Book Review
Bengal Panchayats
Organs of Class-Collaboration
Development, Devolution and
Democracy: Village Discourse in West Bengal
By G. K. Lieten
Sage Publications,
New Delhi,
252 pp., Rs. 250
ISBN 81-7036-578-3
Among the many age-old institutions that succumbed to the impact of the British rule in India, was the Panchayati Raj. At least that was what M.K. Gandhi ruefully noted in the pages of Young India. He asked the Provincial Congress Committee to try and restore these ancient institutions - under their strict control, of course - as units of Gram Swaraj. Subsequently, in Independent India all official moves in this field were taken in his name and, in this sense, Panchayati Raj (PR) may be regarded as a restoration project. But, more importantly, it is a reform programme in that it seeks to partially decentralize administra-tive power in our highly centralized, unitary state system. In fact, the restoration aspect or swadeshi form has been utilised to lend credence to the ‘development-through-decentralization’ sermon currently being propagated by the high priests of world finance. It was no accident that PR was accorded constitutional authority and sanction only during the heyday of structural reform led by the Rao-Singh duo.
Full 15 years prior to this constitutional amendment, however, a very sincere experimentation with PR had already been initiated in West Bengal. For this its initiator, the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) quickly gained universal recognition. Of course, the party had its own political objectives and modus operandi, and this had been a matter of special investigations, including the one under review. This one makes interesting read-ing particularly for two reasons. First, Professor Lieten’s rich experience of field studies on PR in West Bengal and some other parts of India as documented in several books and articles. Sec-ond, his acquaintance with the broadly ideological questions involved in the Indian context, as witnessed particularly in his earlier study of the first communist government in Kerala.
The author presents his finding in a straightforward manner. Some of the major points of criticism against Left-led panchayats are identified in the introductory survey of existing literature. These are then scrutinized in the subsequent chapters in the light of the author’s empirical findings (in the Memari Block of Burdwan District, which is the heartland of Green Revolution in West Bengal, and a CPM stronghold; and in Ramnagar in the coastal area of Midnapur district, where the Party is quite weak) as well as supplementary data and observations collected from sundry sources. In the process many allegations are refuted while most others are presented as objectively inevitable or even justifi-able under present circumstances. "This book has lent credence to the positive appraisal", the author is thus led to declare in the "Concluding remarks". Indeed, as a theoretical defence of the CPI(M)’s panchayat perspective this book excels all others avail-able in Bengal, including those penned by Party ideologues.
One assessment most observers of West Bengal’s panchayat scenario tend to share is that, after considerable progress in breaking the traditional landlord-rich peasant monopoly over village power, Left-led panchayats have gradually given rise to a new dependence of the poor majority on the panchayats. Thus, enfranchisement has been ensured but empowerment has been arrest-ed at the middle layer of our stratified society, where it has turned back into a new kind of patron-client relationship. Lieten does not concur, of course. He says that, at least since the 1993 elections, there has been a distinct rise in the representation of SCs, STs (and therefore of the poorest classes) and women (thanks to the new reservation policy). While some surveyors have contested this even statistically, the more important thing is that it is effective articulation and independent assertion in panchayat affairs which matter, not mere numerical strength. And here it is still the ‘middles and uppers’ who call the shots. They may be sincere and benevolent to the ‘lowers’ but, as Nirmal Mukherji and D. Bandyopadhyay aptly commented in their 1993 report to the Government of West Bengal on the functioning of panchayats, "Good governance is no substitute for self gover-nance."
