A slowdown in agriculture explains the unrest in rural West Bengal. On the industry front, the state has never fared too well. In important social indicators like education, the state lies close to the bottom of the heap after 33 years of the Left Front?s rule. These tales will finally take a toll at the polls
Will the record of the West Bengal government help it get the needed votes after 33 years in power?
Getting a true picture is no easy task as there are innumerable studies on the performance of the states. Most often, the findings are not uniform and the rankings of the best performing states vary, sometimes substantially, depending on the time period and the indicators chosen. The result is that both experts and laymen are often confused about the reality. So, to get an idea of the factual scenario to the maximum possible, we will look at the most recent analysis of the comparative performance of the various statements made by the Planning Commission, a fairly independent body, in its mid-term review of the Eleventh Plan brought out last year, which traces the performance of the Indian states from the mid-eighties to 2008-09.
The numbers show that the consistent success of the Left Front government in the earlier polls had some real basis as the government was able to deliver on the growth front. Though the growth of West Bengal was only 4.5% in the 1985-90 period (Seventh Plan), which was much below the 5.7% median growth clocked by the 22 major states, it improved its performance substantially in the nineties. Thus, the 6.3% growth of West Bengal in the Eighth Plan (1992-97) and the 6.5% in the Ninth Plan (1997-2002) was substantially better than the median growth of 5.8% and 4.9% registered by the major states during the period. This pickup in the West Bengal economy till the turn of the century would have allowed the Left some leverage in the polls during the period.
But this advantage has been substantially eroded in the more recent years. The Tenth Plan (2002-07) saw growth in West Bengal decelerate to 6.3% while states as a whole improved their median growth to a record 8.5%. West Bengal has been unable to reverse this trend since then. Most recent numbers for the Eleventh Plan (2007-12) show that the 7.7% growth in 2007-08 and and the 6.3% 2008-09 growth in West Bengal was lower than the 9.1% and 6.5% median growth in the major states.
But will such a marginal slowdown of growth in West Bengal substantially impact the poll outcome?
The slowdown in growth is likely to have a disproportionately high impact on the poll outcome for a number of reasons, the most important of which is that the deceleration of growth was the sharpest in the agriculture sector. This is bound to negatively impact the rural voters, the real base of the Left Front coalition. The numbers on agricultural growth show that the decade from the mid-eighties was the golden period of the agriculture sector in West Bengal, with growth pushing up to almost double that of the other major states. Thus, while the median growth of the agriculture sector in the major states was 3.1% during the Seventh Plan, West Bengal clocked 4.3% and in the Eighth Plan, agriculture in West Bengal grew by a record 6.2%, which was more than double the 2.6% median growth clocked by the major states as a whole. These gains on the agriculture front would have significantly helped the Left Front to strengthen and consolidate its rural support base and sustain its government for a fairly long period.
But the scenario has changed substantially since the mid-nineties. More recent numbers show that agricultural growth in West Bengal slipped sharply to 2.4% in the Ninth Plan and stagnated at 2.6% in the Tenth Plan, even while the agriculture performance of the major states improved, with their median growth doubling to 3.4% during the period. And things have only become worse since, with Bengal?s agriculture growth dropping to a bare 1.5% in 2008-09. The slowdown in agriculture in the recent year will have fully dissipated the initial prosperity ushered in in the nineties. This explains the unrest in the rural sector and the reappearance of the extreme left political factions in the interior districts of West Bengal.
What about West Bengal?s record on the industrial front?
West Bengal never fared too well on the industrial front under the Left Front?s rule. Numbers for the period 1985-2007 show that industrial growth in West Bengal was almost always much lower than the median growth in the major states. The only exception was in the Ninth Plan period, when the industrial growth of 6.6% in Bengal was marginally higher than the median growth of 4.9% clocked by the major states. Industrial growth in West Bengal remains lower than in the leading states and just fractionally above the median range.
What about its performance on social indicators?
While a few indicators show achievements on some fronts, others point to a serious lack of direction and political commitment. For instance, in the case of immunisation, West Bengal has a fairly good record, with 76% of the children immunised, whereas the all-India share was a much smaller 54%. But the state has fared poorly in other important areas, like education, especially primary education. In fact, the most recent rankings in the composite educational development index of primary and upper primary education brought out by the central government shows that West Bengal came in at 32nd place among 35 states and union territories in 2008-09. Though the state has marginally improved its position to 26th in 2009-10, it still lies close to the bottom of the heap after 33 years of the Left Front?s rule.