May 7 , 2011 : MANINI CHATTERJEE
Bankura: As you turn off the expressway just before Durgapur and then cross the long bridge spanning the Damodar and enter the district of Bankura, the landscape changes completely.
The lush green of Hooghly and Burdwan give way to a harsh and arid topography — fields are few and far between, herds of bedraggled sheep graze on the scrubland, patches of sal forests appear and the undulating red laterite terrain gets more rocky and hilly the further inwards you go.
Politically, too, it had been different in Bankura, parts of which go to the polls tomorrow. Bankura, famous for its iconic terracotta horse and baluchari sarees, kept at bay the “poribortoner hawa” that began blowing through Bengal since 2008 and that is why the CPM’s district headquarters wears an air of smug complacency.
At the reception, we overhear an elderly comrade telling former MP Shamik Lahiri with boyish glee: “Kono chinta nei, ekhane chhoy hobe, chhoy.” He later explains to us: “Here, we don’t score in ones or twos, nor even fours, here we only hit sixers.” In other words, the Left will win all 12 Assembly seats in the district as it almost always has.
A little later, CPM district secretary Amiya Patra says much the same thing. Is Bankura, too, up against the winds of change? “Poriborton hobe — margin aaro baarbe” (There will be change — we will increase our margin), he says, absolutely confident that the Party will do even better than before this time.
He has history on his side. Since 1977, the CPM has made a clean sweep of Bankura in both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections seven times in a row. Before delimitation, Bankura had 13 Assembly constituencies and the CPM had lost the Bankura seat — thanks to its urban areas — in 1982 and 2001. In 2006, it hit a “sixer” again and bagged all 13 seats.
In the 2008 panchayat polls when much of Bengal reeled under the Singur-Nandigram effect, the CPM and its allies managed to win 144 of the 190 gram panchayats, all 22 panchayat samitis and an overwhelming 41 of the 43 seats in the zilla parishad. In 2009, the CPM won both the Lok Sabha seats — Bankura and Bishnupur, the former represented by the CPM’s parliamentary party leader, Basudeb Acharya. Acharya led in 11 of the 12 Assembly segments, trailing only in Bankura town by 6,500 votes. “We will make that up in this innings,” says the grey-haired comrade at the reception who revels in cricketing analogy.
Left sympathisers, in search of a bit of Red hope, may find succour in these glorious electoral statistics. But if they travel through interior Bankura, the more sensitive among them may also be driven to deep despair — because the stark truth is that even after 34 years of Left Front rule and uninterrupted CPM dominance, the levels of poverty and under-development are staggering.
According to the West Bengal Human Development Report published in 2004, in terms of income Bankura ranked second from the bottom, outranked only by neighbouring Purulia, also a CPM bastion.
Bankura, however, beat Purulia in having more than 50 per cent people living below the poverty line in both rural and urban areas. In Bankura, the number of households living below the poverty line in rural areas was 59.62 per cent and in urban areas 52.38 per cent. In Purulia, rural poverty figures are much higher (78.72 per cent) but in urban areas just 6.47 per cent. Contrast this with another neighbour — Burdwan’s figures were 18.99 per cent (rural) and 17 per cent (urban.)
These figures are almost a decade old, but if things have improved in Bankura there is little to show for it on the ground. In Guruputua village that falls under the Chhatna seat, all the 50-odd houses barring two are mud hovels inhabited by agricultural workers who make Rs 50 a day when they get work at all. Some of them have “job cards” and get MNREGA work — mostly digging ponds — but only get work for 15 days a year, not hundred. A group of villagers, thinking we have something to offer, tell us they desperately need a tubewell. The only one around is in disrepair and others, far away, are also running dry.
“Money comes from above but it never reaches us,” one of the villagers complains, refusing to give names. And yet despite their dismal lives, they tell us they know no other party but the CPM, no other symbol but “kaaste hathuri tara” and cannot think of giving up what they have always done — vote for the CPM.
