The Left parties are at it once again—trying to position themselves as ardent nationalists and champions of the country's interests. Over the past three years, ever since they've managed to exert an inordinate amount of influence (not commensurate with their actual strength) on New Delhi's policies, the Left parties have been systematically attempting to portray themselves as a viable, if not only, alternative to the two national parties and their alliances. And the Indo-US nuclear deal, which they say will compromise India's interests and hence should be dumped, has come as another occasion for the Left to flex its muscles, mislead the people of India and seek to emerge as a pan-Indian party that wants to preside over this country's destiny.
But is the Left really capable—morally, ideologically and intellectually—of protecting and promoting India's interests? An honest answer to this can be sought and found from the Left's track record in Bengal, a state they've ruled, or misruled, for more than three decades now. A dispassionate study of the policies followed by them would reveal that save for a few, like land reforms, the Left has jettisoned and junked—after publicly admitting that they were 'mistakes'--most of the major ones they had so vociferously advocated and implemented over more than 30 years. Let me list some of these 'follies':
Banished English: Immediately after coming to power, the Left Front in Bengal banished English from primary schools. English was, they said, the language of the hated bourgeois classes and imperialists and was a means of subjugating the poor and keeping them shackled and in a state of economic and social deprivation for eternity. So out went English. This hatred for the English language was not confined to primary school classrooms alone, but ardently followed at the high school, college and university levels. Speaking in that language was, in fact, frowned on and considered politically incorrect or even a display of 'reactionary' behaviour. Thus, generations of Bengalis grew up without any knowledge of English and, as a result, lost out heavily in matters of higher and technical education, employment and other facilities to their counterparts from other states. It was only a few years ago that the Left Front government realised this folly and overturned the policy, re-introducing English at the primary school level. But by then, lakhs of Bengali boys and girls, men and women, had lost out and suffered immeasurably. (The children of the Left leaders, however, had all been educated in English-medium private schools and never had to suffer.) The Left parties have remained totally unapologetic about this 'mistake'; but more than this, it is their sheer nonchalance over having destroyed so many careers and having callously played with (and ruined) the lives of lakhs of men and women that's galling and unpardonable.
Computers, the Left parties had been shouting from the rooftops till even five years ago, were anti-worker and would render lakhs of people jobless. Computerisation was a ploy of the 'capitalist' and 'exploitative' classes to bring workers and employees to ruination. They had even proclaimed it was a neo-imperialist ploy of the USA and the West to subjugate Third World and developing countries. Office automation had to be opposed and the Left launched a shrill, often violent, movement against introduction of computers in offices and establishments; they had even opposed introduction of lessons on computer operations in schools. As a result, while the rest of the world and India marched ahead, Bengal floundered and lagged behind. Five years ago, the Left, led by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, discovered the benefits of computers, computerisation, IT and IT-enabled services and sectors and, overcoming its earlier antipathy, zealously launched a drive to promote computerisation and teaching software programming and other related subjects in educational institutions. This was coupled with an overdrive to attract investments in the IT and ITeS sectors in Bengal. But by the time Bengal's Leftists woke up, other states had raced ahead and Bengal is still trying to catch up with them. In the process, the sufferers have been the people of the state in terms of opportunities lost. But no, the Left has never bothered to apologise for this folly. In fact, some rigid and doctrinaire elements in the CPI(M) and its allies still cling to the 'computers are evil, imperial devils' stance.
Business: Even before capturing power in Bengal, the Left parties had launched a virulent campaign against private capital, industrialists and businessmen. 'Tata, Birla go back' was the credo of the Left till very recently. Private capital was evil and industrialists and businessmen were class enemies who had to be obliterated. This policy, aggressively pursued after the Communists captured power in Bengal, resulted in the flight of capital from the state and, consequently, economic downslide and ruin. It was only after two and half decades, in the last leg of Jyoti Basu's tenure, that the Left parties realised the monumental folly of this policy and overturned it to shamelessly start courting industrialists and businessmen, falling over backwards to get them to invest in Bengal. Even American businessmen, or perhaps especially they, will have the red carpet rolled out for them in Bengal today. While it is good that the Communists have realised the utter foolishness in driving away capital and have done a U-turn on that, they've never publicly owned up to this folly and acknowledged responsibility for having brought Bengal to the brink of ruination. Communists, given their supreme arrogance, can't be expected to do such a thing.
Trade Unionisms: Coupled with this anti-private capital idiocy was another dangerous policy actively followed by the Left all these decades—promoting irresponsible and militant trade unionism. Wildcat strikes, bandhs, verbal and physical assaults on owners and their managers, and much more, led to lockouts in industrial units and closure of many commercial establishments. Companies moved their offices out of Bengal. Consequently, lakhs of people were rendered jobless. This policy of encouraging militant trade unionism is being abandoned only now, with Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee leading the lobby within the Left that talks of responsible trade unionism. In fact, Bhattacharjee has gone one step further and has spoken out against the formation of employees' unions in sunrise sectors like IT and ITeS. But many in the Left ranks still swear by workers' rights to go on strikes, make unreasonable demands and rough up their employers if such demands are not met. However, even though these hardliners will soon realise the imprudence of encouraging workers to behave so irresponsibly and militantly, the Left will never acknowledge, leave alone apologise or atone for having encouraged this trend and for having been singularly responsible for closures and lockouts and, consequently, loss of lakhs of jobs in Bengal.
