The article looks at the latest win of Mamata Banerjee in the state of West Bengal in India toppling the long 34 years of reign of the communists in the state as one of the most significant paradigm shifts in Indian democratic polity. The article looks at the ambivalent left position in relation to the peripheral entities, the ethnic identities as well as the marginalized and the subaltern.
Dr. Jyotirmoy Prodhani
Part I
Giorgio Agamben defined the totalitarian states, where subjects are subjugated, justice is denied, basic human rights are abrogated and the fundamental democratic elements are suspended as the State of Exception. The definition can best be exemplified, in Indian context, by the Communist regime of Bengal. The sea of humans coming out in the open with the visible display of their free spirit to greet Mamata on her way to the Writers Building, the state secretariat of West Bengal, to take her oath as the new CM, was something we are not familiar with as there are hardly any political figure who could have been elevated by the common citizens to such an iconic stature. In an era when the citizens are skeptic about the credibility of politicians, when politics, quite sadly, degenerated into a synonym for corruption and the non state agencies of social change have become more relevant and effective than the political parties and its leaders, Mamata’s emergence as the irrefutable leader in a state infested with extreme form totalitarianism, is certainly the most significant political event to have taken place in the recent history of Indian democracy. It is significant because of the most ignominious and an appalling fall of the red fort of Bengal. But the enormous scale in which the communists were routed had surpassed all speculations and predictions even of the most seasoned of the psephologists. One wonders what could be the reason of such an ignoble wash out of the communists in their own turf.
The party that became synonymous with Bengal’s inertia, was still invincible and practically beyond defeat till the final results were out. The communist sympathizers remained clueless as to what could be the reason behind such a wild wave that ravished them beyond recognition. They saw no reason to go out of power in such an unceremonious way. Some even were convinced that it had happened as a fluke, a political turn around that did not necessarily have any valid reason. This was one of those illogical political mishaps that defy all ‘scientific’ explanations.
A government that remained in power for a record thirty four years at a stretch; without any major disclosure of economic or other scandals, apparently because of the absence of any strong opposition in the state for a long time; with the successful organizational penetration all over and spreading of its cadre base in almost all conceivable sectors from the government employees to even the police - the communists built an invincible fortress. Yet they were defeated. But with the polling of 30% of votes in favour as opposed to about 40% of votes polled by their rival, Trinamool Congress (TMC); with just about 20% of seats against about 80% seats of TMC and its allies; in fact, the communists were not defeated; they were driven out of the land. These figures represent how the voters of Bengal virtually buried the communists so deep inside the graves that even the ghosts of the communists should fail to surface ever again in the firmament of Bengal politics in near future, as it were. This is a terrible reality. It reflects how deeply the collective conscience of Bengal was injured by the ruling coterie, how intensely they were waiting for this moment of their collective triumph. This time people came out together with the resolute pledge to affect a regime change. As if there was a chain reaction. After Egypt, Yemen and Lebanon the scenario was the same in Bengal- people’s movement to destroy the despots for the restoration of democracy.
Most of the analysts in the media point out Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh as the causes of the communist fall in Bengal. Apparently these are the immediate reasons for their fall. Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh were monstrous crimes but they were only the immediate justifications for the common laity to drive out the leftists but the legacy of people’s anger had deeper roots.
