A death, pain and pangs of new individuals

A death, pain and pangs of new individuals

By Abir Chattopadhyay
abmo2020@yahoo.co.in
Lecturer, Department of Mass Communication
S.A. Jaipuria College
Kolkata

Abstract: This paper puts forward a profound cultural critique on lynching fatalities and uproar for justice as a common favoured aftermath, as referent to the detailed signification of the painful death of a young boy Rizwanur Rehman. In this course the paper introduces its readership barely with all the socio-cultural factors or parameters involved reaching the core of the truth. While moving into the content this paper rejects even a slightest presence of self-proclaimed narrative that may dominate the text and also refuses obviously arrive at a grand-narrative in favour of a sponsored myth. The death of an individual is no match to have a dominant and authoritarian social tag-line with it. So this paper moves into factorizing all likely socio-cultural facets with a secular outlook thus theorizing socio-cultural outcomes like pangs of such deaths occurred in the Indian subcontinent. Alongside, this paper is sharply directed to the premature growth of neo-liberal individuality as a deterrent to any form of state initiative that affects social and individual elites. However this paper briefly deals with some unsolved fatalities in West Bengal and India occurred in the last one or two years, offers a definitive indeterminacy and a compulsive puzzle that common people confront along with an array of metaphors as dominant narratives like ‘sustainable development’, ‘2nd generation economic reforms’, ‘nuclear powered nation’, ‘9% economic growth rate’, ‘twenty thousand SENSEX’ etc. whereas the statistical figures tell us nearly 40% of the population live in very close to the poverty line [below or above]. So this paper gives a detailed account of the situation rather than a mythic resolution.

Introduction: Our rights and lives
Be it not with the grand narrative of deaths caused by the dominant authority or even be it not with a research toward the statistical figuration of the lynching deaths caused by the authority or the state power, a painful death of a young man has set a massive uproar in West Bengal, toward ‘against’ an undifferentiable outcome of a power structure that is reported to have gained its momentum in the contemporary period of time than from its immediate past [history]. The whole narrative of the death tells us a single dimensional story of a young boy Rizwanur Rehman has been put to death after being forcibly accused by the Police officials for marrying a Hindu affluent girl Priyanka Todi. His body was found at a railway track, on 21st September, 2007, at 10-30AM(1) that prima facie puts up the issue as a case of suicide and at this moment a subjudice matter though the hue and cry certainly is not. In accordance with the culturation trade off process of postmodernity the narrative is gradually taken care of and sprung up by the media. As soon after the painful death as possible, Rizwan was first identified as the victim of state power by some individualists, like human-rights activists and journalists and of course by the political opposition. As the days are moving on, a phenomenal and very sensitive cultural segmentation of urban Bengal society is coming up visible. This segmentation is visible into distinct five categories; the government and its officials [specially Police], press & media, individualists [a handful portion of intelligentsia], mercantile people [includes the prospective investors coming in this region], and finally inevitably the common mass [an eternal absorbent of all possible signifieds of mediated message, who lit candles of protest, pray for justice and organize movements]. Though the above categories can also be put into two main structures of signification; i.e. mediator and the mass, but like undifferentiated conceptualization of power, a simple massification of people may lead to generate a false consciousness toward getting a radical signification of the text. So the whole narrative, as we the common mass is getting, needs to be analyzed in profound detail. This paper would en-route the ‘death’ toward a definite cultural loss incurred that has resurfaced the underlying cultural fragmentation terminating the spontaneous conception and manifestation of heterogeneity or individuality in a social format where individual human being might act as a social being if that is not an utopian ideation.
The death of Rizwanur has put forward many questions targeting multifaceted authoritarianism in the society. Most pertinent among them are, the question of both ethnic & religious regimentation and the question of exerting armed power [allegedly done by the police officials threatening Rizwan and Priyanka](2). At this moment in the whole country [India] number of cases are coming up that assure a massive acculturation toward concentration of administrative power that protects some, may be somewhere, upper caste, or upper class, or aberrant political decoding etc. Moreover against the national agenda of industrialization process in states rather among competing state governments the common feature of opposition becomes very prone to life-taking exercises where ethnic, religious decodings are predominantly used to oppose the authoritarian narrative that “India needs to be industrially grown to generate employment opportunities!!”. But in every case of movement against the state power the most subversive outcome is the rallying of deaths of common innocent people. Though this paper is nowhere directed to depoliticize every social outcome [both developmental and subversive] but determined also to identify the axiomatic presence of shallow provincial political outlook which is steadily coming up regulate the future of this country.
However meanwhile this painful and unnatural death of Rizwanur occurred and as not being at all a political murder a newer cultural signification is ruling all the coming up narratives which emit lots of mythic syntagms around us; say about the fundamental individual rights, constitutional provision toward legal social bondage, even the right to lead a secular life etc. as if, Rizwanur should have got that opportunity to enjoy those rights as others do!!!
But what if the death would have occurred in a political framing like thousands in the last forty years? Why I am asking this question backgrounds both political consciousness and growing socio-political criminalization in India specially the eastern region that have been contributed with so many deaths in the last forty years but very few voices asking for human rights were seen if it was not none. Huge number of cases was filed up though justice was hardly achieved. Even alongside the death of Rizwanur within last 5-6 months more than thirty deaths tolled particularly in West Bengal in such reining political situational context(3). Way back in 2002 thousands of religious minority people were killed in Gujarat and still the whole judgment is yet to get completed. In such earlier cases individualists along with different political sects have been protesting within the constitutional provision available, but in this particular situation public probing initiatives were denounced drastically and both central and state govts. were failed to establish control over this issue.

Failure of public initiatives?
However in this complex situation, where state govt’s effort investigating the death of Rizwanur were denounced and alongside the deliberate withdrawal of govt. following the mediated public demand [as announced by the state Chief Minister accordingly], the signification of the whole case seems to be at the custody of people’s own forum, as it is being mediated without a pause by all the media houses. All of them claim to remain alert and assure its publics accordingly. Some media assurances are even to fight till the last drop of blood. So the whole case along with the investigation by the top autonomous investigating agency of India [i.e. Central Bureau of Investigation- CBI(4)] is nowadays coming up at the day’s prime commercial slots. Though earlier the state govt. announced CID [Criminal Investigation department- a department under state home administration] enquiry and judicial enquiry simultaneously that wouldn’t be unbiased as signified by the family members of the deceased. Actually the signification was fumigated by incessant mediation of a prime mythic statement that if the police perpetrated the separation of Riz and Priyanka and is suspected to put Riz into death, then how a departmental [Home Affairs] enquiry would be unbiased. So the responsibility of investigation was thus given to CBI- the autonomous investigating agency [though is governed directly by the Prime Minister’s Office].

