In an effort to reclaim the vital Muslim vote in Bengal, Indian Marxists are slipping, as quietly as they can manage, from the shackles of class as the primary identity of the Indian voter and easing into the wider space of creed. This may make them less Marxist, but it might make them more Indian.
The big story in Bengal since the impressive re-election of the Left Front three years ago is the implosion of Muslim support for the CPM. Twenty eight per cent of Bengal is Muslim, the highest, by far, percentage of any state. Since Muslims tend to poll in higher numbers, their effective voting strength is probably a few points more. If they desert the Marxists in significant numbers, the Left could lose up to 20 seats in the next Lok Sabha elections. If the momentum sustains, it could lose power in the state after three unique decades. Evidence of what could happen came in this summer's panchayat elections, when the rural Muslim vote shifted to Mamata Banerjee across wide swathes, particularly in south Bengal. The fear barrier was broken.
The Marxists are busy repairing the walls of Fortress Bengal, but the colour of the cement is no longer uniformly red. It is tinged with green. The incandescent alliance between George Bush, Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh has provided an opportunity. The Left has begun to participate in conferences against American imperialism sponsored by overtly Muslim organisations. The juxtaposition of the crescent beside the hammer, sickle and star is the gift of the Prime Minister who publicly celebrated his liberation from the “slavery” of the Marxists after he decided that Bush was a much better ally than Prakash Karat.
Traditional Marxist analysis has been unambiguous: class matters more than creed. Bread has no religion; dignity is the right of the poor. This has been a powerful foundation of electoral mobilisation in as complex a state as Bengal. Precisely because the Left has ensured communal peace we forget what a tinderbox Bengal was, and can be. Like Punjab, Bengal is a border state traumatised by Partition. It has had to absorb refugees who brought with them a tortured narrative of bitterness and exile. Having fled from Bengali Muslims, it is galling for East Bengali Hindus, with their traditionally superior sense of superiority, to discover that they have to deal with politically assertive, if financially broken, Muslims in the land of refuge. The ‘escape' has been, if you like, ‘inadequate' compared to Punjab where there was a near-complete exchange of populations (the exception was Malerkotla).
But the CPM “chatrachaya” stopped at security; they forgot to give Muslims jobs, or basic amenities like schools and healthcare in rural Bengal. They thought protection was enough to secure the Muslim vote permanently.
This was the policy of “soft secularism”: keep the peace and let Muslims fend for themselves. This has been challenged by the emergence of post-Partition generations who claim security as their inalienable right as Indian citizens, and are no longer willing to treat it as some special favour. They are angry, for they believe that they have become victims of a more subtle form of discrimination, economic communalism. Bengal's Muslims feel increasingly cheated by a party they trusted without reserve.
Curiously, the moment of revelation came with the publication of a report that the Left initially welcomed, the findings of the Sachar Committee. It showed that Bengal's Muslims had received less patronage and benefits from the state than even in Gujarat. The comparison, as can be easily deduced, was inflammatory. Nor could Justice Rajinder Sachar be dismissed as a BJP acolyte. His report was the hammer that cracked the awesome CPM edifice even more effectively than the anger of Muslim peasant-farmers defending their land in Singur and Nandigram. Mamata Banerjee stepped in at a psychologically vulnerable moment.
Sometimes it takes one incident to symbolize and set off a larger rage. Urban Muslims, who are mainly Bihari ethnically, have been incensed by the insensitive manner in which the Buddhadev Bhattacharya administration has handled the case of a young Kolkata boy, Rizwan, who fell in love with and married the daughter of a Marwari businessman with a less than upright reputation. He was found dead a little after the romantic rich-girl-poor-boy wedding. Civil society rose up in a remarkable protest that stretched across the narrow confines of community in the belief that he had been murdered and that the police had been bribed into a cover-up. The chief minister sent too many signals indicating that he was on the side of the police rather than the voice of the people. Between Rizwan, Sachar and Nandigram, the CPM is in unprecedented trouble. A crisis can induce temporary alliances with unfamiliar bedfellows. The Left is reaching out, anxiously, to the Muslim clergy that it once disdained.
Is the shift too late? The recuperative powers of even a comatose Marxist should not be underestimated. But this much is certain. Red has begun to bleed in its bastion.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3426494,flstry-1.cms
Monday, September 1, 2008
Class to creed: CPM 'Religious Line' in Bengal
Monday, August 11, 2008
Wild and wilder: CPM and West Bengal
Kolkata calling : Shikha Mukerjee
Beatings and bullets seem to be the order of the day in West Bengal, converting it into the wild bad lands where scores are settled not through ballots but by other means. One Communist Party of India (Marxist) anchal committee member Niranjan Mondol is dead, killed by assassins. Another, Joydev Paik, is struggling with deadly bullet injuries. Both the attacks were in Nandigram.
In Singur, where the Tatas are racing to complete the automobile manufacturing complex, an engineer has been beaten up. There are reports of workers being intimidated by a shrill political campaign by Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee threatening to derail the project at the eleventh hour. There are conflicting reports of whether the Tatas will pull out or stay put. There are conflicting reports of the role of the now famous Krishijomi Raksha Committee (Save Agricultural Land Committee); do they want to run the resistance or do they want to enlist their cadre for work on the Tata site?
