- After years of agitation, Bengal’s Left needs to use persuasion
By ANDRÉ BÉTEILLE
The withdrawal of the Nano project from Singur has caused both anguish and surprise in the country. My market-friendly acquaintances in Delhi are unable to understand how, when the project had the full support of the Left Front itself, it could be brought to a halt by political elements not known for their principled opposition to private capital.
The failure at Singur has been attributed variously to the intransigence of the Opposition and the ineptitude of the government. Ordinary people have come to accept inept responses to intransigent demands as a part of everyday political life in India. Some have drawn attention to the decay of public institutions through the sustained use of political patronage and thuggery. But this is not unique to West Bengal. The displacement of rules by persons in public institutions has taken place throughout the country and is probably due to forces that are deeply rooted in India’s social tradition. Perhaps because of the discipline of the Left cadres and the uninterrupted rule by the Left parties for more than 30 years, political thuggery has been better organized at the grassroots level in West Bengal.
Is there no singularity in the state of West Bengal that can help us explain either the intransigence of the Opposition or the ineptitude of the government? A part of the singularity of West Bengal lies in the very distinctive ideological climate that has been nurtured in the state. While all political parties find it convenient to speak against the rich and for the poor, no party has mounted such a sustained ideological assault on the capitalist system as the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The problem in West Bengal today is that an attempt is being made to act against the prevalent ideological climate by the very people who created that climate and sought to protect it zealously from reasoned criticism. An important factor behind the inept handling of the crisis by the CPI(M) is its failure to recognize the power that ideology and doctrine can acquire over minds that have been exposed to them continuously and with little room for dissent.
The Bengali intelligentsia has developed a distinctive language of public discourse. What is loosely described as the ‘class approach’ to society and politics has been made a part of the common sense of large sections of the Bengali-speaking population. This discourse is no longer confined to social analysts or political activists. It provides a set of unstated assumptions for the discussion of every kind of social and political issue. The fulcrum of the discourse is the ineluctable division of society into capitalists and workers, the relentless exploitation of workers by capitalists, and the need to resist that exploitation by every available means.
Uninterrupted rule for more than 30 years by the Left parties has not only created new structures of patronage, it has also led to shifts in the ways in which ordinary people speak and even think. I am impressed by the extent to which terms and phrases taken straight from the Marxist lexicon have now become a part of ordinary Bengali conversation through more than half-a-century of usage. I would venture to say that Bengali has gone further than any Indian language in appropriating the idiom of Marxism and giving it a vivid and distinctive colouring.
The evils inherent in private capital and the sinister designs of businessmen and entrepreneurs have been attacked single-mindedly, and sometimes mindlessly, at party meetings and in party literature for decades on end. One does not have to be a market fundamentalist to acknowledge that business and enterprise might contribute usefully to the wealth and well-being of a nation. But such acknowledgment was ruled out of court in the communist discourse on capitalism and socialism. There is no match for the vigour and sophistry with which Left intellectuals in Calcutta habitually assault any argument about the positive role of private capital in economic development.
Perhaps the powers that be in West Bengal no longer take very seriously the tirades they have themselves kept alive against liberalization, privatization and globalization. Some of them may have the delusion that they can do what the communist leadership has done in China to turn the economy around. But China is a different universe from West Bengal. It has a determined and unitary communist leadership that can move the people in a particular direction at one time and in a different direction at another. The leadership in West Bengal is too insecure and too divided to be able to do that. It has to make its way through the discord and disorder that is the staple of a multi-party democracy. After so many decades of agitation and propaganda, it has to devote a little more care and attention to persuasion. Persuasion may appear more tedious and time-consuming than propaganda, but it is the only path that is now open if development is to be given a chance in West Bengal.
Under present conditions of economic and social change, the communist leadership in West Bengal cannot take its followers and supporters for granted. It is not enough for the chief minister or the industries minister to engage with the politburo or with Ratan Tata. The leaders must explain to their own supporters and followers why private capital is sometimes beneficial for economic development. Changing the social perceptions of a whole population, or even a large segment of it, requires far more patience and care than a mere change in political strategy.
I cannot judge how clearly the communist leadership realizes that a more friendly attitude to private capital, including global capital, requires a change not only in the political climate of West Bengal, but also in its intellectual climate. Left intellectuals have played no small part in forging and supplying the ammunition for the critique of capitalism. This critique, which attracted some of the best minds of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, has lost much of its intellectual excitement with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the slump in the Cold War. But there is still no match for the zeal with which the Left intellectual can pounce on anyone who is so foolhardy as to even mention the common interest of capital and labour in the benefits of development.
The intellectual custodians of the social and economic theories of the Left have had an easier time in India than in the Soviet Union or China. The discipline of the party and the State never weighed as heavily on them as it did on their Soviet or Chinese counterparts. They could remain men of the Left without surrendering their liberal conscience. They have been increasingly critical of the high-handed acts of the leaders and the cadres of the Left parties. This does not go very far below the surface. They have a deeper responsibility to revise and re-examine a representation of the social and economic reality in whose propagation they have played no small part and that has now become obsolete and anachronistic. Their obligation is to keep under scrutiny not only the political practices of the Left parties but also the economic doctrines by which those practices have been sustained.