Clash of mythologies not civilizations:
Now the question is if CID enquiry is not unbiased what about CBI investigation? Does CID perpetrate its job efficiently? Or CBI does? These two mythic statements are both well supported by some second order myths and some amount of past records of both organizations. Basically if any one tries out sociological significations in Indian context, he or she has to confront such multilayered clash between mythic statements which is often justified as paradigms of debate, though everyone is confirmed about the indeterminacy of such issues. If CID is not unbiased, then CBI also has failed to conclude the theft of Nobel memento of Rabindranath Tagore [the first Nobel Laureate literateur in Asia] from Viswabharati University Archive, the killing of Tapasi Malik, the innocent village girl brutally killed and burnt in Singur [the cite where TATA group of industries is now setting up biggest automobile factory in Eastern India], on 18th December, 2006(5), but the CBI investigation is more looking highly motivated to malign state administration than unveiling the truth and thus failed to prove anything till date. Even in Tapasi Malik case CBI has failed so far to constitute appropriate charge against their proclaimed suspect and detained that person for over last five months. They failed to constitute charge against the prime accused of Nithari killing case in Noida [a psycho serial killer alleged to kill more than 50 children](6). But does this comparative study prove anything substantial? However this debate is probably a never-ending story and doubtlessly a mediated indeterminate format which claims indeed deconstruction of a dominated structured culture but ends up with a limited agency-ship where participatory value of an individual is culturally too ephemeral. The death of Rizwan has nowadays replaced that of Tapasi Malik in terms of ‘public opinion,’ howsoever both are equally painful.

Who are the publics and the individuals?
Now the question is if the public opinion is finally to be taken into ace consideration then who are these publics. Are they powerful to change the dominant ideation? When we are talking about public opinion, are we taking ‘public’ as an undifferentiable living object at least largest portion of them is living with a consensus? If it is so, how then largest portion of them vote for a political wing for last thirty (!!) years without a pause? [It is to be noted carefully that in West Bengal a particular political wing (left front) has recently observed their consecutive 30th anniversary of ruling the state from 1977 winning consecutive seven state assembly elections by absolute majority, thus setting up a new world record and of course a paradox in terms of the massive hue and cry for the death of Rizwan]. On the other hand when CEO, Time Warner Dick Persons and US Finance Secretary Henry Polson have been visiting the state capital Kolkata, two general strikes on 29th and 30th of October, 2007(7) on this particular issue and some other killing incidents are there probably receiving these two celebrities. In this juncture can the politics of individuality ensure the expression ‘public opinion’ so unique to be identified as consensus or even deviant? Answer is needless to be secret. Even if the public opinion, rather it does, call for an unbiased investigation, would it be reflecting such temporal agony against the govt. or specifically roar against the involved personnel? But in the myth of public expression a newer form individual politics comes out leaning on a very sophisticated cultural or market base to outrage the bit older form of political identity of an individual [which in global north countries is conditionalized as modernity]. So the politics of new individuality basically, of course in India, squeeze out the individuality from it older social base and conforms alternatively with only the bare symbols like ‘candles’ and ‘signatures of the passers by’ and forgets hundreds victims of lynching deaths like, Tapasi Malik, the poor village girl, Sadhu Chattopadhyay, the low grade police officer(8), and other more than fifty deceased poor identities who are invested to death this year in West Bengal. [Anecdote-1: Anyone may think beyond his / her imagination level the Indian situation in terms of death toll in political decoding, underworld decoding, social decoding [hunger, poverty (Table-1), and malnutrition], religious fundamentalist decoding, insurgency decoding and finally atrocities as perpetrated by the police]. A tree of general statistics (Table-2) on various deaths occurred in India in last few years is given below signifying the exact situation and flood of fatalities in India.

Table-1: Deaths in India 2006
2,765 people died in terrorism-related violence in India during year 2006.
Nearly 41 per cent of all such fatalities occurred in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) alone as a result of the Pakistan-backed separatist proxy war in that State.
27 per cent resulted from Left Wing Extremism (Maoism/Naxalism) across parts of 14 States, prominently including Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Karnataka.
23 per cent of the total fatalities in 2006 occurred in the multiple insurgencies of India’s Northeast.
Source: Institute for Conflict Management database

Why this individual politics is looking aberrant though shouting for justice?
Notwithstanding the candles reflect a firm and true symbol of homage and also protest against such painful death of a fellow, the opinion of public is still a much more mediated signification than what it should have been naturally. But before that we must question our individual selves that what if I am asked for spending some of my valuable time and space with this case in front of CBI enquiry in exchange of a signature? The most surprising turn would have been that last SMS-message of Rizwan “Mere jane ke bad awaz uthana” [After I depart raise your voice — 21st September, 2007, at around 10 in the morning, nearly half an hour before his body was found](9) to his student Mrs Alpana Joli [a part time teacher of ‘Arena Multimedia’ where Rizwan has been working as a teacher], but she has reiterated already that the SMS content was only ‘Awaz Uthana’ [Raise Voice] which adds hardly any value to this case in terms of investigation. If anyone is still apprehensive about the justification of the above implosive question to be asked to any individual, the clarification would then be, the degree of participation in both social practices or social structuration process otherwise as a free agent [if anyone considers social being is a cliché symbol for a human being to be identified properly] is totally an undecided or undefined syntax in terms of gross socialization process in India. Apart from extremely multifaceted ethnic concentration and langue-differentiation, the prime impeding factor for small civil [intellectual or high cultural] groups moving into an issue to set a trendy verdict for all, is virtually the array of distinguishable cultural gaps between urban and rural population, high and low cultural population, and above all higher and lower economic classes, which is sufficient to dislocate any form of social movement toward a deserted end and may dry it up ultimately. Therefore if anyone proclaims about ‘public opinion’, he / she either must pay prime attention into these factors or would definitely disseminate a mythic statement and try to overrule every step taken by the establishment and may even claim for some unexplored metaphors like public verdict, public court etc. and many other aberrant decodings.

