Through thematically arranged reports and newspaper chronicles, Passive Revolution in West Bengal: 1977-2011 interprets the contemporary history of Bengal during the period

Passive Revolution in West Bengal: 1977-2011

Ranabir Samaddar

Sage

Rs.650

Pg 240

Lekha Chakraborty

Passive Revolution in West Bengal: 1977-2011 was on my desk at a time when 22-year-old student activist Sudipto Gupta?s death shook many of us. I felt a need, more than ever before, to understand the contemporary history of West Bengal. How did it culminate into the present scenario? This book by Ranabir Samaddar may not be the right one if you are looking for a comprehensive history of West Bengal during the period 1977-2011. But this is more than a book; you may call it a diary or a journal recording the responses of the author to a series of events during this period. The chapters are heterogeneous. Several events are omitted, and this is even acknowledged by the author.

Writing contemporary history is a challenge. As nicely articulated by the author, it is an art where history (of the past) and chronicle (of the present) converge subtly. The significant factor in this art is to capture the daily events that may be of value and prove to be of historical interest. Critically important is to have a sense of heterogeneous time and to capture it. Yet another challenge Samaddar puts forward is the framework. Marx used class struggles in history as the framework for writing the contemporary history of France, whereas political spirituality is the framework Foucault used in his reports on revolutionary events in Iran.

The framework used in this book is ?passive revolution?. Is passive revolution appearing oxymoronic? The purpose of this review is not to prove ?passive revolution? as an oxymoron, or for that matter in any context?whether in the case of contradictory transformations in any Islamic nation, or in the case of West Bengal or elsewhere. Nor to provide an alternative framework in which the evolution of the political paradigms in West Bengal can be analysed. Appreciating Samaddar?s ethical persuasions and priorities of events highlighted in this book during the period 1977-2011, let us unpack.

Passive Revolution in West Bengal: 1977-2011 begins at the end of the Emergency period. It begins with an intriguing question: why does history always seem to end at the contemporary? To quote, ?Strangely, many intellectuals in West Bengal think that history stopped in West Bengal in 1977. (?.) To these intellectuals, history reappeared only in 2006. The reappearance of history?caused by unfamiliar electoral results, sudden collective actions, surge in new thinking, protest against land acquisitions, loud resentment of minority population groups and spurt in students and youth activism?put the passive and conservative Bengali intellectual class in discomfort?. However, the author believes that these also produced a demand, which would snowball into a massive desire to know: how did this change come about?

Samaddar also asks aloud whether these intellectuals have forgotten that the Left Front rule began in 1977 with a Herculean task of normalising society from a revolutionary phase (1967-77) marked by the deaths of many revolutionists?students, peasants and workers?in ten years (1967-77). Any contemporary history of West Bengal, especially of the Bengali middle class, is interpreted through the lens of these revolutionary events?the Naxalbari movement and the subsequent state repression. However, the use of any ?metaphors? are relatively nil in this book.

Samaddar is honest in revealing with admiration the first ten years of the Left Front rule in West Bengal since 1977 when the state witnessed a ?big government? in terms of fiscal decisions on poverty eradication expenditure programmes, expansion of primary education, employment schemes, land reforms, etc, among many other governance strategies, including implementation of the panchayati raj system. Though this was pacifying, especially after the turbulent phase of West Bengal marked by student, peasant and worker unrest, something went wrong in terms of democratic governance.

One of the highlights of this book is the analysis of the contemporary history of West Bengal in the past 33 years by investigating the way ?governmentality? operated in the state, and what has been the effect of this ?governmentality? on democracy. This ?governmentality? has roots in polar cases?anarchy or stability? Democracy naturally signified a choice of stability over anarchy. However, old injustices were left unaddressed. Preference was given to stability over inclusiveness. The mantra was that the excluded must not protest too much because stability is the prerequisite for inclusion.

Yet another facet of governmentality was the strategy to control the excessive collectivity of Bengal??excessive democratic vitality??without any trade-off of individuals withdrawing from the collective life. This was judiciously done by wooing the rich and poor, educated and ignorant, to nominally subscribe to the party. Passive Revolution in West Bengal: 1977-2011 takes you to how these governmentality tactics (party substituted for society, party committees substituted for government?s intelligence wing, etc), corruption, use of arm tactics and transformation of the party into a syndicate eventually boomeranged, making the Left Front a victim of success. However, Samaddar has not engaged in a rise and fall account on the lines of petty bourgeois refrain and despair, namely things were good in the beginning, and the decline started with fatigue, ageing and corruption.

Has West Bengal always been a classic case of a society in search of utopia? This question by Samaddar has an intellectual appeal. He asserts in one of the chapters that political change is never for utopia. He believes that order comes after mortal blows, if not death blows, to the rebelliousness of society. This happened in West Bengal in 1977. And history repeats itself.

The author analyses the regime change, beginning with another question: what happens when the lower strata of society acquires governing power? He mentions that expectations with the new order were high, but these expectations were not clearly defined. But this very ambiguity of promised parivartan (change) was dangerous for stability. He expresses a concern over the new social and political engineering in West Bengal?whether the focus is on certain targeted goals?

While analysing the goals, one can see the concern of the author over the economic stagnation of the state. He interprets that the struggles in Singur and Nandigram were necessarily against ?capital?. Later, he also examines West Bengal against the backdrop of the global financial crisis. He even suggests that Bengal can learn from Greece. Basically, what he points out is the fallacy of ?one size fits all? policies to deal with the asymmetries within Europe, and inferring that unless they have a decentralised fiscal structure, the public debt burden of the state may evolve into a deep crisis. He also highlights that finance commissions cannot be an answer to the fundamental fiscal issues faced by the state.

Samaddar warns that this collection is not for serious social scientists; these are only records of a journal?thematically arranged reports and newspaper chronicles. However, the book contains many brilliant flashes of a social scientist. The analytical framework he uses to understand the contemporary history of West Bengal and interpreting it in terms of a sense of heterogeneity of events in a contemporary time scale adds to the value.

Lekha Chakraborty is associate professor, NIPFP, New Delhi