As the deadline for rolling out the Nano approaches, the campaign and the demands, contradictory as they may be, seem to have escalated. Why that should result in one death and one serious injury by armed and masked assassins in East Midnapore, miles away from Singur, where nothing industrial is likely to happen in the near future, is puzzling. If deadly warnings are being issued, then why in East Midnapore, which is vulnerable to violence post the Nandigram episode? The question therefore is, is there a sinister design in all this to plunge West Bengal into chaos?
The "situation" is, certainly, confusing. The absence of a mechanism for dialogue between the State Government, the CPI(M) and the main Opposition Trinamool Congress is only part of the problem. But mechanisms cannot work where the different parties are Luddites, determined to wreck the machine.
As the Opposition, Mamata Banerjee certainly has a responsibility to attack the CPI(M) and the State Government. But to indirectly condone the attack on an engineer working at the Tata plant is signalling a willingness to embrace wild, lawless methods that are dangerous for the polity and its suture. The connection is evident, because Mamata has plans of ramping up her campaign demanding the return of 400 acres of land to those who had been forced to give up their property to enable the Tatas to set up the manufacturing complex.
The justification of violence is as bizarre as the CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat's determined efforts to steer his party into the wilderness. At the public rally following the party's conference in Tripura Karat declared that he would lead the CPI(M) into a bid to set up a Third Front as an alternative coalition to the Congress-led UPA and the BJP-led NDA. He has worked out that between the Congress and the BJP, the number of Lok Sabha seats they can corner is around 280. Which leaves the remaining 265 seats up for grabs.
In other words, since regional parties are grouping and regrouping in a bewildering kaleidoscope of combinations, the CPI(M) sees it as an opportunity to emerge as the centre around which a new alliance can be formed. For a party that follows preset rules, this departure is unusual; in its rules, the CPI(M) had assessed that the time was not ripe for a Third Front.
If there is a new alliance and the CPI(M) is its lynchpin, certain things should follow. These are that the CPI(M) has sufficiently more numbers in the Lok Sabha to lead from a dominant position. That it must be prepared to provide people to serve in leadership roles. Given that the Third Front has several would be Prime Ministers and every leader of every party would want to be a Minister should the unlikely Third Front emerge as a contender for forming the Government, what will the CPI(M) do?
Since it is almost certain that the CPI(M) and its Left partners will lose seats in 2009, its capability to dominate is questionable. Since the CPI(M) does not have a prime ministerial candidate, how does it hope to lead the mismatched combination of parties? Unless Karat has plans that he has not disclosed as yet, the Third Front idea is as wild as Mamata's. In Karat's case, he does not have the eggs to make an omelette; in Mamata's she wants to unmake the omelette by magically transforming broken eggs into whole ones.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=STATES&file_name=state7%2Etxt&counter_img=7
Beatings and bullets seem to be the order of the day in West Bengal, converting it into the wild bad lands where scores are settled not through ballots but by other means. One Communist Party of India (Marxist) anchal committee member Niranjan Mondol is dead, killed by assassins. Another, Joydev Paik, is struggling with deadly bullet injuries. Both the attacks were in Nandigram.
In Singur, where the Tatas are racing to complete the automobile manufacturing complex, an engineer has been beaten up. There are reports of workers being intimidated by a shrill political campaign by Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee threatening to derail the project at the eleventh hour. There are conflicting reports of whether the Tatas will pull out or stay put. There are conflicting reports of the role of the now famous Krishijomi Raksha Committee (Save Agricultural Land Committee); do they want to run the resistance or do they want to enlist their cadre for work on the Tata site?
As the deadline for rolling out the Nano approaches, the campaign and the demands, contradictory as they may be, seem to have escalated. Why that should result in one death and one serious injury by armed and masked assassins in East Midnapore, miles away from Singur, where nothing industrial is likely to happen in the near future, is puzzling. If deadly warnings are being issued, then why in East Midnapore, which is vulnerable to violence post the Nandigram episode? The question therefore is, is there a sinister design in all this to plunge West Bengal into chaos?
The "situation" is, certainly, confusing. The absence of a mechanism for dialogue between the State Government, the CPI(M) and the main Opposition Trinamool Congress is only part of the problem. But mechanisms cannot work where the different parties are Luddites, determined to wreck the machine.
As the Opposition, Mamata Banerjee certainly has a responsibility to attack the CPI(M) and the State Government. But to indirectly condone the attack on an engineer working at the Tata plant is signalling a willingness to embrace wild, lawless methods that are dangerous for the polity and its suture. The connection is evident, because Mamata has plans of ramping up her campaign demanding the return of 400 acres of land to those who had been forced to give up their property to enable the Tatas to set up the manufacturing complex.
The justification of violence is as bizarre as the CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat's determined efforts to steer his party into the wilderness. At the public rally following the party's conference in Tripura Karat declared that he would lead the CPI(M) into a bid to set up a Third Front as an alternative coalition to the Congress-led UPA and the BJP-led NDA. He has worked out that between the Congress and the BJP, the number of Lok Sabha seats they can corner is around 280. Which leaves the remaining 265 seats up for grabs.
In other words, since regional parties are grouping and regrouping in a bewildering kaleidoscope of combinations, the CPI(M) sees it as an opportunity to emerge as the centre around which a new alliance can be formed. For a party that follows preset rules, this departure is unusual; in its rules, the CPI(M) had assessed that the time was not ripe for a Third Front.
If there is a new alliance and the CPI(M) is its lynchpin, certain things should follow. These are that the CPI(M) has sufficiently more numbers in the Lok Sabha to lead from a dominant position. That it must be prepared to provide people to serve in leadership roles. Given that the Third Front has several would be Prime Ministers and every leader of every party would want to be a Minister should the unlikely Third Front emerge as a contender for forming the Government, what will the CPI(M) do?
Since it is almost certain that the CPI(M) and its Left partners will lose seats in 2009, its capability to dominate is questionable. Since the CPI(M) does not have a prime ministerial candidate, how does it hope to lead the mismatched combination of parties? Unless Karat has plans that he has not disclosed as yet, the Third Front idea is as wild as Mamata's. In Karat's case, he does not have the eggs to make an omelette; in Mamata's she wants to unmake the omelette by magically transforming broken eggs into whole ones.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=STATES&file_name=state7%2Etxt&counter_img=7
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Boycott Banga Sammelan (World Bengali Conference) in Toronto --- Petition
BENGAL IS BLEEDING...
Millions of Bengalis living in the Communist state of West Bengal are condemned to a life of economic marginalization, violence, socio-cultural depravation and lawlessness by a pernicious system that thrives on the weaknesses of Indian democracy. Since 1977 the Communist Party of India (Marxist), along with its allies in the Left Front, has manipulated every election held in their corner of India to ghoulish advantage.
http://www.petitiononline.com/SWB2008/petition.html
Now, the anti-democratic clutches of the CPI(M) partisans have began to mar Bengali consciousness abroad.
As members of responsible Bengali citizenry, it is our duty to safeguard our culture from the vicious influences of the CPI(M).
Hence, we are protesting against the participation of CPIM party members in the upcoming Banga Sammelan 2008 to be held on 4th of July in Toronto.
Please help us in maintaining the sanctity of this erudite gathering. Please read and click to sign the petition below.
http://www.petitiononline.com/SWB2008/petition.html
http://www.savewestbengal.org/
Debolina Basu
Millions of Bengalis living in the Communist state of West Bengal are condemned to a life of economic marginalization, violence, socio-cultural depravation and lawlessness by a pernicious system that thrives on the weaknesses of Indian democracy. Since 1977 the Communist Party of India (Marxist), along with its allies in the Left Front, has manipulated every election held in their corner of India to ghoulish advantage.
http://www.petitiononline.com/SWB2008/petition.html
Now, the anti-democratic clutches of the CPI(M) partisans have began to mar Bengali consciousness abroad.
As members of responsible Bengali citizenry, it is our duty to safeguard our culture from the vicious influences of the CPI(M).
Hence, we are protesting against the participation of CPIM party members in the upcoming Banga Sammelan 2008 to be held on 4th of July in Toronto.
Please help us in maintaining the sanctity of this erudite gathering. Please read and click to sign the petition below.
http://www.petitiononline.com/SWB2008/petition.html
http://www.savewestbengal.org/
Debolina Basu
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Is Bengal ready for re-industrialisation?
"Sudhu bigha dui, chilo mor bhui, aar sab-i geche rine, Babu balilen, "Bujhecho Upen, e jami loibo kine."
(After losing everything in debt, I had only two bighas of land left. But the Babu said, "Upen, you must sell that to me.")
[from Dui Bigha Jami (Two Bighas of Land) by Rabindranath Tagore, 1895]
More than a hundred years ago, Rabindranath Tagore wrote about a poor farmer, Upen, who was forced to 'sell' his land to a rich man and suffer the inevitable consequences of losing his livelihood and, along with it, his sense of belonging.
In today's Bengal, the Left Front government has been buying lots of land for various purposes, ranging from local development to setting up industries. Singur and Nandigram are two highly publicized cases for obvious reasons of violence and collective resistance, though under the law landowners cannot refuse to sell, if the government wants to buy.
Many farmers have suffered the same fate as Upen's, and naturally voted against the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to make them suffer unexpected defeats in South 24 Parganas and East Midnapore. Given this reversal in panchayat (local self-government) elections, the debate on industrialisation is likely to be renewed, stirring up public emotion once again.
There is no denying that any strategy of industrialisation will involve some displacement of farmers, especially in a predominantly agricultural economy. Since the Left parties began their onslaught on industries forty years ago, Bengal's economic slide never stopped.
Only in the last decade or so there has been a conscious effort to reverse this process, and thankfully it is producing results; but still it has a long way to go before Bengal can reclaim its old industrial glory.
The real issue, therefore, is not reversal of the policy of industrialisation, but managing the transformation well, with due attention paid to people like Upen, who are marginal farmers, unrecorded sharecroppers or daily workers.
Land acquisition is only one task of this undertaking, improving the efficiency of bureaucracy and preparing the local labour market for private investment are two other crucial responsibilities that the state should not forget.
