30 years of Left in West Bengal... Changing Track
When the CPI(M) won a majority in West Bengal in June 1977, it was indeed a surprise to many including those in the party. Well. 1977 was not the first time when the party won power in a State. The undivided CPI had won the first ever assembly elections in Kerala as early as in 1957 and EMS Namboodiripad assumed charge as Chief Minister. This was the first election to the Kerala assembly after the State was formed out of parts of the Madras State along with Travancore and Cochin. In West Bengal too, the CPI(M) had won elections along with the Bangla Congress in 1967 and once again in 1970.
In 1977, however, the CPI(M) leaders were not too sure of their strength. The Janata Party had swept the polls in the March 1977 Lok Sabha elections and the nation was still under the grip of the Janata wave. And the CPI(M)’s demand for 80 assembly seats in alliance with the Janata Party in the 294 member state assembly was rejected by the Janata patriarchs. Pramod Das Gupta, the grand old man of the CPI(M) then and political tutor of the present CPI(M) State secretary, Biman Bose, decided to take the plunge. The party contested alone and won a simple majority on its own.
The victory was indeed a sweet revenge for the CPI(M) whose cadre had suffered the violent and murderous onslaughts by the Congress party cadre as well as the police during the infamous Sidhartha Sankar Ray regime from 1971 to 1977 and the undemocratic ways of Indira Gandhi’s emergency. Old timers recall the period as the semi-fascist phase in the political history of West Bengal. And the 1977 victory was indeed a popular response to all that.
While Jyoti Basu became the Chief Minister, the party inducted Benoy Choudhary, who was brought up in the movement by the legendary Hari Krishna Konar and a frontline fighter in the peasant front of the party, to hold the land revenue department. And Benoy Choudhary went about implementing the communist movement’s agenda on the land front in real earnest.
Operation Barga, as it was called, involved collation of data on surplus land, studying that systematically and implementing the demands placed by the Tebhaga struggle. The Government, under Benoy Choudhary, consolidated the surplus land, drew up the road map and ensured that the tenants were made owners of the land they tilled. The landed gentry, who found it infra-dig to work on the soil and their apologists in the bureaucracy and the political stable were shown their place. And Operation Barga turned out to be a huge success and even a model for land reforms.
Well, the intention behind recalling this past is simple. The land reforms agenda ensured the CPI(M) its political base across the State of West Bengal and reduced the Congress party into a rump. So much so, the Congress party could not do what it did in the 1971 elections; the 1971 assembly polls in West Bengal, when Indira’s Congress wrested power, was perhaps, the most undemocratic one in independent India’s history. The violence was unprecedented (and remains that way till today) and that was how Sidhartha sankar Ray managed to become the Chief Minister.
All that changed after the first phase of the CPI(M) government in West Bengal. There was no way the Congress party could win polls in rural Bengal because rigging was no longer possible. It is another matter that the CPI(M) failed to establish itself as a force in urban West Bengal. The middle classes in Calcutta (now Kolkotta) continued to vote against the Left for several years.
Thirty years later, the scene has changed. The CPI(M) is now the darling of urban West Bengal too thanks to Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. And this is only going to get more pronounced with the way Bhattacharya is dealing with working class action and popular protests. His call for banning strike actions in the service sector and the enthusiasm with which he is bending rules to invite investments into West Bengal will draw the middle classes closer to the party. And what more is needed than having Mukesh Ambani to be part of the inauguration of the 30th anniversary of the party’s accent to power in the State?
Well. There is nothing wrong with the middle classes supporting the party. In other words, it is infantile to treat the middle classes as political untouchables. But then, it is imperative for a party that owed its growth to the farmers and whose ideology is rooted in principles of egalitarianism and people’s democracy to internalize that the Ambani model of economic development and growth can prove detrimental to the poor and the marginal farmers and also curb the rights of the working class.
The invitation to Mukesh to be in Kolkotta and be the most important guest there at a function to mark the 30th anniversary is indeed a symbolic statement. And the message cannot be glossed over. It is loud and clear. That the Left has decided to take West Bengal in the same path as the successive governments had taken Haryana in the past decade leading to converting large tracts of agricultural land into building complexes, shopping malls and multiplexes; in the same way Chandrababu Naidu ``developed’’ Hyderabad and the surrounding regions and S.M.Krishna did in Karnataka.