The strongest weapon that the communists mastered was their rhetoric- it was inimitable, unassailable. They projected themselves as the ultimate saviours of the down trodden, the haves not, the working class; but it turned out to be a part of a diabolical strategy to promote vicious caste interests than class. The history of communist rule in Bengal is only about the subtle application of the ugliest form of racism. Class became a subterfuge, a cover to protect the caste interest in politics, in the affairs of power relations and social opportunities. In Bengal, like in rest of the country, Leftists have been primarily a high caste political outfit rather than what it theoretically projects itself to be. Behind the garb of egalitarian class rhetoric, the communists very cleverly and with uncompromising determination, worked towards promoting and protecting the interest of the high castes. It is noteworthy that none of the communist governments in the country ever headed by a tribal, a schedule caste, a member from the other backward community or by a Minority like a Muslim or a Christian. It is also interesting that during the last thirty four years of their rule they could not produce a leader of eminence from any one of the backward communities like the Gorkhalis, the Adivasis, the Rajbanshis or even a Muslim. The politburo honchos of the communists are invariably from the Brahmin or from the high caste Hindus. In Bengal, especially from the Chief Minister to the Cabinet members are all either a Brahmin or a high caste Bengali with a miniscule of them belonging to the marginalized communities. The leaders of stature from Jyoti Basu, Subhash Chakraborty, Indrajit Gupta, Somnath Chatterjee, Buddhdev Bhattacharya, Gurudas Das Gupta, Prasenjit Basu, Ashim Das Gupta, Biman Basu are all high caste Bengalis. In communist scheme of things, other than the Brahmins or the high caste mainstream individuals rest of them can only be in the periphery as cadres and not as leaders, they never were given that political warrant.
This precisely is the reason as to why the marginalized, the subalterns, the Dalits, the native indigenous communities, ethnic and religious minorities, the non mainstream cultural entities, the tribals were never a part of the power structure as they were never a priority of the regime that established high caste totalitarianism as the holy canon of governance. West Bengal is the only state in India where the reservation policy for the members from the backward communities, following the adaptation of the Mandal Commission recommendations, was not adopted at all thereby forcing the other backward class as well as the scheduled tribes and scheduled caste communities remain eternally deprived of a constitutionally guaranteed provision for social justice. There is only 17% reservation for the backward class and other backward class people (7+10) whereas 39% of the total population of Bengal are backward class people. More importantly, when in the rest of the country representation of the backward class, scheduled tribe and scheduled caste people in the state assemblies increased in the last fifteen years following the political and social empowerment of such people through various social movements, West Bengal, under the communists, was the only state in India where representation of those people actually decreased which indicated that the people belonging to backward class and the other marginalized categories were not given due opportunity to successfully take part in the democratic process of representation.
When it came to educational opportunities for such people there was criminal manipulation of the seats to accommodate high caste candidates even in the reserved seats citing non availability of eligible candidate. Such clever manoeuvre used to be justified by bringing forth the rhetoric of ‘merit’ and ‘opportunity to the truly deserving’. Even in government services the Muslims, though they are about 25% of the total population of Bengal, are only in 2.5% of the government jobs. The figures are terribly dismal for the other marginalized communities like the Gorkhalis, the Rajbanshis, the Bodos, the Rabhas, the Adivasis and others who are a major ethnic community in North Bengal and the districts like Midnapore.
West Bengal, under the communists, was the only state where people in the 21st century died of sheer starvation. As recently as 2004-2005, the Muslim villages like Jalangi in Murshidabad , or the tribal villages like Amlashol in West Midnapore district witnessed deaths in hordes owing to starvation. The tribal villagers died simply because they did not have any food to eat for months together. There was wide spread publicity of the pictures in the media where, like the Somalian famine victims, the backward class Muslims and the poor tribal men, women and children had to boil ordinary grass leaves to feed themselves and die subsequently. The government at that time vehemently denied it as starvation and claimed that it was a mass outbreak of an unidentified disease and put their foot down not to supply a single grain to the starvation infested tribal areas because that would mean vindication of the press and media reports. That was one of the biggest disgraces against humanity caused by sheer disdain so viciously fostered by the communists against the tribals and the backward class people.
The most acute effect of the brutal communist rule was on the social security of the common people. The survival of an individual without the direct intervention of the party even at the extremely narrow local level was virtually impossible. From getting a bank loan to getting admitted in hospitals one must pass through the local communist hooligans. More importantly, to get a government job without a party card was absolutely out of question. One must be a member of the party to earn the right to live. They could clinically implement a brutal regime of party dictatorship in all walks of life and the common people were forced to live in a state of acutely claustrophobic suffocation. They became victims of one of the most dreaded kind of social corruption.
