Kingmakers
For four decades (from 1969 to 2008) the Communist Parties were either the part of Government or were in a position to influence the Government. In coalition governments they were the Kingmakers as they used to decide who will be the Prime Minister. In Central Government, they enjoyed position of power without responsibility.
It is surprising that in States like West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala etc. they will fight with Congress and often alternatively form Governments, but they would support Congress in Centre. As recently as in 2004, they supported Manmohan Government only to withdraw support over nuclear deal. This closeness to power, gave Communists disproportionate leverage. They wield tremendous influence in the media, in universities, in cultural and academic institutions.
The existence of communists in democracy is a paradox but India is the land of paradoxes. Nehru never liked communists. He was impressed with Karl Marx but not the communists. Communists participated in the independence struggle and, as members of the Congress Socialist Party, they became a formidable presence on the socialist wing of the Indian National Congress. They were expelled from the Congress Socialist Party in March 1940, after allegations that the communists had disrupted party activities and were intent on co-opting party organisations.
The Communist Party of India was founded on December 26, 1925 at Kanpur. Industrial town of Kanpur was first laboratory of Communists. Let's first dwell with the birth place of communism in India.
Kanpur
KanpurcclxiSee http://journeymart.com/de/india/uttar-pradesh/kanpur-history.aspx is the 11th most populous city in India but it is condemned to obscurity. Kanpur played a prominent role in history during British occupation who used to call it as 'Cawnpore'. People of Uttar Pradesh are often ridiculed for calling it as Kanhepur but that is also correct. In 1207, Raja Kanh Deo of the Kanhpuria clan established the village of Kanehpur, on the western banks of Ganges which later grew to be a large city, Kanpur. In 1857, in the first war of independence, Kanpur played a major role. Even today, the President of India, hails from this town. Still no media coverage for Kanpur. What is the curse?
Indian National Army (INA) veteran Col Prem Sehgal and his wife Laxmi Sehgal nee Swaminathan, chose Kanpur as there home after independence. Their daughter Subhashini was member of Parliament from Kanpur in 1989-91 as member of Communist Party (Marxist).
Kanpur has always been the laboratory of Socialists and Communists. Socialists means not just Samajwadi family but more real socialists like George Fernandes who recently passed away almost penniless.
S.M. Banerjee, a trade Union LeadercclxiiHe took active part in Defence Workers strike in 1947; arrested and convicted for 3 months; took active part in 1955 in 80 days strike of Textile workers in Kanpur and remained in jail for 50 days; dismissed from service from H. & S. Factory, Kanpur after the strike on 27 January 1956; sent to jail again in connection with Lal Imli Workers' agitation in 1957; took active part in 1960 and also in 1968 Central Government strikes and was sent to jail; took active part during State Government Employees' strike in 1967 in U.P. and was sent to jail. He was a member of (1) All India Post & Telegraph Council, (2) Telephone Advisory Council, Kanpur, and (3) Divisional Northern Railway Council. He was president of (1) All India Defence Employees' Federation, (2) Government of India Press Workers' Federation, (3) All India Linemen and Class IV Union, (4) U.P., M.E.S. Workers Union, (5) Provident Fund Employees' Union, Kanpur, (6) Federation of P.T.I. Employees Union, and (7) Ordnance Equipment Factory Employees Union, Kanpur. He was vice president of All India Insurance Employees Union. was elected to Lok Sabha four times from Kanpur as an independent candidate supported by Communist Party of India (CPI). He won in 1957, 1962, 1967 and 1971 and was a member of Lok Sabha for twenty years. In 1977, he lost election to Janata Party candidate and got only 5,035 votes. Presently Murli Manohar Joshi (BJP) represents Kanpur in Parliament, since 2014.
At the time of independence, Kanpur was a major industrial town with huge industries producing cotton and woollen clothes. It was also major hub of tanneries and shoe manufacturing. With several industrial areas producing mechanical products of all dimensions. Today it is still a prosperous commercial town but it's economy is based on eduction and medicine. Major industries are gone. What went wrong?
