Bourgeois is better

A new phrase has entered the lexicon in West Bengal, and it is one that strikes at the very heart of the ruling Left Front’s political economy. ‘Ration riots’ have spread to six districts of the state, and six weeks after what many may have considered a stray incident of rage against ration shops the agitation is gaining a political overtone. The problem — food grain being siphoned out of the public distribution system — is not peculiar to West Bengal. However, Kolkata’s failure to augment stocks and contain the violence as well as the axis of agitation makes the situation peculiar to the Left Front. One, the agitation is increasingly slipping into the control of the Naxalites and the Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind, the very coalition that gained control of the agitation at Nandigram earlier this year. Two, like then, the rage is being directed at the CPM, the main party in the ruling Left Front. Put together, for the party the challenge is clear: the party — that is, not specifically the government — is being seen to be part of the problem.

This has staggering implications for the Left Front’s self-image. It has sustained thirty years of ‘progressive’ economic policy by pointing to the great reform being brought to the countryside. Now, with the ‘ration riots’, the government is seen to have failed in something as crucial to its political economy plank as delivery of essential foodstuff. But the CPM, as the big partner leading the Left Front, must also consider the implications of having its workers attacked for failures or policies of the government.

Thirty years of patronage of party functionaries has conflated party and government in popular perception. Once this was not a problem, when successes of government could be directly attributed to party workers. It kept, at election time, the line of self-congratulation straight and clear. But the limits of benefits from early attack on ‘bourgeois’ institutions have been reached. Now with those very institutions seen to be failing while in the hands of Left workers, the party is the target. The CPM has intelligent leaders at the helm. They must see now — they chose not to see earlier — the consequences of destruction of the barriers between party and government.