The author is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, and National Research
The failure at Singur has been attributed variously to the intransigence of the Opposition and the ineptitude of the government. Ordinary people have come to accept inept responses to intransigent demands as a part of everyday political life in India. Some have drawn attention to the decay of public institutions through the sustained use of political patronage and thuggery. But this is not unique to West Bengal. The displacement of rules by persons in public institutions has taken place throughout the country and is probably due to forces that are deeply rooted in India’s social tradition. Perhaps because of the discipline of the Left cadres and the uninterrupted rule by the Left parties for more than 30 years, political thuggery has been better organized at the grassroots level in West Bengal.
Is there no singularity in the state of West Bengal that can help us explain either the intransigence of the Opposition or the ineptitude of the government? A part of the singularity of West Bengal lies in the very distinctive ideological climate that has been nurtured in the state. While all political parties find it convenient to speak against the rich and for the poor, no party has mounted such a sustained ideological assault on the capitalist system as the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The problem in West Bengal today is that an attempt is being made to act against the prevalent ideological climate by the very people who created that climate and sought to protect it zealously from reasoned criticism. An important factor behind the inept handling of the crisis by the CPI(M) is its failure to recognize the power that ideology and doctrine can acquire over minds that have been exposed to them continuously and with little room for dissent.
The Bengali intelligentsia has developed a distinctive language of public discourse. What is loosely described as the ‘class approach’ to society and politics has been made a part of the common sense of large sections of the Bengali-speaking population. This discourse is no longer confined to social analysts or political activists. It provides a set of unstated assumptions for the discussion of every kind of social and political issue. The fulcrum of the discourse is the ineluctable division of society into capitalists and workers, the relentless exploitation of workers by capitalists, and the need to resist that exploitation by every available means.
Uninterrupted rule for more than 30 years by the Left parties has not only created new structures of patronage, it has also led to shifts in the ways in which ordinary people speak and even think. I am impressed by the extent to which terms and phrases taken straight from the Marxist lexicon have now become a part of ordinary Bengali conversation through more than half-a-century of usage. I would venture to say that Bengali has gone further than any Indian language in appropriating the idiom of Marxism and giving it a vivid and distinctive colouring.
The evils inherent in private capital and the sinister designs of businessmen and entrepreneurs have been attacked single-mindedly, and sometimes mindlessly, at party meetings and in party literature for decades on end. One does not have to be a market fundamentalist to acknowledge that business and enterprise might contribute usefully to the wealth and well-being of a nation. But such acknowledgment was ruled out of court in the communist discourse on capitalism and socialism. There is no match for the vigour and sophistry with which Left intellectuals in Calcutta habitually assault any argument about the positive role of private capital in economic development.
Perhaps the powers that be in West Bengal no longer take very seriously the tirades they have themselves kept alive against liberalization, privatization and globalization. Some of them may have the delusion that they can do what the communist leadership has done in China to turn the economy around. But China is a different universe from West Bengal. It has a determined and unitary communist leadership that can move the people in a particular direction at one time and in a different direction at another. The leadership in West Bengal is too insecure and too divided to be able to do that. It has to make its way through the discord and disorder that is the staple of a multi-party democracy. After so many decades of agitation and propaganda, it has to devote a little more care and attention to persuasion. Persuasion may appear more tedious and time-consuming than propaganda, but it is the only path that is now open if development is to be given a chance in West Bengal.
Under present conditions of economic and social change, the communist leadership in West Bengal cannot take its followers and supporters for granted. It is not enough for the chief minister or the industries minister to engage with the politburo or with Ratan Tata. The leaders must explain to their own supporters and followers why private capital is sometimes beneficial for economic development. Changing the social perceptions of a whole population, or even a large segment of it, requires far more patience and care than a mere change in political strategy.
I cannot judge how clearly the communist leadership realizes that a more friendly attitude to private capital, including global capital, requires a change not only in the political climate of West Bengal, but also in its intellectual climate. Left intellectuals have played no small part in forging and supplying the ammunition for the critique of capitalism. This critique, which attracted some of the best minds of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, has lost much of its intellectual excitement with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the slump in the Cold War. But there is still no match for the zeal with which the Left intellectual can pounce on anyone who is so foolhardy as to even mention the common interest of capital and labour in the benefits of development.
The intellectual custodians of the social and economic theories of the Left have had an easier time in India than in the Soviet Union or China. The discipline of the party and the State never weighed as heavily on them as it did on their Soviet or Chinese counterparts. They could remain men of the Left without surrendering their liberal conscience. They have been increasingly critical of the high-handed acts of the leaders and the cadres of the Left parties. This does not go very far below the surface. They have a deeper responsibility to revise and re-examine a representation of the social and economic reality in whose propagation they have played no small part and that has now become obsolete and anachronistic. Their obligation is to keep under scrutiny not only the political practices of the Left parties but also the economic doctrines by which those practices have been sustained.
The author is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, and National Research
Source: The Telegraph
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