[Reader-list] What the Communists have done to West Bengal in 30 years!

[prakash ray]

Dear all,Please read this article on the Left rule in Bengal.

PKR

http://www.pragoti.org/node/12
THIRTY YEARS OF THE LEFT FRONT GOVERNMENT IN WEST BENGAL Thu, 2007-07-19
00:00 | Prasenjit Bose <http://www.pragoti.org/taxonomy/term/222>

The formation of the Left Front Government in West Bengal was a culmination
of decades of struggles by various sections of the people — workers,
peasants, teachers, refugees and students — under the leadership of the
Left, and its biggest component the CPI (M).

This is an article by PRASENJIT BOSE.* Historical Outline *

The formation of the Left Front Government in West Bengal was a culmination
of decades of struggles by various sections of the people — workers,
peasants, teachers, refugees and students — under the leadership of the
Left, and its biggest component the CPI (M). Faced with the rising tide of
struggles and the growing influence of the CPI (M) and the Left, the
Congress government, which was formed after it blatantly rigged the
elections in 1972, resorted to a reign of semi-fascist terror in West
Bengal. The CPI (M) and the mass organizations faced the brunt of this
repression. 1,100 Party workers and close sympathizers were killed.

In the general elections of 1977 the Congress was severely punished by the
people of the country for its authoritarian and anti-democratic actions
during the Emergency. The Janata Party Government was formed at the Centre
with Morarji Desai as Prime Minister. The Assembly elections in West Bengal
were held shortly after the general elections in 1977. The people came out
to vote in very large numbers to get rid of the reign of terror. The Left
Front won by over three-fourth majority.

While assuming office in 1977, the Left Front government was aware of the
limitations of a State government in implementing pro-people policies within
the existing Constitutional set-up. While the major responsibility of
delivering services to the people was with the State Governments, financial
resources were concentrated in the hands of the Centre. Keeping in mind this
constraint, the Left Front government embarked upon a programme to provide
immediate relief to the people and implementing alternative policies in
spheres where the State government had some say. The major initiatives of
the first Left Front government were to carry out thoroughgoing land reforms
and establishing a vibrant Panchayati Raj. These historic initiatives broke
the back of landlordism in the rural areas and immensely empowered the poor
peasantry and agricultural workers. Large sections of the rural poor,
especially the dalits, adivasis and minorities, gravitated towards the Left
and the CPI (M). This section continues to be the most stable mass base of
the CPI (M) and the Left Front till date. Several other pro-people
initiatives were also undertaken regarding workers’ rights and social sector
development, which benefited different sections of the people: factory
workers, unorganised workers, government employees, school and college
teachers, students, youth, women and the refugees. Through their experience,
the majority of the people of West Bengal came to recognize the Left Front
government as a pro-people government, a custodian of their rights and a
fighter for their cause. Therefore, since 1977, neither did the people ever
look back nor did the Left Front government.

*Land Reforms, Democratic Decentralization and Agricultural Success*

Land Reforms

The land reforms initiated in West Bengal had three major components: (i)
effective imposition of land ceiling and vesting of ceiling surplus land
(ii) redistribution of vested land among the landless cultivators and (iii)
securing of tenancy rights of sharecroppers (bargadars) through a system of
universal registration of tenant cultivators (Operation Barga). As a result
of this thoroughgoing land reform programme, West Bengal today has the most
egalitarian land ownership pattern in the entire country. While West Bengal
accounts for only around 3% of agricultural land in India, it accounted for
over 21% of ceiling surplus land that has been redistributed in India till
date. The total number of beneficiaries of land redistribution in West
Bengal is over 28 lakhs, which is almost 50% of all beneficiaries of land
redistribution in post-independence India. The security of tenancy rights
provided to the sharecroppers under Operation Barga was also unprecedented
in India. The total number of recorded sharecroppers has reached over 15
lakhs, which accounts for over 20% of the total agricultural households in
the State. Over 11 lakh acres of land was permanently brought under the
control of sharecroppers and their right to cultivate land was firmly
established.

