While the whole world watches in rapt attention as the Arab spring unfolds and turns into a tsunami, sweeping aside dictators, pseudo-democrats and even Kings, a quiet revolution is blooming in India. After almost 3.5 decades of democratic Communist rule, the Left Front is all set to be unseated from power in West Bengal. With this, the curtains would be drawn on the longest serving democratic communist administration in the world!
Parallels with the Soviet State are easy to make. Jyoti Basu might have been the sculptor of one electoral victory after the other, but in the end, he turned out to be the Brezhnev for Bengal. An old aging administration, entrenched corruption, no accountability and rule by violence and fear. Faults that far outweigh land reform and Social engineering that eradicated centuries of discrimination and created a more equitable Bengal. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya tried his hands at being Bengal's Gorbachev. Young, reform-minded and open to criticism, Buddhadeb's first tenure brought the first whiff of fresh air in stagnating Bengal. Even the people gave him an opportunity to prove himself. He steered Bengal away from the claustrophobic Soviet model and tried to follow the Chinese example, but by then, it was too little too late. He came to office riding on the support of the masses and their aspirations, but was stifled time and again. Sometimes, his party let him down, At other times, the opposition, recuperating after decades of emasculation rose to challenge him. At the end, Mr. Bhattacharya turned out not unlike Mr. Gorbachev who hammered the last nail in the Coffin of Communist Rule in the Soviet Union.
It is unlikely that Didi will dramatically change Bengal. In my view, Didi has so far been driven solely by the dream to rid Bengal of the Communists. It is hard to imagine that she would be able to achieve anything spectacular in the absence of a vision for Bengal and in all probability, a fractured house with the Communists baying for her blood.
The dream of a Golden Bengal remains as elusive as ever!
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