There is also an overlooked aspect of Bengal's improved agriculture, which now presents a great deal of dynamism and commerce in contrast to the archetypical image of poverty and exploitation: fodder on which every Left intellectual is brought up.
Industrialisation has threatened to eliminate such enterprises and along with them a hard working self-employed workforce.
Fair price
Two issues are important in land acquisition. First, who should acquire it: the government or the actual investor? Different views have been voiced, and so far the Bengal experience provides unclear evidence, with of course Singur and Nandigram tipping the scale in favour of the second option.
Some economists have given good reasons for divesting this task with the government, in which case the Land Acquisition Act empowers the government to take anybody's land. The strongest argument is to avoid 'hold up' by a few reluctant owners (reluctance could be genuine or strategic). This also seems to be the best policy for creating industrial park for small investors.
The second issue is fair price. The Left government has claimed that it has shown generosity by offering a markup on the 'going market rate' of the land in question. And even though, according to media reports, this claim is true, the fairness aspect still needs to be examined.
The going market price of a plot of agricultural land reflects its present value, assuming that the land will continue to be used for agriculture. In this sense, the market price reflects a 'fair price.' But when the plot is acquired for industrial, commercial or residential development purposes, the going market price is hardly fair. In this case, the land is transferred out of agriculture to a different market where its final price can rise 15 to 20 times.
When this is the case, basing the compensation formula almost entirely on 'current use' is clearly unfair. I believe, much of the current discontent could have been avoided, if in the land pricing scheme a respectable weight were placed on the future price of the land.
At present there are many low-scale development efforts going on in the districts, which have not received any media attention at all; but from my personal visits I sensed that such projects also expose the unfairness of land price schemes.
Typically, a government agency acquires land by offering say Rs 2 lakh (Rs 200,000) per acre, which could be the going market rate for 'agricultural land.' Later, after some developmental work, lands are sold in small 'parcels' to end users -- like private residential buyers -- at a premium rate fetching, say, Rs 20 lakh (Rs 2 million) per acre.
Sometimes, a private developer might act only as an intermediary. Clearly, developmental expenditure alone cannot justify such a phenomenal margin; it is the demand of the urban real estate market that makes the price rise so high.
The government price scheme has so far ignored the end-use price. Consequently, a landowner who is forced to sell feels robbed of the opportunity of getting a share of the margin. This is a clear case of regressive redistribution.
Efficient bureaucracy
Nobody can deny the crucial importance of an efficient bureaucracy, which will implement policies and programmes fairly and quickly. Although over the last few years the West Bengal administration has improved its performance through computerisation, internal monitoring and various campaigns, there is still much to be desired.
Compared to other industrialised states, such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra, West Bengal government's offices are still a poor picture of sloppy take-it-easy work culture (referred to in Bengali as hochche hobe). In the districts the picture is much worse. There ordinary people are at the mercy of the staff; and petty corruption is rampant.
Part of the problem lies with the practice of the leading party, CPI(M) itself. Party workers play a vital role in helping the poor people wade through cumbersome procedures that are inescapable even for routine things like a birth certificate.
Often, party leaders mediate serious family or property disputes, which can take ages to settle in court. Creditably this approach has empowered the disadvantaged and its economic benefits cannot be ignored. But this has also given rise to opportunities of selling favour and extorting money. The bureaucracy, in the process, has been made subservient to local party bosses, who call the shots but are not accountable in any way.
But industrialisation demands a well-functioning administration which will efficiently collect taxes and protect lives and properties of the poor and the rich alike. This work cannot and should not be undertaken or influenced by the party bosses.
Local labour market
Another sign of investment-worthiness can be read from the education sector. Here my hunch is that West Bengal is caught in two scenarios. Kolkata and its suburbs are benefiting from the buoyancy of the urban job market, thanks to largescale outsourcing. But the districts present a different picture. Majority of the college graduates there aspire for jobs at government schools or offices. For many, new economy jobs are too alien.
There are no statistics available; but most college graduates in the districts cannot write in English, let alone speak. Even their proficiency in Bengali is suspect. Computer literacy is dismal. In sum, they are unemployable.
If they are not ready to make use of the new opportunities, self-fulfilling pessimism will set in and opposition to industrialisation will grow.
It is time to reform our schools and colleges, to impart marketable skills and to reorient the youngsters to harsh reality of private sector jobs.
-Bibhas Saha
The author is a Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom. The views expressed here are personal.
http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/jun/10guest.htm
(After losing everything in debt, I had only two bighas of land left. But the Babu said, "Upen, you must sell that to me.")
[from Dui Bigha Jami (Two Bighas of Land) by Rabindranath Tagore, 1895]
More than a hundred years ago, Rabindranath Tagore wrote about a poor farmer, Upen, who was forced to 'sell' his land to a rich man and suffer the inevitable consequences of losing his livelihood and, along with it, his sense of belonging.
In today's Bengal, the Left Front government has been buying lots of land for various purposes, ranging from local development to setting up industries. Singur and Nandigram are two highly publicized cases for obvious reasons of violence and collective resistance, though under the law landowners cannot refuse to sell, if the government wants to buy.
