A Few Desperate and Concerned Questions
By Ashok Mitra. Translated by Debarshi Das, Sanhati
This article appeared on 18th April, 2007 in the Anandabazar Patrika
Thousands and thousands of faceless, ordinary people; crossing thousands and touching lakhs even. The heart of the Left movement in West Bengal lies in these ordinary folks. They have been witness to several episodes of history. Slowly and gradually, over the span of last half century they have welcomed and embraced the communist party, “Come to my abode mother, and stay here forever.” Mother-like communist party has provided them with fearlessness and courage, has assured them in the darkest hours, “Unite. Speak up against atrocities and injustice with a united vow. The society will change, you yourselves will change it. Your united strength is the strength of the party, which makes our movement all conquering.”
This particular history has its origin in the beginning of the decade of forties of last century. Before the raw wounds of great famine could be healed, came partition. Countless refugees who had lost everything flocked to West Bengal. There was unprecedented price rise of commodities. Valiant tales of Tebhaga movement were coming from villages. In village after village share croppers, farm labourers, their womenfolk who laboured till the last drop of sweat and could not get bellyful of food, were fired up with the heroic sacrifice of Ahalya Ma . In Kolkata and its suburbs, the middle and lower middle class, battle-weary in life’s struggle, were uniting fast. In the factories workers were fighting to protect their jobs. Students were on the streets demanding extension of right to education. The teachers demanded living with dignity, they joined the march too. Neither were the governmental, non-governmental workers left behind, their protest language was getting sharper by the day. Joining all of them were the recently arrived batches of refugees from East Bengal, uprooted and desperate.
An avalanche commenced from that time on among the rural and urban populace. A large section of the state’s people’s embraced the communist party. Their conviction did not know any doubt. The communist party taught them, social injustice can be resisted through love. Get together, be prepared, change is bound to come – political change, and social change with it. But this change of tide will not happen automatically. It is not easy to unite and achieve one’s goal. Political, economic and social problems will have to be understood with ample patience. Those who are not with us at present will have to be convinced – with due humility, with a peaceful temperament. Then we shall overcome someday.
Gradually, decade by decade, the appeal reached every house of West Bengal. People’s support for the communist party saw a high tide. Many of the participants of this mass, who feel proud to call themselves the sons and daughters of the communist party, are not members of the party. Many a time they are not even directly connected with the mass organisations of the party. And yet they are the real pillars of the party. The communist party (whatever be its formal name) is enjoying the administrative power of the state because of their intense loyalty. Communist movement cannot move a single step in this state by solely depending on the organisational talent, and ignoring this vast and wide communist surrounding. Even Marx had acknowledged with high regard the historical role of the communist surrounding in a society. Ignoring this surrounding is tantamount to losing one’s compass and blundering along in blind alleys. While entering the Writers’ Building in 1977 the chief captain of the Left Front had announced that, not by sitting in this red building, but by being one with the people and abiding by its directions every administrative policy and programme of the Left Front government would be decided. His gesture was towards this communist surrounding: please rest assured, the Front government would not take a step without your counsel and advice.
The incidents of the last few months have put the proud with tradition communist surrounding to greatest danger. People in the surrounding are not able to relate their dreams with the cruel reality. Those who used to spread newspaper sheets on the Maidan grass and get mesmerised by exhorting speeches of Bankim Mukhopadhyay, Jyoti Basu, Harekrishan Konar are troubled, restless and flabbergasted. There were promises made by the Left Front government to provide succour to the poorest, even while keeping within the constitution of India. In spite of the administrative, legal, economic hurdles – there was a strong promise that these measures were to be presented to the rest of India as a pattern of an alternative programme. And this was to move the spellbound and inspired millions under shadow of the red flag. Why this promise was withdrawn, since when was it withdrawn: the leaders of the party did not feel the need to explain to the sons and daughters of the party. Why they did not explain: this question is internally troubling the communist surrounding. Since they are not able to understand, they not able to explain it to others. Their soul is wounded with thousands of questions. And yet it seems that the responsibility to answer the questions is being evaded. As if, the leadership does not deem it fit to waste time in answering these insignificant, worthless questions.
End of Agricultural Potential?
But the rustic and ignorant peasants are really at a loss. The land they had captured under the bold leadership of the party, the land over which the middle tenant farmers had achieved due rights after implementation of land reforms act, the land which had met their food needs – why should the government hand over that land to the capitalists under a dictatorial British act? Have all the potentials for improving agricultural productivity been exhausted? Why were no efforts made to improve agricultural productivity through co-operatives? Why were the least attempts not made to encourage co-operative initiatives even in buying of tilling implements and sale of farm products? Could not experiments of joint-farming be done as they have been done in Kerala? Twenty five years ago a committee appointed by the Reserve Bank of India recommended some steps to overhaul the irrigation system of East India. If they had been implemented agricultural production rate in Bengal would have increased many more times. Why didn’t the Left Front government show any interest in them? Who would unveil that mystery?