Empowerment of the underprivileged sections, which Lieten pro-jects as a signal achievement of the CPI(M), is curbed in another major way. The party’s iron control over panchayat members elect-ed on its tickets ensures that the latter, rather than freely ex-pressing and fighting for their class interests, operate accord-ing to Party directives. "General directives, like the hold on more radical land reforms", are not always in the best interests of "the poorest villagers", Lieten admits. But the utility of such restrictions, regarded as a necessary condition for main-taining class peace, is that they earn a stable stay in power. Observers like Neil Webster have described this as "reformism and revisionism", noting a "shift from class struggle to institution-al management." But Lieten has a different explanation to offer. On the strength of his firsthand knowledge of rural Bengal, the Burdwan survey in particular, he asserts that an equilibrium has been reached between landlords and agrarian labourers, which "may appear as a non-antagonistic capitulation to the landowners, but it may also be regarded as a controlled class struggle aimed at the common good of all concerned." In other words, "class strug-gle has remained, but it operates within accepted procedures. It has become a class struggle by proxy, through arbitration by the panchayat." Such justification reminds us of the late CPSU tradi-tion of proletarian dictatorship by proxy, with the party top brass ruling the land in the name of the working class.
Rhetoric apart, in the lived experience of common people the real thing is unbridled party power entrenched over 20 years and working efficiently through an expanded network of party appara-tus, state government organs and the three-tier panchayats: a power that is patronising when allegiance is owed and terrifying if resistance is organised (witness the growing political violence during panchayat elections). It is evident from media reports that poll-related clashes occurring every five years have largely replaced the crop seizure clashes of yesteryears, when class struggles were fought directly by the masses on the fields— not by panchayat proxy! And as organs of class harmony the overbearing panchayats have effectively knocked the Kisan Sabha, once valued as a weapon of class struggle, off the cen-trestage in rural society. It is disappointing that the knowl-edgeable author does not take congnisance of these vital shifts in the "village discourse" he describes.
Lieten correctly highlights the major achievements of PR under Left rule: regular elections with party banners from the very start, a degree of mass involvement and a spurt in development activities, and so on. He also mentions some glaring shortcom-ings: bureaucratization, lack of an alternative agrarian develop-ment policy which could ameliorate the harmful effects of the modern hightech cultivation, "the low tide of democracy" in "pretender panchayats" as in Ramnagar, "the JRY fixation"(JRY meaning Jawahar Rojgar Yojana) which "has restricted panchayat work to handed down formulae" and so on. However, he refuses to share the widely prevalent understanding among independent ob-servers that with the depletion of the initial popular enthu-siasm, panchayats now tend "to run out of stream", to quote again from the 1993 Mukerjee-Bandopadhyay report. His interpretation is that, now is the time for "routinised" implementation of policy. "Routine is usually devoid of bravado and excesses, and may appear to be less radical, but in retrospect the impact may turn out to be more widespread and enduring." We must therefore appre-ciate, asserts the author, that "the CPI(M) has not changed from red to pink." These broader political-theoretical discussions will interest many readers. For those looking for more special-ised information on panchayats, this handy book comes with an array of tables and graphs, a good bibliography and a glossary which could be improved.
Among the aspects dealt rather inadequately, the most import-ant concerns finance and planning. The near-total dependence on funds provided by the central government makes a mockery of self-governance and here West Bengal has fared no better than the other states. In a book authored by a professor in development studies and sponsored by the IDPAD (Indo-Dutch studies on Devel-opment Alternatives) whose business it is to channelize research on development alternatives, one would expect a good discussion about the options available to the states.
Both in the very beginning and in the last paragraph of the last chapter, the author has opposed the IMF/World Bank prescrip-tion of decentralization to the private sector and recommended devolution to lower administrative units of public institutions. This is the way to "refurbish" the "interventionist state which currently is under severe threat", he argues. He is pleased with the Bengal model particularly because in India the only uninter-rupted experience of such devolution is to be found in the sta-bilized Left Front rule. But even here devolution comes up against all sorts of subtle resistances, as all observers of the rural scene, including Dr. Lieten, have noted. This points to the limits of the state-sponsored, top-down approach, irrespective of whether devolution is made to private or state units. Can we not think of a more fundamental alternative in development, empower-ment and conscientisation, where the impulse for change would come from the grassroots and rise up to challenge the top?
-Arindam Sen