After 30 years of Left Front rule, 84% of land in West Bengal is owned by
small (owning 2.5 acres to 5 acres of land) and marginal farmers (owning
less than 2.5 acres) today, while the all-India figure is only 43%. Over 12
lakh acres of ceiling surplus vested land is lying with various State
governments today but not being distributed among the landless. This shows
the difference in the political will of the Left Front government in West
Bengal and other State governments run by bourgeois parties. Moreover,
around 56% of the total beneficiaries of land redistribution in West Bengal
are dalits and adivasis. Dalits and adivasis also comprise over 41% of the
registered sharecroppers. NSS data show that the proportion of agricultural
land owned by dalits in comparison with their proportion in the rural
population of West Bengal is the second highest in the country (after
Tripura). Till date, over 5.35 lakh women have been given joint pattas and
1.57 lakh women given individual pattas (ownership rights over land) in West
Bengal. Muslims have also benefited significantly from the land reforms
programme. The share of land cultivated by Muslims in West Bengal in total
cultivated land is 25.6%, which is the second highest in the country (second
only to Jammu and Kashmir where the share is 30.3%).

Following the onset of the neoliberal policies in the decade of 1990s,
whatever land reform measures were undertaken in most Indian States in the
post-independence period were sought to be reversed. However, in West Bengal
an additional 95,000 acres of land was acquired in the 1990s under the land
reform legislation and 94,000 acres redistributed. These figures for the
decade of the 1990s account for almost all the land acquired and over 40 per
cent of the land redistributed in the entire country. The Left Front
government has continued with the land redistribution programme. 30,000
acres of land was distributed among landless families in 2006-07.

Panchayati Raj

Reorganisation of the system of local government has been one of the most
important institutional changes brought about by the Left Front government.
In the process, West Bengal has created a history of participation of the
common people through the process of decentralisation. A system of
democratic elections to local bodies at anchal, block and district level has
been instituted: gram panchayats at the anchal level, panchayat samitis at
the block level and zilla parishads at the district level. Elections to
these local bodies were held in June 1978. The newly elected panchayats were
involved with the execution of land reforms. Panchayats took the initiative
in exposing benami land holdings, ensured the identification of excess land
and the declaration of vested land and were also given charge of ensuring
the legal rights of recipients of vested land and bargadars over land.

The panchayats were also involved in arrangements for the provision of
institutional credit for the beneficiaries of vested land and for bargadars.
After the rural development projects were devolved to panchayats for
implementation, the beneficiaries of land reform were given priority in the
receipt of benefits from these projects. This was possible because through
the panchayat election of 1978, a new leadership was established at the helm
of the rural bodies from less privileged socio-economic backgrounds. The
erstwhile village elite, including landlords and moneylenders, lost their
dominance over the newly elected local bodies. The new leadership after 1978
came out of the tradition of peasant upsurge and struggle for land reform of
the past three decades.

The West Bengal government has held regular elections to local bodies every
five years for the past 30 years. The aim has been to provide a substantial
share of fiscal resources of the state to the local bodies. The West Bengal
government has made a serious effort at devolving funds from the state
government level to the lower tiers of administration. The panchayats have
also been assigned a large and substantial range of responsibilities that
were earlier seen as under the purview of the district-level bureaucracy.
The panchayats perform civic duties and undertake developmental activities
like construction and maintenance of hospitals, schools and libraries,
promotion of agriculture, cooperatives and cottage industries, child welfare
activities, etc. They play an important role in the local-level planning and
implementation of government schemes. Panchayats in West Bengal have played
an important role in activities like mobilising cooperation for improving
agricultural production, management of local resources, and identification
of beneficiaries for housing, poverty alleviation and social security
programmes. This has made the panchayats a critical institution of local
governance in the West Bengal countryside.

Over time, there has been an increase in the representation of the rural
poor and of socially deprived groups like dalits and adivasis, as well as
women, in the elected bodies. All this has helped to change the power
equations in rural society as well as encouraged the social and political
empowerment of social groups that were earlier marginalized. The proportions
of dalit and adivasi panchayat representatives in all the three tiers are
over 37% and 7% respectively, well over their share in population. Since
1995, one third of the seats and positions of chairpersons in the panchayati
raj institutions have been reserved for women. It is noteworthy that the
actual representation of women exceeds one third as a number of women
candidates also win in the general constituencies. Presently, over 36% of
the gram panchayat members are women. Also, 7 out of 17 zilla parishads have
a woman sabhadhipati and 155 out of 351 panchayat samities have a woman
sabhapati. In the late 1990s, the panchayati raj system in West Bengal was
further strengthened by introducing gram sansads. These are the general
councils of voters in every ward, that are required to meet twice a year
with a minimum quorum of 10 per cent of voters to discuss the work done by
the panchayats and utilisation of funds.

Successes in Agriculture

This strategy of the Left Front government; of implementing land reforms on
the one hand and the establishment of an effective panchayati raj in West
Bengal on the other; has not only led to the political empowerment of the
rural poor but has also brought about a rejuvenation of agriculture in the
State. Since the Left Front came into office in 1977, foodgrains production
in West Bengal has grown at the rate of 6% per annum, which is the highest
among seventeen most populous States of India. From a food deficit State
witnessing famines and food riots during the Congress rule, West Bengal has
emerged as a leading food producer in the country under the Left Front rule.
West Bengal has emerged as the topmost producer of rice, vegetables and fish
among all Indian States. Cropping intensity in West Bengal has increased
from about 136% in 1980-81 to about 180% in 2000-01, second highest in the
country. This has been achieved through significant expansion of irrigated
land area through small and minor irrigation projects.

In the backdrop of the neoliberal policies being adopted by the Centre since
early 1990s, agricultural growth has slowed down across the country. While
agriculture grew at less than 2% in India during the Tenth Plan period
(2002-2007), the growth rate of agriculture in West Bengal has been over
3.5%. The Left Front Government has been successful, to some extent, in
insulating the agrarian economy of West Bengal from the acute agrarian
distress currently being witnessed across the country. This has been
possible by following pro-peasant policies. For instance, the charge for
flow of water in agriculture under major irrigation has not been increased
in West Bengal since 1977. Water for irrigation is the cheapest in West
Bengal at Rs. 37 per hectare in West Bengal compared to Rs 156 to Rs 267 per
hectare in the rest of the states of the country (except for Kerala where it
is much lower). Agricultural workers are also protected and the minimum wage
of Rs. 63 is implemented effectively, in contrast to many other States where
despite the scheduled minimum wage rates being higher, they are not
implemented effectively.

*Industrialization: An Imperative*

Reversing Industrial Stagnation

For most parts of its lengthy tenure, the Left Front government has had to
encounter hostile governments at the Centre. There was a conscious effort on
the part of successive Central governments, particularly those run by the
Congress, to discourage industrialization in West Bengal since it was a Left
ruled State. This was done both through a denial of public sector investment
as well as licenses for setting up private industries. During Indira
Gandhi’s tenure as the Prime minister in the early 1980s, a proposal for
setting up an electronics complex in Salt Lake near Kolkata was shot down by
the Central government on security grounds, because West Bengal was a border
State! Permission for the Haldia Petrochemical project was withheld by the
Central government for 11 long years. The freight equalization policy; which
meant that railway freight rates of industrial inputs like coal, iron ore,
steel or cement were structured in a way through Government subsidies so
that they were available at the same price in all parts of the country; also
became a major obstacle. This robbed West Bengal, along with the other
states in the Eastern region of India like Bihar and Orissa, of its
locational advantage of being rich in those minerals which came under the
purview of freight equalization. Other industrial inputs were not included
in the freight equalization scheme.

Following these discriminatory policies pursued by the Centre and the
vitriolic anti-Communist propaganda carried out by the bourgeois media,
which led to some degree of capital flight, West Bengal experienced
industrial stagnation during the decade of the 1980s. Traditional industries
like tea, jute and engineering were on a decline. This aggravated the
unemployment situation in the State, especially in the urban areas, besides
causing hardships for the workers in the sick industries. The need was felt
to make special efforts to reverse the trend towards industrial stagnation
and re-industrialize West Bengal.

