Left thrashed in W. Bengal local polls

THE West Bengal electorate has handed a third consecutive defeat to the Left Front led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM). In the latest rural-council (panchayat) elections, the Front only won one of 17 zilla parishads (ZP).
The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) triumphed in 13 ZPs -- equalling the Left's 2008 score. Although party-wise voting percentages aren't yet available, the TMC is the overwhelming victor.
The Left Front's percentage-share of ZP seats shrank from 68.7 in 2008 to 24.8, while the TMC's improved from 16 to 61.6. True, the Left did marginally better (31.1% of seats) in village-based gram panchayats. It also retained some of its support in North Bengal.
But the Left largely failed to recoup its 2011 losses in Southern Bengal, except marginally near Kolkata -- a fallout of Trinamool's growing urban unpopularity.
More crucially, the Left suffered major setbacks in its Central Bengal citadels: Bardhaman, Birbhum, West and East Medinipur, Bankura and Purulia. These were its strongest bases. Bardhaman saw some of the greatest Communist-led land struggles, and produced legendary peasant leaders like Harekrishna Konar and Benoy Choudhury.
The losses are serious. They suggest that the CPM has failed to arrest its downslide since Singur (2006), Nandigram (2007-08), and the 2009 (Lok Sabha) and 2011 (Assembly) elections. Its alienation from its core-support -- small and middle peasants, workers and artisans -- continues
The latest debacle reflects the Left's failure to capitalise on Ms. Banerjee's appalling governance: sharp rise in crime, growing corruption and cronyism, repression of legitimate protest, and the Saradha scam, which wiped out three million people's savings.
Crime against women has risen monstrously in West Bengal. It accounts for 12.7% of such crimes in India, well above its population share. But Ms. Banerjee dismissed these -- including the Park Street case in Kolkata's heart, and a student's rape-murder in nearby Kamduni -- as "concocted." She transferred the woman officer who investigated the Park Street rape.
This has greatly demoralised the police, as has a Kolkata thug's gunning-down of a policeman in broad daylight. Ms. Banerjee responded by sacking the police commissioner.
Her "off-with-his-head" ways -- e.g. arrest of a teacher who posted a cartoon on the Internet -- have earned her ill-will. Her uncouth manner has lost her the remnants of upper-caste bhadralok sympathy.
Her industrial policy and opposition to land acquisition by the state for private industry have perpetuated Bengal's investment and employment famine amidst disastrous public finances.
The Left attributes its defeat to violence by the TMC, undoubtedly a thuggish party. This is partly true. Some 6,000 Left candidates couldn't file nominations. And 12,000 were prevented from campaigning and mobilising their supporters.
More than 40,000 Left cadres fled their homes. Over 500 Left party offices were set on fire or vandalised. More than 20 people were killed.
Yet, violence cannot explain the Left's rout. A lot of CPM cadres had defected to the TMC, which got divided between a "Green TMC" (the original) and a "Red Trinamool" (composed of defectors). The CPM was demoralised and couldn't mobilise its famous "party machine."
The TMC won 15% of the 85,000 panchayat seats uncontested. But to be brutally frank, the CPM also practised such coercion in the past. It won some 10% of the seats uncontested in 2003 and 2008. In those elections, more than 20 people were killed.
The Left's poor performance is primarily attributable to continuing popular discontent and anger against the CPM's long history of subordinating the state to the party, building an abuse-prone patronage system, and recent pursuit of neoliberal industrial and land policies.
The panchayat debacle comes on top of a fall in the Left's vote-percentage from 51 in 2004 to 43 in 2009, and further to 40 in 2011 (Assembly elections). The Front's seat-tally plummeted from 235 to 62 in the 294-strong Assembly, marking its exit from power after 34 years -- the longest such tenure in any democracy.
Yet, the Left doesn't admit to its grave errors. Its state and district-level leadership has continued unchanged, barring a few expulsions following cosmetic "rectification."
A recent opinion poll forecasts an even steeper 15 percentage-point fall in the Front's vote -- enormous by India's standard even for "wave" elections -- to 28% in 2014, with a likely loss of Lok Sabha seats.
At any rate, the Left doesn't seem set to recover from its setbacks anytime soon although it might make small gains in 2014 if there's no alliance between the TMC and the Congress.
The "blame game" has started in the Bengal CPM over responsibility for the panchayat debacle. The party has postponed its state committee meeting scheduled for August 22-23.
The Left's decline is now manifest both nationally and in West Bengal. Behind it lie deeper, structural causes: ideological rigidity and confusion, outdated programmes, over-emphasis on parliamentarism to the exclusion of mass work, and a socially non-radical upper-caste leadership.
Instead of looking for alternatives to neoliberalism, the Left's leadership often drifted into these very policies. It showed an unhealthy obsession with industrialisation at any cost, and neglected social sector agendas.
Unsurprisingly, West Bengal has some of India's lowest health and education indices, with school dropout rates higher than Bihar's. Its performance in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act programme is the worst among 20 major states. Its food Public Distribution System is badly run-down.
The Left has failed to integrate issues such as caste, patriarchy and ecology into its theoretical understanding. It must reflect self-critically on these if it wants to modernise its programmes and policies. It must also transform its organisational culture which outlaws dissent and free debate -- and hence honest introspection.
Above all, the Left must rebuild its links with grassroots movements by taking up people's livelihood issues.
One must hope the Left regains its relevance. It's one of the few currents in Indian politics -- perhaps the most important one -- which is committed to empowering the marginalised, and relatively untainted by corruption. That's saying a lot in South Asia.

The writer is an eminent Indian columnist.
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