Part II
The communists often flaunt the so called land reform in Bengal as the biggest success of their rule. Ideally, the huge chunk of unscheduled land being distributed among the landless should be a laudable move by any government. But this entire process of the so called land reform in Bengal had other dimensions too which are carefully hidden from the public. Land reform, for example in North Bengal, especially in Jalpaiguri and Coochbehar districts, had a flip side to it. In these two districts the Rajbanhis are a major indigenous ethnic group apart from some other ethnic communities. In the year 1951 the district of Coochbehar was annexed with West Bengal by Dr. Bidhan Ch. Roy against the popular demand of the people of Coochbehar to remain a separate state or merge with Assam. But the then Bengal government under Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy designed a vicious plan to annexe Coochbehar with Bengal primarily to turn it into a buffer zone to accommodate the Bengali immigrants that migrated from East Pakistan instead of allowing them to proceed towards south Bengal, i.e., in and around Calcutta. The communist regime later, through the provisions of Land Reform, took away the land of the indigenous people living in Coochbehar and Jalpaiguri districts to distribute those lands mostly among the Bengali immigrants from Bangladesh. After having officially taken the land from the indigenous communities through Land Reform, the armed communist hooligans were let loose to forcefully grab rest of the land with the full cooperation of the state police department. The landscape of Coochbehar got indiscriminately dotted by those ferocious red flags. Thousands of indigenous people, who had deep ties with the land for centuries, all of a sudden became landless. In most cases only thing that remained with them was just their homestead. This had terribly changed the social identity, their cultural geography and their community history. The notorious land loot by the communist government and the communist hooligans in the name of Land Reform has remained as the most terrifying memory in the minds of the million of indigenous ethnic people of Bengal till today. Mostly the Bangaldeshi immigrants became the owner of the land which was till the other day was legitimately owned by the indigenous people for centuries. This is interesting that now the unskilled urban laborers and labour migrants are largely from these indigenous communities who used to be the traditional land owning farmers in the pre communist Bengal. Ironically, the Rajbanshis make for the biggest urban unskilled labourers in north Bengal like the Gorkhalis in Darjeeling district despite the fact that they are the biggest indigenous communities in their respective places.
The Bengal communist regime has been immensely successful in forcing the indigenous people not only to part with their land but also eventually to loss their culture, identity and history. The regime never believed in respecting the diverse historico-cultural reality of the other ethnic communities. In Bengal there is no provision for any scheduled tribe or scheduled caste community to have education in their own ethnic language unlike in most other states. They were forced only to study in Bengali. Besides, the histories of such ethnic communities are always removed from the official text books. Such as the history of the Koch Rajbanshis who ruled the whole of North Bengal including West Assam, or the great history of the Gorkhalis who had a glorious legacy, the ethnic history of the Bodos who are a major ethnic community living in the hilly terrains of North Bengal or the history of the Adivasis of Midnapore, were never allowed to become part of the state education syllabus so that the indigenous people gradually forget their own past and in effect become unable to claim their identity. Even any effort of these people to get apolitically organized used to be mercilessly crushed by the communist comrades with the help of the state police. One such incident was the destroying of the UTJAS (Uttar Banga Tapasili Jati O Adivasi Sangathan or Scheduled Caste and Tribal Association of North Bengal). Noted social scientist, Yogendra Yadav, in one of his articles, published in the Indian Express (21 March, 2007), wrote how a non-violent Dalit activist group, formed in the 1980s, that demanded greater regional autonomy and social justice, was crushed by the CPM’s armed cadres in connivance with the state police, on 10 January, 1987, at Alipurduar by attacking the 50,000 strong supporters of the organisation who gathered for a rally. Police later arrested the victims and along with the CPM cadres hounded and killed its supporters.
