Hazra finds Mamata Banerjee’s open defiance of the Centre a very worrisome trend; it has only pushed the state into a deep political isolation.
New Delhi: Steeped in history, West Bengal—a state that defined nationalism for India—now struggles to live in India’s present. This is the moot point of Sugato Hazra’s deep dive book, Losing the Plot: Political Isolation of West Bengal.
Hazra’s book is a comprehensive account of West Bengal’s political history, tracing the cash-strapped state’s changing leadership, ideologies, and discourse. Hazra argues this state was the place which gave birth to India’s nationalism through Ananda Math, a novel by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, who, interestingly, was the first Indian graduate from the Calcutta University set up by the then British government. And then, Rabindranath Tagore, India’s most famous bard, set music to Vande Mataram, which Chattopadhyay had written much before he finished Ananda Math. Tagore sang the song during the 1896 session of the Congress in Calcutta (now Kolkata). India rose to rally against British rule, Vande Mataram became the battle mantra and Bengal was at the heart of India’s big fight for freedom.
So that is all history.
Hazra weaves through this very history, talks about the infamous Subhas Bose rift with Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru over a host of issues and yet, Hazra rightly points out, India can never forget Bengal’s contribution in its freedom struggle.
I would not read much into Bengal’s history of nationalism movement, it has been highlighted time and again by many authors and historians. This back and forth has continued to such an extent that today any discussion in and on the state continues to start with the past, often neglecting the present that is most important.
But what is important and vital in the book is Hazra’s analysis of the three decades plus Left Front’s rule in Bengal and then the current TMC rule. Hazra explains in detail how the red brigade continued to win election after election with a false narrative. And how sadly, people in Bengal continued to believe the Marxists as God’s change agents. Read these lines by Hazra: “The 1982 elections had shown how the Left Front—it swept to power in 1977—had by then mastered the art of winning elections by a strategy of controlled and disciplined mobilisation of the people aimed at manufacturing consent in its favour and at delegitimizing and decimating the very idea of a legitimate opposition.”
Hazra argues in his book that it was the Left which, like the Chinese opium, pushed a strange argument that the Centre has always neglected and deprived West Bengal and would continue to do so in future. Sadly, this theory still exists in the minds of millions in the state and, very sadly, the current generation remains a victim of this false propaganda by political parties in West Bengal. And that, in some ways, gave rise to what many claim is a strange, confrontational argument that continues to emanate from West Bengal.
What was worrisome, claims Hazra, is the state’s open defiance of law and order—the author cites several examples of such brutalities. The 1982 lynching of 17 Ananda Marga monks (including a nun), the rape and murder of health officials in Bantala in 1990—summarily dismissed by the then West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu and Health Minister Prasanta Sur—and a host of other incidents.
It seems to Hazra, Bengal’s open defiance of the Centre, and anything and everything has caused a strange political isolation for the state. He lists example after example. Take this one. The Nehru government’s decision to transfer a part of Jalpaiguri district—a 4 square km land—Berubari, to Pakistan triggered a serious rift between Bengal and the Centre. Nehru had reached an agreement with the Pakistan Prime Minister Feroze Khan Noon in 1958 to exchange enclaves on the basis of enclaves for enclaves without any consideration of territorial loss or gain (9th Amendment of Constitution act, 1960, Article I and Part I of First Schedule). Now, Dahagram and Angorpota came to Indian territory and resulted in the transfer of 11.29 sq km of southern half of Berubari to Pakistan. Nehru said he was advised by the revenue officers of West Bengal. But this was not true.
Writes Hazra: “Bidhan Roy had to issue a clarification in the West Bengal assembly that revenue officers had no role in giving such recommendations nor were they empowered to do so. A unanimous resolution of the West Bengal assembly was sent to Prime Minister Nehru against the handing over of the state territory to Pakistan. When the two houses of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha passed the amendment bill all elected members of the Congress including Asok Sen, the law minister, stayed away.
“In any case international treaties, according to the Constitution, rest with the central government with states having no authority. Thus despite its opposition West Bengal could not influence the two agreements signed by Nehru—one with Liaquat Ali Khan in 1950 and the other with Feroze Khan Noon in 1958. This difference between the Centre and the state raised its head in subsequent years also—river-water sharing for example.”
The enclave exchange was protested by many, though the opposition could not gather its act together to criticise the ruling Congress. There was violence, brutal lathi-charge by the police who faced brickbats, soda bottles and country made bombs. “Setting fire to trams, buses and ambulances was a patented activity of any movement in Calcutta by then,” writes the author. Nowadays, people of Kolkata have learnt to take such things in their stride and give such violence no more than a passing thought. “Such things have happened before and will happen again,” once opined the Economic Weekly. And let us remember how Nehru called Calcutta the nightmare city, many decades before his grandson, Rajiv Gandhi, called Calcutta a dead city.
Hazra keeps working through such narratives which he claims took Bengal far away from being a progressive modern state and turned it into a state always at defiance, at loggerheads with the Centre.
Hazra argues: “For the growth in lawlessness the rise and eventual demise of the Naxal movement had contributed in no small measure. The eternal romanticism of Bengal of waging war that was seen at the dawn of nationalism received new impetus from the success of the Chinese communist party. By then the Soviet Union had lost its shining edge to arouse even an ever-willing Bengali youth to take up arms or pens in fighting the state. The debate within the undivided communist party over the Soviet ideology or the Chinese one—both completely couched in jargons and lucid enough only for a gullible to digest —created a third group of converts who wanted to opt for violent overthrow of the state. Some of them chose farmers of villages like Naxalbari, Kharibari and Fansideoa to join in armed struggle against the landowners, to take over their land forcefully and cultivate there.”
The Naxalbari movement died an untimely death, hundreds of brilliant students in Bengal lost their lives. I remember talking about the movement with a frail mother of Jangal Santhal sitting close to the dilapidated home of Kanu Sanyal. She said the Spring Thunder died because the leaders lost the plot, even after seeking endorsement from China.
Hazra says it was from the Naxalbari period the state ended up being a den of lawlessness, an important reason to remain isolated from the rest of the country.
I tend to agree with him. Hazra’s book delineates the political character of West Bengal and its people, its early leaders and their dreams, and the eventual shattering of the same in course of time. The book appears to be the story of a state that has lost its plot.
Bengal is now ruled by the Trinamool Congress led by the mercurial Mamta Banerjee, who spent her life fighting the communists, but is seen as the biggest obstacle to economic liberalization in India today. Leader of a regional party, Banerjee displays that she wields more power than the Prime Minister.
The Bengal CM is determined, resolutely populist and hard-working, yet eccentric and intolerant of dissent. She is also the personification of a fundamental change that is transforming Indian politics: the declining vote share of the country’s two main political parties and the rising influence of regional parties.
Banerjee has been no better for business and investment than her predecessors, but the book says she doesn’t care. She vociferously opposes investigations of corruption in her state, be it ponzi scheme scam to illegal coal and illegal cow smuggling across the border. She donates cash to football clubs and Durga Puja, but opposes legislation that would open the country’s banking, insurance and pension sectors to more foreign investment.
Hazra finds Banerjee’s open defiance of Centre a very worrisome trend; it has only pushed the state into a deep political isolation. A healthy Centre-State relation augurs well for both, but not for Bengal. When will the situation change? Hazra, and also the state’s political leaders must find an answer. A brilliant read.