as its alliance partner, establishing a firm footing in north Bengal for the first time ever. It had taken a wager by deciding to contest exactly half the seats from here and has driven home its point by winning 16 of the 26 seats it contested. One seat it had kept for the NCP. Ally Congress has won 17 of the remaining 27 seats. But the cherry on the pudding for Trinamul was the defeat of CPM strongman from north Bengal, Asok Bhattacharya, at the hands of its candidate Rudranath Bhattacharya, a political novice, from the Siliguri seat. “If the winds of change are blowing across the state then how can the north remain an exception,” said Darjeeling district Trinamul chief Gautam Deb. “Trinamul has arrived in north Bengal and is here to stay.” Even Bhattacharya, who was the municipal and urban development minister in the Left Front government, was forced to concede this after his defeat this afternoon. “When the anti-incumbency factor is so strong in the state then how can the winds of paribartan be stopped at the gates of north Bengal? Bhattacharya said in Siliguri after his defeat. “I have been winning from here for the last four terms, so my defeat is indicative of these winds of change.” The fact that Trinamul could put up an impressive show despite Congress leader Deepa Das Munshi putting up “rebel” candidates against several Trinamul nominees proves how strong the winds of change were. In fact, Trinamul chief Mamata Banerjee has been assiduously cultivating the region, where the party could only open its account in 2006 by winning the sole Dinhata Assembly seat, ever since she became the railway minister two years ago. During her frequent trips she has not failed to remind the people that she is not a “seasonal cuckoo” and every time she has come with a bouquet of promises and a neglect-versus-development slogan. She has promised an axle manufacturing factory in New Jalpaiguri; an electronics signal component factory in Cooch Behar; a diesel loco shed and multi-functional complexes in Siliguri. In her last railway budget she promised Darjeeling a centre of excellence in software development. What also helped Mamata was the fact that she managed to raise hopes among the people of the region that she could resolve the problem of the Darjeeling hills. Even though she has emphasised that she would never support a separate Gorkhaland state, Mamata has repeatedly said that if she came to power she would settle the problems with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, calling the people of the hills “my brothers”. But it is the response of the Morcha to Mamata that has made people in north Bengal believe that she can actually execute what she has promised. The Morcha not only welcomed Mamata on her visit to Darjeeling last year, but its chief Bimal Gurung also claimed that he had a “very satisfying” meeting with the railway minister. “It is this acceptability Mamata Banerjee has across the region that has added to the credibility of our party,” Deb said. “The chief minister has not gone up to the hills.” In fact the Morcha, which won the three hill seats of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong today, had extended the party’s support to the Trinamul-Congress alliance even though it was unsolicited. “We have got the ball rolling in north Bengal,” Deb said. “Soon it will be the same as south Bengal.” FIRST PURGE, THEN CHANGE - Delhi’s support will be needed to fulfil promises | | Sunanda K. Datta-Ray | | Amidst the clouds of green powder and the sound of conch and cymbal, a triumphant Mamata Banerjee can reflect that she has survived Beth M. Payne’s approbation. That wouldn’t have been possible once upon a time when other winds of change, poriborton hawa, also blew strongly in the state. The American consul-general’s fulsome praise would have been the kiss of death for any Bengali politician. Fearing what it might do to his radical reputation, even Jyoti Basu kept under wraps his assurance to one of Miss Payne’s predecessors that not a single revolutionary squeak would escape his lips in the United States of America if he were granted a visa. His right arm would dangle by his side with the hand determinedly open lest anyone accuse him of clenching his fist in the shoulder-level “Lal salaam” salute. But times have changed. The Left might shriek about the Foreign Hand air-dropping arms in Purulia but not about WikiLeaks reports of Miss Payne “cultivating” Didi. Voters have endorsed her view that “the charge for change” can be led only by Didi, “the most popular politician in the state”. While Miss Banerjee’s “public rhetoric” is gratifyingly “devoid of any anti-Americanism”, her private overtures to American diplomats suggest “that a Banerjee-led West Bengal government will be friendlier to the United States than the current CPI(M) one”. Whether or not American capital is again “waiting on the door-step” (as Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, undivided Bengal’s last chief minister, thought in 1947), an invitation to the US probably is. Miss Payne pointedly reminded her State Department bosses that the Union railways minister hasn’t yet experienced the land of the free and the home of the brave. Didi could do with a break after the punishing campaign that made history. But, of course, she can’t abandon the field even for a moment. The real challenge is at home and now. The future not only for her party but for the state’s 92 million people depends on how the woman who has moved from “oppositional street fighter to West Bengal chief minister-in-waiting” (quoting Miss Payne who, like everyone else, expects Didi to quit the Union cabinet) manages the transition at what her manifesto rightly calls “the crossroads of history”. How history shapes will depend almost entirely on the far-sightedness, impartiality and managerial skills of the historic agent of change who was once notorious for her erratic behaviour. Her