Left lacks political imagination

Ever since the decline of the Left in West Bengal was evident in public eye, I have tried to reason it as a 'crisis of hegemony', 'failure in governance', compromise with the inherent left ideology and embracing neo-liberalism to match up with the inter-state competition following economic liberalisation. Following my recent interface with 'time' as a historical entity, I am now tempted to revisit my arguments about the decline of the Left after being in power for over three decades. This, however, presupposes the argument that I do not consider the recent trouncing of the CPI-M as an after effect of anti-incumbency. Had it been so it could have had happened after 10, 15, 20, 25 or 30 years and not at this moment in history when the mainstream left ideology is facing a global crisis.

Before making the case using time as a historical entity, let me enumerate my thinking so far about the decline of the Left in West Bengal, which has seen electoral manifestation since the Panchayat (local government) elections in 2008.

My understanding is that the assumption of power by the Left in West Bengal was solely a political project and the leaders barely had any economic or developmental objective in mind. This was evident through the various measures taken by the CPI-M, the dominant partner of the Left Front and also by the Jyoti Basu-led government. This includes land reform - providing land rights to the tillers like the small and marginal farmers and sharecroppers, basic improvement in minor irrigation, enhancing the salaries of the teachers in government schools and other employees in the state sector without ensuring that they are held to account etc. These measures in a way created a sense of belonging among the poor and the lower middle class Bengalees in favour of the government, without outlining the broad economic and developmental policies of the Left Front.

They also created an internal chain of support in favour of the CPI-M, which later gave way to the formation of a beneficiary class; in line with the patron-client relationship, which helped the Left to set up an internal mechanism to retain power. This patron-client relationship later turned into party-backed promoters in the urban and semi-urban areas and non-farm actors - like the primary school teachers, owners of rice mills, distributors of seeds and fertilisers etc. - in the rural areas.

Land reform on the other hand ensured a strong political support base for the Left in rural Bengal but the fragmentation of land created impediments for capital formation which was so essential for industrialisation. I have a suspicion that the Left leadership never had industrialisation in mind when they assumed power in 1977 and this only speaks of their failings in political imagination and also about their commitment to long term economic development in the state.

Lack of industries created a population of jobless and this led to draining out of talents to other states within India and also abroad, and West Bengal at one stage assumed a moribund identity, although the Left leadership would immediately denounce it. However, following economic liberalisation in India, globalisation of production chains and technological development, the population in West Bengal, especially the youth, were exposed to the fascinating changes that have been taking place both within India (in other states) and also abroad.

To cope with these challenges and that of inter-state competition to attract capital and also to cover up for years of non-performance, the Left leadership hurriedly tried to deliver some results. This in a way resulted in the Left embracing Neo-liberalism as a dominant economic doctrine, despite their ideological opposition to it. This initially created confusion within the traditional support base of the Left but the leadership mistook their 'hegemony' as a way of negotiating such a problem without proper debates within the party and the state. This eventually led to resistance and conflicts finally resulting in the Left being booted out of power.

The sequences of events described so far shows that the left leadership were manipulative in using various social elements to their political advantage, but were not imaginative enough to bring about desired socio-economic development in the state. The rhetoric of the leaders like Jyoti Basu, claiming West Bengal to be the best in the country in terms of agricultural productivity are not backed up by sufficient empirical evidence.

The dearth of political imagination of the Left leaders was also evident in their lack of understanding the difference between homogeneous and heterogeneous time. Although homogeneous time is utopian, yet capital and market have a tendency to negotiate with homogeneity rather than dealing with heterogeneity, which is more realistic. (This could be one of the reasons behind our fetish with growth.)

Capitalistic principles would possibly see growth and industrialisation as possibilities of economic improvement but constituents of heterogeneous time could very well disagree. The population within heterogeneous time might still prefer the traditional agrarian way of life over industrialisation. The broad identity of the population, which got disenchanted with the drive for industrialisation by the Left Front government, bears testimony to such an argument.

The Left being a political entity of grass root connection has failed to identify this element of heterogeneous time. The reasons for such failure could be lack of political imagination. Although they claim to portray a socio-economic and political thinking which is alternative to the mainstream discourse of capitalism, yet the events in West Bengal show that the thinking of the Left is heavily influenced by the way capitalism functions within utopian homogeneity.   

*I owe my thinking on using time as a framework of analysis to Partha Chatterjee of the Centre for the Studies in Social Sciences, especially his book 'The Politics of the Governed.' 

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