The Trinamool Congress-led government in West Bengal appears to have set
in motion an “agrarian counter-reform,” N. Ram, former Editor-in-Chief
of The Hindu, said here on Wednesday pointing out that there have
already been attempts to undo the achievements of the Left Front.
Speaking at a seminar to commemorate the 35th Anniversary of the setting
up of the first Left Front government in the State, Mr. Ram said that
before the Left Front came to power, “West Bengal presented the picture
of a State in prolonged decline.” He said that in the early days of the Trinamool Congress-led government
there have been reports of 61 farmer suicides — “a symptom of the
agrarian counter-attack.” He pointed out that since its arrival in 1977,
the Left Front government had managed a turnaround in the prevailing
situation of a long period of great distress.“An example of what agrarian counter-reforms mean for the people of this
State is that much of the development of the State can be compromised,”
he said.
Loss of lives
Speaking on a range of issues including attacks on the freedom of
expression, efforts by anti-Left forces “to tap into Communalism” in
recent years and attempts to “bureaucratise the panchayats,” Mr. Ram
also drew attention to the large number of people who were killed or
wounded in attacks. “We are concerned about the loss of lives. We want political parties to
function freely; the way they functioned earlier — the way Mamata
Banerjee was allowed to function in the State, campaign militantly — we
want the same rights to be enjoyed by all political parties in the
State,” he said.
Mr. Ram also cautioned that there have been “early signals of
intolerance towards those who are critical of the government and the
Chief Minister in the State” — a dangerous trend that must be “arrested
at the start.”
The seminar was also addressed by eminent economist C. P. Chandrasekhar
and the State’s former Finance Minister, Ashok Mitra, who was among the
five Ministers who took the oath of office on June 21, 1977 when the
first Left Front government was formed in the State. The session was
moderated by Marxist scholar Shovanlal Duttagupta.
“The fact that there was a fundamental transformation in the nature of
India’s political economy with the coming of the Left Front in 1977
cannot be denied. It placed on the agenda — the last three years
notwithstanding — an alternative way to take this country forward in the
direction where we will finally be able to mobilise the support for its
structural transformation,” Mr. Chandrasekhar said.
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