Strike, strike and strike did it. The office of Chief Commissioner of Labour Laws is, no wonder, in Kanpur and not in capital city of Lucknow. Yet they were almost helpless to prevent strikes. By beginning of 1970, things started to go out of hand. The violence which broke out in 1977 struck terror in the mind of industrialists.cclxiiiSee https://www.bhaskar.com/news/UP-KAN-swadeshi-cotton-mills-kanpur-massacre-4456776-PHO.html Frequent strikes of workers and large industries gradually closed down. Juggilal Kamlapat or JK group was first to relocate to Kota in Rajasthan which was city with population of half million people in 1991 but today it is well over a million people. Other industries followed the suit.
Today Tamil Nadu is a highly industrialised state. It gained from what was loss of Uttar Pradesh by attracting new industries. Political corruption was no deterrence in the face of convenient labour availability. Recent strike at Sterlite Copper in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu seems to be a repeat of beginning of communist attack.cclxivSee https://indianexpress.com/article/india/what-is-the-sterlite-copper-plant-project-in-tuticorin-5187587/
What do Communists stand for? What is their ideology? How they govern? To know more about Communists, it is important to know the father of communism i.e. Karl Marx.
Karl Marks
The socialist dream of Hegel about a classless society in which all would be equal was an attractive Utopia. In the feudal Europe, in cold climate, being poor was life threatening. But being rich too did not get access to social high table where decision makers decided the fate of people. At the same time in India or earlier there was only one escape from the feudal heirarchy of the society i.e. to become a sanyasi or hermit. Asceticism was and is revered.
The utopia of Hegel was more attractive. After death of Hegel, his followers were themselves divided into two groups. The Right Hegelians, the allegedly direct disciples of Hegel at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, advocated a Protestant orthodoxy and the political conservatism of the post-Napoleon Restoration period.
The Left Hegelians, also known as the Young Hegelians, interpreted Hegel in a revolutionary sense, leading to an advocation of atheism in religion and liberal democracy in politics.
Karl Marx is said to be inspired by Hegel. In 1848 Marx published "Communist Manifesto". He proclaimed that 'a spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre.'
According to Marx, society is divided into two classes of people whom he called Bourgeois and Proletarians. The former were exploiters of the latter. Further the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Societies have always taken the form of an oppressed majority exploited under the yoke of an oppressive minority.
Bourgeois control means of production, whereby they exploit the masses of proletariats and the result of this was a 'class struggle'. The bourgeoisie constantly exploits the proletariat for its labour power, creating profit for themselves and accumulating capital. However, in doing so the bourgeoisie serves as "its own grave-diggers"; the proletariat inevitably will become conscious of their own potential and rise to power through revolution, overthrowing the bourgeoisie. Marx predicted the capitalism had seed of it'sown destruction and one day the Capitalist economy would collapse and from that a new society will emerge.
Marx also suggested solutions for creating a classless society. Some of were progressive income tax; abolition of inheritances and private property; abolition of child labour; free public education; nationalisation of the means of transport and communication; centralisation of credit via a national bank; expansion of publicly owned property etc.
Marx dismissed all other theories of socialism as these did not take into account the struggle of working class. Marx also coined his famous slogan: "Working men of all countries, Unite!" Notice the gender partiality in the slogan. That was also because in those times women were kept out of work place.
In his personal life, Marx had no hesitation in courting and later marrying a German (Prussian) Baroness named Jenny von Westphalen from the family of aristocrats (read bourgeois).
Marx persued writing fiction, non fiction and also journalism but never really had first hand experience of a working class. Yet he is the High Pope of Communism which became a new Godless religion with cure for all evils in the society. Marx later wrote more about Capitalism and it's exploitation of working class but that was it. He was never into practical aspect of creating a communist society. But his writings inspired many others.
Vladimir Lenin (USSR now Russia), Mao Zedong (China), Fidel Castro,(Cuba) Salvador Allende (Chile), Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavia) Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana) Jawaharlal Nehru (India), Nelson Mandela (South Africa), Xi Jinping (China), Jean-Claude Juncker (President of European Union) and Thomas Sankara (Burkia Faso) all cited Marx as an influence upon them. Since Lenin is very popular in Indian communists, let's know of him a little more.
