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"We are trying to find an alternative path for our own development"

Marcus Dam

The Left Front in West Bengal entered its 30th year in power on June 21. In an interview toThe Hindu, Chief MinisterBuddhadeb Bhattacharjeespeaks of the changing perspectives over the last three decades, the new Left alternative being considered, and the path it is expected to determine. Excerpts:

Photo: Sushanta Patronobish.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee: "We are closely observing the changes that are taking place in China and Vietnam, and in Latin America ... We are trying to learn from what these countries are actually going through; in their economic polices, and in political terms."

You talk of the Left Front taking a new direction, treading a route never taken before. Could you elaborate?

The path we have taken is a totally un-travelled one. In the recent elections [April-May], the people have given a clear verdict. They want to move ahead with our progress, both in the agricultural sector and other social services. If you look back we are self-critically examining our successes and our failures. And on the basis of what we see we are trying to make a perspective plan for the coming years. But I am also very conscious that we have no role model.

Perspectives and priorities have most certainly changed over the past three decades.

When we formed the first Left Front government in 1977 we did not realise at that time that we are going to run this government for almost three decades. Therefore, from our past experiences, from our successes and failures, we are having to formulate our programmes accordingly. The main thing I would like to emphasise is that this is an un-travelled path and we have to frame our policies on the basis of our understandings, our political philosophy, and our readings of the objective situation in the country.

We are closely observing the developments taking place all over the world; changes that are taking place in China and Vietnam, on one side, and in Latin America, on the other. In the latter, a new type of Leftism is emerging and an interesting idea is also emerging — that of the Bolivarian alternative. We are trying to learn from what these countries are actually going through; in their economic polices, and in political terms what is the alternative as well as how they are fighting the political and military hegemony of the USA. This is one experience.

But you have been increasingly looking at China and often cite it as an example of a successful economy.

That is the second experience — China and Vietnam. They learnt lessons from the failures of the Soviet Union that stemmed from being totally cut off from world economy, its highly centralised command economy, and also the absence of the concept of market forces. These countries have decided that this command system does not work, that they will have to ensure different forms of socialist economy including allowing private capital and foreign investment in the country, and will have to join world trade.

And when it comes to closer home?

We are very conscious that we are just a State and can't treat West Bengal like a sovereign country. We have to work within the framework of the general economic policies being pursued by the Centre. But our question is what is the alternative for West Bengal. We are trying to find an alternative path for our own development in the State. There is the question of land and agriculture and our constant endeavour is to pursue with our land reform policies. We are still distributing land which was under the Government and under litigation. We are now claiming this land. More than 72 per cent of the total cultivable land here belongs to poor and marginal farmers. This is the Left alternative; if you compare it with any other part of our country where hundreds of acres belong to big landowners. The panchayats are also in the hands of the poor farmers. Taking together land reforms and the panchayati raj, our agricultural growth rate is four per cent whereas the national average has come down below two per cent.

This is one alternative. Secondly, we are trying to attract investment in industry and in infrastructure. The main reason is to increase employment opportunities. We are inviting FDI but only in those areas where we do not have technology. We need to improve our productive force and, of course, increase job opportunities. We cannot ignore IT and bio-technology but our emphasis is on the manufacturing sector and particularly small and medium enterprise [SMEs]. We have to improve our agricultural productivity but have to shift gradually from agriculture to industry, small and medium.

Therefore we are giving importance to SMEs, in handloom and sericulture, for instance. The new areas emerging in the small and medium sector are jute products, plastics, machine-tools, leather — these sectors offer many job opportunities. For the highly educated we are giving importance to IT [information technology] and bio-technology. We are also trying to improve the service sector — education, health, tourism, entertainment, IT, and telecommunications. We are planning accordingly. This is the Left alternative in industry.

Are we looking at an economy being increasingly driven by market forces in this era of globalisation?

Some people think you have to only follow the market economy. But we don't think [the] market economy is omnipotent. Yet we can't just bypass the market. In our case we allow market forces to operate but we also know that it marginalises the poorer sections of the society. As a Left government we have to take care of these people. We will also have to take care of the workers who have lost their jobs following the closure of factories — something which is a national phenomenon. We are trying to give them some allowances, provide them training programmes. In certain cases we are trying to reopen the factories like we have Dunlop Ltd. and Jessop.

We also have to seriously do something for the workers of the unorganised sector like construction workers, bidi workers. Real estate business is booming, townships are coming up but the interests of construction workers need to be protected. We have come up with a new law to protect unorganised workers and announced Provident Fund benefits for them. This is another aspect to the Left alternative — to protect the interests of farmers, the workers, those in the unorganised sector and backward sections including the tribals and ethnic minorities.

The Left Front has been in power for close to three decades. When was it that it started becoming conscious of the need for a `Left alternative'?

In the initial years we had no idea that [we] will run this government for nearly 30 years... Then we concentrated on the rural areas, land reforms and related issues — this was one phase, between 1977 and 1987. After the so-called neo-liberal policies in the country we took the position that we must have a clear industrial policy. We announced it in 1994. At a time when the so-called liberalisation and globalisation forces were coming into being across the world we thought we must have a Left alternative to all this. It is from the mid-nineties that we started on our own new experience in all areas.

Are the other Left coalitions elsewhere in the country doing the same?

Our party — the Communist Party of India (Marxist) — has been taking a stand against neo-liberal policies, against disinvestment in the public sector undertakings, on issues like labour laws, against foreigners entering our retail market. Do we really need the Americans to sell our vegetables?

But in the States where we are running the government, particularly in West Bengal, we have to take certain concrete decisions, to implement the policies we advocate. Kerala might have to do the same.

Politically the Left Front over the past 30 years has virtually had no challenger. Is this desirable in a democracy?

In our State we should have a viable Opposition that criticises the government policies and comes out with alternative suggestions; this helps the ruling party. This time we got little more than 50 per cent support. This is unique. But neither can we forget the other side of the story — nearly 50 per cent of the voters did oppose the ruling front. We cannot ignore half the population who have chosen the Opposition parties, even though the number of these parties' seats is small. If we have to move forward we must take the Opposition parties. I cannot help it if their number is so very small.

You have talked of the need to improve performance of past government. What is perceptible is that you are increasingly seeking the opinion of experts and specialists when it comes to framing government policy.

We are running this government for more than 29 years now. We realise the need to take opinions from different corners particularly from experts and professionals. Without that you can't formulate clear policies. We have requested the Indian Statistical Institute to help us with a survey on the conditions of the life of minorities in our State. We are thinking of setting up an expert committee on administrative reforms and are trying to involve the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, in how to improve the quality of administration. We have asked from the North Bengal University a perspective plan for north Bengal, the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, to help us formulate our development policies for the most backwards areas in south Bengal.

In a civil society you must have close contact with many democratic institutions, experts' and professional bodies. Earlier, communists used to think, as might have been in the case of the erstwhile Soviet Union, that communists know every thing under the sun. This is not right.

You have talked of a new direction for the government. Nearly one-third of your Ministers are new. Are we looking at sweeping functional changes?

We have not started with a clean slate. It is not possible. We have discussed the earlier performance of all our major departments in the party and from that we have changed a good number of MLAs and got new Ministers. It is a continuation of the earlier Cabinet. But we have seriously to ponder over the areas we earlier failed — why did we do so? We have to correct our mistakes to improve our performance.

This exercise has begun, one would presume.

Yes it has, with all earnestness.

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"We are trying to find an alternative path for our own development"

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