manifesto’s action plans for 200 and 1,000 days are fine. But there may be no chance of carrying out the promised reforms unless Trinamul inspires confidence and demonstrates a mature grasp of governance in its first 100 days. Winning a battle isn’t winning the war. The Left may be down but it is not out. The philosophy of the world’s longest-serving democratically elected communist government may be erased from the hearts and minds of people who are moved by pragmatic self-interest. But 34 years of patronage have created deeply entrenched vested interests in every institution of state, and those interests will fight tooth and nail against dislodgement. Kalyani Chaudhury’s book, When the Pendulum Stops: Death of Bengal Bureaucracy,presents a graphic picture of political control of the State Government Employees’ Co-ordination Committee and the Police Association. Political appointees head most educational institutions; a large number of school, college and university teachers are drawn from the Marxist or fellow-travelling ranks. Some may have boarded the bandwagon of success as they would even if it were painted saffron and flaunted the swastika; but some may also be believers. Will they shed their allegiance as the retired IAS, IPS and other officers who are now Trinamul’s prized props appear to have done? And if they do, what credence can be placed in this especially expedient (and rewarding) poriborton hawa? A purge would cripple the administration. Ideally, a civil servant’s politics, like his religion, should be a matter of private concern and have no bearing on his official performance. But will either Didi or an angry and bruised Opposition permit such civilized separation of identities? Even many Western democracies now acknowledge a “fast track” for officials who identify with the ruling party. The commitment to “Dalatantra Nai Ganotantra (Not Party rule but Democracy)” may go against the grain of many people since government in India often resembles a durbar headed by a raja in political garb. It will be especially difficult to live up to the creditable “Badla Noy, Badal Chai (Not Revenge but Change)” slogan because Marxists are not the only politicians withgoondas at their beck and call. Indeed, reports suggest that some murderous mercenaries have already crossed to the winning side. Miss Banerjee may be able to spare us the horrors of Sain Bari in reverse. But galvanizing people out of the all-pervasive inertia that hastened the state’s decline and replacing it with a disciplined, vibrant work culture is more relevant to realizing her pledge of “a better and brighter tomorrow”. The noisy melee during yesterday’s victory speech provided an instance of Bengali unruliness. If Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was “the least Indian of Indian leaders” (quoting V.S. Naipaul), Didi’s brisk walk, snappy gestures and matter-of-fact speech make her the least Bengali of Bengali politicians. Nothing else in the state moves as briskly. Ideology doesn’t have a monopoly of the lethargy that extends from Writers’ Buildings down to district capitals. The most damning indictment of the Left Front, however, is that having triggered the revolution of rising expectations, it faltered in the vision, courage and political flexibility to fulfil it. The Chinese saying, “Due to Mao Zedong, we could stand up. Thanks to Deng Xiaoping, we are getting rich,” highlights the two stages of growth. Land reform andpanchayati self-government were vital to the culmination that a born-again Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee might have achieved had he broken with his predecessor’s crony capitalism, disregarded Prakash Karat’s hardline wisdom, and forged ahead with his own programmes to set up industries, add value and generate employment. There was nothing inherently wrong with Nandigram or Singur. West Bengal needs capital for such projects. Trinamul’s promise to “attract large private investments in sectors such as engineering, steel, tea, jute, textiles and other areas of manufacturing, mining, power and food processing” addresses that need. New Delhi’s backing improves Miss Banerjee’s chances of fulfilling the promise. She will have to consider, therefore, how best Trinamul can keep faith with voters and serve the state. A separate identity enhances her local image and gives her greater leveragevis-à-vis the United Progressive Alliance. But it also gives the Congress leadership greater scope for manoeuvre. Burdened with a crippling debt, West Bengal’s new government cannot hope to realize any of the Trinamul targets — investment in health, education, infrastructure, agriculture or industry — without New Delhi’s generous cooperation. Bearing in mind Pranab Mukherjee’s admission, after his own political free-lancing, that the Indian National Congress occupies the only space for a secular democratic party, a return to the fold might also be logical for a former Youth Congress president who has held cabinet rank under a Congress prime minister. The party’s existing state unit is hardly a credible entity. Without the UPA, Didi might be able to set up the Tagore Centre for Universal Values, Vivekananda Centre for International Understanding and Nazrul Islam Research Centre of her dreams. She might even succeed in growing litchis, mangoes and chillies, as her manifesto also mentions. But not much more for the promised “regeneration and rejuvenation of Bengal”. In shouldering the tremendous responsibility that has been cast on her, Mamata Banerjee needs the Centre more than the Centre needs her. POSTSCRIPT: Mamata Banerjee doesn’t talk bull, to lapse into slang. But her scriptwriters do. The manifesto claims that “Good and impartial governance is the bull work of any society”. Mercifully for West Bengal, her vision, courage and labour are a bulwark against illiterate effusion. sunandadr@yahoo.co.in | |
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