Yet one would wonder as to how the communists managed to win elections year after year? The communists were successful in building up a massive cadre base all over; that the people, in fact, had great hopes in a communist regime in the beginning; that there was no viable alternative till recently and more importantly, there was lack of committed leadership in the opposition camp. One must not forget that over the years the communists in Bengal created a pervasive cadre base in all walks of life, be it school teachers, university professors, intellectuals, bureaucrats, artists or writers apart from the industrial workers and the farmers especially the ones who got benefited by the so called ‘land reform’ moves. These people were adequately rewarded in their respective fields in return of their services to the party. These people controlled the entire discourse of legitimacy and political rationality without allowing the alternative voices ever to make any articulation. Any opposition to the official communist position was branded as reactionary, non-progressive, irrational, fascist, imperialist or more archaically-pro-bourgeois. There was not only political suppression but also rhetoric subjugation. Even an act of rape by the communist comrades was justified as a purgatorial ritual against a seemingly ill reputed woman. When an ethnic Rajbanshi woman at a village called Cherramari in Ghokshadanga Police Station in Coochbehar in February, 2003, was raped by a gang of communist comrades, the then state secretary of CPM and politburo member, Anil Biswas, justified the rape by blaming it on the character of the girl accusing her of being ill reputed. The rape and burning alive of a teenager girl, Tapasi Mallik in Singur, by the comrades was justified by the communists as the inevitable reaction of the rational people against the mindless demonstration of the ‘reactionary group’.
When one looks at the communist regime of Bengal one must also look at two very innovative devices that the communists invented in Bengal under the legendary leadership of Jyoti Basu- ‘political terrorism’ and ‘scientific rigging’. The Bengal communists were the first political party in the history of electoral politics in modern India to have introduced political terrorism to kill and intimidate the opponents with cold blooded brutality which they justified as legitimate tactic to deal with the ‘class enemies’. Bengal arguably has the credit of having the highest number of political killings in India. And Bengal also has the credit of having successfully implemented the methods of subverting a democratic process, ironically called, ‘scientific rigging’ that purported to ensure the rule of the proletariat.
But this time the scenario was different because the huge population of youths in West Bengal, who were forced to be without dream, wanted a regime change and was extremely bold to face the communists and transformed Mamata into a symbol of new possibilities. Most importantly, the powerful presence of electronic media had immense impact on the rigging strategy of the communists this time. With the pervasive penetration of the media it became difficult to carry out the old methods as everything was being telecast live for the viewers all over the world. Secondly, multiple phase of election ensured heavy security presence in each of the booths making it extremely difficult for the comrades to apply their old ‘scientific’ expertise. And above all, after a long time, people got the chance to cast their votes by themselves. When the media reported that more than eighty percent people came out and actually cast their votes, the communists knew their fate was sealed this time.
This time Mamata will have a bigger challenge. Apart from the challenge of reviving the industries where 53000 industries were closed down by the communist backed trade unions, putting the economy back on track after the communists have made West Bengal the biggest bankrupt state of the country, Mamata must be able to bring hopes to the young generation in a state where the rate of unemployment among the youths is the highest. She must also act to ensure that the long deprived tribal and backward class people of Bengal are no longer allowed to die of starvation, that social justice is prevailed to give equal economic, political, educational and cultural rights to the marginalized, the subalterns and the ethnic identities; she must also ensure that the geo-cultural landscapes of the indigenous people are duly protected so that the people who were deprived for decades must get back the courage to articulate their collective aspirations.
The great thinkers of the twenty first century like Gramsci and Agamben would be the happiest men to see how their prophetic discourses had been authenticated through the rise of Mamata, paradoxically in a communist hinterland,
Dr. Jyotirmoy Prodhani
Associate Professor & Head
Dept. of English, NEHU at Tura
Meghalaya.
Mobile 9436315650
rajaprodhani@gmail.com