Many farmers have suffered the same fate as Upen's, and naturally voted against the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to make them suffer unexpected defeats in South 24 Parganas and East Midnapore. Given this reversal in panchayat (local self-government) elections, the debate on industrialisation is likely to be renewed, stirring up public emotion once again.
There is no denying that any strategy of industrialisation will involve some displacement of farmers, especially in a predominantly agricultural economy. Since the Left parties began their onslaught on industries forty years ago, Bengal's economic slide never stopped.
Only in the last decade or so there has been a conscious effort to reverse this process, and thankfully it is producing results; but still it has a long way to go before Bengal can reclaim its old industrial glory.
The real issue, therefore, is not reversal of the policy of industrialisation, but managing the transformation well, with due attention paid to people like Upen, who are marginal farmers, unrecorded sharecroppers or daily workers.
Land acquisition is only one task of this undertaking, improving the efficiency of bureaucracy and preparing the local labour market for private investment are two other crucial responsibilities that the state should not forget.
There is also an overlooked aspect of Bengal's improved agriculture, which now presents a great deal of dynamism and commerce in contrast to the archetypical image of poverty and exploitation: fodder on which every Left intellectual is brought up.
Industrialisation has threatened to eliminate such enterprises and along with them a hard working self-employed workforce.
Fair price
Two issues are important in land acquisition. First, who should acquire it: the government or the actual investor? Different views have been voiced, and so far the Bengal experience provides unclear evidence, with of course Singur and Nandigram tipping the scale in favour of the second option.
Some economists have given good reasons for divesting this task with the government, in which case the Land Acquisition Act empowers the government to take anybody's land. The strongest argument is to avoid 'hold up' by a few reluctant owners (reluctance could be genuine or strategic). This also seems to be the best policy for creating industrial park for small investors.
The second issue is fair price. The Left government has claimed that it has shown generosity by offering a markup on the 'going market rate' of the land in question. And even though, according to media reports, this claim is true, the fairness aspect still needs to be examined.
The going market price of a plot of agricultural land reflects its present value, assuming that the land will continue to be used for agriculture. In this sense, the market price reflects a 'fair price.' But when the plot is acquired for industrial, commercial or residential development purposes, the going market price is hardly fair. In this case, the land is transferred out of agriculture to a different market where its final price can rise 15 to 20 times.
When this is the case, basing the compensation formula almost entirely on 'current use' is clearly unfair. I believe, much of the current discontent could have been avoided, if in the land pricing scheme a respectable weight were placed on the future price of the land.
At present there are many low-scale development efforts going on in the districts, which have not received any media attention at all; but from my personal visits I sensed that such projects also expose the unfairness of land price schemes.
Typically, a government agency acquires land by offering say Rs 2 lakh (Rs 200,000) per acre, which could be the going market rate for 'agricultural land.' Later, after some developmental work, lands are sold in small 'parcels' to end users -- like private residential buyers -- at a premium rate fetching, say, Rs 20 lakh (Rs 2 million) per acre.
Sometimes, a private developer might act only as an intermediary. Clearly, developmental expenditure alone cannot justify such a phenomenal margin; it is the demand of the urban real estate market that makes the price rise so high.
The government price scheme has so far ignored the end-use price. Consequently, a landowner who is forced to sell feels robbed of the opportunity of getting a share of the margin. This is a clear case of regressive redistribution.
Efficient bureaucracy
Nobody can deny the crucial importance of an efficient bureaucracy, which will implement policies and programmes fairly and quickly. Although over the last few years the West Bengal administration has improved its performance through computerisation, internal monitoring and various campaigns, there is still much to be desired.
Compared to other industrialised states, such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra, West Bengal government's offices are still a poor picture of sloppy take-it-easy work culture (referred to in Bengali as hochche hobe). In the districts the picture is much worse. There ordinary people are at the mercy of the staff; and petty corruption is rampant.
Part of the problem lies with the practice of the leading party, CPI(M) itself. Party workers play a vital role in helping the poor people wade through cumbersome procedures that are inescapable even for routine things like a birth certificate.
Often, party leaders mediate serious family or property disputes, which can take ages to settle in court. Creditably this approach has empowered the disadvantaged and its economic benefits cannot be ignored. But this has also given rise to opportunities of selling favour and extorting money. The bureaucracy, in the process, has been made subservient to local party bosses, who call the shots but are not accountable in any way.
But industrialisation demands a well-functioning administration which will efficiently collect taxes and protect lives and properties of the poor and the rich alike. This work cannot and should not be undertaken or influenced by the party bosses.
Local labour market
Another sign of investment-worthiness can be read from the education sector. Here my hunch is that West Bengal is caught in two scenarios. Kolkata and its suburbs are benefiting from the buoyancy of the urban job market, thanks to largescale outsourcing. But the districts present a different picture. Majority of the college graduates there aspire for jobs at government schools or offices. For many, new economy jobs are too alien.
There are no statistics available; but most college graduates in the districts cannot write in English, let alone speak. Even their proficiency in Bengali is suspect. Computer literacy is dismal. In sum, they are unemployable.
If they are not ready to make use of the new opportunities, self-fulfilling pessimism will set in and opposition to industrialisation will grow.
It is time to reform our schools and colleges, to impart marketable skills and to reorient the youngsters to harsh reality of private sector jobs.
