Ramachandra Guha thinks Modi is like Jyoti Basu. This is the most foolish possible comparison a 'historian of modern India' could make. Basu was an upper class radical who was jailed for perceived support of China in 1962. In 1967 he became deputy CM of Bengal a post he retained under a new coalition formed in 1969. Thanks to him, Bengal's industrial base began to collapse. Industrialists were stripped and beaten. Girls attending a concert were raped and killed. But Basu could not monopolize violence. The Naxals were even more radical and bloodthirsty. Basu had to call in central forces to defeat his enemies to the left. In-fighting on the Left and the Bangladesh victory permitted Congress to return to power but Basu was able to come back to power after the Emergency. But by then he was old and a little less crazy. What followed was thirty years of stagnation, corruption and thugocracy. Nevertheless, 'Gentleman' Basu could have been the Prime Minister of a coalition government. Basu was keen but his politburo shot down the idea for some obscure ideological reason. Still, by then, Bengal was a byword for stagnation and stupidity. It was only slightly less horrible than Bihar under Lalu.
Modi is nothing like Basu. He had never contested an election till he was appointed CM of Gujarat. But once in office he proved a superb administrator. After three terms as CM, he became the PM and appears likely to get a third term in that office. Under Modi, the BJP has become a truly national party- indeed, it is now the default national party. Under Basu, Communism ceased to be an all-India ideology. By the time he died, Mamta had come to power. Within a decade, Communism as a political force would disappear entirely from Bengal.
Only a Guha level cretin would compare Modi to Basu. Yet that is what the fool has done in an article in Scroll.
It seems to me that Narendra Modi and the BJP are emulating at the national level what Jyoti Basu and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had previously done in West Bengal.
The CPM could have become a national party. Basu was considered a viable candidate for PM less than thirty years ago. But Basu- though a gentleman- was shit. So was his party. Instead of helping the 'industrial proletariat', they harmed it by chasing away employers. Then they tried to grab land from peasants in too brutal a manner. Gangsterism had kept them in power but gangsters can be beaten to death. Thus, they tend to change sides before that happens.
By contrast, Modi and his party genuinely cares about Hindus who in turn genuinely love India. What is good for India is good for Indians. Nationalism combined with administrative competence is enough to keep a party in power no matter what exogenous shocks arise.
The Left Front, of which the CPI(M) is the principal constituent, was in power in West Bengal for 34 years. Jyoti Basu was chief minister of West Bengal for 23 of those years. And not a particularly effective chief minister either.
He was an exploded volcano. He was cruising on his past radicalism. Communism is favorable to gerontocratic leadership.
Like Modi’s BJP in India, Basu’s CPI(M) in West Bengal was both brilliant at winning elections and incompetent at governance.
Naveen Patnaik is brilliant at winning elections in Odisha. Like Basu, he is a patrician. Compare Basu and Patnaik by all means. But Modi is nothing like either. Who, in 2002, would have predicted that Modi would completely overtop and surpass older stalwarts like Keshubhai Patel, Shankarsinh Vaghela or the charismatic and highly educated Pravin Togadia?
The West Bengal of which Jyoti Basu became chief minister in 1977 had a robust industrial base
Nonsense! Basu had fucked up industry. True, it revived a little thanks to the Emergency. But once Basu returned, its fate was sealed.
, fine universities,
They had turned to shit because of Leftist craziness. At one time Calcutta University produced Nuclear Physicists like Satyendra Nath Bose- after whom bosons are named. Thanks to Basu and his ilk, it started to produce Naxalites.
access to the coast,
Even the Communists could not change that fact of geography. But they could cut down Bengal's share of maritime commerce.
and a thriving cultural life.
It was boring shite. In 1970, all cultured Indians had seen at least some Bengali films and knew the lyrics to some Bengali songs. By 1990, this was no longer true of any non Bengali under 30. I can't name a single noteworthy Bengali movie or poem or novel produced since 1977.
Had the state government been run wisely and well, West Bengal could by now have become one of the most developed states in India.
