ASIA . 2
West Bengal
Goes Liberal
Mamata Banerjee’s landslide win in West Bengal’s election not only changed the balance of power in the
Indian state, but appeared to mark the beginning of the end of Communist hegemony in a territory it once
owned politically. The undoing of the left was mostly a result of corruption and a departure from policies
stead, the state began expropriating land, signaling protests and the beginning of the end.
by Carlo Buldrini
L
P
“
oribst-orton,” which means change, was the word
most repeated by Mamata Banerjee during her West
Bengal election campaign. In mid-April, the Indian state’s
92 million people voted on candidates for the 294 seats
in the Vidhan Sabha, the Calcutta-based parliament. For
34 years, the Communist Party of India, CPI (Marxist), and
its leftist allies, including the more moderate Communist
Party of India (CPI), the Forward Bloc and the Revolutionary Socialist Party, ran this eastern Indian state. No democratically elected Communist movement had held power for so long.
This year’s challenge came from a middle-aged woman
of small stature, the 56-year-old Banerjee, who has spent
her life in West Bengal and is known as “Didi,” or “older
sister.” She’s often seen wearing a white cotton sari and
rubber flip-flops. Her modest Calcutta home has a corrugated iron roof and is located on a narrow street in the Kalighat neighborhood, near a famous temple to the goddess
Kali. Banerjee’s political career began in the 1970s, when
she was a militant in the ruling Congress Party. In 1984,
she became among the youngest members of the national parliament. In 1997, she left the Congress Party to form
the Trinamool Congress, which for two years forged an alliance with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP). In 1999, she was part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and named railways minister. In 2001, she
broke from the BJP and aligned herself with Congress Party, now led by Sonia Gandhi. In the second Manmohan
Ap Photo / S. Das
A Trinamool Congress Party supporter, his face smeared
with colored powder, wears party leader
Mamata Banerjee’s badge on his forehead while celebrating
her May victory outside her Calcutta home.
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Corbis / F. Soltan
that once favored peasants and landowners. In-
Singh government, she was again tapped for the railways
ministry post.
But “Didi” didn’t feel at home in New Delhi, which
would play a critical role in her next move. Her real passion, she recognized, was politics of her native West Bengal. She also sensed that the “poriborton hawa,” the
winds of change, were beginning to gather momentum.
The Indian Communist Party seized power in Calcutta
in 1977, about the time that West Bengal was emerging
from a traumatic period. In 1967, in a small village called
Naxalbari in the north of the state, peasants had started
an armed uprising.
The leader of the movement was Charu Majumdar who
called for the “annihilation of class enemies.”
“Those who do not dipping their hands in the blood of
class enemies,” he wrote, “cannot be called a true communists.” The movement gradually spread from rural areas to Calcutta, where it won converts among college students. The so-called Naxalite movement victimized all
landowners, businessmen, police officers, politicians,
and academics. Siddhartha Shankar Roy, the chief minnumber 39 . december 2011
A Communist Party slogan and a Coca-Cola advertisement
on facing walls in the Calcutta Bagbazar.
ister of West Bengal at the time, was a member of Indira
Gandhi’s Congress Party, which fought back with brutal,
systematic repression.
In Calcutta alone, dozens of middle class students were
tortured and killed.
In December 1971, war broke out between India and
Pakistan, which would lead to the creation of Bangladesh.
Some 10 million former East Pakistanis poured into West
Bengal. In 1975, Gandhi declared a state of emergency.
But the emergency included further repression. Opposition leaders were jailed, the press was censored, and a
campaign of forced sterilizations imposed. But Indira
Gandhi lost the 1977 national election. At the same time,
West Bengal established a Legislative Assembly. Elections sanctioned the historic victory of the CPI (M) and its
Left Front allies. Calcutta turned red. The walls of dilapidated houses bore huge hammer and sickles.
147
T
he Marxist leadership also decided to abolish the
teaching of English in schools. Portraits of party leaders were hung beside those of the militants who belonged
to the “Amra Bangali” (“We are Bengalis”) movement and
replaced all signs written in English. The Writers’ Building, built by the British in 1870, still houses more than
6,000 West Bengali government employees.
