Post-Nandigram West Bengal

Sumanta Banerjee deserves thanks for his thought-provoking article entitled ‘Moral Betrayal of a Leftist Dream’ (April 7). He has expressed his anguish over the current turmoil in West Bengal after the Nandigram episode. Nobody will dispute his observation that over the last 30 years of its rule, the Left Front government led by the CPI(M) has betrayed the aspirations of the people in not being able to carry the process of land reform to its logical culmination and in failing to fulfil the basic needs of the people. What is happening in West Bengal today is the implementation of a political line that is against the interests of the toiling masses. One wonders whether CPI(M), or for that matter, the left parties in the front, still believe in the basic tenets of Marxism. A clear perception of the class nature of the state and a steadfast commitment to a proletarian dictatorship should be the hallmark of a party that professes by Marxism. A party which claims to be the vanguard of the working class should ensure that all its strategies and tactics are geared to that end.

But with the government of India opting for liberalisation in the context of globalisation, the Left Front is caught in a catch-22 situation. There are pressures from its urban middle class base to go for rapid industrialisation so that this section derives the economic benefits thereof. However, the zeal shown by the West Bengal government in implementing its industrialisation programme has not been taken piously by the rural middle class. In the absence of any serious politicisation, even the CPI(M)’s rural support base is raising the banner of revolt against the Left Front.