Meanwhile, a big policy shift had come at the national level when the
Narasimha Rao led Congress Government adopted the “New Economic Policies” in
1991 following the dictates of the IMF and the World Bank. The neoliberal
“economic reforms” initiated by the Central government abandoned the earlier
emphasis on public sector investment, devised a strategy of liberalizing and
deregulating the economy and laid emphasis on private capital, both domestic
and foreign, as the main driver of economic growth. These policy changes
were clearly in the rightwing direction, which was opposed by the CPI (M)
and the Left. However, it also meant an end to the discriminatory policy
regime of the Central government, based upon licensing and freight
equalization policy, which had caused enormous harm to the economic
interests of West Bengal. It was in this backdrop that the Left Front
government had to devise its industrialization strategy. In September 1994,
Comrade Jyoti Basu announced the Industrial Policy of the Left Front
government in the changed scenario, which stated: “we are all for new
technology and investment in selective spheres where they help our economy
and which are of mutual interest. The goal of self-reliance, however, is as
needed today as earlier. We have the state sector, the private sector and
also the joint sector. All these have a role to play”. Following the
adoption of the Industrial Policy, the industrial scenario in the state
witnessed a turnaround, with important projects like Haldia Petrochemicals
and Bakreshwar Thermal Power plants finally being set up.

Industrialization Gathering Momentum

The process of industrialization received further impetus after the Left
Front government registered its sixth consecutive victory with Comrade
Buddhadeb Bhattacharya as Chief Minister in 2001 and subsequently its
seventh victory in 2006, with an enhanced majority. During the period from
1991 to 2006 a total number of 1,391 industrial units have been set up in
West Bengal with a realized investment of Rs. 32,338.95 crore and creating
direct employment for 2.03 lakh persons in the organized sector. The number
of new industrial proposals in West Bengal is increasing progressively,
especially in sectors like Iron and Steel, Chemical and Petrochemicals, Food
Processing and Information Technology.

Since the thrust of the West Bengal government’s industrial strategy is on
employment generation, the focus is not limited to big industries alone. The
State government has consciously provided policy support to small and micro
enterprises, because of which the number of unorganised manufacturing
enterprises in West Bengal has increased from 19.1 lakhs in 1994-95 to 27.7
lakhs in 2000-01, with employment in these industries during this period
increasing from 43.8 lakhs to 58.7 lakh. West Bengal now ranks first among
all Indian States in respect to both the number of working units and
employment generation in the small-scale industrial sector. The West Bengal
government is providing infrastructure support to the small-scale industries
by building industrial clusters in all districts of the State, with a target
of 150 such clusters set for the Eleventh Plan period.

Unlike other State governments, which succumbed to the neoliberal
prescriptions of the Centre, the Left Front government has followed a
different approach towards industrialization. Rather than following the
policy of indiscriminate privatization of public sector units, the Left
Front government has sought to strengthen them and earnestly tried to revive
sick or closed industrial units. By repeatedly placing its views before the
BIFR in the interest of industry and workers, the Left Front government has
been able to obtain the sanction of revival scheme in respect of 79 units.
Of these, 22 units have already been revived and about 25 more units are
likely to be revived.

SAIL has recently decided to invest Rs. 10,000 crore in the modernization of
the IISCO factory at Burnpur, which will be one of the biggest public sector
investment projects currently being undertaken in the country. The Central
government had earlier decided to privatize this sick unit. It was the
protracted struggle waged by the IISCO workers and the principled position
adopted by the West Bengal Government, which prevented privatization and has
subsequently led to the revival of IISCO. Similarly, Bengal Chemicals, which
had become a sick PSU, is being revived with Central investments worth Rs
440 crore. Recently, two public sector units, Coal India Limited and Damodar
Valley Corporation have come together to acquire and revive the Mining and
Allied Machineries Corporation (MAMC) based in Durgapur, a prestigious PSU
that was closed few years ago. Closed units like Jessop and Dunlop have also
been reopened. Rather than following the dictates of the Central government
in privatizing the State Electricity Board, the West Bengal government has
firmly maintained the public ownership of the WBSEB and initiated reforms to
improve its performance. The WBSEB, which was a loss making entity till
recently, registered a profit of Rs. 300 crore in 2006-07. All this reflect
the alternative approach of the left front government.

Some controversy has arisen recently over acquisition of agricultural land
for setting up industries in West Bengal, especially in the context of the
Tata Motors plant in Singur and a proposed chemical hub near Haldia. While
the opportunistic gang-up of the entire opposition, from the ultra-Right to
the ultra-Left led by the reactionary Trinamul Congress, has sought to pitch
the debate in terms of industry versus agriculture, the Left Front
government has repeatedly emphasized the need for a balanced and harmonious
development of both sectors. The slogan of “agriculture is our foundation,
industry our future”, put forward by the Left Front before the Assembly
elections of 2006 has received wide acceptance among the people.