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Born 22 April 1870), known by the alias Lenin, was a political theorist turned Russian revolutionary turned politician turned dictator. He was head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1922 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-party communist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a communist, he developed a variant of Marxism known as Leninism.
Russia in the beginning of last century, was a monarchy ruled by Tsar (a Russian word for King). In Russian Government, as was the practice in Europe, all Government Officials were appointed from nobility. It was similar to Mughal rule where high officials were appointed only from Muslim community. Lenin's father was a peasantcclxvIlya Nikolayevich Ulyanov, obtained a job in Nizhny Novgorod, rising to become Director of Primary Schools in the Simbirsk district six years later. Five years after that, he was promoted to Director of Public Schools for the province, overseeing the foundation of over 450 schools as a part of the government's plans for modernisation. His dedication to education earned him the Order of St. Vladimir, which bestowed on him the status of hereditary nobleman., who rose in ranks through hard work in Education and became a noble in the high society of Tsar.
Tsar is the title of the King in Russia. It is similar to Khan in Mangolia or Maharajadhiraj or Chhatrapati in India. In 1881 Alexander II was the Tsar who was about to introduce constitutional reforms to open some sections of the Government to common people but he was assassinated with bomb blasts. He was succeeded by Alexander III, who withheld and reversed the reforms. In 1894 he died of nephritis or infection of the kidney. He was succeeded by Nicholas III who was the last Tsar.
Nicholas III and his family were executed by their Bolshevik guards on the night of 16/17 July 1918. The remains of the imperial family were later found, exhumed, identified andre-interred with elaborate State and Church ceremony in St. Petersburg on 17 July 1998. That was perhaps most delayed funeral. Delayed by 70 years of interruption caused by communism rather Leninism in Russia.
Monarchy is autocracy. The monarchy of Nicholas III was no different. Distrust of people turned into violent revolt during life time of Alexander II who was killed in 1885 but his successors saw no reason to proceed with reforms, he was contemplating. Why they had no out of box idea to deal with simmering discontent which had become revolution? In 1905, some reforms were introduced to create a kind of Parliament called Duma but it did not satisfy people.
Lenin was born in Simbirsk on 22 April 1870 to an orthodox christian father who died when Lenin was 15 years of age. In University he was suspected to have participated in anti government protests and he was exiled to his home estate. His mother worried of radicalisation of son, bought a farm but Lenin showed no interest in farming. Later, on account of the influence of his mother, a widow of nobleman, he could take university exam as an external candidate and join the office of a lawyer as a legal assistant, in city of Samara. He was already under influence of Marx writings i.e. Capital.
In 1893, Lenin moved toSt. Petersburg, the capital of politics and joined the office of a local barrister while meeting and uniting with other Marxists. Here he met his future wife Nadezhda "Nadya" Krupskaya, a Marxist schoolteacher. In 1897, while returning from Europe with prohibited revolutionary literature, lenin was arrested and later sentenced to exile to Siberia. Next year he was joined by Nadya and both married to start a family. After his exile ended, he moved to city of Poskov and started a newspaper called "Ikara" or Spark which was to be voice of Russian Marxist Party now renamed as Russian Socialist Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). The paper was started from Munich and smuggled into Russia. Soon it had vide circulation.
In 1903 congress of RSDLP, the supporters of Lenin won and were called Bolsheviks which literally means 'majority.' In 1918, the party renamed itself the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) at Lenin's suggestion. In 1925, this was changed to All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). At the 19th Party Congress in 1952 the Bolshevik Party was renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union according to Stalin's (the successor dictator) suggestion.
World War-I broke out in 1914 to continue till 1917. In September 1917, Lenin published Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. According to him, imperialism was a product of monopoly capitalism, as capitalists sought to increase their profits by extending into new territories where wages were lower and raw materials cheaper. He believed that competition and conflict would increase and that war between the imperialist powers would continue until they were overthrown by proletariat revolution and socialism was established.
Pause here and think 'What China is doing today and who is in Government in China today?' Is it proletariat? Who is seeking new territories in Africa and Latin America and seeking raw materials from there?
Coming back to Russia, in February 1917, industrial workers went on strike over food shortages and deteriorating factory conditions. The unrest spread to other parts of Russia, and fearing that he would be violently overthrown, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated. The State Duma took over control of the country, establishing a Provisional Government and converting the Empire into a new Russian Republic.
Around this time, the demand for democracy and accompanied violence was rising in many places of Europe and China but in India, a great man was calling for peaceful means of non-violent protest or ahimsa.
Lenin denounced provisional government and criticised other groups supporting it by calling them traitors. A civil war broke out and different factions started a violent fight. Lenin who had left for Finland, returned in October 1917 taking a circuitous route through Europe, and lead the Bolsheviks, over threw Government, killed those opposing him. It was the beginning of the longest bloody revolution.
Having come to power in October 1917 by means of a coup d'etat, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks spent the next few years struggling to maintain their rule against widespread popular opposition. They had overthrown the provisional democratic government and were inherently hostile to any form of popular participation in politics. In the name of the revolutionary cause, they employed ruthless methods to suppress real or perceived political enemies. The small, elite group of Bolshevik revolutionaries which formed the core of the newly established Communist Party dictatorship ruled by decree, enforced with terror.cclxviSee https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/intn.html
Lenin died on 21 January 1924 and was succeeded by Alexei Rykov (2 February 1924 – 18 May 1929) and Vyacheslav Molotov (19 December 1930 – 6 May 1941) and Joseph Stalin (6 May 1941 – 5 March 1953) as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Soviet Union. This tradition of tight centralisation, with decision-making concentrated at the highest party levels, reached new dimensions under Joseph Stalin who is termed to be worst dictator killing millions.cclxviiSee https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/02/25/stalins-great-crime-in-the-caucasus-a64615
The party elite determined the goals of the state and the means of achieving them in almost complete isolation from the people, who had no participation in governance. They believed that the interests of the individual were to be sacrificed to those of the state, which was advancing a sacred social task. Stalin's "revolution from above" sought to build socialism by means of forced collectivisation and industrialisation, programs that entailed tremendous human suffering and loss of life.
According to the declassified Soviet archives, during 1937 and 1938, the NKVD detained 1,548,366 persons, of whom 681,692 were shot. It means that an average of 1,000 executions per day. Compare it with Tsars' regime which executed 3,932 persons for political crimes from 1825 to 1910 which means an average of less than 1 execution per week.
Several experts believe the evidence released from the Soviet archives is understated, incomplete, or unreliable. A British historian Robert Conquest claims that the probable figure for executions during the years of the Great Purge is not 681,692, but some two and a half times as high. He believes that the KGB was covering its tracks by falsifying the dates and causes of death of rehabilitated victims.
Strict centralisation continued and eventually led to the economic decline, inefficiency, and apathy that characterised the 1970sand 1980s, and contributed to the Chernobyl' nuclear disaster. Mikhail Gorbachev's program of perestroika was a reaction to this situation, but its success was limited by his reluctance to abolish the bastions of Soviet power (the party, the police, and the centralised economic system) until he was forced to do so after the attempted coup in August 1991. By that time, however, it was too late to hold either the Communist leadership or the Soviet Union together. After seventy-four years of existence, the Soviet system crumbled.
However the crises of leadership continues in Russia. Putin has ruled it for the most part of this century, directly or indirectly with no known political successor in sight.
In Communism, the members of Communist Party become a superior class and power is never transferred to masses, as dreamed by Marx. The history of communism in the world is similar every where. In Cuba it has become a family affair. In China, it is still the one party system but they have done away with every principle of communism propounded by Marx and now have a market economy and private ownership of resources.
All these development in past 100 years, show that there was something fundamentally wrong with theory of Marx. It was the underlying presumption that all individuals have equal capability. That presumption strikes at the individuality of human beings.
Every person can not be a writer or a singer or a long distance runner. People have heterogenous qualities. Human society is heterogenous and any attempt to make it otherwise is dangerous and would eventually fail.
