India’s empowerment will come through two areas: natural resources and human resources. Fifty eight years after Independence, there are still so many unfulfilled tasks. We have to finish these, otherwise India cannot become an economic giant or economic power like what China is today. Take land reforms. Without advancement in agriculture, we cannot advance. We cannot be a strong country. And for that, what is necessary—and on this, we have failed all these years—are land reform programmes. Even when I had a talk with our Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, I asked him about his vision. He told me, ‘‘Look, if you go through the results of the last Parliamentary elections, the changes that took place happened because of their failures in the rural sector.’’ West Bengal was the exception, because we have done it. He told me that the government is initiating some programmes like the employment guarantee scheme. But if you don’t implement land reforms, all this will only be cosmetic. Without land reform, no model will work, whether it is green revolution or yellow revolution. Another precondition of India’s empowerment is education. Without 100 per cent literacy, you cannot go anywhere. With a highly educated elite and a majority in darkness, we cannot advance. Finally, we can be proud of the intellectual power that India has as a Third World country. We have so many more scientists, engineers and technologists compared with any other Third World country. So, in brief, land reform, literacy, then advancing in science and technology using our intellectual power. If we can do this in a holistic way, India will be really an empowered India. In West Bengal, 72 per cent of our agricultural land belongs to poor and marginal farmers. Some people raised doubts whether small holdings help. Yes, they do. Together with our panchayati raj administration, our production of rice, vegetables, fish and potatoes is the highest in the country. The purchasing power of Bengal’s rural masses is the highest in India. In other states, the growth in state domestic product (SDP) is centered around big cities and rural areas contribute very little. In our state, SDP growth is evenly distributed across the districts. It’s on this solid agricultural base that we have to build on our modern industries, iron and steel, chemicals, IT, biotech, agrobusiness. Industry, especially the manufacturing, has to be given the necessary importance since you cannot create job opportunities without manufacturing. Which political ideology is best for empowerment? Marxism has come through many tests and trials. In some places it failed, in some places it is working. China is now almost a miracle. Cuba could survive. Vietnam is also doing well. I stick to my ideology but not like in earlier days. We have to learn the truth from the facts. We have to learn lessons from our mistakes. Yes, we believe in materialism; yes, we believe in the fundamental contradiction between labour and capital, we believe in class struggle. We cannot give up all these ideas. But we have to take into account all the rapid new developments taking place. And accordingly, we have to reorient all our programmes. We have to learn from the failures of the erstwhile socialist countries. So, we will stick to our ideology but we cannot stick to our earlier dogma. We are changing according to the situation. I like the word, not pragmatist but realist. Pragmatist is something that smacks of opportunism. I am a realist. The Russians failed for many reasons. They could not join the world economy, world trade. Earlier, they had thought that Russia and the East European countries could set up a regional bloc. There was regional cooperation between the Eastern European socialist countries and Soviet Union. And they thought that will be the alternative system. But finally it didn’t work. There was one problem. The Russians were cut off from the world economy. Secondly, they were a highly centralised command economy. As for China, they say, look, our basic economy is still under socialism. But we are encouraging foreign direct investment in certain areas, not all. For technology and transfer of technology. They are doing it. They are allowing foreign investment, allowing private capital to go to certain areas. Therefore, in China there are many sectors working together: the private sector, state sector, cooperative sector, joint sector, including foreign investment. For an empowered state, an empowered nation, we can’t follow anybody’s model. We cannot. Even in West Bengal, I am not following what the Chinese are doing. We are just observing, trying to understand the changes in their policies. But we have to learn lessons from them. We should follow a policy of self-reliance and for that what we advocate is that in industry, the core sectors should be in the hands of the government, so far as Navratnas are concerned. It was a Nehruvian idea. We think he was correct and his idea is still relevant. The big undertakings that are the backbone of our national economy and earning profit should not be disturbed. Then, if you are to allow FDI, if you have to allow foreign companies, they are most welcome. They are welcome for upgrading our technology, for creating jobs. We do not want any jobless growth. Unemployment is a big problem in India. Therefore, our import-export policies, our industrial policies should be based on these basic ideas: self-reliance and how to create job opportunities for people who have no jobs. So far as West Bengal is concerned, our advantage is that a good number of our young people are well-educated, intelligent, they have a world outlook. This generation will create the 21st century. And the cream of this generation, which is well educated, will have to lead. IT companies are coming here for our human resources, for the intelligent boys and girls graduating from our engineering colleges. But others in the rural areas did not get the opportunity to study in these institutes of higher education. If they get an opportunity to perform, they will perform. So to empower them we are encouraging two new schemes. One is the self-help group, and the other is self-employment schemes. When we started this, the young people thought this is not a job. But now they have realised that something can be done through this model and they are doing well, particularly among the minorities. Finally, empowerment’s agents are the young people who are graduating from universities and colleges, they can change the face of West Bengal, they can change the face of the country. They have to have all opportunities for excellence, for reaching the level of talent that is global. My dream is that they get to do that here, in this state. —(As told to Subrata Nagchoudhary)
