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Politics unfortunately is binary. If not Biden, then Trump! If not Modi, then Rahul! And if not Mamata then some Hindi speaking non-Bengali, pracharak (or as the residents of Bengal have been made to believe). Coupled with this binary, the shrillness of various media handles makes it very difficult to objectively criticize with whom you maybe ideologically aligned, for fear of being labelled one way or the other.
However, thirteen years into the present regime in Bengal, it is clear that the government is a vision-less, corrupt entity that survives on gimmicks and the inherent reluctance of Bengalis to change status-quo and it is time to call their bluff. That Bengal has been suffering from “developmental deficit” for more than 50 years is a well-known fact, it has now the added misfortune of “governance and administrative deficit.”
While arguments with statistics are always difficult as there are always some counter arguments with another set of curated numbers, some facts are irrefutable. In 2011-12 in the first year of present government’s regime, Bengal’s per capita income was 12 percent below India’s. In the last year for which data is available (2022-23) it is now 28 percent below India’s per capita income. Notwithstanding the bluster of the state’s previous finance minister, in last 10+ years the present government has managed to drag the state way back!
The decline is clearly visible to anyone with a naked eye as the streets of Kolkata have been over-run with hawkers, with their tin sheds and black and blue tarpaulin sheets covering every available space on the footpaths. Other than some sporadic investments in steel, cement, and logistics, the state has been unable to attract large investments in any of the sunrise sectors primarily due to its convoluted land-policy. While rest of India regularly wakes up to a new shiny infrastructure in their state the same land-policy and unwillingness of the present government to work with the Centre has deprived the same for the state of Bengal. That coupled with its SEZ policy (that cannot be coherently explained) also delayed investments by Infosys and Wipro by more than a decade with the state missing out on both the Digital and Cloud Computing waves in IT and unable to create the necessary ecosystem of technology professionals in the state. This lack of large ecosystem has prevented the GCCs and Technology product companies to set up base in Kolkata, thus preventing job opportunities to educated residents of the state.
In 23 years of Naveen Patnaik’s regime, Orissa’s per capita income, which was at that time 60% of Bengal’s has now overtaken it, is another undeniable fact. While Naveen Babu worked across governments in the Centre to deliver development and growth to Orissa and transform it from a poor, under-developed state to the leading economic power in Eastern India helping the residents of the state to grow in social and economic stature, the present incumbent of Bengal relishes to fight with governments in Delhi and look for ways to prevent residents of the state from getting benefits of Central schemes all in the name of “opposition politics.” Congress leaders in the states of Karnataka and regional satraps of Tamil Nadu and Kerala while being more ideologically opposed to the present government in Centre continue to work with them to improve the social and physical infrastructure in their states, while maintaining their political opposition. In Bengal, however, the list of Central schemes and programs that Mamata has either not participated in or willfully delayed is endless, harming its state coffers and its citizens. Nowhere is this more manifest than in the deliberately delayed completion of the Metro Railway lines that were announced by her in the previous avatar as Railway Minister.
The upshot of all of this is that during visits to Kolkata, one can see its elite moving mindlessly from a Club event to another private party seemingly oblivious to the steady deterioration of the city and the state, as their children and grandchildren quietly slip out to greener pastures within and outside of India. The not-so-fortunate keep themselves occupied by barricading streets to organize events, musical soirees and pujas of different gods and goddesses (some of which, while growing up we never knew Bengal celebrated) with loudspeakers from them blaring well into the night and police administration asked to look the other way when complaints come from irate residents. Most of these activities are being funded by the State or ruling party functionaries to keep up with the “politics of festival.” If the goal was to keep the people happy and content and not have time to worry about its lack of development, the government has done an admirable job of managing it. And to all the NRI academics who sing hosannas to the state for maintaining communal amity, my ask is to get off their seminar rooms meetings when next in the city and walk the streets of Kolkata, nay, just walk around New Market area, to see if this what we should tolerate in the name of perceived harmony!
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint