Sunanda K Datta-Ray: Symbiotic relationships

WHERE MONEY TALKS

The alliance between capitalism and communism is as old as the hills.

The hawkers are back in Kolkata streets, testifying to the abiding alliance between communism and capitalism. But then this is a global trend that Margaret Thatcher commented on long ago on her very first visit to the Soviet Union. Seeing an expensive European china tea-set in a shop window and its extravagant price she observed that it proved that communism was a creed for the rich while capitalism was for the poor. In India communism is "" or was "" for the poor who seek to be rich.

Understandably, it's something that communist leaders feel sensitive about. The rich upper-class zemindars and barristers among them, who were baptised by the Communist Party of Great Britain during their student days in England, have few sensitivities. But a politician like Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is trapped enough in ideological rhetoric to feel the need for explanation and apology. But there really is no need for either since it's money that makes the world go round. The new Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh would not be considering recognising Israel if it hadn't been for the fear of losing handsome subsidies from the US and the European Union. Nor would the US promise Hu Jintao state ceremonial honours if China were not in the midst of a $13 billion shopping spree and the US saddled with a $200 billion trade deficit.

But being an honest old-fashioned ideologically committed Bengali bhadralok who takes his politics seriously, Bhattacharjee said on Wednesday, "We are not practising socialism here. We are practising capitalism." Calcutta's hawkers are the most vibrant evidence that West Bengal communists have always, even in their revolutionary heyday, practised dynamic, if small-scale, capitalism. The hawkers are small capitalists or the agents "" compradors if you like "" of the not-so-small manufacturers and dealers of ready-mades, plasticware, household linen, electrical gadgets, kitchen utensils and other everyday necessities. As retail agents, their job is to display their wares on the pavements where they entice buyers with their street cries.

This is cut-price capitalism for the hawkers pay no rent. They probably even get their electricity free from street connections. At night they dismantle their sheds but leave the basic scaffolding as well as their wares neatly packed. The law of the streets ensures that nothing is ever taken. The goods are also cheap and shoddy, meant for a lower-middle class market. But the hawkers enjoy powerful patronage. Some support the Forward Bloc, some the Revolutionary Socialist Party, some the Communist Party of India, and many the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Thus, whenever the Left Front has promised in the past to clear the streets of hawkers, it has been foiled by its alliance partners. Each party nurses its pavement constituency. In return for being allowed to trade and earn on the roads, the hawkers give the sponsoring party their votes, canvassing skills and, perhaps, also financial contributions.

This linkage has always existed, from Mahatma Gandhi's alliance with the House of Birla long before independence. In making Wednesday's admission the chief minister of West Bengal sounded as if he was speaking of a new trend. He claimed that "classical Marxism" did not recognise any relationship between workers and management, and that he was trying to usher in a new "harmonious" trend. He was, of course, explaining his government's pioneering deal with Indonesia's Salim Group of Industries.

But there was no need to sound apologetic for similar linkages were established by his predecessor Jyoti Basu, though with Indian business houses and with much less benefit to the community as a whole. Basu gave them huge tracts of land heap for lucrative housing projects. In return, they supported the CPI (M). The arrangement would have raised no cavil if only Basu had insisted that in return for political patronage, the beneficiaries would set up industries that generate jobs and wealth for Bengalis. Housing projects do neither.

Many of the 1.3 lakh names that the Election Commission has struck off the West Bengal voters' list represent another aspect of the communist-capitalist nexus. I saw an unusual feature of it once in Bhutan where I was surprised to hear Bengali, spoken in East Bengal accents too, in the streets of Thimphu. My Bhutanese hosts told me that they could tell a West Bengali from a Bangladeshi worker by one simple fact: the latter disappeared to vote for his sponsoring party in West Bengal whenever there was an election, no matter at what level.

The West Bengali did not bother to go to the polling booth. The Bangladeshi "" an illegal immigrant, naturally "" had to. It was the price of being given a ration card and allowed to live and work in West Bengal. True, no money changed hands in this particular relationship. But it amounted to much the same thing if a sponsoring party, a member of the ruling Left Front, arranged for migrants in return for the promise of political support.

An old Bengali rhyme explains it: Money money, money, chai shakal prani, brighter than sunshine, sweeter than honey. For those who don't know Bangla, the second line means, what every living creature wants. It's as true of communists as of anyone else.