‘Communists are not fools...We cannot carry on with old dogmas...’

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: Under chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, it’s a very different West Bengal from what it was even a few years ago. The reason, as the 61-year-old leader tells Mythili Bhusnurmath in an exclusive interview, is that times are changing and he, for one, believes in learning from experience. Excerpts:

How do you explain the contradiction between the actions of your government in West Bengal and of your party at the Centre? Is the central leadership with you on all that you are doing?

These are matters of political rhetoric. There are certain political compulsions. But this is a debate that is going on among communist parties all over the world. The position taken at the Centre is different because the ground-level realities in which we work at the state level are entirely different.

For instance, I don’t understand why governments should run airports. It is difficult to change mindsets, but we must learn from experience. The powerful Soviet Union failed because of economic issues. It was a highly centralised economy, totally isolated from the world economy and world trade. The Chinese, however, have changed their policy since 1979. They understood the world economy and that they cannot get isolated. Similarly, North Korea also changed its economic policy. The country now has three sectors—government, joint/cooperative and the private sector.

We have been debating among ourselves on all these issues. Read our last party programme and our revised party programme. The former begins by saying nationalise all foreign capital. This was way back in 1964. Since 1992, it says allow foreign capital for technology and green field areas. So we are also changing.

But you have moved much faster than the central leadership...

That is because we have to! I am the one facing the music. We have to allow foreign capital. That is one thing we have learnt from the Chinese. We are trying to arrive at a consensus within the party on what is going to be our attitude towards globalisation, World Bank, FDI and so on.

It is possible there will be some difference from the position taken by our party regarding central PSUs because our undertakings and the central undertakings are different. As far as the World Bank is concerned, we have no issues. We are already running health projects in collaboration with the World Bank. We are also getting funds from DFID, ADB and the Japanese Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC).