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Long innings, few runs

Ranabir Ray Choudhury

AFTER Saturday's acceptance by the West Bengal Left Front of Mr Jyoti Basu's decision to quit, it can now be said that, at long last, after 23 years, West Bengal will have a new Chief Minister, its 13th since Independence. What, indee d, is the significance of the change? Let us quote Mr Basu himself: ``It is not that I have created a record. But it is a record achievement for the Left Front Government to be in power for the last 23 years uninterruptedly. This is unique n ot only in India but all over the world''.

Let us first consider the ``record'' bit of Mr Basu's claim. Is the tenure of the Left Front in West Bengal in the seat of power a ``unique'' record in India? Probably not, if one considers the uninterrupted tenure of Congress Party rule at the Centre fr om 1947 to 1975 (that is, excluding the two years of the infamous Emergency). Even so, it can be argued that while the Left Front has remained as one homogenous entity for all of the 23 years (since 1977) it has been in power, the Congress Party underwen t a split in the late 1960s, so much so that, subsequent to the split, the two factions contested Lok Sabha elections as two separate political entities with different election manifestos. However, this is more a technical point than otherwise because if one is asked about the antecedents of the Congress(I) today, one does not stop at the mid-1960s but goes right back to the mid-1880s when the Indian National Congress was born.

Granted all this, the plain fact is that the Left Front has been in power in West Bengal for 23 long years, which is no mean achievement. Very justly, too, (basing oneself on the premise that the organisation one belongs to is always much larger than the individual) Mr Basu must perforce bask in the reflected glory of this achievement because he has been the leader of the Front Government in West Bengal throughout the period. In fact, a young man of 24 today in West Bengal has known of no Chief Minister other than Mr Basu, which puts the latter squarely in the category of Gandhi, Subhas Bose and Nehru, as they appeared to the generation of Indians born in the early decades of the 20th Century.

On balance, therefore, Mr Jyoti Basu's achievement in holding the Chief Minister's office since 1977 is a record of which both the Front and the CPI(M) can be justly proud. But what about the people of West Bengal (both in the rural and urban areas)? Can they also claim, with equal pride, that the record tenure of the Left Front and Mr Basu has resulted in a record economic performance, resulting in an overall, demonstrable improvement in the State's economic affairs? Put simply, does West Bengal find i tself in a more comfortable economic position today than in 1977?

This is not an easy question to answer because of the complex nature of the Left Front's successes and failures on the economic front. There is, however, little doubt that impressive success has been achieved in improving the rural economy, based mainly on structural changes brought about by the State Government principally with the help of revolutionary land-reform policies (Operation Barga, etc). The short point is that the living standard of people in rural areas has improved considerably through an increase in food-security and purchasing power. This perhaps explains why, despite the natural strengthening of the anti-incumbency factor, the Left Front's political hold in the rural areas of the State remains more or less unchallenged.

But rural performance is only part of a State's overall economic performance. The problem with West Bengal is that it can boast of success on an equal scale in few other areas of the economy which, in fact, has led to the State's relegation in the econom ic-ranking table of Indian States. True, the power situation has improved greatly since the 1970s and 1980s, but this improvement is the result not only of a quantitative increase in generation but also of a stagnation in offtake from high-tension users such as manufacturing industry. (This is why the State reportedly has ``surplus'' power.) In fact, it will not be wrong to say that the successes in agriculture have been more than neutralised by the industrial decline of the State during the Basu years, the potential adverse impact of which on West Bengal as a whole has been magnified many times over in view of the era of economic competition and liberalisation which India has already entered.

The record tenure of Mr Jyoti Basu's Chief Ministership has, therefore, not been supported by a record economic performance. More directly, it can perhaps be said that Mr Basu has presided over the virtual destruction of the State's economic prowess whic h, in the first six decades of the last century, was built on a solid industrial base. Despite the feeble efforts made to challenge this proposition with the help of statistics (a pastime with certain West Bengal Ministers), the best indication that this is in fact what has happened can be got from what investors themselves have to say on why they have spent more money outside West Bengal in the last two decades than within the State. Indeed, why have they done so, and what is it precisely that has made them avoid West Bengal?

Ironically, the strongest plus point in the State's political firmament as far as industrial investors are concerned has been Mr Basu himself. But the problem is that, despite being the longest serving Indian Chief Minister, he has not been the Governmen t of West Bengal itself but only its leader. The indisputable fact is that, as far as State governments go, that in West Bengal has been among the most slothful and unimaginative as far as promoting industrial enterprise is concerned. While it is the inv estor who provides the funds and the enterprise, it has always been a Government's job to facilitate the setting up of an industrial unit, an area in which the West Bengal official establishment at all levels has failed miserably. To understand why and h ow this has happened (even with someone like Mr Basu at the helm for such a long time) is absolutely indispensable if West Bengal is to turn over a new economic leaf.

Why is it that the Left Front has been re-elected four times by the people of the State if its economic performance has been so lacklustre? The answer is to be found in the present political plight of the Front which, for the first time, is worried about its prospects of retaining power in the State. The threat posed by the emergence of Ms Mamata Banerjee strongly suggests that, more than anything else, Congress, in fighting in West Bengal over the past two decades, has been mainly responsible for the c ontinuance of the Left Front in the seat of power since 1977. There has been no effective Opposition to which the State Electorate could turn to during this period, thereby presenting the Government on a platter to the Left Front.

Is Mr Jyoti Basu's health really so bad that he cannot continue as Chief Minister for a few more months? Or does he want to avoid the prospect of seeing Ms Banerjee (who does not have a party worth the name) stealing a few seats from him in the coming el ections, which would blot his ``record''?