Now let's return to communists in India where they have been trying a different experiment for last 70 years
The Communists
As stated above, the Communist Party of India (CPI) was founded on December 26, 1925, at an all India conference held at Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
Communists participated in the independence struggle and, as members of the Congress Socialist Party, became a formidable presence on the socialist wing of the Indian National Congress.
Some Communists were expelled from the Congress Socialist Party in March 1940, after allegations that they had disrupted party activities and were intent on coopting party organisations. Indeed, by the time these communists were expelled, they had gained control over the entire Congress Socialist Party units in what were to become the southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh.
Some communists remained members of the Indian National Congress although their support of the British war effort after the German invasion of the Soviet Union and their nationalist policy supporting the right of religious minorities to secede from India were diametrically opposed to Congress policies. As a result, the communists became isolated within the Congress.
After independence, communists organised a peasant uprising in the Telangana region in the northern part of what was to become Andhra Pradesh. The uprising was suppressed only after the central government sent in the army. CPI was thereafter declared an unlawful organisation in 1949. The ban lasted less than three years.
In 1951, the CPI started it's India Experiment and shifted to a more moderate strategy of seeking to bring communism to India within the constraints of Indian democracy. In 1957 the CPI was elected to rule the state government of Kerala only to have the government dismissed and President's Rule declared in 1959.
In 1964, in conjunction with the widening rift between China and the Soviet Union, a large leftist faction of the CPI leadership, based predominantly in Kerala and West Bengal, split from the party to form the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI (M) and now called CPM.
However due to it's open support of China in 1962 and it's complete silence on the political and economical changes in China, it is often claimed that 'M' actually stands for Mao.
Naxalbari
Naxalbari is the name of a village in West Bengal State of India just south of Darjiling (Darjeeling). The Lenin type uprising was staged for the first time in this village. A CPI leader named Charu Majumdar was leading this uprising called revolution. The CPI leaders encouraged the landless peasants to encroach the other's land and to start harvesting crops. Similar incidents happened in different regions.
Pause here and think that on February 1, 2019 when Modi Government announced a small cash transfer to 10 crore extremely poor peasants with small land holdings, Was it to purchase their votes or to postpone any possible uprising or both?
Poverty is breeding ground of bloody revolutions but revolutionary leaders are always born in well off families. Charu Majumdar was also a riches to rags story. However this rebel group was called Maoist faction after the Chinese Revolutionary leader Mao Tse-tung (romanised as Mao Zedong), who had started an uprising in China 1927 to 1949. Mao Tse-tung served as chairman of the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1959, and led the Chinese Communist Party from 1935 until his death. Later, as also today, all armed communists in India are called Naxalites, after the name of that obscure village Naxalbari.
Meanwhile in the 1967, the CPM led coalition won the elections in West Bengal and formed the Government. The uprising in Naxalbari was turning violent. Government had to crush the uprising. The first clash occurred between the peasants and landlords when a share-cropper Bigul Kisan was beaten up by landlord gentries. Following this more violent clashes occurred when the peasant committees seized land, food grains and arms from the landlord gentries. The government started mobilising police officers. The inspector of Jharugaon village was killed by peasant committee members. In retaliation the police opened fired killing nine women and one child on 25 May 1967. Naxalite used civilians as cover as do even now.
The suppression of the Naxalbari uprising under the direction of the CPM's directly controlled Home Ministry of the state government led to denunciations by Maoist revolutionary factions across the country. Yet the CPM expelled many of its members who supported the uprising.
These Naxalites sparked new uprisings in the Srikakulam region of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and other parts of West Bengal. In 1969 several Naxalite factions joined together to form a new party called the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) or CPI (M-L). However, pursuit of insurrectionary tactics in the face of harsh repression by the government along with an array of ideological disputes kept Naxalite factions isolated in their local bases.
At present many Districts of Chhatisgarh are facing Naxalite problems. Due to the cover of civilians any direct military action is not possible. Naxalite run a parallel Governments and extract taxes with which they finance their operation. There are frequent armed clashes between Naxalite and paramilitary forces. It is now open knowledge that Naxalite have support from well off persons in the urban areas.
