LeftyProf

Remember Margaret Thatcher’s sonorous declaration of TINA–There Is No Alternative (to capitalism)? Well, TINA is back!

Many moons ago (October 5, 1995, to be precise), back when Jyoti Basu was still the official party boss of the CPI(M), he had declared in very erudite terms to a New York Times reporter, that although “[a] debacle has taken place in the Soviet Union, … we don’t think it as the end of Marxism.” The “debacle” he was referring to, of course, was the collapse of the USSR, which had been understood as signaling the death of marxism. Okay, I hear you say, a leader of a communist party defended the relevance of Marxism following the collapse of the Soviet Union. What’s so remarkable about that? It’s rather mundane and predictable, isn’t it?  Hmm…. Well, read on.

The NYTimes article ends thusly:

“We are not inviting capitalism to West Bengal; we are inviting capital,” said Anil Biswas, editor of the party’s newspaper.

Reaching for a dog-eared copy of the Communist Manifesto, he turned to the section on capital and added triumphantly, “Read that, and you’ll see that capitalism and capital are two entirely different things.”

What an astute, incisive, and enlightening insight: capitalism and capital are two different things! Who knew?! Not only are they two (entirely) different “things,” but apparently you can have one without the other.

What could have prompted the editor of a supposedly “communist” newspaper to make such an asinine statement? I can only hazard a guess. For the CPI(M) and its ideologues, Communists are apparently miracle-workers, and sort of like the alchemists of yore, they can take “capital” and somehow extricate it from all the icky stuff that we call “capitalism.” So, if you are stressed out about all that exploitation and oppression that you associated with multinational corporations, banks and financial institutions, don’t worry–because the Communist State will clean it all up for you.

Well, twelve years later, the good comrades have further developed their novel thesis, only this time without the pretense at cleverness. The reason for their forthrightness this time around, of course, is the absolute disaster they have on their hands thanks to their brutal attempt to impose neoliberal policies in West Bengal. (For the best ongoing analysis, see sanhati.com.) In the wake of the protests against these policies, both at home and abroad, CPI(M) propagandists and die-hard knucklehead apologists like Vijay Prashad have taken it upon themselves to issue Stalinoid rationalizations for these policies. This is old news now.

On January 3rd, according to an article in The Hindu, party stalwart and West Bengal Chief Minister, addressing an audience on the occasion of the 42nd anniversary of the founding of their newspaper, Ganashakti (”People’s Power”) put it quite clearly: “We have to accept capitalism…. This is being realistic in a situation where there is no alternative.”

Then, as if on cue, Jyoti Basu repeated the same argument two days later. Here’s an article from The Tribune, dated January 5, and titled “Basu: We want capital; socialism not possible now”:

Veteran CPM leader Jyoti Basu today conceded that socialism and classless society were Utopian ideas. He admitted that though they were communists, they had accepted capitalism since they were living in the capitalistic system.

“It is always wise to accept the situation and accordingly take necessary steps for quickly developing the country,” Basu suggested….

Strongly endorsing CM [Chief Minister] Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s policy of rapid industrialisation with the private and corporate investments, Basu complemented the CM for taking the right step.

The party patriarch said the people would have to wait some [!] more time to see the true socialism in practice and a classless society in reality.

He said the entire nation has been running under the capitalistic system and the communists, commanding only three small states, cannot enforce [sic!] socialism in the entire country…. [full]

Well, thank goodness for the fact that they “command only three small states,” is all we can say!

(Today, I read in The Hindu that Sitaram Yechury, another  senior CPI(M) Politburo member has declared that in fact, the CPI(M) is looking for a “third alternative” to neoliberalism and communalism.) Moving on….

Well, what of those who don’t believe that we must accept capitalism? What of those who feel there is something wrong with neoliberalism and corporate globalization, and that a party that claims to stand in the tradition of Marxism ought not to enforce such policies? Well, the West Bengal Chief Minister has an answer. According to The Hindu, “The Chief Minister stressed the need for clearing the misunderstanding of ‘those who are genuinely confused.’” In other words, those who oppose the forcible acquisition of farmers’ land for the creation of tax-free Special Economic Zones for multinational mega-corporations like the Salim Group (with ties to erstwhile dictator Suharto’s family) are simply “confused,” and the party newspaper can presumably “clear” up the “misunderstanding.”