-Bibhas Saha
The author is a Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom. The views expressed here are personal.
http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/jun/10guest.htm
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Why Bengal Politics Are So Bloody (BBC)
..
..
By Subir Bhaumik
BBC News, Calcutta
..
Violence during three phases of recent rural elections in the Indian state of West Bengal claimed more than 30 lives.
..
This was despite the claim of Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya that they would be held "in a festive mood".
The last round of elections on Sunday was the bloodiest, with nearly 20 deaths - almost all in the border district of Murshidabad.
..
"This district has no industry, huge unemployment, a large smuggling mafia supported by contract killers and musclemen who are used by all political parties," says local political analyst Dipankar Chakrabarti.
.
.
Murshidabad, like neighbouring Maldah, has a Muslim majority - and like Maldah, it is also a traditional Congress stronghold, which the state's governing Marxists are desperate to win control of.
..
'Fight for influence'
..
Congress parliamentarian Adhir Choudhury has run Murshidabad as his personal fiefdom for decades and Indian foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee owes his first electoral win - in Jangipur constituency in Murshidabad in the last general election - to Mr Choudhury's organisational
Congress parliamentarian Adhir Choudhury has run Murshidabad as his personal fiefdom for decades and Indian foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee owes his first electoral win - in Jangipur constituency in Murshidabad in the last general election - to Mr Choudhury's organisational
prowess and power.
--
-------------------------------
The opposition realises it can only fight the Marxists
by violence, so they also look to use similar tactics.
Political economist Abhirup Sarkar
---------------------------------
--
But in recent months, the Left coalition government has cornered Adhir Choudhury, after he was implicated in several murder cases and even arrested during a parliamentary session.
Mr Choudhury maintains he is innocent.
Mr Choudhury maintains he is innocent.
"The Marxists are desperately trying to increase their influence in Murshidabad and the village polls were seen as a big opportunity," says political analyst Sabyasachi Basu Roy Choudhuri.
"That's because they have lost their influence in some of their traditional strongholds, so this is a make-up game," says Mr Choudhuri.
"And both the Congress and the Marxists have no reservation about using hardened criminals for spreading terror in Murshidabad."
Actually, all major political parties in West Bengal - either those of the Left coalition or those in the opposition - have freely resorted to violence since Maoist rebels, or Naxalites, began an insurgency in the early 1970s.
In 2001, Mamata Banerji's Trinamul Congress won a parliamentary by-election at Panskura, allegedly mobilising the local criminal brigade by lavishing them with cash and favours.
In 2001, Mamata Banerji's Trinamul Congress won a parliamentary by-election at Panskura, allegedly mobilising the local criminal brigade by lavishing them with cash and favours.
A former Marxist mafia don, Mohammed Rafique, swung the polls in the Trinamul's favour and was treated by the party leaders like a film star.
.
The Marxists, threatened by a possible loss of their influence in the politically-important Midnapore district, hit back with a vengeance, unleashing "red terror" in places like Kespur and Garbeta.
.
.
"The Panskura line was countered by the Kespur line, eye for eye, bullet for bullet. This was no political battle, there was no place for debates and polemics, it was a typical feudal turf war fought with unusual brutality," says Ranabir Sammadar, director of the independent think-tank Calcutta Research Group.
..
'Red terror'
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The Kespur assembly seat was subsequently won by the Marxists and their candidate polled 108,000 votes out of 120,000 cast.
The Kespur assembly seat was subsequently won by the Marxists and their candidate polled 108,000 votes out of 120,000 cast.
"That's unbelievable," says Mr Sammadar. "That's red terror in action."
The red-flag waving motorcycle brigade, openly brandishing rifles and swords, revolvers and locally-made bombs, first made its mark in Kespur and has ever since been the sword-arm of Bengal's governing Marxists.
During the village council polls that ended Sunday, this "motorcycle brigade" arrived in Basanti, an area dominated by their alliance partner, the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP).
They allegedly attacked the house of the RSP's minister Subhas Naskar in which his wife Gouri Naskar was killed. The Marxists blamed Gouri Naskar for storing bombs in her house and blamed her death on "one such bomb exploding".
"This is classic political tribalism. In the three decades of Left rule, the Marxists have always tried to undermine their Left allies, by force if necessary. But rarely have they gone this far," says Dyutish Chakrabarty, a professor of politics at North Bengal university.
Mr Chakrabarty says the Marxists have not merely tried to dominate the opposition parties but also their own alliance partners - and the methods have been the same.
"Manipulation of development funds, distribution of small favours, snuffing out dissent by ganging-up tactics and use of terror as the last resort - that's been the Marxist style of political consolidation," says Mr Chakrabarty, who studies political violence in the state.
To be fair, the Marxist built up a massive rural support base after they came to power in 1978, by pioneering comprehensive land reforms, by promoting local governance through the panchayats (village councils) and by spending development funds on poverty alleviation projects during the first decade of their rule.
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"After that, the party expanded, became more corrupt and violent. And now it needs violence for everything it does - to win elections or acquire land for industry," says Abhirup Sarkar, who works on the political economy of West Bengal.
"And the opposition realises it can only fight the Marxists by violence, so they also look to use similar tactics, as Panskura or Nandigram has shown," says Mr Sarkar.
