General Mamata wrecks a great wall

Bengal always had a long line up of glorious faces in almost all fields. M.N.Roy, Ravindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, Subhash Chandra Bose, P.C.Bose, Satyan Bose, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, B.C.Roy, Jyoti Basu, Amartya Sen and Sourav Ganguly to name a few. And now the firebrand leader Mamata Banerjee can stake her claim for a spot in the august list. She could do so not as a political activist but as a shrewd war commander.

Before the warplanes and rockets came, field commanders could think only of a single strategy to crack the enemy lines. That was to punch a hole in the rival formations and drive a salient through the gap. Once the entry is secured troops could fan out setting the stage for a pincer movement. 

This is what exactly Mamata did with her campaign against the now-investor-friendly CPM in Bengal, which was caught on the wrong foot by its dual policy in land acquisition. Earlier Mamata was the counter weight in the congress kitty to the unstoppable communists. Now with her own outfit, Trinamul Congress, she could do the impossible. That is to dent the impregnable fortress of the left. Bruised forever are the CPM's super power image and the ardent loyalty of the peasantry.

The left sued for peace before the mighty Mamata when she fired salvos after salvos from the rock-solid platform of TATA MOTORS issue, CPM's forward step to rebuild the stunted industrial growth of Bengal. For a while it seemed that the communist had donned a goatskin, which attracted many investors who kept away for long. The durability credentials of the CPM are also at stake now. 

For nearly three decades till Singur and Midnapore explosions, there was an aura of permanency of CPM rule in the state. Its long reign is not surpassed even by the congress in Delhi. Political analysts found the search for plausible reasons for its uninterrupted stay in the crease baffling. How they made it? There are more questions than answers. Organisational might? Yes, but to some extent only. Ideological excellence? No, never. For by the time CPM rode to power in West Bengal the world communist movement was off its moorings. The collapse of the Soviet Union later in the nineties made things worse for the communist parties everywhere. Even India too the party lost ground in several states were it was a force to reckon with earlier. 

That being the case we must go far to mine the reasons for the party's record wicket stand in West Bengal. One is the traditional dislike of the Bengalese for most of the national leaders from the north, especially the cow belt. Gandhiji and Sardar Patel were respected. Not so Pundit Nehru, Mulana Azad and a lot of others. Subhash Chandra Bose saw in Azad a Mugal emperor. And only Sardar Patel had the guts to go to Bengal after the congress approved of the partition deal. 

His overarching personality and charisma stood Pundit Nehru in good stead in dealing with the near rebellious West Bengal. Lending him support were a few veterans like venerable B.C.Roy. In fact the congress party in the state never had a more colourful leader than B.C.Roy, while CPM had one in Jyoti Basu. The decline in the quality of leadership in congress after Pundit Nehru helped the CPM to tighten its hold on the government. 

Lacking inspiring leadership now both CPM and Congress are in a fix. It was by championing the cause of peasants that CPM captured power. It also lived up to its promise of agrarian reforms. While the peasantry remained loyal to the party, industrialists were became nervous because of its unfriendly attitude. Investors shunned the state. As a result Kolkatta which was ahead of Mumbai in industrial employment till 1953 hoisted in effect a no entry sign to potential entrepreneurs. 

In its anxiety to woo them back the left government has reinvented a wide range of incentives. The promise to supply the land at reasonable rates for industrial ventures is one such. It is at this point of time the clash of interests with the farmers became inevitable. 

Finally CPM leadership has beaten in its own game. Mamata's agitational route paid her rich dividends. But the wait was long and arduous. Her early moves were dismissed as inconsequential. The support she mobilised was also patchy and hesitant. Major political parties though they wanted CPM out, were also lukewarm, either overawed by its or reluctant to displease a more powerful party. The on rush of the masses changed the perceptions. 

The Trinamul leader was also lucky. She has punched more than a hole in the West Bengal version of Great Wall. At Singur and Midnapore explosions her sacrificial horse is on the way to south Bengal, the potential location for a many a new industry. 

While the horse is sauntering, the left government admitted it made mistakes. The ripple effect from West Bengal reached far and wide putting not only state governments but a good set of ambitious industrialists on tenterhooks. Of all the business men, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries made haste to declare that he would not ask the state governments to acquire land for his projects. To avoid possible hiccups he would deal with the farmers directly allowing one more feather on Mamata's cap.

Mamata's campaign hit the CPM where it hurts most. Informed sources, not necessary cynics, claimed that the party had a hidden agenda in the land acquisition plans for the mega projects. It had on its drawing board plans for a huge war-chest to be filled in through contributions from left and right. Now all those plans have gone haywire. That is another reason why the party is so upset over the rebellious Mamata Banerjee.

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