The ‘political assault’

While West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has tried to defuse the Nandigram crisis by taking the blame for it, his party continues to claim that their political enemies are using violence to regain ground after their defeat in last year’s state polls.

While West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has tried to defuse the Nandigram crisis by taking the blame for it, his party continues to claim that their political enemies are using violence to regain ground after their defeat in last year’s state polls.

A front page editorial in People’s Democracy describes an “unholy nexus” between the Trinamool Congress, Naxalites, Maoists and “others” which allegedly began a blockade of five gram panchayats in early January on the pretext of not allowing any land acquisition. It also says that when the police were sent to Nandigram, it was following a decision taken at an all-party meeting boycotted by the Trinamool Congress.

According to the editorial, similar events had happened in the past, in Keshpur, Midnapore: However, no damage was done because when “peace and order was restored” and elections held, the Left scored “resounding victories”. In Nandigram too, it pledges, the “political challenge” would be met politically.

State in crisis

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Left academic Prabhat Patnaik says that a re-ordering of Centre-state relations was a “precondition” for the triumph of neo-liberalism which began with the adoption of the reforms in 1991. Through the 90s, even though the states and union territories were maintaining their tax revenues, they were still in “dire financial straits”. That, he believes, resulted from a fall in central transfers to the states and an increase in interest rates on loans to states.

Patnaik describes how the Centre used the Finance Commission to “enfeeble” state governments by forcing them to adopt a neo-liberal agenda in order to access resources, even though this was not part of the FC’s responsibilities. States were forced to rely on private and external agencies, like the World Bank and DFID, even to deliver their welfare services. Patnaik draws on his experience as head of Kerala’s planning board in the LDF government to highlight all this as the reason for the state’s “significant dependence on foreign loans”. He adds: “Central to any such action is additional resource mobilisation from the affluent sections, for which there is plenty of scope”.

Party in Rajasthan

The CPM has been actively supporting villagers from Ganganagar, Hanumangarh and Bikaner in Rajasthan in their demand for the implementation of a water accord with the BJP government in the state. In an article in People’s Democracy, party MP Hannan Mollah, who has played a crucial role in organising the villagers of the three districts on the water issue, speaks of an intensified agitation in the light of reports that irrigation water would be stopped to the three districts after March 31, and only drinking water would be supplied. “The movement will be restarted in a new form,” he writes, giving details of the agitation against the “autocratic chief minister” and “fascistic” state government.

Compiled by Ananda Majumdar