Why so aberrant in India?
Does this interpretant have same structural composition at all in European context or in American context? Certainly no, because in India, people inhabit still in a very low grade capitalist socio-economic format where the state power, even after 60 years of independence from colonial repression [1947], could not propagate and hardly bother people to be conscious about the fundamental rights [forget about conscious effort] available for them. Moreover after the completion of 10th 5-year economic and social plan near about 25% of the total population live still in below the poverty line and even more than that live just in above the poverty line. Most interestingly if you try to eliminate this whole population as not required in any opinion formation programme, still knowledge gap is highly vicious in between high and low cultural categories of population. [Anecdote-2: therefore why global media find suddenly India as the future destination of neo-liberal capital and culture is not the percentage but the real number of people in this second most populace region in the world. Basically India is practicing neo-liberal globalization in economic and cultural sectors not as resultant of saturation of state-based [country] capitalistic practice, rather, on an incomplete capitalist base where the state only holds the power to mould its people and is also supposedly the prime initiator of all developmental activities]. Thus indigenous opinion-leadership decoding is not a very tiring job or something responsible one, compared to other global north nations or countries. But the final question at this juncture is that, are Indian people really unconscious? No, but they certainly need an open space to have a continuous interaction with all the surfaces on an equitably determinate cultural plane. This is the main reason why left front rule West Bengal for last 30 years without break. Though nowadays the situation is changing, still it remains determinant why individual politics looks so aberrant in Indian social format where general people hardly get a space to interact with each other. And above all, these individuals despite looking for justice belong to some hidden discursive political formats [chiefly different ultra-left political wings] which ultimately establish the ‘signified’ of pseudo-individuality. So in spite of the public or audience or the general people being conscious but don’t find enough collective exposure except the older decaying or degenerating political space [both left and right] that still available for them to form public opinion. So trying to set a narrative on any issue in Indian context is just equivalent to de-knot consecutive social tangles or imperatives.

New paradigm of media culture?
The globalization initiatives developed so far in this country does not scale a post-industrial cultural approach, so all efforts toward development taken by the federal governments [both centre and state] target its people for least amount of cultural reorientation of people of course in its favour [building new flyovers, better civic amenities, better housing development, better trafficking etc. all jointly with private investors nowadays], e.g. struggling hard for reorienting its people with a message signifying ‘industries are needed for employment generation’. Naturally all these efforts leave out some compulsive cultural gaps [knowingly or unknowingly hardly matters] while communicating this message-signifier. This is where media find its operating space and target the same unsaturated audience-psyche projecting arbitrary and conative signification of a text. So quite obviously they need some individuals neither financially or socially downtrodden [because they depend on establishments to organize livelihood] nor associated with any organized social struggle. These people are our newly found oriental critical individuals rather mediated leaders and gatekeepers of the society who are not at all a marked political figure and hardly ‘prefer’ [as they propagate in media] to be so, but all are surprisingly engaged leading mass movements [quite unlike the voices incessantly roaring against Israeli occupation over Palestine, or US constructive terrorism]. How can it be possible? This is where media and these individuals play a mutually complementary role to dominate the society. In this course they extensively use the ‘screen-space and paper space’ to fill temporarily such knowledge and cultural gaps which of course a determinate and doubtless creation of inefficient contemporary political initiatives and consciousness. These people [media persons and individuals] thus organize mass movements from the hot seat of the screen. Though social and cultural inequalities are augmenting like anything in this neo-liberal economic and cultural domination era, media is having the fastest growth toward its global conglomeration. Even regional media like Ananda Bazar Patrika [largest single edition Bengali newspaper in India] is financially tied up with Time Warner Group to launch Indian edition of Fortune Magazine(10). So in this yuppified spectacular concentration of media and its model individuals, all the issues even death of common people becomes a product to be culturally judged in terms of its glossy social attachment. If it is so, media coverage and analysis would continue to a certain period, what is not happened in the case of Tapasi Malik or brutal killing of the police officer Sadhu Chattopadhyay, or leaders of downtrodden [mostly tribal people] people Rabi Kar, or Bhagirath Karmakar and number of people have lost their lives within last two or three months in West Bengal.
Thus a new paradigm of media culture as a determinant of global media conglomeration is going to overlap the existing social culture and dominates aspiration[al] elements of common people. So interestingly and quite naturally governments are disseminating strategic developmental elements and appear to be failing to motivate its people whereas media attract many of them propagating newer cultural elements along with glossy advertisement texts. Now the question is ‘what do media do with its audience?’ Do they need general people? No certainly no, they only look for their audience who are to be necessarily prospective consumers and of course information-elites otherwise there is no alternative left for them to operate. So the death of Tapasi Mallick is now a sold commodity and the death of Rizwan dominates the market. Other fatalities like killing of Bhagirath Karmakar or Rabi Kar or Sadhu Chattopadhyay and many others leave no impression on the market because these are marked at a very low selling point category.
Therefore what they signify in the name of social movement in this particular case is proved nothing but to be a dominant myth which works in the spiral of people’s silence and of course in the free space where information elites do not meet common mass. It is a doubtless fact that many people have participated in the movement for nothing but a definite solution of Rizwan’s death and others also would definitely support silently. But what going on in the space between the investigation and the people’s desire, is a subversive ‘solely mediated politics of pseudo individuality’ denouncing polity and establishment without giving any alternative. Everyone should recognize the main factor that impedes the formation of civil society [that may feed information to others and control] and information consumers in such a ‘big’, ‘older’, and ‘developing’ country is the ‘incomplete sense of development of individual’ that chiefly differentiates the dominant narratives like ‘rural’—‘urban’, ‘elite’—‘common’, ‘intellectuals’—‘pedestrians’, ‘ethnic’—‘progressive’ etc. But who then will be taking responsibility to feed those ‘second categories’? or who will represent these toiling people? Individualists? or the political sects [though having very narrow mundane cultural signifiers to unite people]? What they demand is “state should properly investigate the uneventful deaths [even killing] of rural people though have to face their criticism and state should not have right to investigate such newsy death [which provides lots of followed-up news including profiles] so that the myth of social movements and civil society can be established in audience psyche”. But what if CBI takes equally more time to solve out this case? Would the media house continue parallel investigation and ‘sleepless night’ what they promise now? Would the advertisers continue giving advertisements against this news? Let us hope for the best otherwise for any delay media and individualists are not going to spend sleepless night doing parallel investigation only. They say, ‘we have many other issues to deal with’ but we the common people know Rizwanur won’t come back [though some turns of Rizwanur’s death may still possibly come out as investigation proceeds] nevertheless such atrocities against common people would again be perpetrated. Someone has to make news which people collectively can’t whatever history tells us about the story of movements!!!

