1. Defects of the 34-year old CPM rule and the factors
leading to TMC's win
As the TMC election manifesto has very kindly pointed out
the causes for the decline of CPM are decline of industry in the state, decline
of the agriculture and the tremendous amount of debt on the state. The creaking
infrastructure has played its part too. During the 34 years CPM rule the number
of industries at India level has come down to 4% in 2008-09 from 7.6% in
1976-77. The share of the industry in state economy was 27% in 1975-76, the
figure decline to 18.4% in 2008-09 whereas all India share of industry during
the same time grew from 22% to 25.8%. Not only industry, the agriculture growth
rate has come down to 7.8% in 2008-09 from 17.3% in 1966-76. Moreover the West
Bengal government has is in a debt trap. The state has a total outstanding
liability of Rs. 1,68,684 crore in 2009-10. These are the administrative
shortcomings of the CPI (M) during their rule over the state but the basic
factor which single handedly brought TMC at par with CPM was the issues of Singur
and Nandigram.
Factors leading to TMC's win: CPM which
announces itself as a communist party has been losing its character ever since
it had come to power. Whereas Mamata Banerjee has resorted to very measures
used by CPM 34-years ago. Political commentator Biplab Chakravarty says about
Mamata."She resorted to Marxist rhetoric, whereas Marxist parties changed
their class position and started acquiring farmers' land for private
investors."
NANDIGRAM and SINGUR issue: These issues saw the
left front leaving its very basic ideology. The impact of the land reforms
which had handed them the power 34-years ago was nullified during these events.
In Nandigram, 10,000 acres of land were acquired by the left front government
for a special economic zone (SEZ) to be developed by Indonesian-based Salim
Group. The police shot dead at least 14 villagers and wounded 70 more while
stamping out the protests. Similarly in Singur, According to a report released
by the government of west Bengal, a total of 997.11 acres of land was acquired
on December 31, 2006. The process of land acquisition in Singur began with the
publication of notifications under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act 1894.
The land was to be given to TATA motors for the manufacturing plant of NANO.
The small car to be manufactured by TATA motors is scheduled to roll out of the
factory by 2008. It is expected that the small car will mark a watershed in the
global automobile industry. Singur again would become a mini-auto city. The
project brings in an investment of Rs 1,000 crore to Singur. TMC lead the
peasant agitations in Singur under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee. Many
other opposition parties also joined the agitations later on but TMC was in
command.TMC got support of the social activists like Medha Patekar and others.
So, this way
TMC got a stronghold in the rural areas of WB and peasants find a leader in
Mamata Banerjee to fight for their cause. The vote bank of the TMC has also got
increment from the sympathizers of ultra left parties. On the whole, the
triumph of Mamata Banerjee is not a positive vote but rather an outpouring of
seething anger against all the acts of omission and commission the left front
is guilty of.
2. Communist
character in CPM?
The question
that arose after the defeat of the CPM is if it can be called as defeat of
communism in India. As said earlier the answer to this question is strictly
"no". Here I would like to throw light on the changing character of
CPM from being a pro people to an anti-people party. 34-years ago the land
reforms implemented by CPM made their way to power. The party's force was the
peasantry of the state; the rural Bengal was their fort. During 2005-10 however
the party has changed its very nature owing to its increasing industrial needs
but the way it chose to do so was not communistic at all. CPM used a 113-year
old land acquisition act to acquire land from the very same peasants to which
once it has divided the land, the state force was used to acquire the land. As
mentioned above plenty were killed in Nandigram and Singur.
CPM and its
goon story: CPM has every sort of force to keep its rule over people
and hiring goons to do their dirty jobs is one of them. CPM hired goons has
been responsible for many deaths of people in Nandigram.
CPM has
violated the very principle of electoral policy of the communist state. The
electoral agenda of a communist party while going for election is to present a
revolutionary opposition and use it as a propaganda activity for socialist
ideology. Whereas CPM has changed its policy line just to acquire power and
consolidate it in the few of the party heads. The revolutionary agenda has
taken a backseat in this new policy.CPM is abandoning socialism and is
practicing anti-democratic governance in the states where it leads the
government. The very statement given by ex-Chief Minister of Bengal, Jyoti
Basu, that ’socialism is not possible now’ was published in newspapers in
January 2008. Basu was reported to have
stated “We want capital, both foreign and domestic. After all we are working in
a capitalist system.”
The actions of CPM in the Singur and Nandigram
episodes are comparable to those of the Gujarat government led by
Narendra Modi in the anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002. The hired goons have acted
very much like those hindutva cadres in Gujarat. The CPM cadre thinks itself to
be masters of the state.
The incident
of Lalgarh tells the story of frustration of common people against the CPM cadre.
The CPM and its goons have been past masters of the art of stuffing ballots,
strong arm techniques, spending money, any and every dark art of trumping up
votes. So, the above points pretty much make clear the stand of the CPM on
revolutionary politics and its development as a bourgeois party. The role
played by CPM in Singur and Nandigram further emphasize the development of CPM as pimp for the big corporate houses and
MNCs.
But now the
questions steps up, how are they going do it? Are they going oppose the very
policy which brought them to power i.e. industrialization on the cost of
agriculture? For the answer we need to give a look the politics of TMC in past
and its present plans. In our view, the
rule under TMC is not going to be much different from the one under the CPM.