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Thursday, June 5, 2008
How Green is Your Valley?
My last journey from the Calcutta airport to my in-laws’ in the Eastern-Bypass is still vivid in my memory. I remember how overjoyed I was to be back home, to be in the city of joy, dreams and a feel-good sloth. As my cabbie embarked upon the highway, the Ambujas and the Hindujas ushered me with their dreams unfold: their astute billboards lure of a lifestyle that was unconceivable by the middle-class Bengalis not so long ago. They promise a living amid greenery, lakes, parks and boutique condominiums.
But reality hit me hard in my nostrils. I diverged my glance only to be smeared by gushes of smoke emitted by a racing mini bus, honking away to glory. People say that it’s carbon monoxide, I didn’t know for sure what it was, but the fumes emitted by the antique engine of the deranged vehicle left me nauseated for a good twenty minutes. By the time I regained consciousness, our cab was amongst the last ten in a long queue at the traffic signal. The cabbie mentioned nonchalantly, “there is a rally at the Science City and a subsequent protest by some other political wing”. I nodded in understanding but longed to meet my family, to crash out on my age-old bed. I gazed at the myriads of building crowding the skyline with awe. When did it all happen? Wasn’t there a lake before? And a soothing green patch just beside the road? And what about all the foliage that grew unreckoning? As far as my vision go, I could only find concrete and metals, buildings and hotels and hospitals…The lonely Gulmohar tree at the roadside looked glum, tainted and devoid of virility. Much like the fellow Calcuttans I spotted on the pavements.
I recalled the shocking statistics divulged by the BBC that some 70% of people in the city of Calcutta suffer from respiratory disorders caused by air pollution. That the ideal count of Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) and Respiratory Particulate Matter (RPM) should not exceed 140 and 60 respectively. But Calcutta's average SPM count is 211 and RPM count is 105. And in the worst polluted traffic intersections, this count can be double the city's average during busy hours! It also said that 79% of hawkers who spend a long time outdoors have suffered damaged lungs…
Finally, we were in motion again. We sped through unruly intersections into a bumpy pathway with incessant interference by the two wheelers, bicycles, rickshaws and pedestrians. We stopped again and I noticed a toddler splashing in a reddish pool of muddy water, seeping in from a damaged water pipe. Just then, to my utter horror, I found a woman, maybe his mother, drinking from the same pipe! I shut my burning eyes but my conscience displayed the explicit headline, “14 villages in South Bengal were affected by chronic arsenic toxicity. A high level of arsenic was detected in the water from shallow tubewells (24-36 meters deep) used by those affected…” Was this place also mentioned in one of the subsequent reports? I hope not.
We traversed yet a few miles until we reached a red light in Patuli-intersection. I jarred from my slumber. Someone somewhere sounded very annoyed. He screamed with his lungs out in order to apprise the fellow citizens of his annoyance. The louder speaker reverberated with élan, surpassing all other background noise. It went on and on. Gosh, Calcuttans have mustered extreme level of tolerance! I remember, it was way back in April 1996, the Calcutta High Court gave strict directions to the West Bengal Pollution Control Board and Calcutta Police to be very vigilant against Noise Pollution. It’s being over a decade now since that order was passed but like everything else in this godforsaken city, rules and regulations have gone to the doldrums. Needless to say, my journey only brings back guileless memory of the mauled effigy that Calcutta showcase at present.
Today is 5th June. World Environment Day. I am sitting thousands of miles away from the city of my birth, the city which is witnessing a worse holocaust with more than 5 million Calcuttans suffocating to death. I sit with a hapless knot at the gut of my existence.
Where are those lush lawns that the billboards advertised? In which pocket, in which island in the gray smog are they going to build an unsoiled nest?
To quote my favorite singer, “the answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind…”
--Somanjana
Save West Bengal
But reality hit me hard in my nostrils. I diverged my glance only to be smeared by gushes of smoke emitted by a racing mini bus, honking away to glory. People say that it’s carbon monoxide, I didn’t know for sure what it was, but the fumes emitted by the antique engine of the deranged vehicle left me nauseated for a good twenty minutes. By the time I regained consciousness, our cab was amongst the last ten in a long queue at the traffic signal. The cabbie mentioned nonchalantly, “there is a rally at the Science City and a subsequent protest by some other political wing”. I nodded in understanding but longed to meet my family, to crash out on my age-old bed. I gazed at the myriads of building crowding the skyline with awe. When did it all happen? Wasn’t there a lake before? And a soothing green patch just beside the road? And what about all the foliage that grew unreckoning? As far as my vision go, I could only find concrete and metals, buildings and hotels and hospitals…The lonely Gulmohar tree at the roadside looked glum, tainted and devoid of virility. Much like the fellow Calcuttans I spotted on the pavements.