References:

(1) Taken from the reports published in The Telegraph, 23rd September, 2007
(2) Taken from the reports of Ananda Bazar Patrika, 17th October, 2007.
(3) Ibid. March and September, 2007.
(4) Ibid. Wednesday, 17th October, 2007.
(5) Ibid. 19th , 20th December, 2006.
(6) Taken from PTI documents and Sinha, Varun. "'We first fished out remains from drain'", Indian Express, 2006-12-29, December, 2006.
(7) Taken from The Telegraph, 30th and 31st October, 2007.
(8) Taken from Aajkal [a regional Bengali Daily], 17th March, 2007.
(9) Reports from PTI, 29th October, 2007.
(10) Reports from PTI, 30th October, 2007.

The Rediscovery of Political & Ideological Stability in a Capitalist World

The Rediscovery of Political & Ideological Stability in a Capitalist World
A quest for an alternative signification of social development


By
Abir Chattopadhyay

Abstract: This paper tries to rediscover a cultural space in a contemporary geo-political format wherein the concept of political & ideological stability finds its place to reside, when the general critique discards the political struggle emphasizing further a culturally homogenized world. Proponents of globalization have announced the end of collision of all ‘ism’s and ideological confrontation. But the truth still lives somewhere else. This paper finds both the ideological stability and struggle concomitant to the class conflict in West Bengal, an organ state of India. The left front government has set a new landmark of its stability, winning consecutive seven state assembly elections. It has completed its 29 years in 2006 and ensured another five years to stay in power. But the political stability it has provided, requires a profound analysis to search for an alternative form of a social structure which goes beyond the near obsessive postmodern concern to be hegemonic, and also the corporate allegation to be an immoveable structure at the same time. In the communication perspective it can be theorized as a rare kind of codification which signifies a clear vision toward its future. The paper thus assures an extensive analysis to theorize an alternative form of social development. The paper consists of six segments, like Introduction, Political Perspective, Historical Perspective, Theoretical Perspective, ideological Perspective and Conclusion.

Introduction:

While the global paradigm of democratic norms acts in the 21st century world, common phenomenon is the electoral politics and formation of a government complying homogeneous global corporate rule and commercial agendas. Standing on this stance the political stability may stand for a stable government winning at least two consecutive elections. US democracy, for instance, allows its President to stay two five-year terms at most. US political forces also can’t turn up people’s verdict in its favour for more than a couple of terms. European countries also follow such similar trend. People’s mandate in British Elections usually don’t exceed more than ten years (i.e. two terms). Latin American countries though have provided some instances of stability but democracy, on the whole, hasn’t performed there at all satisfactorily. These countries, for the first time in the history of their own democracies, are moving in a transit phase of political struggle, against the authoritarian and pseudo-democratic coercive regimes. Recent elections (within the last five to seven years) in Brazil, Venezuela, Uruguay, have created finest instance of culmination of their struggle against authoritarian rule and structural hegemony. Communist China, Cuba and Workers’ Party of People’s Republic of Korea have made their own definitions of democracy which don’t really follow such capitalist definition, essential parameters of which include only socialist form of governance. India, also in the last 20 years and more of its electoral democracy transcends the post-colonial trend of governmental stability. And for the last fifteen years Indian people also don’t pay their support in favour of a single political party or an alliance for more than five years a term.
But quite surprisingly West Bengal in this federal democratic system has completed 30 years of its democratic existence under the regime of a particular political force, thus creating a new phenomenon of its kind in the history of polity and parliamentary democracy of the world. This instance is quite unavailable in anywhere in the world of electoral democracy. Moreover when India pose really compliant with the global corporatized economic and occidentalized cultural agendas, West Bengal, under the political alliance of communist and left social democratic parties, has become an example of not the administrative or governmental stability only, but political stability also. Left democratic political alliance of this state has won consecutive seven elections out of fourteen held since independence. They claim it as world record.
To initiate a niche analysis of such unforeseen social-democratic outcome we need first to develop its cultural context and subsequently the social process of mediation to reach the core of its signification. Following queries may work out a definite outcome, which we can proceed on.

· Does governmental stability ensure political stability?
· Does the natural social progress rely on it?
· Do the people of this state believe in cultural homogeneity, instead of a pluralist culture?
· Why the national political scenario and global political trend couldn’t truly influence this unique situation or set a parallel signification?
· Why and how the image of the left front remains unchanged in the people’s psyche for such a long period?
· Is there a no-alternative political situation prevalent?
· Is the rapid industrial development to be regarded as the solitary reason behind this stability? If ‘yes’, then why the national political structure doesn’t find such stability in the rest of the county?
· Is West Bengal the only developed Indian state?
· Is it at all a Communist State as under the leadership of Communist Party of India (Marxist)?
· Why, in these 30 years, Left political force couldn’t spread all over India excepting three states like Tripura, Kerala and West Bengal itself?

Actually West Bengal and its political format can thus be featured by so many theoretical issues or codes, even if you want to ignore it. This phenomenon accentuates a profound cultural signification. Nevertheless if we still ask ourselves,
* Why is it so important? Is West Bengal really a backward state, polity of which doesn’t at all have any significance?
We can answer this question saying aptly, ‘NO’, considering its present stance of rapid industrialization which captures the global attention. We can discuss the whole situation in two basic perspectives,
* Traditional factors of importance.
* Contemporary developmental factors.