But for this to happen the buddhijivi and the bhadralok would have had to be disintermediated. Power would have had to go to 'backward' (i.e. productive, not parasitic) castes. Bangladesh turned the corner in the early eighties when privatization began. Labor rich countries need to make it easier to 'exploit' labor. Saudi Arabia would be very poor if it had prevented the exploitation of its natural resources.
Yet, by giving trade unions veto powers over what happened in factories, allowing party bosses in Alimuddin Street to dictate bureaucratic as well as university appointments, demonising capitalists and stifling entrepreneurs, Basu and the CPI(M) oversaw a long period of economic stagnation.
So did Bihar because Lalu wanted all decisions to be made by 'backward' similar to himself. Modi has no problem with smart people allocating resources efficiently by making smart, self-interested, decisions.
Companies with deep roots in West Bengal relocated to other parts of India. The party bosses oversaw an intellectual brain drain as well.
India no longer fears 'Brain drain'. It speaks of 'Brain gain'.
Nor, for all Its talk of rural uplift, did the Left Front do much in that sphere – today, a formerly backward, historically feudal, isolated hill state such as Himachal Pradesh is far more advanced than West Bengal in terms of education, health, and agricultural development.
Because a 'feudal'- Virbhadra Singh- can be better than a brain-dead buddhijivi blathershite. Obviously, a State untouched by Commie craziness will do better than one fucked over by the barristocrats of the Left Front.
The CPI(M) itself was one thing in West Bengal, quite another in Kerala.
Because Malayalis have this crazy idea that being smart or getting edumicated is about being more productive, and thus getting richer, rather than just talking incessant virtue signaling bollocks.
In the latter state, the Left was inspired by social movements for caste and gender equity
only if they actually boosted productivity or improved life chances
and, when in office, focused strongly on education and health.
because voters would pay for both so long as they were getting a better product at a cheaper price than through the market. Kerala has meritocratic, cadre based, parties which vigorously compete with each other.
That it held power alternately with the Congress in Kerala also forced a certain amount of accountability.
The Muslim League is meritocratic. Christians, too, have a lot of influence.
In terms of their contributions to human development, the communists in Kerala have a great deal to be proud of.
But the price was high emigration because of unfavorable business climate. Vijayan says he will change that. If he succeeds he will continue to defeat anti-incumbency. It remains to be seen whether Congress survives in Kerala. Rahul's pad-yatra has angered the Communists. They can bury the hatchet with the BJP by making common cause against the PFI. Meanwhile, Tharoor- denied the Presidency- may examine his options. Rahul may lose his seat.
Their comrades in West Bengal do not.
Their comrades have been beaten black and blue by Mamta's goons. They are beyond pride or shame. They are whimpering to be left alone.
And, yet, the CPI(M) kept winning elections in the state. Why?
Because it can get Hindu votes in an area where there are large, assertive, Christian and Muslim populations. It was the Kerala Communists who raised the 'Love Jihad' war-cry.
For one thing, its cadre were more numerous, more widely dispersed, and more committed than those of other parties.
Nonsense! The Muslim League- or, now, the PFI- has very committed cadres. Communism is appealing to South Indian Hindus because it enables us to elide caste while developing a muscular and pragmatic approach. Don't forget, beef is not a big issue in Kerala and TN. We can't get on board with some aspects of North Indian Hindutva.
While Jyoti Basu was the public face of his party,
not really. He was an extinct volcano. But he was a gentleman (unlike Mamta) and got on well with the Center.
his urbanity and refinement winning him praise from the middle-class of Calcutta,
which was emigrating as fast as it could
hardliners like Promode Dasgupta
who died in 1982
and Anil Biswas assiduously supervised the party’s growth in the districts.
Biswas was important. He came from a peasant background. He died in 2006. His choice of Comrade Buddha turned out not to be a stroke of genius after all. The party would have done better with a 'backward' not a badhralok face. Class prejudice killed Communism in Bengal.