In March 2017, Delhi University professor GN Saibaba was sentenced to life, by a court in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli for his links with the Maoists. The court also found JNU student Hem Mishra and four others guilty of waging war against the country and supporting the ideology of the banned organisation, CPI (Maoist).cclxviiiSee https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/du-professor-saibaba-maoist-links-cpi-maoist-gadchiroli-maharashtra-police-964384-2017-03-07 The professor was caught on camera advocating Naxalism as the only way to overthrow the democratic government.
West Bengal
In 1967, CPM alongwith other left leaning parties formed an alliance called United Front or Left Front. It is an alliance of political parties in the Indian state of West Bengal. It was formed in January 1977, the founding parties being the Communist Party of India (Marxist), All India Forward Bloc, the Revolutionary Socialist Party, the Marxist Forward Bloc, the Revolutionary Communist Party of India and the Biplabi Bangla Congress. Other parties joined in later years, most notably the Communist Party of India.
The Left Front ruled the state for seven consecutive terms 1977–2011, five with Jyoti Basu as Chief Minister or Dy Chief Minister and two under Buddhadev Bhattacharya. The CPI(M) is the dominant force in the alliance. In the 2011 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election the Left Front failed to gain a majority of seats and left office. As of 2016 Biman Bose is the Chairman of the West Bengal Left Front Committee.
Kanchan Dasgupta, is prominent journalist from Bengal. This is how he describedcclxixFirst published in Pioneer in his weekly column "Coffee Break" and now can found at http://kanchangupta.blogspot.com/2010/01/destroyer-of-west-bengal.html the governance of United Front (in 2010):
"...Let it be said, and said bluntly, that Jyoti Basu's record in office, first as Deputy Chief Minister in two successive United Front Governments beginning 1967 (for all practical purposes he was the de facto Chief Minister with a hapless Ajoy Mukherjee reduced to indulging in Gandhigiri to make his presence felt) and later as Chief Minister for nearly 25 years at the head of the Left Front Government which has been in power for 32 years now, the "longest elected Communist Government" as party commissars untiringly point out to the naïve and the novitiate, is a terrible tale of calculated destruction of West Bengal in the name of ideology. It's easy to criticise the CPI(M) for politicising the police force and converting it into a goons brigade, but it was Jyoti Basu who initiated the process. It was he who instructed them, as Deputy Chief Minister during the disastrous UF regime, to play the role of foot soldiers of the CPI(M), first by not acting against party cadre on the rampage, and then by playing an unabashedly partisan role in industrial and agrarian disputes."
With Communist Party in power, the first step of Marx was complete. Could Communist Party establish a classless society in West Bengal? Far from it. It actually destroyed it.
When I visited Kolkata in 2008, it was as if I had time travelled into past. Everything was stuck in past. Courts were full of typewrites, which had disappeared from the scene in Delhi more than a decade ago and replaced with computers. Almost all the taxies/cabs were vintage Ambassador built by Hindustan Motors. This car model had become obsolete in Delhi, by then. My Hotel had broadband and good modern amenities but most lawyers in High Court were still using dial up network. Whole city of Kolkata, established 150 years back, looked strange with plasters or paint of most of old buildings peeling off. It was visibly decaying city. I am told that the position is not very different today.
Kanchan Da, very succinctly explain as to how Jyoti Basu destroyed the economy of West Bengal and compared him to Kalapahar, a Mughal invader who rampaged Odisha in 15-16 Century. In his words:
"...Within the first seven months of the United Front coming to power, 43,947 workers were laid off and thousands more rendered jobless as factories were shut down following gheraos and strikes instigated and endorsed by him. The flight of capital in those initial days of emergent Marxist power amounted toRs 2,500 million. In 1967, there were 438 'industrial disputes' involving 165,000 workers and resulting in the loss of five million man hours. By 1969, there were 710 'industrial disputes' involving 645,000 workers and a loss of 8.5 million man hours. That was a taste of things to come in the following decades. By the time Jyoti Basu demitted office, West Bengal had nothing to boast of except closed mills and shuttered factories; every institution and agency of the State had been subverted under his tutelage; and, the civil administration had been converted into an extension counter of the CPI(M) with babus happy to be used as doormats..."cclxxKanchan Dasgupta ibid.