But elsewhere things are changing. In Chhatna town, where there is less abject poverty, we listen in on a raging debate between Trinamul and CPM supporters, centred on the issue of development. Bankim Mitra, who has stopped for a cup of tea, has bagfuls of Trinamul posters and is confident that the CPM will lose half a dozen seats in Bankura this time because people are finally rising up against the deprivation that has clung to their lives for so long.
“The people of Bankura are very hard working. They can turn this land into gold if only there was irrigation in these parts. But the government has done nothing all these years, we are still dependent on the monsoons, and that is the main cause of so much poverty,” he says.
Shibdas Rai, the chai shop owner and local CPM worker, butts in. “We have done a lot. We have built colleges, schools,” he says, but before he can complete the sentence, Mitra says: “What’s the point of schools, when the teaching is so bad? Half the time, the teachers have to go off to join CPM michchils. Even a higher secondary pass cannot read and write properly in the villages.”
Rai soldiers on. In the face of a chorus of voices backing Mitra, Rai admits that “lack of irrigation and absence of industry” have kept the region poor but lists other achievements of the government --- building ‘pucca” houses for the poor under the Indira Awas Yojana, providing work under the “100 day scheme”, mid-day meals in schools. He is entirely oblivious of the fact that they are all central government schemes.
And what is more ironic is that it is these very schemes that are fuelling a very vocal rage in many parts of Bankura today. Since poverty here is so widespread and even the best government schemes cannot reach everyone, all those left out feel doubly deprived and accuse the CPM of partisanship in choosing the beneficiaries.
As we crisscross through half a dozen Assembly constituencies --- Barjora, Bankura, Chhatna, Saltora, Sonamukhi, Bishnupur --- in the district, this is one recurring complaint, a complaint we have heard often enough in other parts of Bengal but never as forcefully as in these parts where under-development is endemic and sources of income few.
In Jambedia village of Barjora, an area where water is scarce and rampaging wild elephants routinely destroy the meagre crops that the parched land yields, Shanti Karmakar cannot contain his anger against the CPM. His main ire is that “CPM cadres corner all the benefits” --- they are the ones who get houses under the Indira Awas Yojana even if they are rich while the “real poor” are bereft of BPL benefits. Everyone around him agrees.
In Bondolhati village that falls under Sonamukhi, Sheikh Niyamat Ali says the same thing. “The government has so many schemes but it never reaches us. The only people who have gained are members of the Party.”
In Sonamukhi town, a large group of men surrounds us and there is only one man who insists that the CPM will win all 12 seats. All the others are vociferously rooting for change. “The CPM thinks nothing has changed. But take it from me, this time they will lose six and win six,” says 21-year-old Ganesh Shaha, giving a new twist to the “sixer” metaphor.
And why will the CPM win six seats if the Party’s dolotontro (cadre raj) is so widespread? “That’s because they still have complete hold in the most backward seats, dominated by Adivasis and Scheduled Castes, seats such as Kotulpur, Indus, Ranibandh and Raipur,” he tells us, admitting that the Trinamul has yet to make inroads among the most wretched of this bit of red earth.
In Deohati village which is part of Saltora constituency, Narayan Mondol agrees. “The CPM keeps winning here because the people are too poor and illiterate and lack political consciousness.
“Things are changing now and there are many people like me who have seen through the CPM’s false promises. But do you know what --- I am not sure even my wife will listen to me. I have been telling her about dui phool but she is so used to the CPM symbol, she might end up pressing it.”
He goes on to say: “Look at Kerala -- the people there are educated and that is why they keep changing their government every five years. The CPM cannot take them for granted.”
He has a point. Bankura’s backwardness stems partly from its inhospitable geography but the CPM’s repeated victories and resultant complacency have certainly added to it.
The Kerala model, then, might be the best thing for Bankura --- and indeed Bengal --- from the point of view of both development and democracy.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110507/jsp/frontpage/story_13951263.jsp#
Bankura: As you turn off the expressway just before Durgapur and then cross the long bridge spanning the Damodar and enter the district of Bankura, the landscape changes completely.
The lush green of Hooghly and Burdwan give way to a harsh and arid topography — fields are few and far between, herds of bedraggled sheep graze on the scrubland, patches of sal forests appear and the undulating red laterite terrain gets more rocky and hilly the further inwards you go.
Politically, too, it had been different in Bankura, parts of which go to the polls tomorrow. Bankura, famous for its iconic terracotta horse and baluchari sarees, kept at bay the “poribortoner hawa” that began blowing through Bengal since 2008 and that is why the CPM’s district headquarters wears an air of smug complacency.
At the reception, we overhear an elderly comrade telling former MP Shamik Lahiri with boyish glee: “Kono chinta nei, ekhane chhoy hobe, chhoy.” He later explains to us: “Here, we don’t score in ones or twos, nor even fours, here we only hit sixers.” In other words, the Left will win all 12 Assembly seats in the district as it almost always has.
A little later, CPM district secretary Amiya Patra says much the same thing. Is Bankura, too, up against the winds of change? “Poriborton hobe — margin aaro baarbe” (There will be change — we will increase our margin), he says, absolutely confident that the Party will do even better than before this time.
He has history on his side. Since 1977, the CPM has made a clean sweep of Bankura in both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections seven times in a row. Before delimitation, Bankura had 13 Assembly constituencies and the CPM had lost the Bankura seat — thanks to its urban areas — in 1982 and 2001. In 2006, it hit a “sixer” again and bagged all 13 seats.
In the 2008 panchayat polls when much of Bengal reeled under the Singur-Nandigram effect, the CPM and its allies managed to win 144 of the 190 gram panchayats, all 22 panchayat samitis and an overwhelming 41 of the 43 seats in the zilla parishad. In 2009, the CPM won both the Lok Sabha seats — Bankura and Bishnupur, the former represented by the CPM’s parliamentary party leader, Basudeb Acharya. Acharya led in 11 of the 12 Assembly segments, trailing only in Bankura town by 6,500 votes. “We will make that up in this innings,” says the grey-haired comrade at the reception who revels in cricketing analogy.
Left sympathisers, in search of a bit of Red hope, may find succour in these glorious electoral statistics. But if they travel through interior Bankura, the more sensitive among them may also be driven to deep despair — because the stark truth is that even after 34 years of Left Front rule and uninterrupted CPM dominance, the levels of poverty and under-development are staggering.
According to the West Bengal Human Development Report published in 2004, in terms of income Bankura ranked second from the bottom, outranked only by neighbouring Purulia, also a CPM bastion.
Bankura, however, beat Purulia in having more than 50 per cent people living below the poverty line in both rural and urban areas. In Bankura, the number of households living below the poverty line in rural areas was 59.62 per cent and in urban areas 52.38 per cent. In Purulia, rural poverty figures are much higher (78.72 per cent) but in urban areas just 6.47 per cent. Contrast this with another neighbour — Burdwan’s figures were 18.99 per cent (rural) and 17 per cent (urban.)
These figures are almost a decade old, but if things have improved in Bankura there is little to show for it on the ground. In Guruputua village that falls under the Chhatna seat, all the 50-odd houses barring two are mud hovels inhabited by agricultural workers who make Rs 50 a day when they get work at all. Some of them have “job cards” and get MNREGA work — mostly digging ponds — but only get work for 15 days a year, not hundred. A group of villagers, thinking we have something to offer, tell us they desperately need a tubewell. The only one around is in disrepair and others, far away, are also running dry.
“Money comes from above but it never reaches us,” one of the villagers complains, refusing to give names. And yet despite their dismal lives, they tell us they know no other party but the CPM, no other symbol but “kaaste hathuri tara” and cannot think of giving up what they have always done — vote for the CPM.
But elsewhere things are changing. In Chhatna town, where there is less abject poverty, we listen in on a raging debate between Trinamul and CPM supporters, centred on the issue of development. Bankim Mitra, who has stopped for a cup of tea, has bagfuls of Trinamul posters and is confident that the CPM will lose half a dozen seats in Bankura this time because people are finally rising up against the deprivation that has clung to their lives for so long.
“The people of Bankura are very hard working. They can turn this land into gold if only there was irrigation in these parts. But the government has done nothing all these years, we are still dependent on the monsoons, and that is the main cause of so much poverty,” he says.
Shibdas Rai, the chai shop owner and local CPM worker, butts in. “We have done a lot. We have built colleges, schools,” he says, but before he can complete the sentence, Mitra says: “What’s the point of schools, when the teaching is so bad? Half the time, the teachers have to go off to join CPM michchils. Even a higher secondary pass cannot read and write properly in the villages.”
Rai soldiers on. In the face of a chorus of voices backing Mitra, Rai admits that “lack of irrigation and absence of industry” have kept the region poor but lists other achievements of the government --- building ‘pucca” houses for the poor under the Indira Awas Yojana, providing work under the “100 day scheme”, mid-day meals in schools. He is entirely oblivious of the fact that they are all central government schemes.
And what is more ironic is that it is these very schemes that are fuelling a very vocal rage in many parts of Bankura today. Since poverty here is so widespread and even the best government schemes cannot reach everyone, all those left out feel doubly deprived and accuse the CPM of partisanship in choosing the beneficiaries.
As we crisscross through half a dozen Assembly constituencies --- Barjora, Bankura, Chhatna, Saltora, Sonamukhi, Bishnupur --- in the district, this is one recurring complaint, a complaint we have heard often enough in other parts of Bengal but never as forcefully as in these parts where under-development is endemic and sources of income few.
In Jambedia village of Barjora, an area where water is scarce and rampaging wild elephants routinely destroy the meagre crops that the parched land yields, Shanti Karmakar cannot contain his anger against the CPM. His main ire is that “CPM cadres corner all the benefits” --- they are the ones who get houses under the Indira Awas Yojana even if they are rich while the “real poor” are bereft of BPL benefits. Everyone around him agrees.
In Bondolhati village that falls under Sonamukhi, Sheikh Niyamat Ali says the same thing. “The government has so many schemes but it never reaches us. The only people who have gained are members of the Party.”
In Sonamukhi town, a large group of men surrounds us and there is only one man who insists that the CPM will win all 12 seats. All the others are vociferously rooting for change. “The CPM thinks nothing has changed. But take it from me, this time they will lose six and win six,” says 21-year-old Ganesh Shaha, giving a new twist to the “sixer” metaphor.
And why will the CPM win six seats if the Party’s dolotontro (cadre raj) is so widespread? “That’s because they still have complete hold in the most backward seats, dominated by Adivasis and Scheduled Castes, seats such as Kotulpur, Indus, Ranibandh and Raipur,” he tells us, admitting that the Trinamul has yet to make inroads among the most wretched of this bit of red earth.
In Deohati village which is part of Saltora constituency, Narayan Mondol agrees. “The CPM keeps winning here because the people are too poor and illiterate and lack political consciousness.
“Things are changing now and there are many people like me who have seen through the CPM’s false promises. But do you know what --- I am not sure even my wife will listen to me. I have been telling her about dui phool but she is so used to the CPM symbol, she might end up pressing it.”
He goes on to say: “Look at Kerala -- the people there are educated and that is why they keep changing their government every five years. The CPM cannot take them for granted.”
He has a point. Bankura’s backwardness stems partly from its inhospitable geography but the CPM’s repeated victories and resultant complacency have certainly added to it.
The Kerala model, then, might be the best thing for Bankura --- and indeed Bengal --- from the point of view of both development and democracy.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110507/jsp/frontpage/story_13951263.jsp#
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