Let us have a
look on the outcome of the Singur issue.
A handful of policemen are guarding the TATA compound along with some local TMC
leaders, who are stopping the people as if they are the custodians of the
compound. They are asking them to wait for 2011 election and that the land will
be returned to them immediately after Ms Mamata Banerjee becomes the Chief
Minister of West Bengal. But is the scene so, sadly its not. Getting back the
land would be very difficult. As the land remained fallow for more than three
years and the owner is the Government of West Bengal, so even if Tata forgoes
its claim on it, the land will lie vested with the government. In such a
scenario it can only be allotted to landless farmers and not to the original
owners. Moreover, under the Land Acquisition Act, there is nothing called
willing or unwilling parties. Once the land has been acquired for public
purpose, it has to be used for public cause only. Otherwise, the land can be
auctioned to the public. In this case, the government will be the real
beneficiary. Disbursal of land requires drastic changes in the existing Land
Acquisition laws or there has to be a prolonging legal tussle.
Furthermore,
as the agreement with Tata Motors is not made public, the exit conditions are
not known. Tatas have already spelled out their intentions of not parting with
the land without “adequate” compensation. This year, at the Auto Expo in New
Delhi, Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata said, “wouldn’t stand in the way for
another usage of the land if we were compensated for what we have left behind …
we still hold the lease of the land”. A few days ago, the same was informed to
the government in writing. Existence of an exit policy in the agreement with
Tata is never mentioned. There is no talk about compensation. Question is: who
will be paying the compensation and how will it be calculated. It is difficult
to believe that TMC Chief is not aware of these facts. With the kind of support
that she is drawing from bureaucracy, in all possibilities, she is aware of the
terms of Tata agreement. It is therefore easy to conclude that to draw maximum
political millage; she is maintaining silence on this subject.
There are
other heart-wrenching stories. Mamata Banerjee, with her intentions to reward
the protestors of Singur has created further discontent. Though not much talked
about, around fourteen persons from Singur have been employed under the
discretionary quota of general manager of the division of Indian Railways. In
the first phase, three boys and a girl from Beraberi were appointed, but when
in the second phase it became known that two more are to be employed from the
same village, people expressed their discontent in the manner by which only
persons with good academic records were getting appointment. Loss of land is
loss, it does not understand academics, and therefore everyone should have the
equal chance in employment. Jobs went to some other locality. TMC leaders have
prepared a list of some 700 persons who refused to accept compensation for
their land in protest against acquisition, there were however at least 2,100
people who did not accept compensation.
Same is
happening to “Kisan Vision project” near Singur railway station, where corporate
are being allowed by railway ministry to set up cold storage center alongside
the railway station. Cold storage is going to be ready by the end of this year
and there too around 150 people will be employed according to the list prepared
by TMC leadership. Sixteen shops were gifted to the protestors who died during
Singur agitation and others who, according to TMC, were to be rewarded for
their activities. The above information reveals the nature of TMC's so-called
progressive approach. Talking about the policy that is to be followed by TMC in
coming years there are some surprises involved.
Stand on SEZs: The party has not
cleared its stand on SEZ's. Talking about the double standards of TMC, in the
recently released Bangla edition of the election manifesto of the Trinamool
Congress, it is clearly stated under the “establishment of land-bank” section
that “SEZs would not be allowed in West Bengal”. However, it’s surprising that
you won't find a single word written about SEZs in the English version of the
election manifesto! A reading of the English version of the manifesto makes it
abundantly clear that the English version has been addressed to the
corporations and the chambers of commerce, whereas the Bangla version is full
of pro-people promises. That is why the English version does not contain any
statement about stopping SEZs. Possibly because this has come to public notice,
the English version of the manifesto in the Trinamool Congress website has been
renamed as “vision document”, although the pdf file is still named as
“manifesto_english”. So, it’s clearly visible that the Trinamool Congress is following
this same path of double standards as followed by CPM in matter of SEZs. As
this article is being written, about the industrial policy that is to be
followed by TMC, Mamata Banerjee’s point man for economy Amit Mitra has said
that Tatas were never driven out of West Bengal by Trinamool Congress and the
group will return to the state with industrial investment. We don't think that
he doesn't know Tata Motors’ was forced to shift its Nano project out of Singur
in West Bengal following farmer’s agitation against land acquisition,
spearheaded by Trinamool Congress Chief Mamata Banerjee.
CADRE
VIOLENCE: The activities of violence carried on by the CPM cadres
and via hired goons have been severely criticized by the intellectuals but very
same activities are now repeated by the TMC goons. Just after the elections
many CPM workers has been beaten up the TMC goons and one CPM worker (Jiten
Nandi) has been killed also. So, the difference between policies of the parties
is certainly not much.
Hereby, we can claim that nothing is going to be
changed much by shifting of power to TMC. Neither the oppression of the state
on the tribals is going to be stopped nor there is going to be any significant
change in the policies. So, TMC and CPM are just a hand in glove. The very
character CPM has boasted 3 decades ago isn’t there anymore. On the whole it’s
the defeat of the anti-people policies of CPM and not of the socialistic
ideologue.
By:-
RAMAN MANDER
Student of D.A.V. College, Sec- 10.
Students For Society (P.U. Committee)
CHANDIGARH