People's Democracy

ANDHRA PRADESH

Thirtieth Anniversary Of LF Government In West Bengal Celebrated

Sitaram Yechury addressing a meeting in Hyderabad celebrating 30 years of Left Front govt in WB

M Venugopala Rao

THE CPI(M) state committee organised a meeting at Sundarayya Vignana Kendram in Hyderabad on July 6, 2007 to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Left Front government in West Bengal. Leaders of the CPI(M) and CPI called upon the people to strengthen people’s movements to put an end to bourgeois-landlord rule and for the emergence of the Left rule in our country, in the light of the experience and struggle and sacrifices in West Bengal under the leadership of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Y Venkateswara Rao and K Ramakrishna, state secretariat members of the CPI(M) and CPI respectively, presided over the meeting. Sitaram Yechury, member of the Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) and MP, explained that the Left Front government in West Bengal had not emerged all of a sudden in 1977 and that there was a history of long-drawn struggles and sacrifices of thousands of martyrs behind it. The United Front governments formed in 1967, with Jyoti Basu as deputy chief minister, and again in 1969 were undemocratically dismissed by the Congress government at the centre, he reminded. When the Congress resorted to wholesale rigging in the elections to the legislative assembly in 1972, the CPI(M) and the Left parties boycotted them. Sitaram Yechury recollected that 1100 workers of the CPI(M) were murdered in the ensuing period of what was termed semi-fascist rule by the Congress in that state. After the anti-emergency movement, the Left Front emerged victorious in the 1977 elections winning two-thirds majority in the assembly when the Congress was routed in the entire country. The centre could not dismiss the LF governments formed in 1977, 1982 and 1987 and it had become clear that the ruling classes lacked such power, Sitaram said.

Explaining the three main reasons for the successful continuance of the LF government in West Bengal, winning seven elections consecutively, Sitaram Yechury pointed out that while West Bengal had only 3 per cent of the total arable land in the country, the LF government had distributed 21 per cent of the land distributed in the entire country. 85 per cent of the farmers in that state are small and marginal, whereas the national average is 43 per cent. This year alone the LF government had distributed 30,000 acres of land. Altogether, the LF government had distributed 13 lakh acres of land to the poor which meant distribution of wealth worth Rs 13 lakh crores to them, Sitaram said. Nowhere in the world land was distributed on such a massive scale, he asserted. As a result of distribution of legally surplus land, the dominance of landlords had ended. Tenancy of 15 lakh acres was recorded for tenants which protected their rights and benefitted about 50 lakh families, he explained. As a result, three crore people out of a population of 8 crores in West Bengal were benefited as a result of the land reforms, Sitaram said and pointed out that this was the reason why the anti-incumbency factor, which is talked about fashionably, had not worked against the LF government in that state for the last three decades.

The LF government had set up three-tier panchayat raj system in 1977 as a result of which the people could participate and involve in the process of governance like discharging the responsibilities of implementation of land reforms and running primary schools and primary health centres. 52 per cent of the development finances were devolved to the panchayat raj bodies. Devolution of powers and finances were affected to the grassroot level. Elections to more than 60,000 posts of the panchayat raj bodies are held once in five years regularly. The LF had won in all these elections, seven times in the assembly and the local bodies. This is the second reason for the success of the LF government in West Bengal, Sitaram Yechury explained.

The third reason is the sincerity with which the LF government has been functioning. Salaries and other facilities for the MLAs are the lowest in the country. Jyoti Basu, who has entered his 94th year, used to travel in aircraft in economy class only when he was the chief minister. All the ministers also have been following that tradition. The LF government is giving unemployment allowance. People from the neighbouring states are coming to West Bengal in search of work. The LF government has been doing whatever it could do within its limitations under the present constitutional set up and is explaining to the people what it could not do, said Sitaram Yechury. With this approach of sincerity of purpose and by involving the people in the functioning of the government, the LF government could command their confidence, he said.

The LF government in West Bengal has been facing several problems. The economic policies of the government of India have been detrimental to the interests of the state since the days of the first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru had talked about balanced economic development in the country, pointing out that West Bengal was relatively more developed industrially, Sitaram explained. Though the state was endowed with rich mineral deposits, to deny it the advantage of lesser transportation cost, a policy of freight equalisation was adopted by the union government as a result of which the local industries have had to incur 5 per cent more expenditure. Because of this policy new industries had not come into West Bengal and a situation was created where the existing industries started leaving the state. As a result of these two policies, industrialisation in West Bengal had been stopped for almost four decades, Sitaram Yechury explained. After the advent of the new economic policies both those policies had come to an end. Within a period of ten years, West Bengal could attract an investment of Rs.1.22 lakh crore and provide employment to 21 lakh people. In the 1994 policy of the LF government, Jyoti Basu announced that agriculture was the foundation on which industries would flourish, Sitaram said.