Another reason for the CPI(M)’s long run of electoral successes was that despite its professed commitment to “proletarian internationalism”, to the voters it successfully presented itself as a party of Bengali pride. “Centre kom diyeche” (the Centre has given us less than our rightful share) became a rallying cry, especially at election time, when the Left Front’s main rival was the state unit of the Congress, the party in power for long stretches in New Delhi.
But Commies hadn't opposed freight equalization. Then they refused to let Basu become PM at the Center.
(Ironically, it is on the same plank of Bengali regional pride that the Trinamool Congress, now the dominant party in the state, has kept the BJP at bay, now the dominant party at the Centre.)
How is this ironic? States should whine about how little they get from the Center.
While sustained economic growth and job creation have been beyond the Modi government at the Centre (as it was for the Basu government in West Bengal),
Modi delivers growth despite adverse headwinds. Basu delivered deindustrialization.
each achieved some success with targeted welfare schemes. The land titles issued by the Left Front under “Operation Barga” were in this regard analogous to the cooking gas and free rations schemes promoted by the BJP.
No they weren't. The Communists didn't want the tenant to get title because they were committed to the Stalin/Mao model whereby land should be transferred to industry by the State. Thus the CPM bought administrative power at the price of abandoning the industrial proletariat and appeasing the 'kulak'.
By contrast, last mile delivery of essentials regardless of class, caste or creed, is independent of ideology and wholly a matter of governance, fiscal responsibility, vigilance against corruption etc.
These benefits have been leveraged at election time as proof that the incumbent regime could, albeit in a modest way, “deliver”.
All parties are now focused on deliverables. Kejriwal has just taken Punjab on that basis.
These political parallels between West Bengal in the past and India in the present are worth noticing.
No they aren't. The difference between changing property rights and delivering entitlements is that the latter depends crucially on administrative capacity and fiscal viability. This concentrates minds. By contrast, changing the property regime means you can sit back and do nothing while governance goes down the crapper. The 'Permanent Settlement' permanently fucked up administration. The Brits got an easy life but the productive population got poorer and less productive.
To be sure, there are some important differences as well. The hatred of a province for the national capital is not nearly as harmful to the social fabric as the hatred of a religious majority for an already vulnerable religious minority.
There was no such hatred. Bengalis happily moved to Delhi and did well.
Jyoti Basu was an ineffective administrator,
He had no interest in governing. The man was a born 'andolanjivi'- protesting against everything was what he lived for. Since Communism was created by Capitalism, the poverty Communism creates is actually Capitalism's fault. Thus we must redouble our efforts to protest Capitalism because we are getting relatively poorer.
but, unlike Narendra Modi, he never sought to build a personality cult around himself.
Nobody sought to build such a cult because the man didn't have an attractive personality or a personal narrative of achievement or overcoming adversity. He was a barristocrat who had taken up a particular cause and done well by it. Plenty of other lawyers have gotten rich by ruining their clients.
Basu had a basic decency,
No. He was a blood soaked tyrant. His own Home Minister gave a figure of 28,000 political murders in his twenty years of office. This was a grave understatement. No doubt, other Communist tyrants killed more but Basu & Co were less well protected from themselves being hacked to death. In addition to being cowards, they were also lazy.
a certain sense of propriety, that our current prime minister entirely lacks.
What 'propriety' does Guha have? He raves like Huccha Venkat.
He was also far more committed to protecting the rights of minorities
did he employ some Muslims to slaughter Dalits at Marichjapi? How very enlightened of him!
than Modi ever can be. Finally, holding back the progress of a state obviously hurts many fewer people than holding back the progress of an entire country.
India has progressed under Modi. Guha, on the other hand, has regressed. Even ten years ago, his academic reputation was rising, not plummeting.
Another major difference is that as the party in power at the Centre, Modi’s BJP has used its control over the investigative agencies to harass political rivals.
But it was the previous administration which tried to frame Modi and other Hindus.
A recent report in The Indian Express notes that 95% of politicians arrested or raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation since 2014 are from Opposition parties.
Which ruling party politician was ever raided by the CBI under previous regimes?
The Union government under Modi and Shah has also sought to distort the political process in their favour by the secretive electoral bonds scheme and by intimidating independent media channels and arresting journalists who speak the truth.
