Only one-way bets are being taken in Kolkata. Mamata Banerjee will be the next chief minister of West Bengal! All sceptics are welcome to bury their heads in sand.
For a state that has not experienced serious “anti-incumbency” for a generation, the results of the 2011 state legislative assembly elections will feel like a revolution. And, as in all revolutions, dealing with the aftermath is going to be more challenging for the victor than the vanquished. Ms Banerjee must start preparing now.
No one, but no one, any longer questions the inevitability of the exit of the Left Front government in West Bengal. Recent violence in the state is a sign of things to come. Neither the victor, Ms Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, nor the vanquished, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), is going to react calmly to the change of regime. Expect more bloodshed in Bengal.
While Ms Banerjee should not take her victory for granted, and there is still doubt among political analysts in the state whether her party will secure outright majority or will have to depend for support on the Congress party, she must devote time to planning what she wants to do with her victory.
Bengal is in a shambles. The state’s economy has not recovered from the Nandigram and Singur controversies. An old business elite continues to lord over the few business opportunities available in the state. Few of India’s more dynamic new business groups have as yet pitched tent in the state. Those who have, maintain only a token presence. Bengal desperately needs an industrial renaissance. Can Ms Banerjee deliver?
Her track record as a Union minister for railways does not as yet offer a convincing answer either way. She has worked hard to modernise the Indian Railways, and has lent her ear to the wise counsel of several competent advisors both within the railways administration and outside, like the secretary-general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries (Ficci), Amit Mitra, but her commitment to the future of the railways has been weaker than to her own.
To some extent, this is understandable. Her ministry was the most important weapon in her political armoury in the battle she has waged in her home state. She has used the Indian Railways, and will try to do so again in the forthcoming railway budget, to improve her political prospects. Hopefully, Ms Banerjee will resist this temptation, given that her victory in Kolkata is at hand, and will leave behind a stronger national railway system.
India has been busy celebrating marginal improvements in railway finances and services in the past six years at a time when China has emerged as a railways power of the world. As railways analyst Raghu Dayal wrote in these columns (BS, June 21, 2010), till 1990 the railway systems of China and India were more or less on par. In the past two decades, China has entered an altogether different league, both in terms of scale and the quality of projects it has been able to deliver.
Despite her best intentions, and much early promise, Ms Banerjee has not been able to reverse the tide of populism and short-termism that has long gripped the Indian Railways. On the eve of her departure from Delhi and the beginning of a new innings in Bengal, there is much Ms Banerjee can do for the future of the Indian Railways that can inspire greater confidence in her ability to alter the future of Bengal.
Indeed, Ms Banerjee must quickly articulate a “Vision 2020” for West Bengal because well into her term as chief minister, she can only ride on the promise of a better future rather than the possibility of an improved present. The energy and imagination she has spent in seeking to unseat the deeply entrenched Left Front in Bengal will be nothing compared to what she would need to restore growth and momentum to Bengal, and that too in the face of likely civil unrest stirred both by her own restive supporters and sullen CPM cadres.
Make no mistake, the change of government in West Bengal is not going to be smooth. This is not going to be just about one set of ministers replacing another. This will be nothing short of a regime change. An entire generation of CPM leaders and cadres has grown up not knowing defeat and loss of power and patronage, unlike in Kerala where the Left Front is habituated to being in and out of office. Even the Indian Administrative Service has been suborned in the state. Ms Banerjee is known to be a suspicious lady and so will not come to easily trust the officials she will have to work with.
What a Trinamool government would mean for Bengal would depend on whether Ms Banerjee follows the N T Rama Rao model (for he too had engineered a regime change in Andhra Pradesh after nearly three decades of uninterrupted Congress party rule) or the Lalu Prasad-Mulayam Singh models of regime change in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. For all his faults, NTR’s focus was on the future, the Yadav duo never thought about it!
West Bengal’s human capital, its natural resources and locational advantages offer it the opportunity to re-emerge as a centre of manufacturing and knowledge-based industry. Bangladesh has, in fact, shown more recently what improved governance can do for a hapless people. Both the late Jyoti Basu and chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya had good intentions. While the former was lazy and showed little commitment to his own views, the latter tried hard. Mr Bhattacharya cannot be accused of not trying. He was ill-served by his own party and its national leadership.
As a regional leader, with a supportive prime minister in New Delhi, Ms Banerjee can alter Bengal’s future. Would she?
