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None is afraid of LF
under Buddhadeb
Sankar
Kumar
Ray
Published
on
August 06, 2006
[Moderator's Note: This article was sent by Mr Sankar Kumar Ray to the
Economic and Political weekly on June 3rd (acknowledged on June
6th) but it has not been published yet. It is posted here courtesy of Mr.
Ray.]
GPD (Who's Afraid of Buddhadeb? ,EPW May
20,2006)'s observation that the communists "may have come back to power
in West Bengal but some still think they have failed to change with the
times. The feeling is that Buddhadeb has his economics right but has to
carry a dated party with him" reflects the opinion of the elite that
wants a Left with armchair revolutionism.
The Left Front has not only become a pink front but gradually also underwent
a steady embourgeoisment. The CPI(M)'s over-emphasis on parliamentarism
reminds one of Marx's famous phrase in the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte (1). From the very beginning, CPI(M) has been shifting towards
parliamentarism. From incorporation of section 112 in the original party
programme - laying down bounds of participation in a government - to present
justification of capitalism, the shift remains irreversible. Even the
slogan, "West Bengal is a colony of the Central government", coined
by so-called hardcore Stalinist Promode Dasgupta in the 1971 elections, was
to maximize electoral advantage. It was a straight copy from Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman's one point slogan - East Pakistan, a colony of West Pakistan - that
helped Awami League to win all but three seats from East Pakistan to the
Pakistan National Assembly in 1970 and majority in the PNA.
In 2004, West Bengal state committee of CPI(M) issued a party letter,
exclusively for party members, on modalities of organizing the unorganized
workers and strategy of struggle. " We want to undertake a survey of
every region. CITU in districts will have to take the help of Krishak Sabha
to do that. In towns and villages, the survey has to be booth-based
(emphasis added)". (2) The emphasis was on polling booths instead of
mouzas or wards. Thus the motto of organizing the unorganized is
subordinated to electoral goals.
That apart, ever since Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had moved into the shoes of
Jyoti Basu as the chief minister, he has been trying to woo investors
including MNCs, going beyond the party line and he got full support from the
late Anil Biswas, the state party chief since 1998 (until his death in the
last week of March. In an interview to the Kolkata edition of the
Statesman just after his return from Singapore in August last year,
Bhattacharjee openly said (3), "Globalisation is a must. Nobody can stop it.
And we have to admit it." Biswas dished out a strange concept that the
development activities under the Left Front in "a form of class
struggle"(4).
The two West Bengal leaders - both members of polit bureau - deviated from
the CPI(M)'s line at its 18th Congress in New Delhi. The essence of "the
present phase of globalization", the party thinks, is "rapacious
drive to maximize profits by removing restrictions on the movement of
capital." On the neocons' global strategy, species, " given the fact
that globalization seeks to undermine, if not nullify, national economic
sovereignty our effort should be directed to protect and strengthen
sovereignty." Needless to say, no party member can cross the bounds set out
by the last party congress in the political-organisational report.(5)
GPD may note that but workers - even employees of state government and state
PSUs - are getting increasingly frustrated with the LF government's patch-up
with capitalism, despite Bhattacharya's pre-poll gesture. "We are trying to
be friendly with the capitalists" - what does it mean? You want investment
and they want profits. This is understandable, in fact a question of mutual
interest. But where does the question of friendship arise?" he told at press
conferences(6). On the one hand, he made it clear that socialism was not on
the agenda - perhaps not even in the perspective, the media-happy CM did
shed crocodile tears for the working class. "In the context of capitalist
globalisation, we continue to firmly hold on to that belief. We think about
the workers of closed factories. Although a pittance, we have decided to pay
them five hundred rupees allowance. Has any other state in the country done
this?". (7) There is a fallacy in the statement. Not all workers of
closed or locked-out factories (for over a year) get this allowance.
Secondly, this pittance is stopped once a worker completes 58 years.
Thirdly, workers of closed/locked-out factories are very often deprived of
gratuity on plea that they do not apply for the same within 30 days of
closure/lockout but there is no legal bar against payment of gratuity on
30-day ground.
Workers generally hope that their factories will reopen. So the claim that
the LF government is worker-friendly is not free from doubts. Let's have a
glimpse of the plight of workers and employment trends. In 2003, 9120
persons got employment in factories while 635,000 workers had lost their
jobs in 432 locked-out companies/factories. Provident Fund dues of
employers, payable to staff and workers had gone up three-fold between
1989-90 and 2003-04 in West Bengal. Between 1990 and 2004, ESI arrears went
up from Rs 35 crores to Rs 203 crores. All these are from published data,
mostly available in the annual publication, Labour in West Bengal, brought
out by the Government of West Bengal. Despite all this, when the CM says,
"From the ideological standpoint, I firmly believe that capitalism is not a
finality", it sounds like pathetic quibble.
Bhattacharjee repeatedly assured the captains of industry in their fora of
intolerance to "labour militancy", as if in such a worrisome situation
working people should not launch militant labour movement. The CPI(M)
biggies and capitalists equate 'militancy' with 'terrorism'. Unfortunate
indeed. Small wonder, the US Ambassador sent greetings to Bhattacharya in no
time, as perhaps never in the past. George W Bush has no reasons to be
worried as the LF government is not in the way of capitalist path. The basic
opposition to capitalist way of development in the CPI(M) party programme
reduces to a verbal missile.