*Pro-People Initiatives and Constraints*

Education

The Left Front government in West Bengal has undertaken several pro-people
initiatives to ensure all-round development of the State. The Left Front
government has ensured significant expansion in the spheres of public
education and health. The first Left Front government had made school
education free upto the higher secondary stage. With a thrust on the
expansion of school education, the number of schools in West Bengal has seen
a substantial increase in the post-1977 period, with the number of secondary
and higher secondary schools registering a four fold increase, from 4600 in
1977 to over 22,500 in 2006. Accordingly, the number of students appearing
for the secondary board examination has increased from a little over 2 lakhs
in 1977 to over 7.5 lakhs in 2006.

Positive results have also been seen recently in the implementation of the
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, with the net enrolment ratio of children of the
relevant age group (5+ to 8+) exceeding 98% in 2006-07. The drop-out ratio
has also fallen below 20% due to the effective implementation of the mid-day
meals scheme, which now covers 94% of the primary schools in the State. This
has been made possible through the involvement of Self-Help Groups in
providing cooked meals in the schools.

Health

West Bengal has witnessed significant improvements in some health indicators
in the recent past. The death rate in West Bengal at 6.4 per thousand is the
lowest in the country. The infant mortality rate has also dropped to 38 per
1000 live births, which is much lower than the national average at 58. The
birth rate in the urban areas of West Bengal is the lowest within urban
areas of the country and the total fertility rate has also fallen much below
the national average, with the State heading towards achieving the
population stabilization goal by the end of the Eleventh Plan. This has been
possible due to active government intervention in the sphere of public
health.

West Bengal has also registered significant successes in providing access to
toilets and safe drinking water, especially to the poorer section of the
population. The State government had set a goal of providing 40 litres of
safe drinking water per capita per day in each habitation in the rural
areas. Already, 81% of the 91320 rural habitations of the State have been
covered fully. This is the second highest coverage achieved by a State in
the country. As far as sanitation is concerned, West Bengal has the second
highest coverage of access to toilets for all BPL households as well as for
all Scheduled Caste households in urban areas, in the country. These have
been possible due to the concerted efforts by the State government and the
local bodies in the implementation of the programmes.

The National Health Accounts published by the Union Ministry of Health in
2001-02 showed that public expenditure on health in West Bengal was the
second highest in the country (Maharashtra had the highest figure). In fact,
around 80% of the indoor patients in West Bengal today are treated in
Government hospitals, while the all-India figure stands at only 50%. This
obviously translates into affordable healthcare for the people. The total
per capita health expenditure in West Bengal was lower than the national
average on account of very low private expenditure on health compared to
other States. While the per capita health expenditure in West Bengal needs
to increase substantially, what is noteworthy is the effort on the part of
the government to commit substantial resources for public health in a
fiscally constrained scenario.

Workers’ Rights

The Left Front government has firmly defended the trade union rights of the
workers. It has also taken important steps to provide social security to
workers like introducing a provident fund scheme for unorganised sector
workers for the first time in the country (nearly 7.9 lakh workers have
already joined the scheme so far), providing financial assistance of Rs. 750
per month to workers of closed factories and tea gardens and providing
social security to the construction workers.

Another important development in West Bengal in the recent years from the
point of view of employment generation is the phenomenal growth of Self-Help
Groups (SHGs). The total number of SHGs in West Bengal reached 3.8 lakhs in
2005-06, involving nearly 38 lakh persons, 90% of whom are women. This has
opened up new possibilities for self-employment and women’s empowerment.
When the seventh Left Front government assumed office in 2006, a dedicated
Ministry to provide policy support to these SHGs was created.

Minority Welfare

The Left Front government has also taken positive initiatives to uplift the
Muslim minorities, who comprise over 26% of the State’s population and are
socio-economically backward. The West Bengal Minority Development Finance
Corporation (WBMFDC), which was formed in 1996 following the passage of an
Act in the State Assembly, provides training as well as soft loans for
self-employment and scholarships for meritorious students among Muslims. The
WBMFDC ranks second, both in terms of cumulative disbursement of funds (from
1994-95 to 2005-06) as well as the number of beneficiaries, among all the
State level minority development corporations. It has disbursed Rs.10751
crore to 28904 beneficiaries over this period. If the fact that the Uttar
Pradesh MFDC started disbursing funds from 1994-95 (i.e. two years before
the WBMFDC started disbursing funds) is taken into account, then the
performance of the WBMFDC clearly emerges as the best in the country.