The Ambanis, it may be recalled, have proposed to set up a tourist resort in the Jambudwip Islands even if that means displacing thousands of fishermen from there. This is indeed cruel. And not the right way to honour Benoy Choudhary, the man behind the CPI(M)’s consolidation in West Bengal.
(END)
When the CPI(M) won a majority in West Bengal in June 1977, it was indeed a surprise to many including those in the party. Well. 1977 was not the first time when the party won power in a State. The undivided CPI had won the first ever assembly elections in Kerala as early as in 1957 and EMS Namboodiripad assumed charge as Chief Minister. This was the first election to the Kerala assembly after the State was formed out of parts of the Madras State along with Travancore and Cochin. In West Bengal too, the CPI(M) had won elections along with the Bangla Congress in 1967 and once again in 1970.
In 1977, however, the CPI(M) leaders were not too sure of their strength. The Janata Party had swept the polls in the March 1977 Lok Sabha elections and the nation was still under the grip of the Janata wave. And the CPI(M)’s demand for 80 assembly seats in alliance with the Janata Party in the 294 member state assembly was rejected by the Janata patriarchs. Pramod Das Gupta, the grand old man of the CPI(M) then and political tutor of the present CPI(M) State secretary, Biman Bose, decided to take the plunge. The party contested alone and won a simple majority on its own.
The victory was indeed a sweet revenge for the CPI(M) whose cadre had suffered the violent and murderous onslaughts by the Congress party cadre as well as the police during the infamous Sidhartha Sankar Ray regime from 1971 to 1977 and the undemocratic ways of Indira Gandhi’s emergency. Old timers recall the period as the semi-fascist phase in the political history of West Bengal. And the 1977 victory was indeed a popular response to all that.
While Jyoti Basu became the Chief Minister, the party inducted Benoy Choudhary, who was brought up in the movement by the legendary Hari Krishna Konar and a frontline fighter in the peasant front of the party, to hold the land revenue department. And Benoy Choudhary went about implementing the communist movement’s agenda on the land front in real earnest.
Operation Barga, as it was called, involved collation of data on surplus land, studying that systematically and implementing the demands placed by the Tebhaga struggle. The Government, under Benoy Choudhary, consolidated the surplus land, drew up the road map and ensured that the tenants were made owners of the land they tilled. The landed gentry, who found it infra-dig to work on the soil and their apologists in the bureaucracy and the political stable were shown their place. And Operation Barga turned out to be a huge success and even a model for land reforms.
Well, the intention behind recalling this past is simple. The land reforms agenda ensured the CPI(M) its political base across the State of West Bengal and reduced the Congress party into a rump. So much so, the Congress party could not do what it did in the 1971 elections; the 1971 assembly polls in West Bengal, when Indira’s Congress wrested power, was perhaps, the most undemocratic one in independent India’s history. The violence was unprecedented (and remains that way till today) and that was how Sidhartha sankar Ray managed to become the Chief Minister.
All that changed after the first phase of the CPI(M) government in West Bengal. There was no way the Congress party could win polls in rural Bengal because rigging was no longer possible. It is another matter that the CPI(M) failed to establish itself as a force in urban West Bengal. The middle classes in Calcutta (now Kolkotta) continued to vote against the Left for several years.
Thirty years later, the scene has changed. The CPI(M) is now the darling of urban West Bengal too thanks to Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. And this is only going to get more pronounced with the way Bhattacharya is dealing with working class action and popular protests. His call for banning strike actions in the service sector and the enthusiasm with which he is bending rules to invite investments into West Bengal will draw the middle classes closer to the party. And what more is needed than having Mukesh Ambani to be part of the inauguration of the 30th anniversary of the party’s accent to power in the State?
Well. There is nothing wrong with the middle classes supporting the party. In other words, it is infantile to treat the middle classes as political untouchables. But then, it is imperative for a party that owed its growth to the farmers and whose ideology is rooted in principles of egalitarianism and people’s democracy to internalize that the Ambani model of economic development and growth can prove detrimental to the poor and the marginal farmers and also curb the rights of the working class.