Let's look at the state of share-croppers or Bargadars. The CPI(M) and the
LF government had the moral right to be proud of Operation Barga (OB),which
in fine accorded legal shield against eviction of Bargadars. But now the
CPI(M) and its largest mass front, state unit of All India Krishak Sabha
wants to abolish Barga or share-cropping system. At the 20th conference of
West Bengal state conference ( 22-25 February 2002), the party delegates
unanimously expressed resentment that "the peasant front took no effort to
put an end to Barga system.With the entry of capitalism, Barga system is
bound to be a thing of the past".(8)
GPD however rightly concludes that 'the truth probably was or ought to be
that Buddhadeb knows his economics right but has to carry a dated party with
him. We cannot possibly say if this reading of the situation is right. But
there is one pleasant, cheerful question in the air. Who is afraid of
Buddhadeb Bhattacharya?" . Neither the bourgeoisie nor the landlords are
afraid of CPI(M) in West Bengal, least of all Bhattacharjee or his
enthusiastic commerce and industry minister Nirupam Sen, a central committee
member of CPI(M). Lastly, the LF government has welcomed the Salim group of
Indonesia to invest in a number of projects like a motor cycle factory at
Uluberia in Howrah district and a cluster of projects including a knowledge
park and health city in South 24 Parganas district. Let's forget about the
murky past of Indonesian group as an associate in the CIA-backed massacre of
over a million of communists and members of mass front of Communist Party of
Indonesia (PKI) in 1965 and thereafter. The group doesn't have an easily
accessible website and its falilure and bankruptcy in trade, industry and
banking is wellknown.(9) An interested analyst wrote to Asian Times
recently, "Folks..I am looking for information on Salim Group, Indonesia.
The Chief Minister from the State of West Bengal (India), is visiting
Indonesia currently, and understood to have signed a deal with this Group
for investment in West Bengal. Obviously the info required is for
intellectual purpose. There are many questions on the background of this
Group".(http://forum.atimes.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3428)
Notes & references:
(1)The perspective was different as Marx blamed the
bourgeoisie wholly for parliamentary opportunism to pave the way for the
lumpen Bonaparte. "It took this parliamentary cretinism for those who had
destroyed all the conditions of parliamentary power with their own hands,
and were bound to destroy them in their struggle with the other classes,
still to regard their parliamentary victories as victories"( Chapter V of
1937 edition, published by Progress Publishers, Moscow. For internet
version, see
http://www.raggedclaws.com/criticalrealism/archive/brumaire_v.html).
(2) Party Chithi3, 2004 ( Party letter 3, 2004), September 2004, para 11,p
4. However, it will not be fair to blame the West Bengal leadership of CPI(M)
for emphatic parliamentarism. A document, New Situation and Tasks, issued by
the party's central committee in 1967 revealed that para 112 or first party
programme of CPI(M), adopted not at the 1964 at the Seventh Congress -
rather the first of the new party - but immediately thereafter as an
amendment. The resolution, moved by the minority at the 16th Congress in
Calcutta -5-11 October 1998- ( led by Jyoti Basu and Harkishan Singh Surjeet)
on participation at the United Front government in 1996 stated that this was
"necessitated by the situation obtaining then. Immediately after the Party
Congress, the Party in Kerala had to face elections. The issue arose whether
being a major alternative or not" (Political Organisational Report, adopted
by the 16th Congress of CPI(M), p 42). At that time, the party leadership
used to buck up the party to be prepared for an armed revolution as the
bourgeoisie might not voluntarily give up power, even after parliamentary
defeat. The debate on this was a compulsion for the party after his
explosive interview with M J Akbar, carried in Asian Age on 1 January 1997
that the party made a 'historic blunder' by not joining the UF government.
It was through at the PB but knocked down by the central committee. The
rejection was endorsed by the 16th Congress by an overwhelming majority of
delegates. Yet Basu never gave up his position In November 200 he told PTI,
"I still think it was a historic blunder because history doesn't give
chances", Basu told PTI on 5 November 2000 (Party committed historic blunder
in '96: Basu, The Hindu 6 Nov, 2000)
(3) Statesman 27 August, 2005 front page.
(4) Aloke Banerjee in an obituary piece in Hindustan Times on 27 March 2006
aptly described Biswas's suggestion as his contribution to parliamentary
participation by the communists.
(5) Political Organisational Report, adopted by the 18th Congress of CPI(M),
New Delhi (6-11 April 2005)
(6) 'Capitalism Can Never Be The End Of Human History' (Peoples' Democracy
23 April 2006)
(7) Ibid
(8) [Rajnaitik-Sangathanik Protibedan: Paschimbanga Rajya Bingshati Sammelan
( Political-organisational report: West Bengal state's 20th conference (Ganasakti
publication, April 2002), p 89: Bengali translation].
(9) Business Times (Singapore)/Asian Wall Street Journal (June 1998) carried
details of those financial erosion. Click also
http://www.aftaonline.com/aol%20archives/company/97%20-%2000/salim_grp.htm
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