[lbo-talk] Communists lost in West Bengal

[Dissenting Wren]

That's certainly part of the story.  Here are some other parts:
(1) Unlike Kerala, West Bengal's Left Front (CPI-M dominated) government focused 
on land redistribution rather than social services.  They did a very thorough 
job of it, but having done that job there was little more they had to offer 
programmatically.
(2) CPI-M built up a very efficient party machine throughout the state, with the 
local schoolteacher often acting as the local party head as well.  Long terms in 
office provide opportunities for corruption, not to mention haughtiness and 
insolence, so that probably mattered.
(3) Not only did the Left Front government embrace neoliberalism almost twenty 
years ago, it has trampled on the rights (and sometimes the bodies) of its core 
constituencies as it has made land available for external investors.  (Its 
treatment of revolutionary socialists - so-called "Naxalites" - has always been 
as repressive as that of any other state).
(4) And then there is probably an ideological effect.  Kolkata (Calcutta) once 
saw itself as the spurned capital of India, the center of its intellectual life, 
and a city that would be at the center of state-led development.  Instead, West 
Bengal has slipped consistently in the per capita income rankings, its human 
development gains have been good, but no better than several other states (and 
far behind Kerala, where Left Front governments pursued a rather different set 
of policies).  Now, while Kolkata intellectuals may still regard themselves as 
more sophisticated than their Delhi or Mumbai rivals, there is no doubt that 
Mumbai has taken its place as the leading city of India, and the poles of growth 
have moved south and west, to states led by overtly neoliberal policies.  So 
along with fatigue with or rejection of the Left Front, there may be a more 
troubling long-term ideological shift in the West Bengal electorate.

----- Original Message ----
From: Shehzad Nadeem <shehzadn at gmail.com>
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Sent: Fri, May 13, 2011 12:22:22 PM
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Communists lost in West Bengal

Part of this may have to do with the fact that the left front gov't has
embraced economic liberalism to such an extent that they can't really claim
to represent workers or peasants anymore. This includes uprooting peasants
to free up land for foreign companies like dow (and using violence against
protesters in the process).

Also, when I was studying the outsourcing industry, Vivek Paul (formerly of
Wipro) was pretty effusive in his praise of the gov't there. He told me:
"When we went to Calcutta, we met with the chief minister. West Bengal is
the only state to declare IT an "essential service" alongside the fire
brigade and police, which outlaws strikes in a place where there are a lot
strikes." (Other states have done so as well to forestall strikes in
IT-related industries but the point is that they've been proactive).  The
president of GE Capital said the state's incentive package was the "best of
the breed in the country and was "significantly more competitive than that
offered by other states...In fact we have not been able to keep pace with
that of your government."

So, a lot of forces at play, but this may be one of the reasons for the
decline.

Shehzad

Shehzad Nadeem
Department of Sociology
City University of New York, Lehman College
http://shehzadnadeem.wordpress.com/

On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 1:00 PM, // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:


> On May 13, 2011, at 12:40 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
> > http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13374646
> >
> > Comments?
> >
>
> Old news, isn’t it? The big drubbing happened a few years ago. I posted
> comments from a politically active Marxist friend from W.B at that time. Not
> sure I have anything more valuable to add.
>
>        —ravi
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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