Good for them. Independent media channels are shit. Journalists don't speak the truth. They may be Naxals or PFI agents. This, at any rate, is the voter's verdict. Unlike Guha's ravings, it has some basis in 'common knowledge' of Indian reality.
These differences notwithstanding, the similarities in method and outcome are noteworthy.
Fuck off! Basu got Bengal and stayed there through Gangsterism and a variation of the land regime. But nobody wanted to imitate the 'Bengal model'. By contrast, Modi retained Gujarat by boosting both industrial and agricultural growth and improving governance and law and order. A big victory was the Tatas being forced to choose Gujarat over Bengal for the Nano project. Basu's methods secured the land for the Tatas by beating and raping. But CPM goons can themselves be beaten and sodomized. So, in the end, the Commies couldn't deliver. Modi could deliver. Why? Because his people got a fair deal. Modi took the people with him or else changed direction and ran to catch up with them. The Commies talked bollocks and presided over a corrupt kleptocracy which destroyed the life-chances of the Bengali people.
The modern history of West Bengal demonstrates very clearly that winning many assembly elections in a row is no guarantee of good governance or social well-being.
Mamta presides over a thuggish kleptocracy similar to that of Basu. The modern history of West Bengal demonstrates that power must pass from parasitic 'high caste' bhadralok buddhijivis to people whose ancestors actually worked for a living.
If the BJP continues to win general elections while running the country further into the ground, this might be the story of modern India too.
The story of modern India was the story of Congress winning elections and fucking up. It was variegated here and there by Commies or Casteist Socialists winning elections and fucking up. Then people from the RSS began to rise. Also, some Sikh economists gained a bit of political influence. Parasites were displaced by people who were interested in actually doing things- growing more food, producing more edible oil, exporting more goods and services- rather than virtue signaling or talking Bolshie bollocks.
It appears that in a single state as well as in the nation as a whole, having the same party in power for long, uninterrupted periods can lead to arrogance, complacency, and incompetence (or worse) in administration.
No it doesn't. Guha has to show that a State which has anti-incumbency or 'pendulum politics' has done better than Gujarat which has been BJP ruled since '98. There is no such State. Indeed, there has never been a politician like Modi. Gujarat prospered as never before during his three terms. India has improved in everyway during his two terms as PM. It is likely he will get a third term. Meanwhile Guha & Co have lost any sort of influence or reputation for political sagacity. Ten years ago, no one had heard of Prashant Kishore but Guha and Pratap Bhanu Mehta were considered authorities on Indian politics. Now, Kishore is hailed as the Chanakya of India while Mehta and Guha are laughed at.
Was this inevitable or did Guha and Mehta decline because of 'arrogance and complacency'? What no one can doubt is that neither are now competent to comment in any insightful or useful manner on Indian politics.
That hoary adage, “What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow”, is being proved true once again,
Guha doesn't get that West Bengal thinks Congress and the Left are shit. The BJP, from having zero seats in the Assembly, has become the official opposition party to Mamta. She is now saying nice things about Modi and the RSS. This may change but the fact remains that on the day Guha published this, the smartest person in Bengali politics was expressing pro-Modi, pro-RSS, thoughts.
albeit in a darker and more sinister fashion than ever before.
Guha likes blood-soaked barristocrats like Basu. It is very 'dark and sinister' that 'kali paraj' (backward castes) are becoming CM and PM. Chee, chee, these are lowly fellows, I say! They are totally lacking basic decency of smoking Cuban cigar and sipping French Cognac. Whatever next? Some damn tribal woman becoming President and sitting in Viceroy's mansion! Such atrocities are causing death of Queenji. Indians should learn their place. Otherwise, one of these days, I will run away to London/New Yuck and then all you horrible desis will cry and cry!
We already cry tears of laughter reading Guha. The cretin doesn't get that he is praising Modi by highlighting the changed attitude that Bengalis- including Mamta!- are evincing to the Prime Minister at the Center. What Bengal is thinking today, Guha will think tomorrow- if he is capable of thinking, that is.
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