II

Political Perspective:

* West Bengal, by its geographical location, is considered the gateway of Eastern part of India as well as the gateway of South-East Asia. Kolkata, the Capital city of this state, and the former capital of colonial India, has thus been a natural icon for the trading and business community for the last 400 years. Kolkata was traditionally the centre of Indian trade & commerce and of course culture. Since independence, the largest national political party ‘Indian National Congress’ remained in power for a long time of almost 25 years up to the ‘internal emergency’ called in June 1975.
Left front, led by the CPI(M), won the election for the first time in 1977 with an absolute majority and formed government. The first job that the left front government, led by Mr. Jyoti Basu, as Chief Minister, had considered with top priority was Land Reform. The primordial notion of distribution of land to the rural people and farmers was to strengthen the social and economic status of the region. It was regarded a major and indeed a revolutionary step in two basic considerations. First, this policy plausibly put an end of big Landowners’ overwhelming feudal power and tyranny in rural areas and severe exploitation over the bhagchashi (share-croppers). Secondly, this policy was proven highly effective increasing the agricultural production ending the long drawn food crisis since independence (the famine of 1942-44 had broken the economic backbone not only of this state but whole of the eastern region of India also, though the whole eastern region didn’t get any benefit from government of India and its Green Revolution project in the 1970s. Green Revolution was considered by many economists as ‘Wheat Revolution’ as the project fed only the wheat-prone north-western states, like Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, parts of Uttar Pradesh etc. only)(1). But the land reform programme undoubtedly had a promise to meet such crisis and within ten years West Bengal turned up with massive agricultural production. Being on this success, West Bengal government started its run for industrial development in 1994, when the new industrial policy was taken up. Critics and common people, by and large, have always been criticizing the government for its late start for industrial development. Other states, like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, on the other hand, already had taken big strides for industrial development projecting availability of better infrastructure and single windowed administrative processing than that of this state. It was really confusing at that period of time, [say from 1990-1999, when it was the only topic of discussion in West Bengal and the government was sharply criticized on and held sole responsible for such deceleration of industrial growth] that whom the industries were shifted for. Some critics argued and alleged that the state government looked complacent with its success in land reforming and overall achievement in agriculture and put least priority to the industrial development. But the reality existed probably in somewhere else. Actually the industrial licensing policy of the central government was the prime hindrance for the state governments to organize industrial development out of utilizing its resources and capacity. This Industries (Development & Regulation) Act, 1951 was liberalized in 1991 and the state government set its industrial policy in 1994(2). But the left front could really convince its people about the backdrop of this crisis and late start for industrialization which worked in the state assembly election of 1996. The left front again achieved absolute majority, though a massive political change occurred in Indian national political scenario, when the ruling Congress party, at the centre, failed to get majority to form the Union Government in 1996 general election [Indian Parliament was bitterly fragmented. Congress though was the single largest party but far behind the absolute majority, BJP emerged as new political power with its religious (Hindutva) fundamentalist agenda, bagging 86 seats to become the second largest party, left front retained their position in West Bengal, Tripura, and Kerala, winning 42 parliamentary seats. But the regional ethno-political and religious forces (Telugu Desham, DMK, AIADMK, Shivsena etc.) became the new regulatory factors forming the Union Government]. But in West Bengal left front, on the other hand, even in this political [ideological] upsurge, could retain its political alliance successfully. The front was all through successful to motivate the people of West Bengal both in urban and rural areas, about their political agenda, conveying a promise of a new horizon of better future.

* On the contrary, Indian government, since 1991, tried utmost to liberalize its economic barrier and started privatizing public sector industrial bodies [PSUs], thus shifted its economic strategy toward open market operation, so that Indian industrial houses could compete the global rather Transnational Corporations [TNCs] in open market. But the left front walked completely in the opposite direction. They launched massive political campaign against the dominant economic globalization strategies and global corporate hegemony. So they categorically opposed the central government and its policy of rapid privatization.
However Indian National Congress faced the defeat in 1996 Parliamentary election, whereas left front won state assembly election again. But was really the mathematics at all simple? Here lies the magic, and probably all path-breaking in its own way.
Basically the issue of privatizing public sector industrial bodies created lots of hue and cry followed by severe controversies especially in the era of global neo-liberal economic concept, as it assumed the agenda of economic globalization. The left parties, in this context, were criticized several times by the national political leadership and diplomats on the following issues:
* still calling for the absolute control of the government over such giant industrial bodies.
and again for,
* closure of some resident public sector undertakings in the state.
and * for still not inviting FDIs and foreign industries to open new set up here in its region.
But they opposed firmly the privatization of public sector undertaking industries. They held central government responsible for its strategies of either closing down or privatizing public sector undertakings. Left parties in West Bengal then came out with its own industrial policy in 1994 wherein FDIs were conditionally hugged in some of the sectors like infrastructure, and new manufacturing industries. This move was plausibly proved to be an alternative to the unidirectional motif of dominant L-P-G line of development. West Bengal government, on the other hand, formed a ministry of ‘Industrial Reconstruction’ to look after the revival of seek industries and to turn them into profiting.
So the political conscience of the people of this state was not automatically achieved immediately after the implementation of state’s new industrial policy. Earlier left parties had experienced it in 1999 general election, when the opposition bagged 9 parliamentary seats in this region including all three seats of Kolkata. But it was really a short-lived phenomenon. Left front under Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s leadership participated in the state election in 2001 and achieved a sweeping victory toward forming the sixth regional government in the state. Since 2001, the left front could establish a new look of developing industrializing environment which attracted not the Indian investors only, but the foreign investors also have started investing in this region.
Meanwhile since 1999, BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led union government, backed by the Hindu fundamentalist groups like RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal, Shivsena and many others, had been clarifing their politico-religious identity since the demolition of a 500 hundred year old Mosque (Babri Mosque) in 6th December 1992, to transform India a ‘Hindurashtra’ [Hindu Dominated State](3). With the strong appearance of the BJP in national political horizon, the ideological conflict between left parties and NDA got a distinct polarization. In West Bengal, the largest opposition party ‘Trinamool Congress’ (TMC) joined NDA in 1999, before the general election. As I have already mentioned that though they managed some urban parliamentary seats in 1999, couldn’t sustain that success in 2001 state assembly election. But the political or ideological opposition between CPI(M) led left parties and BJP led NDA was gradually intensified during this period. However the left front in this state was seeking by all means, healthy investment (both internal and foreign) especially in manufacturing and infrastructure development. At the same time the government has recently made an interesting slogan:
“The Agriculture is our base and Industry is our future”.
With this slogan, left front has fought 14th Assembly election May, 2006 and again achieved a commanding victory to set a new world record, winning 2/3rd majority [235 seats out of 294]. This slogan as a dominant ‘myth’ has proved to be very significant and balanced in Indian politics since independence. In this way left front could maintain successful communication to its people in a solid socio-political context. In his first formal statement before the press, the newly elected Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has reiterated the policies for the upliftment of poor and lower middle class people of the state along with the rapid industrialization process. He has emphasized mostly the issue of employment generation and has taken it as one of the prime objectives of the government towards industrialization.