Explaining the kind of political opposition the LF government has been facing to the moves for speedy industrialisation from the Congress for the last thirty years, and from the Trinamool Congress in the recent period, with the People’s War Group working behind them creating terror, Sitaram Yechury referred to the developments in Kespur, Barpet, Singur and Nandigram and how the LF government has been facing the political challenges. In Singur, for acquiring 997 acres of land, the LF government had paid compensation to 16,000 people, including 4000 share croppers. It shows that on each acre of land about 12 persons are living. Unless there was speedy industrialisation, the lives of such people would not improve, Sitaram said. To provide alternative employment to those whose lands were acquired, the government is giving training to 5000 people in different crafts. To run canteens in the industry that would be coming up in Singur, women are being trained. Such an arrangement has not taken place anywhere in the country. In the face of opposition from the poor to the moves for acquisition of their lands, chief minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya announced on February 14 that there would be no acquisition of land in Nandigram. Despite that, clashes took place on March 14 behind which there was political action of the opposition parties, Sitaram said. The LF has been facing this kind of political challenge for the last twenty years. The inquiry on Kespur developments had established that behind the flag of Trinamool, the PWG was there creating terror with its weapons, he said. Similar is the pattern in Nandigram. The Left had won in elections in all these areas. In the coming elections also the Left would win, asserted Sitaram Yechury. The LF government had accepted the mistakes committed and corrected them, he said.

For the last thirty years, the Congress and later the Trinamool had campaigned that under the LF government there would be no industrialisation and that West Bengal would lag behind. This year alone, an investment of Rs 83,000 crore had come to West Bengal and the number of industries were increasing, Sitaram said. As a result of which the political base of the Congress, Trinamool, etc., was collapsing and that was the reason why they have been opposing the moves of the LF government for speedy industrialisation, Sitaram explained. West Bengal is in the third place after Gujarat and Maharashtra in the growth of state gross domestic product, with Kerala in the fourth place. The Congress and Trinamool feel that, if industrialisation forges ahead and facilities for the people increase, they would not win the elections for the eighth time also. That was the reason why the Congress, Trinamool, etc., were trying to stall industrialisation in the state and the LF government would face the challenge, Sitaram said.

Replying to those who were questioning the assertion that socialisam was the future, Sitaram asserted that it was made on the basis of scientific understanding, not on the feelings of the Communists, and made it clear that human history would not re-enter the womb of capitalism, just as a born child could not re-enter its mother’s womb. Posing the question why, what could be done in West Bengal could not be done in the rest of the country, Sitaram Yechury called for people’s movements for polarisation of class forces. Pointing out that there were opportunities for it, Sitaram said that a situation was created when no government could be formed at the centre without the support of the Red Flag and that that would be the future.

Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy, secretary of the national council of the CPI and MP, said that it was extraordinary that the Left Front, having come to power in 1977, has been continuing in power gaining more and more strength over the years. The political maturity and unprecedented political consciousness of the people of West Bengal had contributed to the continuance of the LF government since then, Sudhakar Reddy said. Within the constitutional limitations of a state government, the LF government had scored unprecedented success in industrialisation and protecting secularism and communal harmony, he said. As a result of the policy of the LF government, no industry was closed down and it used its authority to protect the interests of the workers, Sudhakar Reddy explained. Rebutting the allegations that the communists were adopting double standards in relation to acquisition of lands, he made it clear that the communists were opposing allotment of lands which were more than actually required - of 8000 acres to Vedanta private university in Orissa and of lakhs of acres of land to the Ambanis in the name of SEZs. Allotment of about 1000 acres for a factory to be set up by the Tatas in Singur should not be equated with such unjustified allocations to a private university and the Ambanis, Sudhakar Reddy said. He criticised the Congress leaders of Andhra Pradesh who had taken a team of journalists to West Bengal for not telling facts. Explaining the Nandigram developments, he asked the media to publish facts. He questioned as to why the newspapers had not published the electoral victory of the Left in Nandigram. In the last general elections, despite extraordinary steps taken in the name of the election commisision against the Left by deleting names of thousands of eligible voters from the lists and changing officers in connection with the election duties, and despite the Congress, the BJP and Trinamool joining hands, the Left had won in more number of seats, Sudhakar Reddy explained. The impact of the efforts of the Left in West Bengal would be there on the country, he said. The struggles of the Left parties in the country and the ideal rule of the Left Front in West Bengal would put an end to bourgeois-landlord rule and pave the way for ushering in the Left rule, Sudhakar Reddy said.

Y Venkateswara Rao explained that the three-day meeting of the state committee of the CPI(M) had mainly discussed the ongoing land struggle in the state. He found fault with the Congress government for not making any specific proposals for solving the land problem in the meeting it had with the leaders of the CPI(M) and CPI. In connection with the land struggle, cases were registered on 22,000 people and about 3000 people were sent to jails, he said. Criticising the Congress government for its repressive measures to suppress the struggle for land and foisting cases of land grabbing on B V Raghavulu, state secretary of the CPI(M), and of treason on K Narayana, state secretary of the CPI, Venkateswara Rao warned that both the Parties would continue the struggle till the problems were solved. The Congress leaders from Andhra Pradesh met their party’s leaders, the TMC and SUCI in West Bengal and lacked the wisdom to meet the leaders of the CPI(M) and CPI and the ministers of that state, he said. After returning to the state, the Congress leaders were trying to mislead the people with their false propaganda, Venkateswara Rao said. T Lakshminarayana, state secretariat member of the CPI, said that the LF in West Bengal was the beacon light to the country. With the spirit of West Bengal, people’s movements in Andhra Pradesh would be strengthened he said.