The biggest question of all: is taking refugee behind the capitalists the only way to achieve industrialisation? If for a second, if for the sake of argument we agree (clearly a large section of the farmers would not concur), the questions will remain relentless. Why wouldn’t the government itself take the initiative in setting up industries? The party has kept up its fight against privatisation of nationalised industries at the Centre. Why wouldn’t the government, loyal to that party in every sense of the term, come forward to set up industries? There is no dearth of talents in the state. Most modern and adequate technology can be purchased from the market. Getting finance for investment is not a stumbling block. Different financial institutions under the Centre are lording over billions of rupees. The same money is used for gambling in the stock markets, the same money is utilised by private masters to extend their empire. The Central Government which owes its existence to the Left support could have been pressurised into allocating fifteen to twenty thousand crores of rupees each year for West Bengal. The Centre could be unabashedly supplicated for additional forces in order to counter the poor cow smuggler of Bangladesh. Why so much hesitation in demanding money for setting up industries? The communist surrounding would continue posing such questions to party leaders. “We have won 235 seats in the state assembly, we are not bound to answer these questions:” such logic is disastrous.
Therefore, beyond everything, there is the question of culture, of humanity. Muzaffar Ahmed, Ganesh Ghosh, Binay Choudhury, Modammad Abdullah Rasul have repeated this point in numerous nuances – and have constantly tried to establish through examples of their own lives – the gist is the following: the communist leaders and workers must be gentle, they must be humble, they must remain tolerant in extremely adverse circumstances. Here is where the problem lies. The Left Front is in the government for the last thirty years. Naturally, plenty of opportunists and sycophants have made themselves intimate to the main ruling party. If the tide turns, or if there is an indication that it will, they would have a change of heart and would vanish from the scene. But those who are in the communist surrounding, have been there through thick and thin. They would remain so in the time of deepest trouble of the party. The party may turn its face from them; their loyalty to the party would not diminish a bit. When the party falters, it is they who have to answer for it. In markets and streets it is they who confront the critics. Why so much arrogance even in admitting that much intolerance and immodesty has seeped into the party and party’s running of the government? When the leadership with an unrepentant, brazen gesture takes the entire responsibility of the mistake on its shoulders, it reminds one of that line from a Bengali poem, “When peace roars like a lion, we fear it.”
There is no alternative but to accept the framework of competitive democracy. It is being said that there is no alternative but to bribe a particular industrial group of thousands of crores of rupees to set up a car manufacturing factory in the state. Otherwise they would take their business to the poorer state of Uttarakhand. Trouble is, competitive democracy cuts both ways. All the follies of the ruling party would be capitalised by the opposition, as they are doing so in Singur and Nandigram. Those who are so vocal against the ruling party do not exactly have halos around their heads. But in this pandemonium who cares for such niceties! The onus therefore falls on those who are in the surrounding of the ruling party and are trying their best to protect the image of the party. Responsibilities of rigidity of the leaders, use of unclean language, don’t-give-a-damn-to-anyone attitude are borne by them.
We Know It Very Well
They will never alienate themselves from the party. Unflinchingly they would keep on ignoring the welcoming gesture from the enemy camp. They would only hope that the party and the government would not avoid a few very important questions. We know the history of the last fifteen years very well. National output had had a tremendous rise, capitalists have built mountains out of profits, but employment has not risen. The little rise there was, was in the public sector. In private sector employment has in fact gone down. On what basis therefore is the party leadership claiming that unemployment problems would be mitigated if West Bengal is handed over to domestic and foreign capitalists? Undoubtedly, about eight decades ago, in Soviet Russia farmers were evicted from vast fields in the interest of industrialisation. But those who were evicted were big landlords and the rich kulaks. The land that was captured from them was used to build large nationalised farms, which raised agricultural production by huge amounts thus supplying raw materials to industries and providing food to workers employed in industries. And in West Bengal today the initiative that is on has the target to cleanse small peasants, share croppers and agricultural labourers and give away the land to giant industrialists.
If anyone declines to answer these questions, they would not evaporate into thin air. I fear one day they may, all of a sudden, catch fire.
* Ahalya Ma, was a martyr of the Tebhaga movement in South Bengal