WEST BENGAL -- A STATE THAT HAS PAID FOR ITS MAOIST IDEOLOGICAL FIXATION FOLLOWED BY FOOLISH LEADERSHIP

WEST BENGAL -- A STATE THAT HAS PAID FOR ITS MAOIST IDEOLOGICAL FIXATION FOLLOWED BY FOOLISH LEADERSHIP

I grew up in communist West Bengal and heard about the regeneration of the villages to the exclusion of the metropolis of Kolkata. I remembered opining thus that the capital city ought to be modernised in order that its energy may flow to its distributaries in the villages. Being completely apolitical and innocent of the nuances of the economics involved, I had inadvertently suggested the capitalistic method of power distribution which about the same time Deng Xiaoping was working out in China in a China-specific altered manner, though, but in line with our common thinking that the rural reconstruction programme of Mao at the expense of urban development was fundamentally flawed. While alleviating the misery of the poor villagers through rural reform is certainly welcome and an imperative for a government, to say the least, it is also incumbent on the government to alongside develop the urban sector where the industrial powerbase is centred. Chairman Mao had made the fundamental mistake of sending millions of Chinese from cities for re-education in agriculture in the villages. This was a terrible step backward and cost China dear with a perpetuating poverty from which Deng Xiaoping had to wage an economic war otherwise to rescue it.

The blood flows from the heart and the signals are received from the brain. If these two organs stop functioning, the body dies. So would China if Deng had not salvaged the situation when Mao died. His reforms, utterly un-communistic and patently capitalistic, lifted a billion strong China unto modernity which no agro-economic policy could have achieved. Education, modern and scientific, a strong centralised leadership, efficient management and a clear vision led Deng's China to where it is today as opposed to where Mao's China was when he died or would have ever been had his policies been perpetuated beyond his death. That the Left Front Government clung to Mao early on and to Deng only much later put paid to West Bengal's hopes of economic recovery, and we are even today in this sorry mess thanks to our present leadership who opposed the glorious industrial drive at Singur and led us to where we are. Indeed, capitalism well implemented can raise a population out of poverty and mere ideological utopian fixation fixes a people in perpetual poverty.

Written by Sugata Bose [Sugata Bose]

Photo : Buddhadev Bhattacharya, the enlightened Chief Minister, who set West Bengal on the path to economic recovery before infighting and ignorant opposition put paid to his hopes and dealt West Bengal the deathblow from which one hopes it can recover one day.