Let's begin this column with a question: "What is the height of desperation?" The answer is simple: "The CPI(M)". Or rather: "The current leadership of the CPI(M)". A party that ruled and ruined Bengal for 34 years (1977-2011) is now desperately, shamefacedly begging around for an alliance, issuing appeals to even the Congress - all in a non-starter of an attempt to defeat the Trinamool Congress in the coming state assembly elections and somehow crawl its way back to power.
It knows the effort will be fruitless. Alliance or no alliance, the people of Bengal are certain to give Trinamool a second term as a well-deserved reward for what people recognise as the honest effort of the Mamata Banerjee government to restore the dignity and stability of Bengal, so sabotaged and crippled in the three decades of Communist hell.
I remember that period well. It was a time when one by one, so many of my school friends, college friends, business friends, social friends left Kolkata. Companies shut down; the best young minds of our state fled to universities and jobs outside; the bright lights of Park Street were darkened by the red flags of Communist trade unions and ransom seekers, hijacking a city and its vitality. Colleges were regimented with party whole-timers appointed as vice-chancellors and principals. English was banned as a medium of education in government primary schools, (though the comrades sent their own children/ grand children to the St. Xaviers and the La Martinieres) depriving two generations in the state of adequate knowledge of the language to enable them to compete for employment. The stories can go on. Kolkata and Bengal can weep for the lost decades of CPI(M)
raj.
So could have Mamata di. She could have spent the past five years simply reminding people of the mess she had inherited and warning of the possible return of the CPI(M). Yet, she did not do this. Instead she persevered and made determined attempts to turn things around. Has she succeeded entirely? There's still more work to be done. Has she succeeded substantially and managed to turn the direction of the ship, dangerously close to crashing into rocks by 2011? I would certainly say so.
But it has not been easy. The healing touch - social, economic and political - after the 34 years of Communist dystopia is beginning to take effect, but gradually. We are still paying interest of Rs 28,000 crore a year as a state government - servicing the Rs 2 lakh-plus crore debt accumulated and left to us by the CPI(M) government. To give you an indication of that legacy do consider that the ratio of total outstanding liability to gross SDP is 42.9 per cent in Bengal. The all-states average is 26.5 per cent. In the past five years, any savings and surpluses Bengal has generated, the extra revenue we have earned by rationalising the tax system, has gone into paying back the CPI(M) debt. And the Communists have the cheek to want to come back to power!
Bengal was once a prized economy. That was before the CPI(M) wrecked it. In 1975-76, the share of manufacturing in the state's economy was 19 per cent. By 2009, when we defeated the CPI(M) in the Lok Sabha election, it was 7.4 per cent. In the same period Bengal's share of jobs in the manufacturing sector in India came down from 13.3 per cent to just five per cent. In the wake of CPI(M)
raj, all we were left with were miles and miles of gutted and closed factories - and a small-scale industrial sector on the outskirts of Kolkata that had been throttled of its energy and very existence.
When such questions were asked of the CPI(M) and its self-important leaders, we were told all this talk about the economy and jobs was important only for the city elite. Kolkata was not relevant, the rural areas were, we were told. Apparently, rural Bengal was prospering under the CPI(M). I half-believed that nonsense till I began to travel deeper into rural Bengal and study the situation there in the mid-1990s. It was a Potemkin-like myth that convinced only CPI(M) cheerleaders in their pet newspapers, in Kolkata and Delhi.
What was the reality? Rural Bengal was a nightmare that the CPI(M) and its cadre imposed on poor, ordinary folk. In 2007, the National Sample Survey found that nearly 11 per cent of families in Bengal encountered starvation for several months of the year. This was the highest for any state. Odisha, where the starvation crisis in Kalahandi made national news since the 1980s, reported only five percent of families in such conditions.
Far from a happy life, rural citizens in West Bengal faced bullets and knife blades from the CPI(M). From Marichjhapi in 1979 to Nandigram in 2007 to Netai in 2011, the 34 years of CPI(M) rule saw 34 events of mass murder - one genocide a year. The government and the police looked the other way, or collaborated with CPI(M) cadre to murder ordinary people. From 1977 to 2009, there were an estimated 55,000 political murders. In 2011, the High Court were so exercised at the influence of the CPI(M) on the police that it took away investigation of the Netai pogrom from the state police and transferred it to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
In the past five years has anything even remotely similar to what I have described in the paragraph above happened? Can the CPI(M) and its intellectuals and tabloid writers contest that?
In her term as chief minister, Mamata Banerjee has diligently tried to rebuild the economy and make Bengal safe for investment once again. She has also tried to rebuild social capital, focusing on those basics: drinking water, electricity, roads, health and education. There is much to write, but I will leave you with two sets of numbers.
Infant deaths in Bengal are an old tragedy. The CPI(M)'s response to the challenge was to set up six specialised neonatal (new-born) care units between 1977 and 2011. Trinamool has set up 49 such units between 2011 and 2015. But we are not satisfied. Deaths still happen, and each death is a tragedy. In healthcare, we have begun in right earnest but still have some way to go.
Higher education was once Bengal's forte. When the CPI(M) demitted office in 2011, it left Bengal with 32 government colleges. In the past four-and-a-half years, the Trinamool government has established 46 new colleges and 15 new universities.
Those figures tell a story. More next week.
(Derek O'Brien is leader, Parliamentary party Trinamool Congress (RS), and Chief National spokesperson of the party)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.