Challenges and Constraints

There is no doubt that the West Bengal government needs to do much more as
far as people’s welfare is concerned, especially for the socio-economically
disadvantaged groups. The areas in which improvement has to be brought about
have been noted by the West Bengal Human Development Report 2004. The Sachar
Committee Report 2006 also pointed towards the necessity of adopting
concrete steps for the upliftment of the Muslim minorities. The Left Front
government has been proactive in taking initiatives to do away with the
shortcomings that continue to exist in its developmental effort. For
instance, the Left Front government was the first State government to
announce a sub-Plan for minorities at the State level, earmarking 15% of all
Plan expenditure for development programmes meant to benefit minorities and
implement the recommendations of the Sachar Committee. Several new
initiatives have also been taken to improve the quality of public service in
school education and public health in order to improve the human development
scenario.

However, the capacity of the Left Front government to deliver in the spheres
of peoples’ welfare and social infrastructure has been severely constrained
by the limited availability of resources. Unless the resource constraint is
overcome, major welfare initiatives cannot be undertaken. While a part of
the additional resources can be generated through internal resource
mobilization, much depends upon the direction of economic and social
policies of the Central government too. The power to take crucial economic
policy decisions in India rests with the Central government and not the
State governments.

Within the existing Constitutional set up, while the State governments are
expected to deliver upon a lot of responsibilities related to development
and peoples’ welfare, the financial resources available to them have
remained extremely limited given the skewed nature of Centre-State
relations. The skewedness in Centre-State relations has aggravated in the
post-liberalization period. Finances of most State governments have worsened
due to growing indebtedness, squeeze in resource transfers from the Central
Government to the States, rising interest cost of States’ debt and
conditionalities regarding fiscal austerity imposed upon State governments
through successive Finance Commissions and the Planning Commission. The Left
Front government in West Bengal has also not been able to escape this
predicament.

The Left Front government has tried to resist the neoliberal reforms imposed
by the Central government. For instance, the West Bengal Government has
rejected the dictate of the Centre regarding the enactment of the neoliberal
Fiscal Responsibility legislation, which in effect binds the capacity of the
state governments to undertake development expenditure. Alongwith the Left
led Governments of Kerala and Tripura, the West Bengal government also
resisted attempts by the Centre to force all States to undertake neoliberal
pension reforms, which seeks to privatize the pension system. Similar unity
between the Left led governments was on display during a recent meeting of
the National Development Council on Agriculture, where efforts were made by
the Centre to impose reforms of the State level APMC Acts and get all the
States to endorse contract farming by corporates. The struggle for
restructuring Centre-State relations is crucial for creating the autonomous
space for the Left Front government to continue with its pro-people policies
in future.

*Conclusion*

A big achievement of the Left Front government in West Bengal is its record
in safeguarding democratic rights. Notwithstanding the vicious campaigns
unleashed against it from time to time by its opponents, the Left Front
government continues to remain firmly committed to democratic values and
principles. Its impeccable record in upholding secularism and communal
harmony, dealing with communal elements with a firm hand and defending the
rights of minorities is a welcome exception to the programmatic or pragmatic
communalism practiced by the bourgeois parties and the State governments led
by them. The fact that the communal RSS-BJP combine have failed to gain any
significant foothold in the State is primarily because of the relentless
ideological-political campaign against communalism, in which the Left Front
government leads from the front. While dalits and adivasis across the
country continue to be victims of caste violence, it is indeed heartening to
find that West Bengal has an almost zero rate of atrocities against dalits
and adivasis. The Left Front government also has the distinction of
resolving the Gorkhaland issue, in a just and democratic manner within the
framework of the Indian Constitution, by providing regional autonomy to the
Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council.

Born out of the struggles against authoritarianism and State repression, it
is the commitment of the Left Front government to democracy, which has won
it enormous credibility in the eyes of the people of West Bengal and enabled
it to complete thirty years in office.

*This incisive and thought provoking article was contributed by Prasenjit
Bose. He is a PhD in Economics from JNU, and is currently into full time
research.*