International Institutions: Till not very long ago, institutions like the World Bank, IMF and ADB were anathema to the Left in Bengal. The Communists here were vehemently opposed to taking loans from these 'capitalist' and 'imperialist' institutions which, they dogmatically believed, were out to undermine the country's economy and subvert it to suit US and Western imperialism. The Left even sought to apply the brakes on the Union Government negotiating loans and aid from these institutions. But of late in Bengal, the ruling communists have realised the irrationality of shunning the World Bank or ADB and have enthusiastically lined up to seek aid from them. It's a different matter that some hardliners in Kerala still pursue the same policy, but they too will come around soon; Communists don't take time to change colours anyway. But a lot of time has already been lost, along with many opportunities. Had the Left in Bengal not reserved such irrational disdain for the World Bank or ADB, a lot of development, especially in infrastructure, could have taken place much earlier. That it hadn't has been Bengal's loss.
Urban Neglect: The Left Front in Bengal had pursued an absurd policy of neglecting Kolkata and refrained from establishing and developing other urban centres in the state. The reason they held out was supposedly ideological—that the rural areas required and deserved equal, if not more, attention than Kolkata. As a result of this weird and inexplicable anti-urban policy, Kolkata fell into neglect and slid into becoming perhaps the worst city in the country in terms of infrastructure, civic amenities, entertainment options and even cultural development. This led to the urban elite (the best and the brightest, actually, from all spheres), already reeling from the impact of shrinking economic opportunities (thanks to the Left's pursuit of other policies listed above), hastening their migration from Kolkata. This city, thus, became a cesspool of mediocrity. Kolkata's neglect is the sole reason for its underdevelopment and that's why it still fails to attract the best and the brightest. The Left Front government has, of late, tried to hasten the city's development, but there's a lot of catching up to do with other urban centres in India that have forged ahead.
The collective impact of all these blunders committed by the Left in Bengal was there for all to see—a state and people with a lot of potential that sunk into the morass of poverty, despair and hopelessness. A state that was once the leader in the field of industries, commerce, economic development, arts, culture and intellectual development sliding slowly to the bottom of the heap. And it is not the Left parties who brought about such sad devastation that suffered. It is the people of the state who have. And they've suffered terribly. People in the rest of the country should learn from the Bengal experience and deny the Left any room to put its retrograde, myopic and destructive policies into effect.
Getting back to the nuclear deal, though its complex technicalities may appear incomprehensible to most of us, one would rather go by what a person like Dr Manmohan Singh says rather than buy the specious, warped and dogmatic statements spewed by the fire-breathing Left leaders. And if an innately decent and honest person like Dr Singh says India's interests haven't been compromised at all by the deal, that's good enough for me and for most Indians, I'm sure. And what our Prime Minister says has been attested by nuclear experts who are known to be hawks on India's right to develop nuclear weapons.
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Why, then, has the Left suddenly upped the ante and wants the deal scrapped?
Its visceral hatred of the USA can't be the sole motivating factor in this opposition. For, had that been the case, the Left would have raved and ranted against the deal right from the day it was proposed two years ago and all through the tumultuous negotiations between India and US. It did not, save for making the customary protesting noises at regular intervals. The Prime Minister's challenge to the Left in the course of an interview to a Kolkata-based newspaper last week couldn't also have angered the Left so much.
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The reasons, I suspect, can be found across the border. That the CPI(M)'s masters in Beijing aren't at all happy with the deal and would love to scupper it is very well-known. Especially since, as it has now been revealed, a similar US-China nuclear deal of 1985 (but ratified by the US Congress a full 13 years later) is heavily loaded against China. China's rulers haven't been able to stomach the fact that not only is India set to sign a nuclear deal with the USA and thus gain a seat at the nuclear high table, but Indians have also been able to wrest better terms from Uncle Sam than the wily Chinese. Thus, while the Indo-US deal includes supply of fuel and India's right to reprocess spent fuel, the agreement with China does not. China has had to accept bilateral inspections by US inspectors while there's no such clause in the Indo-US deal. USA's nuclear deal with China is linked to various external factors like China's relations with Pakistan, its behaviour in Tibet and its non-proliferation record. The Indo-US deal has no such linkages, nor does it provide any role to external agencies to oversee the separation between civilian and military reactors in India, unlike the US-China deal that forced China to allow Australia to attest its separation plan.
Naturally, with the Indian negotiators having done much better with the US than their Chinese counterparts many years ago, the Chinese, their precious egos punctured, have been bristling with rag.But it is not just that. It wouldn't be difficult to imagine, consequently, the rulers in Beijing directing their minions at New Delhi's AK Gopalan Bhavan to suddenly raise the pitch and threaten the Manmohan Singh government with a 'US or us' ultimatum in the hope that New Delhi will develop cold feet and ultimately abandon the deal. That would benefit China the most, because a deepening of Indo-US strategic ties that the nuclear deal would herald would be the biggest stumbling block towards complete Chinese hegemony in SouthAsia, which is what they fear the nuke deal is engineered to prevent. No wonder, then, that the (state-controlled) media in China has been reveling in the crisis that Beijing's foot soldiers in India have precipitated. And that's reason enough for Indians not to trust the Left, particularly the CPI(M). Not only is their track record in governance extremely poor (as the Bengal experience shows), their commitment to the country's strategic and other interests is also suspect.