I recalled the shocking statistics divulged by the BBC that some 70% of people in the city of Calcutta suffer from respiratory disorders caused by air pollution. That the ideal count of Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) and Respiratory Particulate Matter (RPM) should not exceed 140 and 60 respectively. But Calcutta's average SPM count is 211 and RPM count is 105. And in the worst polluted traffic intersections, this count can be double the city's average during busy hours! It also said that 79% of hawkers who spend a long time outdoors have suffered damaged lungs…
Finally, we were in motion again. We sped through unruly intersections into a bumpy pathway with incessant interference by the two wheelers, bicycles, rickshaws and pedestrians. We stopped again and I noticed a toddler splashing in a reddish pool of muddy water, seeping in from a damaged water pipe. Just then, to my utter horror, I found a woman, maybe his mother, drinking from the same pipe! I shut my burning eyes but my conscience displayed the explicit headline, “14 villages in South Bengal were affected by chronic arsenic toxicity. A high level of arsenic was detected in the water from shallow tubewells (24-36 meters deep) used by those affected…” Was this place also mentioned in one of the subsequent reports? I hope not.
We traversed yet a few miles until we reached a red light in Patuli-intersection. I jarred from my slumber. Someone somewhere sounded very annoyed. He screamed with his lungs out in order to apprise the fellow citizens of his annoyance. The louder speaker reverberated with élan, surpassing all other background noise. It went on and on. Gosh, Calcuttans have mustered extreme level of tolerance! I remember, it was way back in April 1996, the Calcutta High Court gave strict directions to the West Bengal Pollution Control Board and Calcutta Police to be very vigilant against Noise Pollution. It’s being over a decade now since that order was passed but like everything else in this godforsaken city, rules and regulations have gone to the doldrums. Needless to say, my journey only brings back guileless memory of the mauled effigy that Calcutta showcase at present.
Today is 5th June. World Environment Day. I am sitting thousands of miles away from the city of my birth, the city which is witnessing a worse holocaust with more than 5 million Calcuttans suffocating to death. I sit with a hapless knot at the gut of my existence.
Where are those lush lawns that the billboards advertised? In which pocket, in which island in the gray smog are they going to build an unsoiled nest?
To quote my favorite singer, “the answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind…”
--Somanjana
Save West Bengal
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
16 Dead, Hundreds Injured During Eastern India Election Violence
By Raymond Thibodeaux
New Delhi
Election violence has left at least 16 people dead and hundreds injured in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. Raymond Thibodeaux reports for VOA from New Delhi.
Clashes between rival political parties spilled into Monday following local elections in West Bengal.
Eyewitnesses said some villagers and poll workers were killed as police fired at protesters near polling booths. The violence broke out in Murshidabad, 200 kilometers north of West Bengal's capital, Kolkata.
Adhir Chowdhury leads the opposition Congress Party. He accused West Bengal's Marxist-led government of 'unleashing a reign of terror' during the elections to intimidate voters in an opposition stronghold. The Communist Party of India has ruled in West Bengal for much of the past three decades.
"The entire rule of Bengal has been officiated by violence perpetuated by the ruling regime," said Chowdhury. "They simply are resorting to violence, arson, torture and raping only to intimidate the people."
West Bengal's Communist Party leaders argue that the Congress Party supporters threatened violence days before the polls to ratchet up tension in an already contentious election.
Political analyst Sujoy Dhur says the larger issue at stake is the poll violence that continues to plague elections in many of India's small towns.
"Violence is part of India elections, and this culture of violence is very much there in West Bengal too," said Dhur. "In the rural areas, things are always more violent than in the urban centers. The Communist Party of India - Marxists, they have pursued an industrialization policy that involves takeover of farmlands for industry so this tension was brewing for [a long time]. And this time the opposition tried tooth and nail to put up a resistance."
This year's local election was one of the most violent in West Bengal's history, with at least 30 dead in several rounds of polling. Nineteen people were killed during the last elections in 2003.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-05-19-voa35.cfm
New Delhi
Election violence has left at least 16 people dead and hundreds injured in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. Raymond Thibodeaux reports for VOA from New Delhi.
Clashes between rival political parties spilled into Monday following local elections in West Bengal.
Eyewitnesses said some villagers and poll workers were killed as police fired at protesters near polling booths. The violence broke out in Murshidabad, 200 kilometers north of West Bengal's capital, Kolkata.
Adhir Chowdhury leads the opposition Congress Party. He accused West Bengal's Marxist-led government of 'unleashing a reign of terror' during the elections to intimidate voters in an opposition stronghold. The Communist Party of India has ruled in West Bengal for much of the past three decades.
"The entire rule of Bengal has been officiated by violence perpetuated by the ruling regime," said Chowdhury. "They simply are resorting to violence, arson, torture and raping only to intimidate the people."
West Bengal's Communist Party leaders argue that the Congress Party supporters threatened violence days before the polls to ratchet up tension in an already contentious election.
Political analyst Sujoy Dhur says the larger issue at stake is the poll violence that continues to plague elections in many of India's small towns.
"Violence is part of India elections, and this culture of violence is very much there in West Bengal too," said Dhur. "In the rural areas, things are always more violent than in the urban centers. The Communist Party of India - Marxists, they have pursued an industrialization policy that involves takeover of farmlands for industry so this tension was brewing for [a long time]. And this time the opposition tried tooth and nail to put up a resistance."
This year's local election was one of the most violent in West Bengal's history, with at least 30 dead in several rounds of polling. Nineteen people were killed during the last elections in 2003.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-05-19-voa35.cfm
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