III

Historical Perspective:

India possesses a long political revolutionary history from its colonized era. We must look back the legacy of Indian history of struggle largely led by Bengal (undivided). I had an opportunity to confer with Late Mrs. Kanak Mukherjee, former member Central Committee, of CPI(M) and noted leader of women movement in India, where she unhesitant[ly] expressed that ‘left front government was [and is] not a product manufactured or invented in 1977, it had a strong attachment to the revolutionary history of Bengal from Sannyashi Movement (1761). It was a long drawn history of ideological commitment which, after more than 200 hundred years, made the revolutionary foundation of left front.
However the history of struggle against colonialism and imperialism can be classified into two basic theoretical genres:
· Ethnic & class struggle
· Cultural and symbolic form of Struggle.
Right from the battle of plassey in 1757, all the movements afterwards till 1860 were revolutionary movements, grossly led by the subaltern groups or classes of people. Bengal as well as Indian intelligentsia (urban rich & educated elites) couldn’t really feel the urge to participate in such movements. Sannyashi movement, Wahabi movement, Farazi movement, Chuad movement, Santhal movement (1854-55), and Indigo Revolutionary movement (1858-60) etc had established the revolutionary outlook of Bengal as well as the eastern parts of colonial India. The Sepoy Mutiny (1857) [the first war of Indian independence - as described by Karl Marx] Anti-Partition movement of Bengal (in 1905) created a huge surge of nationalist consciousness in the Indian mass-psyche. These movements were also witnessed by the absolute representation of all ethnic groups and classes(4).
But a parallel intellectual reformist trend of movement started in urban areas of 19th century Bengal had set a stream of symbolic cultural struggle against the colonial repression; thus started an alternative wave of progressive cultural movements which undoubtedly led nationalist freedom struggle in the later period. Vernacular and swadeshi English newspapers also played a very crucial role and virtually led the movement from the forefront.
However, these two trends of movements represented extremist and moderate symbolic struggle, in the later phases of freedom movement. Communist Party and other left groups represented the class identities of rural and poor mass. Gandhi, on the other hand, though established an unquestionable influence on Indian people, tried always to uphold the nationalist identity which could never reach the core of people’s political ideology. Fortunately the Second World War made it easier for the national leaders to get it finally in 1947.
But the ideological conflict was reinforced to a newer form of political polarization in the post-independence period. Indian National Congress holding the power of West Bengal and most of the other states, tried utmost to crush any form of class movement. They extensively used state administration and machinery to coerce Tevaga and the Bengal food movement in 1959(5). This attitude continued till the internal emergency in 1975.



IV

Theoretical Perspective:

West Bengal since 1977 was by and large denotive-ly signified as the state of governmental and political stability. Nevertheless this solid context should not be signified as stale, readymade or of a dead[ly] permanent nature. West Bengal, in this 30-year span has had experienced many political crises, which have somewhere stimulated massive structural changes and graduated newer codes for alternative signification also. Just after the unfortunate and brutal assassination of the former Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi, In 1984, Indian National Congress achieved a landslide victory in the general election, bagging 16 Parliamentary seats in West Bengal and won 2/3rd majority in the Parliament. The whole event was undoubtedly a closed code and needed no further analysis. Rajiv Gandhi was elected as Prime Minister (in 1984) but failed to retain the majority in the next general election held after five years in 1989. Congress again regained the central power in 1991 after the brutal killing of Rajiv Gandhi. But people of West Bengal surprisingly favoured the opposite trend. So the left front could recover the damage in 1987 state assembly election, gaining absolute majority, to set an alternative signification. Congress in West Bengal was downsized to below 40 assembly seats. Despite congress hit the majority in the Parliament, couldn’t manage mass support in this state. Meanwhile the appearance of BJP in the national political scenario started a new context influencing the traditional way of signification because of its religious fundamentalist objective of promoting the Hindutva consciousness in Indian politics. The demolition of Babri Mosque in 6th December 1992 set a new polarization in Indian politics(6). Finally the left front could emerge as the confirmed opposition force and in the national political scenario and a new political struggle was started booming. Indian National Congress, at that time in West Bengal, faced a major split and Trinamool Congress (TMC) led by dissident Mamata Banerjee, appeared on the screen. TMC started its debut allying with BJP in the NDA. In 1999 general election they surprisingly bagged 9 important Parliamentary seats in most of the urban areas of the state. This code reached its climax in 2001 Assembly election. The result is already known to us. The left front led by CPI(M) formed the government not only to complete its 29 years smoothly but established an alternative encoding also.
This has probably made the whole situation unique, when ‘structural change’ and ‘structural adjustment’ in economic and cultural affairs are nowadays considered as the most crucial trends toward globalization beyond any national territory, left front, in this state, has set a strong but open socio-political code, which contains proportionate elements of contemporary social culture and values. Interestingly the most important aspect of such theorization can be exemplified by a ‘code’ of transfer of power from Jyoti Basu to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and of party leadership to Anil Biswas and Biman Basu of the leaders of generation-next. Thus communal genocide in Gujarat (2002) has hardly got any effect in this state even where continuous mediation of all the oppositional codes has made the public sphere still alive. Even the hype (largely the media hype) of aggressive industrialization in Andhra Pradesh, during Chandrababu Naidu’s regime, could not snatch the net popularity of the left front. The political understanding within the left front is thus gradually looking more and more composed and organized at least in West Bengal.
The government and the ruling left front thus, even after 29 years in power, have let People feel the liberty to accept or reject any hegemonic code. They are not just a confined receiver or targeted recipient of a package of closed dominant codes of social or political hierarchy. Let us consider a code of such signification: West Bengal government was suffering from severe financial crunch from 2000-2001 onwards. It was then considered one of the toughest situations ever, for the newly elected Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, where the political opposition criticized the government and the left front by all means. But the Chief Minister confessed the problem several times to the common people, treating them as his fellow, and sought possible solution to come out of such crisis but never tried to hide it away from the people.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in this context has started encoding left front’s industrialization process. The primary thrust area of industrialization has been to develop the infrastructure for industrial investment. As a result the government has already achieved some considerable native and foreign investments in sectors like automobile, housing accommodation, information technology, health & knowledge etc. Almost all the big Indian industry houses are coming to invest this state. It is quite interesting to observe that ensuring the primary inflow of investment, the government is now talking about the revival and reconstruction of traditional industrial potentialities, like fruit processing, tea plantation and processing, jute processing etc. At the same time the government is also looking very keen to develop agricultural marketing to revive the agriculture and the associated infrastructure and to ensure optimum utilization of the potentialities of local market. Besides that, the government is trying to develop its export and has chosen products like flowers, soft toys, gems & jewelry, along with other traditional products like tea, jute-processed products etc. It is quite evident that the left front is now in a position to establish its control over the parameters of any contextual transformation, having minimum credential for [perennial or ephemeral] social change. Since 2001 this regional government, according to the ‘Indian Planning Commission’ and ‘Centre for Motoring Indian Economy’ (CMIE), has achieved highest growth rate of industrial investment in India, even higher than national growth rate by 1.1%. Union Minister Jairam Ramesh has iterated interestingly, “West Bengal now has all that it takes to emerge as a frontrunner - not only among Indian States but indeed the world over - as it is led by a government which possesses a sense of urgency and direction."(7)
There is still to mention that the industrial development of West Bengal is only the one-side of the whole gamut of its political struggle. The above analysis doesn’t project the political achievement of the left front. Land reforming, decentralization of administration through Panchayat[i] (Rural Administration) system in the state and the recent industrialization don’t define its socialist penetration. Here left front excorporates only a pro-people stance in this capitalist democratic and economic system. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee also has clearly reiterated that the left front is not in a position to change the society. It can only extend its initiative to achieve a balanced economic growth, so that social justice can be ensured and new employment opportunities can be genegrated. Even after winning the assembly election in 2006, he has uttered similar words while meeting local and national press & media, that behind all efforts toward industrialization in West Bengal, state government has a clear motif to create optimum number of employment. Young Parliamentarian Nilotpal Basu has substantiated front’s intention, ‘Growth is an objective, which is not an end in itself. The Left Front government is trying to ensure an employment generation led growth not a jobless growth’. (8)
This code is indeed very significant because, according to many critics, it has become cliché & also a bit older concept for its unwarranted and irresponsible political use since independence by the political parties, nevertheless all such codes in this situational context are becoming highly effective. At the same time it is also very significant in Indian economic perspective that public initiative still is mostly required to create opportunities of either employment or self-employment in developing countries. So the government could substantially mediate a specific political agenda of industrialization and influence them quite successfully.
However the seventh government has planned its developmental strategies in some specific areas, like environment, Law & Justice, Cottage & Small-scale industry, backward community, and agriculture industry along with IT, Industry, Finance, and Infrastructure development.
But the left force still appears to be transcending the governmental boundary, feeding people incessant ideological notes. Critics thus have a general opinion that left front fights election throughout five years. CPI(M), the leader of the front, even in this changing scenario, operates through various frontal mass organizations. These are Student front, Women front, Youth front, Trade Union front (covering all categories of organized and unorganized labourers), Cultural front, Teachers’ front, Non-teaching (education workers) front, Lawyers’ front, Citizen’s forum, Slum Federation, etc. On the other hand, as it is already discussed, they have appeared to be cordial and friendly to the foreign investors. With these two encoding[s] an unforeseen and quite distinctive code is incarnated which is unprecedented in comparison to the rest of the world.



V

Ideology matters ultimately:

Ideology, as commonly observed, is the procurement of a system (semantic system) of ideas by a set of people on similar contextual planes which not only prepares the base of a social structure but also sustains plausible expression by which people can interact with each other and also with the institutions. Naturally contradiction is always a necessary outcome of ideological existence of human being as it embeds both instinctive and professional courses of struggle within a social structure where people earn the necessary footage to work with or to live in. Thus in a capitalist socio-economic format, exploitation often causes severe contradiction between different ideological codes of general people and social institutions. Situation in West Bengal conveys the same signification but the outcome is surprisingly quite different. Ideological practice, in this region also, like others, has the natural heterogeneity in various micro-social formats, like marriage, service providing institutions, charitable institutions, shopping malls, religious groups, business organizations, professional sporting institutions, and even Bengali rock bands coexistent along with the political ideology(9). It is graduating to be more complicated in the contemporary information processing age also. All the facets of the social structure here have common fascination to produce dominant or elitist forms of culture separately, fabricators of which often appear to be ‘elite’ and ‘opinion leader’, as we can observe information elite, elite rock band, elite or dominant religious group etc along with the civil society.
But despite such cultural heterogeneity the signification of left political codes is still proved to be surprisingly highest influential and not elitist in its form. Both the result of 14th state election and recent movements on against the land acquisition for industrialization by the state government convey the same code.
So the political ideology of left front undoubtedly generates a concept of political stability in West Bengal. It still keeps struggle on sustaining and optimizing people’s cooperation which retains its political goal of changing the society alive. The reason, may be, the left front is the only political alliance encouraging class movements and still believes in that orientation. The result of the 14th state assembly election has distinctly established that the left front is still undergoing political struggle while paving the way for its own journey. On 8th January, 2006, in a massive rally in Kolkata, where late Anil Biswas, former Secretary of CPI(M), West Bengal state committee, made an appeal [setting a code] to the party workers and common people to achieve more than 50% of the total vote to form seventh left front government(10). Left front achieved more than 50% of the total polled vote.
We can set a mark of question here. If ideology doesn’t work in the 21st century, following Francis Fukuyama’s announcement, ‘End of History’, how then this de-code is to be explained!! And surprisingly the political ideology finally works even in a context of rapid growth of market. When growing commercialization is a dominant agenda of global capitalist forces, the developmental process in West Bengal is found as a solid outcome of ideological struggle. This is the magic.
Left front in these 30 years could thus nucleate its political ideology to become pro-people even on a differential plane of contextual agendas. The political ideology behind such development is set to organize people against capitalist exploitation. Here lies the interesting paradox. The left front government, in its contemporary phase of operation, is trying to facilitate its audience by rapid industrialization. But at the same time left front as the political force, accentuates a hardcore line to polarize people against economic & political exploitation and global corporate hegemony toward U.S. domination. The left front, specially the CPI(M) has shown guts launching massive rally and incessant symbolic movements against all such hegemonic issues like, the arrival of George Bush in India and various joint army exercises with US, France, Hanging of Saddam Hussein, outright privatization of traditional public sector institutions etc. Left front has put severe pressure on the central government not to comply with the hegemonic strategies over Iran and other countries. They have also protested against U.S. constructive coercion on Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time CPI(M) has been relentless in rectifying all possible vices within the party. Almost 4000 party leaders and workers have been expelled from the membership permanently since 2001.
West Bengal for the last five years is thoroughly marked as the prime destination of industrial investment compared to the other states of India. Precisely the left front has established doubtless control over the elements of its natural infrastructure, the land, people of the land, labour force, healthy consumers and other both human and geographical resources etc. So the industrial houses, having a different political alignment, are now showing their interest investing in this state.
But the agenda of rapid industrialization has nevertheless created a gap between the left political movement and industrialization. The issues which the left ideology confronts itself, are the privatization, trade union in IT sector, debate on Special Economic Zones (SEZ) etc. But on the issue of the rapid growth of entertainment industry in this state and India as well, the left politics and ideology have been facing nowadays the toughest challenge. The growing shopping malls, Discothèques, nightclubs already have created new consumerist placements and codes for people of different socio-economic and socio-cultural strata. Here it can interestingly be observed that along with the people who can afford to buy such entertainment, a large chunk of middle class and lower middle class people are, as observed trying to be associated with the growing consumerist world. Albeit many western critics like John B. Thompson(11) may say that the cultural tradition of the third world countries “were shaped by a long and often brutal process of cultural conflict…”, but gradual displacement of social elements of culture augments neo-social inequality where common people can’t really afford to sustain its own alternative. However the rural people of this region and the rest of the country hardly follow the boom of entertainment industry. They need more and more manufacturing industries where employment is there. Resting on this stance left front in this region has successfully championed its political agenda and also is quite successful to hold the audience in its favour for such a long period.

VI

Conclusion: Requiem or toward a new future?

The prime notion of this paper has been a quest for an alternative concept of all-round development which really is the need of the hour in contrast to the corporate globalization, inculcating a generalized agenda, making room for finance capital to sit undeterred in any region where it finds suitable environment. The WTO has directed all developing countries to eliminate their internal tax structures and other economic barriers for it.
So the globalization means, for any third world nation, the total liberalization of internal economic and social structure before the corporate powered developed nations. Noted proponent of corporate globalization and former partner of McKinsey & Co. Kenichi Ohmae has explained, “In a world where economic borders are progressively disappearing, are their arbitrary, historically accidental boundaries genuinely meaningful in economic terms? And if not, what kinds of boundaries do make sense?...”(12) He has proposed 4 “I’s” that would rule the future of the world. These are:
· Investment
· Industry
· Information Technology
· Individual Consumers
Thus the whole globalization concept transcends traditional social, economic cultural sovereignty of a country, as a whole. But the developed nations, on the other side, must believe in protecting their own social identities. In this context the left front is still struggling to develop the state in an alternative manner.
I would rather conclude mentioning extracts of victory celebration in Kolkata on 28th of May 2006. Front leaders have all emphasized on the balanced growth of Indian economy, reforming the tax-structure to control the price hike of essential commodities and curb the inflation rate, furthering agricultural development etc. They firmly have said ‘NO’ to the privatization of the public bodies like Airport, Railway, Mines & Minerals etc. They have made an appeal to the party workers to establish day-to-day contact with the common people. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has reiterated that the prime job of the government will be generating employment opportunities through rapid industrialization.

References:

(1) Indian Economy: Its nature & Problems (24th Ed.): Alak Ghosh, The World Press Pvt. Ltd. 1984-85.
(2) STATEMENT ON INDUSTRIAL POLICY, Industrial Licensing is governed by the Industries (Development & Regulation) Act, 1951, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY, New Delhi, July 14, 1991.
(3) The R.S.S. and The B.J.P; A Division of Labour: A.G. Noorany, Leftword, 2000.
(4) Gana-andolan O Sambadpatra [Mass movements & Newspapers], A collection of Essays on People’s Movement and the Press, Rathin Chakraborty (Ed.), Lokmat Prakashani, 1984. and Bangabhanga Bijoyee Bangla, Anunoy Chattopadhyay, Ekush Shatak, 2006.
(5) Reference taken from Jugantar (Daily Newspaper), 1st September, 1959, Source: National Library Archive.
(6) The R.S.S. and The B.J.P; A Division of Labour: A.G. Noorany, Leftword, 2000.
(7) FOCUS: WEST BENGAL: Remarkable growth, SUHRID SANKAR CHATTOPADHYAY, Frontline: India's National Magazine from the publishers of THE HINDU.Volume 23 - Issue 02, Jan. 28 - Feb. 10, 2006.
(8) India: Elections in West Bengal: By Nilotpal Basu, from politicalaffairs.net, March-April 2006.
(9) Media, Communication and Culture: James Lull, Polity Press, 1996
(10) Reference taken from Ganashakti, the media organ of CPI(M) West Bengal Committee, 9th January, 2006.
(11) Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of Media: John B. Thompson, Polity Press, 1995.
(12) The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies- Kenichi Ohmae, Harper Collins, 1996