West Bengal Elections

WEST BENGAL: SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE ELECTORAL OUTCOME

T.G. Jacob

Though not entirely unanticipated, the electoral outcome in West Bengal, a highly politically sensitive State in the Union, is significant in more than one way. As far as parliamentary democracy goes, it was an unambiguously crushing defeat for the Left front combine which was enjoying the fruits of power for more than three decades. Whether this crushing defeat is actually a defeat for the leftist political forces is a different question altogether. Interestingly, this electoral outcome can also be interpreted as a victory of the leftist forces of the Maoist shade, who never considered the ruling leftists as communists or leftists. On the other hand, they were fighting the ruling leftists on important popular issues vitally affecting the life of the common man. The fact that the CPI (M) made the understanding between the Maoists and the Mamta Banerjee led Trinamool Congress on the struggle front into an electoral issue to deflect the voters from voting for the TC led front is revealing in itself. The CPI (M) was trying to scare the people by raising the bogey of Naxalism/anarchy. After the prime minister and home minister at the centre declared the Maoists as the biggest threat to internal security and initiated ‘Operation Green Hunt’ against the Maoists there was a steadily increasing inflow of central security forces into West Bengal and the then ruling CPI (M) left no stone unturned to drive a wedge between the central government and its alliance partner, the TC, on the question of the Maoists. Both these moves failed to achieve the expected results. The voters in West Bengal dismissed the repeated allegations of Maoists being terrorists as outright political opportunism to cling on to power. This was in spite of half-hearted apologies from the leadership of the CPI (M) for the “excesses” committed by its government and cadres in the name of fighting the Maoists.

The history of Bengal shows all too clearly that the land question was always a highly politically sensitive issue. Whether it was Tebhaga or Naxalbari, land was the predominant issue. These and other earlier struggles were against feudal and semi feudal elements controlling the productive assets in the countryside. Of course, land is the principal productive asset in the countryside. But it is interesting to note that the left front government did implement land redistribution and reforms to a certain extent in Bengal, though a thorough overhauling of the production relations was not on the agenda. The reforms were contained within a reformist, legalistic framework, which certainly has its own limitations in radically altering the distribution of productive forces and relations of production. Even then, reformist land reforms had their own impact on the countryside. Yet, the issue of land has played the determining role in the recent electoral changeover. This points at an interesting turn the issue of land itself has taken, especially since the early 1990s.

Land struggles like Singur or Nandigram were not against any feudal or semi feudal control over land. These struggles were targeting Indian and global corporate land grabbers whose facilitators were the social fascist cadres of the ruling party and their government. In other words, these struggles were against the neo liberal economic regime assiduously promoted by both the central and State governments. In the case of Bengal the ruling party cadres were unleashed on the peasantry, whose land was required by the corporate businesses. The CPI (M)’s calculation was that the peasantry will not be able to withstand the sanitization process when the well organized and armed cadres in combination with the police forces are brutally pitted against them. The methods employed included arson, looting, raping, killing and blockades. Resistance by the peasantry resulted only in intensification of terror. Ideologically, these measures were justified as facilitating “development.” Politically, resistance was characterized as Naxalite terror offensive, although the peasantry fighting land grabbing was invariably at the receiving end.

Over the last more than thirty years many changes occurred in Bengal. Institutionalization of the party bureaucracy at all levels of power was the most visible change. Thirty years is a good enough time to change the character of the police and other public institutions. The recruitment policy in the public institutions at all levels became partisan in the sense that such institutions came to be filled by loyalists of the ruling party. Whether one wanted to become a school teacher or a police constable the party bureaucracy had the final say. Such a development certainly made corruption broad-based and created a new class of rich belonging to the ruling party. By the time Jyothi Basu left active politics the situation had already become utterly intolerable and untenable. This corruption was not confined to the governmental levels but percolated smoothly to the private sector because governmental concurrence is mandatory to the functioning of the private sector and the trade union bureaucracy plays a decisive role in workable industrial relations. In this process, large sections of people, especially the Adivasis and minorities got excluded too. The conditions of Muslims in West Bengal and the plight of different Adivasi communities in West Bengal are self-evident illustrations. And when it came to land grabbing it is these very same communities that became the most conspicuous victims.

As already mentioned, struggles oriented to agrarian revolution were prominent during the colonial and post-colonial periods. And they have passed through different phases with different slogans. During the colonial period the agrarian struggles were against the forcible conversion of land into indigo and opium plantations; at the fag end of colonialism they were centered on share cropping and the rights of the tenants, and during the late 60s and early 70s they were centered on absolute control over land and other productive assets. Presently, it is a question of protecting one’s own livelihood from corporate sharks. In all these struggles, particularly in the last three phases the communists had played a prominent role. In fact, it was the Tebhaga struggle that catapulted the communists to the position of an important political force in Bengal. Also, it should not be forgotten that it was the savage repression of the Naxalite movement during the late 60s and early 70s marked by total denial of civil and democratic rights by the Congress party governments that was successfully capitalized upon by the CPI (M) to come to power in 1977 and to maintain that power for the next three decades.

When the neo liberal imperialist globalization regime was formally ushered in in 1991 the CPI (M) dispensation in West Bengal had already completed one-and-a-half decades without making any fundamental qualitative difference to the lives of the common people. This period was remarkable only for the absence of any real alternative model of economic and social development; while on the other hand the party itself was well on its way to becoming a ruling class party with all its appendages of corruption, nepotism et al. Imperialist globalization necessarily involves wholesale looting of resources which are the common heritage of the people and regressive labor relations. Sufficient land is a necessary precondition for such intensified exploitation. It is not any land that is demanded by the corporate businesses but resource rich land with high value. This land is currently with the peasantry and they have to be uprooted and made destitute if the greed of corporate businesses is to be satisfied. A political party like the CPI (M) is not at all ideologically and politically against the capitalist logic of accumulation and “growth.” Dispossession of the underprivileged, in their world view, is necessary for the good of everyone. This world view is exactly the same as that of any global or Indian big business and this was what they tried to implement in West Bengal when at the helm of affairs. Ideologically there is nothing inconsistent in this, but what is important is the rejection of this rank duplicity by the people.

From all indices West Bengal is in for interesting days ahead. Mamata Banerjee and her party, which is very much part of the central government, cannot by any stretch of imagination be characterized as enemies of imperialist globalization. There is little doubt that she and her party could electorally decimate the CPI (M) riding on the crest of a popular wave against land grabbing and social fascism. And in this transition the most influential facilitators were the Maoists. As is evident from the immediate reactions, the approach of the new State government is cautious. The CPI (Maoist) is involved in a marathon central committee session, but it is doubtful whether any serious change in their strategic line is imminent. One thing is notable: when the electoral polarization had concretized in West Bengal the Maoist party had unambiguously declared that it was not going to call for boycott of elections. Boycott of elections is a strategic slogan of the Maoists, but in West Bengal it became a changeable tactic. This is a significant departure from the past history of Maoism but it still remains to be seen whether any qualitative change in well entrenched dogmatic positions on important questions including elections and character of state is on their active agenda.

3^rd June 2011