KOLKATA, 5 February 2007 — India, every tourist knows, is a land of paradoxes, of shifting colors and contradictory events, of heat and dust, of great wealth and deep poverty, of historic monuments of unsurpassed grandeur side by side with the planet’s worst hovels. Politically too it is a mass of incongruities — the ruling Congress party depends for much of its support on the landlord class, business and even the princes. Yet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is an ardent socialist who is constantly troubled by the threat of rising inequality as the economy powers ahead.
The greatest of India’s political paradoxes is the Marxist government of West Bengal based in Kolkata. In almost unchallenged power since 1967 the communist government has become “more capitalist than thou”. It is, of all the states, arguably the pace setter for market-led reforms. Its growth rate is higher than the nation’s. Its agriculture is growing at 4 percent a year, more than any other state, in part thanks to a massive land reform program which has dwarfed the half-hearted attempts in other states. Its information technology sector is exploding, increasing by over 70 percent last year and, in the words of Radha Krishnan, the president of the West Bengal Chamber of Commerce, “out to challenge Bangalore which is going from bad to worse. ” Poverty is also falling which shows up in its impressive improvements in infant mortality and its lowering death rate.
Indeed, if this government has a sin it is capitalistic hubris. The West Bengal government had taken the lead once again in pushing forward the central government’s plan for special economic zones, vast spaces for companies to set up tax-advantaged enclaves similar to the ones that have been pace setters in China’s industrial development. In West Bengal a new Tata car factory and a chemicals’ hub led by Indonesia’s Salim Group were all set to start land acquisition and construction when peasants whose land was being compulsorily purchased decided three week’s ago to resist. Violence erupted between peasants and Communist Party cadres. The local press called it “a bloodbath” and at least half a dozen people died in the fighting. The next day Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee appealed for peace and ordered a stop to land acquisition whilst policy was reviewed. In New Delhi the prime minister announced that the government too was reviewing its policies and would introduce a “more progressive, humane” system. “It must be a win-win process for all”, said Singh.
“Industrialization is the chief minister’s passion,” commented Krishnan. And in an interview Bhattacharjee blamed local bureaucrats for being ham-fisted and insensitive to the peasantry whilst also blaming Maoists groups for infiltrating from the neighboring state of Jharkhand and stirring things up. (Thirty-five years ago West Bengal had a major Maoist uprising, abetted by Beijing. An incoming Communist administration both repressed it and undercut it with its land reform program.)
The Communists of India (they are also strong in the southern state of Kerala) are a critical element in ensuring that the minority Congress government survives. Antagonistic to Congress on such issues as land reform and privatization of what Bhattarcharjee calls “backbones of the economy”, such as the railways, heavy electrical companies and the national oil company, there is a large area of cooperation. The Communists have gone along with the privatization of the banking and insurance sectors; also of loss-making companies generally.
Somnath Chatterjee, the speaker of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, and one of the pillars of the Communist Party, lists the main achievements of the CP/Congress alliance as the national rural employment program which guarantees the unemployed a 100 days of work each year, legislation projecting the rights of women, more pro-agriculture policies and, not least, “keeping communal forces in check”.
But he is disappointed in the government’s cosy relationship with Washington, its attitude (critical) toward Iran and he says the party has reservations about the way the nuclear issue has been handled with Washington. But there is no question, both Bhattarcharjee and he insist, that this government is going to fall for lack of Communist support.