But if this was the State of affair, how CPM and it'sallies continued to win electionscclxxiSee details of elections here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_West_Bengal#Assembly_elections for 34 years after winning election in West Bengal, in 1967 and losing it in 1972 to Congress to win again in 1977. This is the magic formula of Left Front to win elections after elections:
"…...Most Indian parties campaign for votes in an area, but are ultimately at the mercy of people who exercise their franchise on polling day. Not so the CPM, which took over entire areas — villages, panchayats, sometimes entire districts — with its cadre and workers. In true Stalinist fashion, people were recruited to spy on their neighbours and report every conversation, opinion or chance remark back to the dreaded local committee. …… People loyal to the party were encouraged to vote, those whose loyalties were suspect asked to stay away. Loyalists were given powers and privileges in local administrative bodies, their relatives got sarkari jobs as teachers or health workers, or contracts for public works.…."cclxxiiSee http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/8382473.cms?
Yet Jyoti Basu, it's longest serving CPM Chief Minister in West Bengal was proud of his governance. He boasted in an interview in 2001:
"…..You see, when the United Front was there, we got a majority and the Congress said that it would support us so as to keep the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] at bay. So we got together, but who would be the Prime Minister? V.P. Singh would be the best person, but he was ill. So they all, 12 parties, said: You must be the Prime Minister. Why did they say it? It was not because I am God's son, but because, as you said, I have got experience of running a United Front government and the Left Front government. That is why they thought that our party should join the 12-parties government, and I should become the Prime Minister…."cclxxiiiSee https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2825/stories/20111216282509000.htm
In the same interview he dubbed it to be a historic blunder that his party did not accept the proposal to form the government with Jyoti Basu as it's Prime Minister.cclxxivibid We must thank CPM for this act of mercy. He could have taken down India, to the same path of destruction as he did with Bengal.
CPM ruled two more states, for almost same length of time i.e. Tripura and Kerala. The state of economy and development is shatters in both the states. BJP routed it in TripuracclxxvSee results: http://www.elections.in/tripura/ in 2017. Their apparent pitch is to repeat it in Kerala too, soon.
Mamata Banerjee an ex congress leader founded Trinamool Congress Party on Jan 1, 1998 and after 13 years of struggle, defeated CPM in 2011 and formed the government of Trinamool Congress Party.
Mamata Banerjee
Mamata Banerjee, though a brahmin, hails from a economically average family. She jumped into youth politics at the age 15, when she was in College. She has a masters degree in Islamic Studies. Presently aged 64, she never married.
Mamata joined Congress Party in 1970 and was elected to Parliament several time and also served as minister in 1991 Congress Government. She resigned from Congress in 1997 and formed her own party Trinamool Congress. In 1999 she allied with BJP and was Minister in the NDA Government. She resigned from Ministership of NDA after Tehlka expose in 2001 but rejoined in 2004. In 2009 she allied with Congress Party and became a Minister.
Royal Bengal Tiger is the biggest cat among her species (hence royal prefix). They were on the verge of extinction. Their numbers fell around 1500 but of late there is an increase in their numbers to around 2400. It was a coincidence that Shiv Sena Chief called Mamta Banerjee as tigress of Bengal for winning the communist citadel.cclxxviSee https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/mamata-banerjee-a-tigress-for-ending-communist-rule-in-bengal-shiv-sena-1771175
Osho had said that two enemies, over a period of time start to look and behave alike. Change of Government in West Bengal in 2011 did not change quality of governance. Law and order and rule of law, which earlier meant rule of CPM, became rule of TMC.
Rampant corruption, violence, political killings and above all show of Muslim appeasement became the order of the day. Stopping of Durga Puja to give preference to Muslim MuharramcclxxviiSee https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/west-bengal-tmc-durga-visarjan-moharram-high-court-mamata-banerjee-1031054-2017-08-24 , by ending old practice, etc are some of visible signs.
In2016 Mamata Banerjee's TMC won with 44% votes. Congress and CPM got 12% and 24% votes. BJP had just 10% votes and 6 seats in the assembly.