The invitation to Mukesh to be in Kolkotta and be the most important guest there at a function to mark the 30th anniversary is indeed a symbolic statement. And the message cannot be glossed over. It is loud and clear. That the Left has decided to take West Bengal in the same path as the successive governments had taken Haryana in the past decade leading to converting large tracts of agricultural land into building complexes, shopping malls and multiplexes; in the same way Chandrababu Naidu ``developed’’ Hyderabad and the surrounding regions and S.M.Krishna did in Karnataka.
The Ambanis, it may be recalled, have proposed to set up a tourist resort in the Jambudwip Islands even if that means displacing thousands of fishermen from there. This is indeed cruel. And not the right way to honour Benoy Choudhary, the man behind the CPI(M)’s consolidation in West Bengal.
(END)
posted by Krishna Ananth at
10:40 PM
5 Comments:
Nice!!
as usual i love the way you bring in history in everything you write...
Lovely piece...
There's one thing to be said about the craze to make services the bedrock of the economy.
Apart from the fact that these services require greater educational qualifications than most Indians have, they have a second implication as well.
Unlike manufacturing, services entail a degree of cultural integration with the globe, or, more precisely, the Anglophone world.
The service economy, thus, is one that would be favourable people who have, for various reasons, been educated in english, and are comfortable with a global identity.
People who have had the proper "exposure", - who generally would also be upper class, urban, historically educated and privilaged - would gain, to the exception of others.
A perfect recepie for heightening the gulf between the haves and have-nots!
I quite agree with what you say. Today the CPIM seems to have taken the peasants for granted.
yes kalpit.. but the peasants will show the CPI(m) some day that they are not herds...
This long comment was received by mail... thought it was really insightful.
Dear Mr V Krishna Ananth:
Your article, “West Bengal and the CPI(M)” in Daily Times of Lahore, has very timely raised doubts about the neo-liberal stance of the Left Front government, under the chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who is a polit bureau member of CPI(M) too. You have not used the term ‘neo-liberal’ which is my prefix.
You know well that there is a lot of reservations about the open-door (to not only MNCs, but also crony MNCs like the Salim Group whose website is also a secret).
I am drawing your attention to the paragraph that reads as follows: “Operation Barga, as it was called, involved collation of data on surplus land, its systematic study and meeting the demands of the Tebhaga struggle. Under Benoy Choudhary, the government consolidated the surplus land, drew up the roadmap and ensured that the tenants were made owners of the land they tilled. The landed gentry, who found it infra-dig to work on the soil and their apologists in the bureaucracy and the political stable were shown their place. Operation Barga turned out to be a huge success — even a model for land reforms.”
The real author of OB is not Benoy Choudhuri, but D Bandyopadhyay, the rare breed IAS officer and a favourite of Harekrishna Konar who introduced DB to BC. OB was virtually stopped after 1981 and in the early 1980s, the difference between DB and the LF government including the Krishak Sabha developed. Nearly 92 per cent of Barga recording that insulates recorded share-croppers from the fear of eviction. But the LF government never thought of making the bargadars land-owners although Sir Francis Floud, chairman of Bengal Land Revenue Commission of the 1940s accepted the demand of Bengal unit of AIKS represented by Bhowani Sen, Bankim Mukherjee, Abdullah Rasul and Rebati Barman ( a brilliant scholar who prepared the draft that was further improved by RPD of CPGB) that Bargadars be made owners.
If you collect the political-organisational reports of West Bengal CPI(M) state conference of 2002 and 2005 and read the report of peasant front ( you have to know Bengali or have it translated), you will observe interesting signs of ideological backwardation. One, Bargadars ( a section) are chided for behaving like owners and their aspiration to be owners is ‘reactionary’. Two, due to intrusion of capitalism ( not globalization alone), Barga system has become outdated and so AIKS functionaries should monitor the process of return of those lands or outright buyback by bargadars at half the market price ( even a quarter of market rates is beyond Bargadars’ dream).
Please note that most of the vested lands , redistributed to the landless farmers, are fallow and non-irrigated ( Tata Motors and Salim group are being offered fertile and double-cropped lands). The total acreage redistribution of these lands during the 29 years of LF rule is less than that of total redistribution during the two United Front governments that lasted for less than two years and five years of Congress regime, according to the late Dr A N Bose, member, State Plnning Board until his death last year.
Regards,
Sankar Ray,
Kolkata
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