In the 1970s, a leftist minister called for the demolishing of all the white marble statues that adorned the eaves
of the historic building. With great forbearance, local officials told him the statues depicting the Muses, and not
the “burra memsahibs,” the white wives of hated former
British colonialists. For a considerable length of time, the
CPI (M) barred the use of computers in public office, insisting they were responsible for job losses.
Thirty-four years of uninterrupted power inevitably
corrupts ruling classes. The corruption within the CPI (M)
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Ap Photo / S. Das
Corbis / F. Soltan
The new government’s early programs, particularly
land reform, had an immediate social impact. Excess land
was distributed to sharecroppers and landless peasants.
The new officials also revived the “panchayat,” or village
assemblies, system, which had divided towns into administrative units.
The Marxist-oriented approach to business was uncompromising. Worker struggles in West Bengal at the
time were characterized by “gherao,” which literally
means “encirclement,” and called for surrounding public officials until they provided solutions or at least answered public questions and concerns (the word has since been included in the Oxford English dictionary).
Promoting these actions was leftist Work Minister Subodh Banarjee, who would later be remembered as the
“Gherao Minister.”
Immediately after independence, West Bengal was among the most industrialized Indian states. But after
more than two decades of militant unionism, local industry found itself close to collapse. Inhabitants left Calcutta and rural areas in droves, with most workers seeking
opportunities elsewhere. Jyoti Basu, the historic leader
of the CPI (M) and prime minister of West Bengal from
1977 to 2000, would later criticize the years of radical
trade unionism as misguided and detrimental. The policies brought industrial production to a near standstill. In
all areas of public life, Bengal saw a gradual decline that
increased year by year.
A Communist Party slogan.
Activists of the youth wing of the Congress Party burn an effigy
of West Bengal state Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
during a May 2011 protest in Calcutta.
was supremely political. Party interests began coming before the needs of the local citizenry. The Marxist leadership controlled every aspect of life. Police carried out decisions made on high. Only the party meted out rewards
and punishment. Getting ahead in West Bengal meant being willing to pay “contributions to the cause,” opening
a door to widespread corruption. The Marxist government worked to nourish two huge bureaucracies, the party and the government itself. Little else mattered.
Over the years, the historic headquarters of the CPI (M),
on Alimuddin Street in Calcutta, didn’t change appearance, dominated by black-and-white blow-ups of Marx,
Engels, Lenin and Stalin. In other cities, however, party
headquarters were in fact changing look, coming to reeast . europe and asia strategies
Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress Party
ousted the Communists after decades of rule.
They were accused of mismanagement and corruption.
semble the offices of multinational companies. To differentiate itself from the Communist Party of India (CPI),
which used the Soviet Union as an ideological reference
point, the CPI (M), from its 1964 inception, made China
its shining light.
In 2000, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, known as the “Red
Buddha,” took over from Jyoti Basu at the head of the government. In an effort to extricate West Bengal from its ongoing crisis, Bhattacharjee looked again in Beijing. He
number 39 . december 2011
adopted the Chinese mannerism that prefaced all remarks with: “Thanks to Mao Zedong, we done this…” or
“Thanks to Deng Xiaoping, we have done that...” He
opened West Bengal’s doors to multinationals. As a result, the land reform so prized by the early Marxist governments became the enemy of more modern planning.
Two episodes caused the dramatic crash of the CPI (M)
in West Bengal and simultaneously marked the dizzying
ascent of Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress.
In 2006, using the Land Acquisition Act, a colonial law
dating to 1894, the Marxist government expropriated 404
hectares of farmland in Singur, in the Hooghly district.
The idea was to transform the land into a venue for a Tata
auto plant: Tata manufactures the Nano, India’s compact
car that costs only $2,500 and is earmarked for the Indian
market. But the expropriation produced strong reaction among local peasants. A protest movement sprang to life
led by Banerjee and supported by Naxalite groups (also
called “Maoists”). CPI (M) militia and police intervened to
keep the expropriated land free of protestors. They soon
clashed with farmers and Trinamool Congress activists.
But police were soon blamed for deeper wave of violence. Several peasant girls were raped, producing outrage, after which Taps Malk, a young activist, was killed.
On Oct. 3, 2008, Ratan Tata, the chairman of Tata Group,
announced his company would retreat from Singur move
the Nano factory to Gujarat Sananda.
In the meantime, however, the West Bengal government had moved to appropriate more land, this time 40
square kilometers of farmland in Nandigram, which in
2007 was designated a Special Economic Zone (SEZ). The
territory would host the factory of multinational Indonesia, the Salim Group, the government announced.
Again they faced peasant wrath, including women and
children from Nandigram itself. Again, Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress backed the uprising, as it had in Singur.
So did Maoist groups. On March 14, 2007, more than
3,000 police officers and dozens of armed militants belonging to the CPI (M) opened fire on demonstrators.
There were 14 deaths. This bloody incident signaled the
beginning of the end for the Marxists.
As a result of these events, this year’s Legislative Assembly election campaign proved particularly intense.
On one side were the Communist Party of India (Marxist), as always heading the Left Front; on the other was the
Trinamool Congress, an ally of Sonia Gandhi Congress
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namool Congress’ Manish Gupta. The margin was 16,777
votes. Virtually every incumbent minister was defeated,
all but beheading the Left Front.
When the results were announced in Calcutta, near
Banerjee’s modest home, festivities began. The locals
went wild, exploding firecrackers, rhythmically beating
drums, and air through large shells that emit a prolonged
hollow sound. Men and women tossed green powder
(“Abir”), the color of the Trinamool Congress, into the air.
In the late morning, “Didi” appeared at her front door.
“This victory belongs to Ma, Manush and Mati,” she said.
Ma is the mother goddess who in Bengal is personified by
Durga and Kali “Mati” is land and “Manush” is the people. “Bengal,” she added, “can now celebrate its second
independence.”
W
ith the celebrations ended, the real problems begin.
Banerjee inherits a bankrupt state. The West Bengal government debt is “2 lakh crore,” two trillion rupees.
State coffers are empty. An estimated 96 percent of the
revenue is spent on salaries and pensions. These two categories alone sap 30 billion rupees monthly. Banerjee’s
promise to revamp all sectors of West Bengali economic
won’t be easy. Industrial and agricultural interests are often at odds. Meanwhile the CPI (M) is licking his wounds.
The election saw it abandoned by all sectors of Bengali,
particularly among Muslims, who constitute 25.2 percent
of the state’s population of the state.
A few years ago, the so-called Sachar Committee report
documented that the Muslim population of West Bengal
was among the poorest in India. In West Bengal, Muslims
hold only 4.2 percent of all government jobs. Peasants,
workers, and the “bhadralok,” or urban middle class,
turned their backs on the CPI (M) after 34 years. Despite
the debacle, party leaders continue to insist the left will
bounce back.
The crushing defeat absorbed by the left was accentuated by the uninominal electoral system used in all Indian voting. Though the Left Front garnered 39.8 percent of
the vote in West Bengal, the decline of the CPI (M) appears
unstoppable. The party lost the “panchayat,” or village
assembly, vote in 2008, was again defeated in national
parliamentary in 2009, and lost a third time in 2010 municipal elections. The Marxists seem on the ropes even at
a national level.
Its political suicide dates back to July 2008. After the
east . europe and asia strategies
nuclear deal accord signed between India and the United States, Party Secretary Prakash Karat, blinded by visceral anti-Americanism, pulled his support from the Singh government. Since then the CPI (M) has witnessed
defeat to defeat, further distancing the party from relevancy in any third pole scenario.
Banerjee immediately invited the Congress Party to
join her new government. She also offered a spot to Abhijit Mukherjee, the son of incumbent finance minister.
“Didi” knows that the survival of her government, heavily dependent on aid from New Delhi, in contingent on
support from Abhijit’s father, Pranab Mukherjee, the finance minister himself.
The Congress Party stalled for a few days before accepting Banerjee’s invitation. The two ministries will participate in a cabinet of 33 ministers. At 1:01 p.m. on Friday,
May 20, Banerjee was sworn in front of state Governor MK
Narayanan. Present at the ceremony but ashen-faced
were Bhuddadeb Bhattacharjee, the chief of the outgoing
government, and Biman Bose, the leader of the Left Front.