After the 2016 elections in which she won with the en mass support of majority of Muslim community, she took off the kid glove too. Now in Village Panchayat Polls, which are not conducted by ECI but by State Government, rampant violence did not permit those opposing TMC to file nomination. Thousands of TMC candidates won unopposed. Of the total 48,650 seats in gram panchayats, 16,814 went uncontested. There was no contest for 3,059 of the 9,217 panchayat samiti seats and in 203 of the 825 zilla parishad seats.
However BJP too won many seats, against all odds and stood secondcclxxviiiSee https://www.news18.com/news/politics/west-bengal-panchayat-election-result-2018-live-trinamool-set-for-big-win-opposition-yet-to-open-account-in-zila-parishads-1751141.html . Congress and CPM were washed out.
In 2019 TMC has one MLA in Manipur and is supporting BJP, which is in Government. In 2016 TMC was main opposition party in neighbouring Tripura, where CPM was ruling. Most of TMC leaders and members, joined BJP which was also a major reason for the BJP to defeat CPM to win elections of Tripura in 2017.
Presently Saradha Group Chit Fund scandal, the Narada Sting operation (which showcased the ministers of ruling party of accepting bribes) is hounding the TMC. Lack of any major industrial investments, and law & order issue were major challenge for TMC. The Collapse of Kolkata flyover collapse has created dent in the claims of good governance and administration.
To add further arrogance, 'her' police stopped Central Bureau of Investigation from entering the house of Police Commissioner of Kolkatta on February 3, 2019 without a court warrant and placed CBI officers under arrest for many hours. Earlier the Commissioner ignored the notices of CBI to visit their office in connection with Saradha Chit Fund ponzi scheme. It did not matter that CBI was investigating on the orders of Supreme Court. Mamata Banerjee held press conference to denounce Modi and made it a State vs. Centre issue. Earlier in the day, her government had refused permission to Yogi Adityanath, CM of U.P. from BJP to land his helicopter to address an election rally in West Bengal. Later Mamata started to picket alongwith her cabinet which continued for two day. The Police Commissioner alongwith some other police officers who was to be interrogated remained in tow. Another arrogant display of kleptocracy.
Some news paper reported that Mamata made History but it was untrue. Apart from the fact such tantrum had been displayed by Arvind Kejriwal few years back, it is the history of India. A Regional King (Raja) refusing to bow before Greater King (Maharaja). This attitude kept India enslaved to ruthless foreigners. Only a ruthless can deal with arrogant refusal to follow the rule of law.
It is for these reasons, the Constitution of India is more 'Centric' then federal. Article 356 of Constitution authorise the Central Government to dismiss a State Government, if it is of the opinion that there is break down of constitutional machinery. It was under this provision that first Communist Government was dismissed in 1959 and they came back to power in 1977. With elections around the corner, Modi will not give Mamata an opportunity to play victim card before the public before the next elections. So Mamata can have her day. But only till the next collapse of constitutional machinery after next Durga Puja.
Will Mamata Banerjee be the next Prime Minister of India? What about anti incumbency? Does people of Bengal really like the anarchic politics of Mamata?
Mamata Banerjee made political history with her election rally in Kolkata on January 19, 2019 where she brought together more than 25 top leaders from 23 parties from across the country with one common objective: unity to oust the BJP.cclxxixSee https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/lok-sabha-elections-2019-mamata-banerjees-mega-rally-a-hit-as-anti-bjp-parties-unite-in-kolkata-1980253 A regional leader from Karnataka Kumaraswamy declared that "Mamata Banerjee has all capabilities to lead country".cclxxxSee https://www.indiatvnews.com/elections/lok-sabha-elections-2019-mamata-banerjee-has-all-capabilities-to-lead-country-kumaraswamy-500243 Kumarswamy is junior partner in Government in Karnataka with 32 MLAs and is running Government with the help of Congress which has 82 MLAs. Will others actually support Mamata Banerjee to become Prime Minister?
But if Modi is the Central Government and some of these regional leaders are Chief Ministers in respective states, how anti incumbency will play out?
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