What Bengal does today8230;

In the capital, at a cross-road near JNU, there is a traffic light that hasn8217;t functioned for a week.

In the capital, at a cross-road near JNU, there is a traffic light that hasn8217;t functioned for a week. Given Delhi8217;s traffic density, there are queues 2 km long and it takes half an hour to negotiate a single intersection. While MCD, Delhi police and Delhi government8217;s transport department trade information, repairs will presumably be held up. But there can be no dispute about which government department is responsible for deploying traffic police to eliminate chaos when traffic lights malfunction. On a recent morning, there were no policemen and beyond a point, public-spirited citizens got off their cars and began to direct traffic. This represents civil society taking over when governments abdicate and this isn8217;t an isolated instance. For instance, we have the traffic warden scheme in Delhi now. While we debate privatisation of electricity and water supply, the poor in slums have no recourse but the privatised option. Education and even health are rife with examples of private provisioning. There should be nothing wrong with the privatised option as long as there is regulation and competition. Privatisation shouldn8217;t lead to artificial monopolies through entry barriers and unfair or restrictive trade practices. Nor should the poor suffer from lack of access or asymmetry of information.

I think we accept the government8217;s abdication, but are often hypocritical about admitting it publicly. Did you notice what the chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices told farmers, as reported in this newspaper two days ago? 8220;Don8217;t commit suicide, no one will bother. Pick up the gun, or protest in any manner you know. The Vidarbha experiment has failed, we have had more farmer suicides after the PM relief package than before it. Suicides will not move the government, protests will.8221; What is the last bastion of government where we are most reluctant to accept private provisioning? The answer must be in what is called 8216;law and order8217;. This isn8217;t a term ever precisely defined, but in general, the expression means the legal system, especially criminal justice. This must be the core governance area and if a government cannot ensure law and order, it has no business to produce cycles, cement, condoms and cars. Yet, we know privatisation exists here too. In civil disputes, mediation, conciliation and arbitration are nothing but out-sourcing. In criminal justice, why do the relatively rich employ private security guards? Why do banks employ recovery agents? In the badlands of India8217;s Hindi heartland, in Naxalism-prone districts and even elsewhere, criminal justice has always been outsourced.

It shouldn8217;t be surprising that in these regions, official crime figures are relatively low. Why resort to formal redressal systems when informal channels, albeit illegal, are more efficient? To take but one example, which of India8217;s states had most IPC crimes registered in 2004, the last year for which we have data? Many people will say Bihar. But this is the wrong answer. Andhra, Karnataka, MP, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and UP had more registered cases. Incidentally, West Bengal doesn8217;t have a high incidence rate for cognisable crimes. The Left, in particular the CPM, may fight privatisation and outsourcing elsewhere, but in West Bengal, administration, transfers, appointments and criminal justice have been outsourced to the party for three decades. By virtue of more than 400 years of Buddhist rule and the Chaitanya movement, classic caste systems may be dead in Bengal. However, it survives in the form of brahmin CPM members and others, as evidenced in the West Bengal CM8217;s quote about 8216;them8217; and 8216;us8217;.

This outsourcing to the party is characteristic of all Communist regimes. It is a pity we no longer read Milovan Djilas and have forgotten the nomenklatura in the former Soviet Union. 8216;The paying back in their own coin8217; quote is also characteristic of retributive justice in Communist regimes. 8216;An eye for an eye8217; from the Old Testament may be the popular expression, but the legal term is 8216;lex talionis8217; or law of retaliation. This principle occurred in the Code of Hammurabi and Judaism, but civilised societies have moved on. As Mahatma Gandhi said, 8220;An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind8221;, a quote later paraphrased by Martin Luther King. In West Bengal, there is a curious expression known as 8216;intellectual8217;. This sounds better in Bengali and is curious because being an 8216;intellectual8217; can8217;t be a profession, as Bengali usage suggests. After the 8216;recapture8217; of Nandigram, intellectuals in Kolkata are apparently a divided lot, with one group spontaneously objecting to atrocities and the other of the rent-a-crowd variety toeing the party line of 8216;them8217; versus 8216;us8217; and 8216;lex talionis8217;.

The former group is naiuml;ve and even hypocritical. In the last three decades, is there a single intellectual in West Bengal who has not benefited from party patronage and been 8216;bought8217;, so to speak, and hasn8217;t been aware of the outsourcing? The latter group is hypocritical in a different sense. The recapture of Nandigram wasn8217;t about land acquisition and SEZ policies. It was about outsourcing of administration and law and order no longer being a monopoly, the threat of competition having been brought in. Law and order may be a state issue under the Constitution. However, we should have a national debate because privatisation is involved and this privatisation is more important than opening up banking, insurance, retail or pensions, since a core governance function is at stake. We have tacitly accepted privatisation of law and order. What needs to be debated is not this fait accompli, but the terms on which law and order is thrown open. How does one ensure transparency in the grant of licenses? Can there be global tenders? What regulation can be introduced to guard against monopolies and unfair practices? What will be the duration of a license? What benchmark will be use for outcome improvements?

Once these questions are answered, and we establish a law and order regulator, state governments can be freed from this onerous responsibility and CMs will be free to travel abroad in search of foreign investments and will no longer have to wear two hats. After three entrenched decades, the CPM is singularly well-placed in West Bengal to take this giant leap forward. Ten years from now, we will look back and remark that what Bengal did today, India will do tomorrow.

The writer is a noted economist