(The following article is from the June 1-15, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By B. Prasant, PV correspondent in India

The results of May 18 voting for Bengal's three levels of rural elected bodies were still coming in when the state's governing Left Front chair Biman Basu answered a barrage of questions thrown at him by media-persons of the corporate houses, all in high spirits.

     Some of the questions were deliberate attempts at provocation, while others were dully repetitious. The senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader exuded patience and tolerance while standing his ground on some of the most delicate questions.

     Biman Basu began as he does usually by reading off the latest figures in voting for the Gram Panchayat (GPs, or village councils), the Panchayat Samity (PS, rural blocks covering dozens of villages), and the Zillah Parishad (ZPs, or districts). Bimanda mostly focussed attention on the main trends.

     In the 748 ZPs, the LF won 418, the Congress 97, and the Trinamul Congress 122, with the right-wing fundamentalist BJP winning in a couple of seats. SUCI (Socialist Unity Centre of India) won in six, Jharkhandis in two and there was an independent winner (in Bankura).

     At the Panchayat Samity (PS) level, the LF won in 189, the combined opposition in 131, and another nine were still uncertain.     Of the 3220 Gram Panchayat seats, results were known for 2899. The LF walked away with 1514, the combined opposition winning 1283, and 111 remaining either undecided and/or tied or dominated by independent candidates who were yet to declare their political loyalties.

     Answering the chorus about what had "gone wrong," Bimanda merely pointed to the detailed review that must be awaited before he could respond adequately to the media's happy curiosity about the "LF debacle." As the CPI(M)'s Bengal secretary, he could only highlight a few points in a rough, preliminary estimate, such as:

* Lack of adequate enhancement of the political consciousness of the rural populace.

* Gaps in implementation of rural development programmes.

* Weaknesses in the mass contact work among the rural populace of the Communists and the Left.

* Imponderables like the inability to keep everybody satisfied, and to succeed in tying down the last tidy knot in every rural development project in a class-divided society.

* Any deviations from the responsibility which the Left is expected to bear for popular welfare.

* Instances where self-confidence was substituted by self-satisfaction and even by egoistic behaviour.

* The expectation and demand of the people of the Communists and the Left.

* The lack of unity among the Left Front parties in certain areas.

     Was the vote against the industrial policy of the Bengal LF government? The answer is "no," simply because the statistics speak a different language. In Purulia, where 10,000 acres of fertile and fallow land was taken over for industrialisation, the LF won 30 of the 35 ZP seats. In Midnapore West, where more than 8,000 acres of fertile and mixed land was acquired for industrial purposes, the LF walked away with 57 of the 62 GP seats. In Bankura district, where 3,000 acres have been acquired, the LF won 64 of the 67 ZP seats.

     Then, persisted the scions of the corporate media, "it must have been the swing away of the religious minority vote that cost the CPI(M) and the LF so dear in the poll verdict."

     An unperturbed Bimanda unfolded another sheaf of papers and stated how a large number of districts, including the Congress stronghold of Murshidabad, where the Muslim population exceeded 60% or more, the LF had emerged the winner at the ZP level. At Punisole, at the border of the Onda and Taldangra subdivisions of the Bankura district, reputed to be the largest village of Asia, and where the population overwhelmingly belonged to a religious minority, the LF had emerged a handsome winner.

     Simplification and calculation to suit one's pejorative aim would never get the media anywhere, Biman Basu advised. He concluded by stating that anything new, like any employment-generating, pro-poor industrial policy based on a solid and diversified agricultural sub-structure, took time to grow roots of confidence amidst the people. The Luddites, said Biman Basu, referring to Marxist classics, had finally stopped breaking up machinery in England and elsewhere, only after they had been taught by the experience of that wonderful thing called struggle for life and livelihood that machines would never replace people, even as productivity would go right on increasing, benefiting even the Luddites themselves.