Among the 3,200 guests was Seema Folke, a prostitute
from Sonagachi, the largest red light district of Calcutta.
She was personally invited by “Didi” as a representative
of the Durbar Mahila Samawaya Committee, an organization that fights for prostitute rights.
The barefoot Banerjee walked the kilometer that separates the Raj Bhawan, the residence of the governor, from
the Writers’ Building, the seat of government, with
crowds cheering her on. Many Indian events occur barefoot, to show the same respect for their historic nature as
someone would show entering a temple to meet the gods.
The government chief, the eighth in the history of West
Bengal and the first woman, went to work immediately.
She said her first official act would be to return half the
land expropriated from Singur farmers to build the ill-fated Tata Nano plant.
Does Banerjee possess the administrator skills necessary to solve the enormous problems that plague the West
Bengal? Her stint as railways minister in central government showed little in the way of bold new efforts or visionary thinking. In New Delhi, among the leaders of Congress Party, no one is quiet sure what to expect. Few have
high hopes. Some would have preferred that the Calcutta government received external support managed from
India’s seat of power. If Banarjee is unable to make good
on her promises and maintain her popularity, the ruling
number 39 . december 2011
Ap Photo / G. Osan
Party. Banerjee traveled far and wide through the state,
making speeches. “Change (‘poriborton’) is coming to
Bengal,” she repeated time and again, her stage presence
reaching pop star status. “Didi” promised voters a “Bengali Renaissance.” She cited lines from the poet Tagore
(2011 is the 150th anniversary of the birth). The Trinamool
Congress slogan was “Lal Hata, Desh Bachao” (“Let’s beat
communism and save the country”).
Banerjee was helped by Sonia Gandhi, who spoke on
her behalf, and central government Finance Minister
Pranab Mukherjee, a Bengali, who did the same.
“We want to put an end to frustration, violence and underdevelopment that characterize the life of this state,”
said Sonia Gandhi.
Meanwhile, the CPI (M) insisted it was no longer the
party of old. An in-house “correction” saw the expulsion
of more than 1,000 party members and the suspension of
2,300 others, on alleged corruption charges. After the
purge, the party said it was ready to rule the state for the
eighth consecutive term. At a press conference held on
the eve of the vote tallying, Biman Bose, the CPI (M) and
Left Front leader, insisted he was “confident of victory,”
saying that journalists would have to “lick the spittle
launched against the parties of the left.”
This year, West Bengal counted some 56 million voters, a quarter of them younger than age 30 years. Three
million voted for the first time. Voter turnout nearly hit
86 percent, a West Bengal record and an impressive democratic display. The Bengalis made it clear to the ruling
Maoists that they’d use the ballot box to ensure change,
with the slogan “Ballots not Bullets” becoming popular.
The results reflected the anti-Marxist mood. Of the 294
contested seats, the Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress won
184 (they held 30 in 2006). Its ally, the Congress Party,
won 42 seats, doubling its 2006 total.
The Left Front was routed across the board. The 235
seats it controlled in 2006 dropped to a mere 61. Of these,
40 went to the CPI (M), which in previous elections won
176. There’s a saying in India that the electorate is like an
elephant. It never forgets. When an election comes
around, an elephant can drop a garland of flowers on candidates or choose to wrap them up in its truck and hurl
them elsewhere.
This time, the elephant did plenty of tossing. Bhuddadeb Bhattacharjee, the Marxist leader of the outgoing
government, lost in Jadavpur, in south Calcutta, to the Tri-
Banerjee, left, is greeted by Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi.
Congress Party will be compelled to run West Bengal. But
party leader Sonia Gandhi is convinced that the landslide
victory means that the electorate of West Bengal is unlikely to turn the clock back to Marxist rule. Gopal Krishna
Gokhale was a senior leader of the Congress Party, who
lived between the 19 th and 20th centuries and died in
1915. Mahatma Gandhi, in his autobiography, labeled
Gokhale his “mentor and guide.”
It was Gokhale who used to say: “What Bengal thinks
today, India will thinks tomorrow.”
If Gokhale sense of political history is true to form,
communism in India is finished.
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