With Communists like these, who needs neocons?! And when will the Vijay Prashads of the world give up the charade, and accept that they too, like their party patriarchs, have accepted the idea that There Is No Alternative?

IN THE 2004 elections, Indian voters threw out the Hindu-chauvinist, BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and brought in the Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA). At the same time, the parties of the Left, and the two communist parties in particular, made spectacular gains, winning over sixty seats in parliament, and becoming, for the first time, a major force in national politics.

Activists and intellectuals on the Indian Left were euphoric about the success of the Communist Parties. The fact that the UPA would have to rely on the Left’s support, they claimed, would force the government to adopt more “people-friendly” policies. But this euphoria was misplaced, as recent events have clearly shown.

The Comnunist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)]-led Left Front government in the state of West Bengal has embarked on the same path of neoliberal privatization as that of the UPA, insisting that export-oriented industrialization is the key to the state’s development. Invoking the colonial-era Land Acquisition Act of 1894, the government began to woo investors with free land, tax-free status, and other perks, in an effort to create Special Economic Zones (SEZs). In 2006, it decided to give away 1,000 acres of prime agricultural land in the village of Singur to the Indian corporate giant, Tata. Following this, it announced a similar gift of 10,000 acres of agricultural land to the Indonesian Salim group of companies in the township of Nandigram.

First in Singur, and then in Nandigram, farmers, sharecroppers, and rural laborers rose up in protest against the stealing of their land. They barricaded themselves in, and mobilized mass protests. But in January 2007, the Tatas began construction of their car factory in Singur, ignoring the wishes of the local population.

Then, on March 14, the government of West Bengal ordered its police forces to open fire on protesters in Nandigram, killing fifteen and injuring dozens more. The killings set off a series of protests by Left activists and intellectuals, many of whom had hitherto supported the CPI(M) and its policies. A crisis erupted within the Left Front coalition itself, as other coalition parties joined the protests.

There is, of course, a veritable pantheon of apologists for the Left Front’s policies, including some very learned economists, it seems. See, for instance, the paper by Mritiunjoy Mohanty of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta, titled “Singur and the Political Economy of Structural Change.” The fact that an IIM researcher’s work appears on an “alternative economics” website should speak for itself. Be that as it may, Mohanty’s claims that the Left Front’s acquisition of land in Singur must be seen as a progressive measure; an argument that is reminiscent of the calls justifications for forced industrialization in Stalin’s Russia during the 1930s. I can’t get into the specifics of Mohanty’s article in this post, but will revisit it at some length in a few days.

Well, on March 27, parliament passed a bill that would put an end to the government’s acquisition of land for private companies, in a move that the media dubbed the “Nandigram effect.” However, this comes as little solace to the thousands who have been displaced to make way for some 400 SEZs that have already been approved across the country.

Round Two

And now, the Indian government has approved yet another 21 SEZs, according to a front page article in The Hindu! These innocuously named regions are certainly “special”: for the likes of Mukesh Ambani, the head of Reliance Industries, whose proposal for a petrochemicals SEZ was among those approved today.

Even the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), essentially a club of some 20 of the world’s richest countries (plus smaller economies like Mexico and Ireland), recently came out against the tax cuts that the Indian government was offering through the SEZs. (As Deepa Kumar pointed out to me, it is because that puts the OECD nations at a competitive disadvantage. She’s probably right.)

But think about it: According news articles, the SEZs will essentially give over Rs. 100,000 crores in tax cuts to corporations that develop SEZs over the coming years! How much money is that? And what can it buy? My very rough calculations put it at $25 billion. That’s a lot of money to be giving away gratis to folks like Mukesh Ambani.

Poor Mukesh. Perhaps he needs the money more urgently than the well-fed farmers of Singur. After all, his net worth is only $20 billion, and he is only the 14th richest man in the world.

Meanwhile, the working classes and the poor need fairness, equality, and justice.

Can a hundred thousand crores buy that?