A govt gone wrong Under A Poor Administrator And A Worse Politician

Ravindra Kumar
The Statesman, 16 March

If nothing else, it ought to be evident to anyone with a modicum of sense that there is a conflict between the roles of the Home (Police) Minister of West Bengal on the one hand and the state’s Chief Minister and de facto Investments Minister on the other. It is Bengal’s tragedy that these functions have been vested in the same individual, and that one half of him is gullible enough to believe what the other says in public.

For in the process of wishing to go down as the man who charted the industrial rejuvenation of the state, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee faces the very real risk of being remembered as a poor administrator and a worse politician. And driving him on this road to disaster are sycophants, a bunch of self-serving bureaucrats and a couple of media owners masquerading as journalists who are as capable of supporting him as they are of turning tail if their commercial interests so compel them.

Greatest failure

Mr Bhattacharjee’s failure is not just that he was incapable of anticipating the resistance to his grand schemes. His greatest failure lies in not recognizing that the leader in a democratic set-up must at all times carry people with him. The Chief Minister seems to believe, as did Rajiv Gandhi after his 1984 triumph, that an emphatic electoral endorsement is a five-year licence to do what he wishes.

Mr Bhattacharjee’s fall from grace has been dramatic. Eight months ago, who could have thought that so many people would oppose what he wants to do, some to the extent of seeing in the actions of his police echoes of Jallianwala Bagh? Who would have thought that an old Marxist like Justice Krishna Iyer would be castigating, absolutely rubbishing the policies of a Marxist government? Who would have thought that the CPI-M would face so much opposition to its programmes from its own allies, to the extent that some of them would even think about calibrating their support? Or that significant numbers of the state’s Muslims, hitherto considered a safe vote bank, would actually resist a Marxist administration in the manner that they have?

These ought not just to be questions we are asking; these are questions that Mr Bhattacharjee and his supporters ought to be asking themselves, for there is a clear disconnect between the mandate that the Left Front received in the last election, and the manner in which it has been conducting itself since; between the promise of progress and the almost constant presence of roadblocks. So where lies the problem? Is it that the Chief Minister and some of his comrades in the party are arrogant? Or are they inefficient?

It cannot only be that, because West Bengal today is an amalgam of paradoxes and Mr Bhattacharjee’s bull-headedness alone cannot explain all that has gone wrong. There can be little argument with the fact that Mr Bhattacharjee is well intentioned; that he would like to see the state as a better place.

There can similarly be no argument with the fact that a major contribution to such betterment can come from investment in industry, creation of jobs, and thus of wealth. So where is this Government going wrong?

The evidence suggests that West Bengal is being inefficiently administered in that it is not, first, anticipating problems; second, not dealing with them transparently, and, third, not intervening until the problem has become much, much bigger than it ever need have been. Further, it would appear that the failure has been as much political as it has been administrative.

From the beginning, Mr Bhattacharjee has been less than forthcoming in divulging details of his deals with the Tatas and the Salims. He must be utterly naïve if he believes that in a democracy, where at least some elements in the Press are free of his control and of their own predilections, such matters could stay secret for ever. Worse, his administration has been hopelessly ham-handed, even dishonest in dealing with crises. The rape and killing of a girl in Singur was brushed under the carpet; the suicide of a farmer was described as the outcome of family squabbles; the first wave in killings in Nandigram were attributed to Muslim fundamentalists, and the police action this week is sought to be justified as a necessary consequence of the administration imposing its will on the people.

In the midst of all this, there has not been one gesture of humility, not one show of spontaneous humanitarian concern for those who died, not one piece of evidence to suggest that Mr Bhattacharjee is capable of owning up to a mistake. On the contrary, there have been stories and comments planted in friendly newspapers to suggest that the resistance is not so much an expression of popular will as it is an orchestrated campaign of parties on the Right and the Left to halt industrial progress.

Aiding and abetting the Chief Minister in his mindless march towards such industrialization is a Prime Minister who loses no opportunity to praise him to the skies and industrialists who camouflage their own greed for cheap land with pious pronouncements on progress. While they are each pursuing their own agenda, they cannot be blamed as much as the man who believes them.

Singur and Nandigram have been as much administrative failures as they have been political ones. We have no evidence of senior IAS or IPS officers, who ought to have had an ear to the ground, warning government of the intensity of reaction, or of having done so loud enough to have been heard. On the contrary, there is evidence that the bureaucracy, which has over the years abrogated many of its responsibilities to the party cadre, thought there would be little or no opposition, at least none that the party wouldn’t be able to deal with.

More naiveté is in evidence in Mr Bhattacharjee’s treatment of political problems. Many of his allies in the Left Front have viewed his policies and his style of functioning with circumspection. A wiser man would have attempted to convince them, or allowed himself to be convinced, before embarking on actions that pose a threat to all of them. There is, too, the question of ideological conflict for, as a veteran Communist MP told this writer, “not only are we expected to oppose policies in Delhi that our government in Kolkata is endorsing, we are being asked to accept that everything that we believed for so long is somehow wrong.” And worst of all, “we are being forced to cite the endorsement of a Prime Minister whose policies we believe are being drafted in Washington in support of our own Chief Minister.”

Introspection

If Mr Bhattacharjee is capable of introspection, of submerging the evil of arrogance to the extent of realistically assessing his own political position, he must do so, if only to ensure that the good there is in him gets a fair chance. The bureaucracy, too, needs to introspect before it blindly obeys orders. The Chief Secretary, the Home Secretary and the Director-General of Police must possess the moral courage to warn the Chief Minister of his foolhardiness.

And finally, the Left Front needs to introspect. Parties that claim to be driven by socialist ideals, that claim to reflect the will of the people, cannot turn ideology on its head as abruptly as the CPI-M is attempting to do. Similarly, parties that believe in devolution of powers cannot concentrate so much power in one man. At the very least Mr Bhattacharjee must be restrained; there are liberties at risk. Our liberties. There are lives at risk. Our lives. An undisclosed number of people of Nandigram would, if they were alive to do so, tell us just how great the risk is. Once details of this week’s tragedy unfold, we will know if the Chief Minister has a moral right to continue in office. But if he is to survive, his Home (Police) Minister must, at the very least, be sacked.

(The author is Editor, The Statesman)