What To 'Expect' From The New West Bengal Government

 BY ANURADHA TALWAR

A couple of days after the election, I was asked me to write about what I “expect” from this second term TMC government. Expectations can be both positive and negative. So, what should one write? After puzzling over this for a couple of hours, I have decided to write both — about what we hope for and what we dread from past experience. So here it goes ….

This new Government should, first of all, concentrate on creation of honest ways of earning a living. So far, the only notable job created by them in their last term was through the recruitment of 1.3 lakh young men and women as civic police. As the High Court has rightly observed, the entire process of recruitment smacked of adhocism, nepotism and corruption. MLAs and police officials are rumoured to have made packets from bribes paid by these desperate young men and women. The employment they received was ill paid, irregular and risky, and even worse, morally corrupting. These young people were made to do all the dirty work by regular police – bully innocent people into paying a bribe, demand protection money from illicit liquor dens, stand at cross roads with the traffic police to collect a couple of rupees from each lorry etcetera.

The other job available for young people was to enter the “money market” – to glibly convince people with small savings and big greed to double or triple their money in dubious schemes of chit funds. Many of these young people are now being hounded by those who have lost all their money. Some have been forced into hiding, some have committed suicide, others live in dread of the depositors — not a very good way to build the character of our youth, you will agree.

Then, of course, there was the option of joining a syndicate and extorting money from people — tolabazi — by flexing your political muscle. In Birpara, in North Benga,l they even have a special name for this illegal act, making it almost respectable – they call it GT or Goonda Tax!

If you were too decent or frightened to do all this, there was the last option of working as a migrant worker in Kerala or Tamil Nadu, leaving home and hearth, and using one’s energies to develop another part of our country instead of one’s own neighbourhood.

The TMC, in its last term, excelled in providing doles to people. The closer the election came, the larger became these freebies. The workers of Jessop have been protesting for 5-6 years, wanting re-opening of their factory and steps to stop Ruia, the owner, from stripping their factory. Just a couple of days before the Model Code of Conduct came into force, the State Government declared that it would give Rs 10,000 per month to every worker. No mention has been made of the future of the factory or of protecting its property from stealing and stripping by the owner. Bigger sops — such as shoes and cycles for all school going children (never mind if some of them already had shoes or cycles!) — were also given. Compensation for crop loss due to rain and Cyclone Aila (which took place in 2010) was also distributed just before the elections. The State Government began providing rice and wheat at Rs 2 a kg under the National Food Security Act in February 2016. The implementation of an Act that was passed in 2013 was delayed till just before the election for no compelling reason.

That this strategy was a vote getter is clear from the election results. However, let us now see the new Government spend some money on schemes which are long term and which can have a telling impact on people’s lives and development.

What we need most of all is decent employment. We do not need the Tatas and their like to invest in large-scale industry, with a repeat of Singur, with coercive displacement and minimum job creation. We need investment in agriculture-based industry, in small and medium-scale industry, in tea, in jute, in engineering, where smaller investments create more jobs and where the produce of our own state is well utilised.

We invest lakhs of our tax money in educating young people in Government schools and universities. And then we leave them to a callous job market, with frustration as their future. On the other hand, we need paramedics, vets, paralegal workers, teachers, agricultural expertise etcetera for village people. When 100 days of work has been guaranteed for those willing to do manual labour, let the State Government now guarantee work such as teaching, medical work, veterinary work, agriculture etcetera at minimum wages for our young, educated youth. Let them provide much needed services in rural areas. Why should policing, cheating and extortion be the only means for these bright young people to earn a living?

Another thing that the TMC has excelled in is in turning democracy on its head. The Panchayat Act has provisions for a Gram Sansad meeting with all voters at the booth level that legally gives them the powers twice a year to plan for their village’s development and to check on the Panchayat’s accounts. During the Left Front’s rule, many of these meetings became a farce with false signatures and adjourned meetings. During the TMC’s regime, they have not only remained a farce, they have become a rarity. This upside-down democracy has been accompanied by violence and the use of false cases to intimidate any opposition — a potent mix that was invented by the Left Front and has been perfected by the TMC.

The TMC should atone for its past sins by passing amendments to the Panchayat Act, making these Gram Sansad meetings mandatory monthly affairs without which funds for development will not be passed onto the elected Panchayat. It should also amend the law to make the right to recall a reality — let the voters have the right to call back their representative if he or she does not function properly. Let the voters be true participants in the development of their villages, instead of just pawns whose votes are manipulated once in five years through freebies and fear.

Last but not least, there remain half-finished works from the previous term — a committee for minimum wages for tea workers was formed in 2015. It still has to declare the legal, minimum wage for tea workers. Domestic workers are now a part of the employment for which the State Government must declare a legal minimum wage, but no such wage has been declared. The National Food Security Act (NFSA) remains half done – people in Purulia and temporary or bigha workers living in tea gardens have still not got ration cards. The management of tea gardens is quietly passing off Government-given rations under the NFSA as rations given by the management, and is reducing the “food grains component” of the meagre wages they pay to workers.

Theft of wages under NREGA is reaching gigantic proportions — job card holders are told by the powers–that-be (the political goons in their village) that Rs 5,000 has been deposited in their bank account, without their doing any work at all. The job card holder is asked to withdraw the total amount, keep Rs 500 for himself and give the rest to his political God. The job card holder is happy, as are the political touts in his village. The height of decentralisation of corruption, don’t you think? It is the new Government’s job to stop such corruption.

So, what we want the Government to do has been listed above. But what do we actually expect? Unless some miracle happens, we expect a continuation of extortion by ruling party members at the grass roots, with the ‘let’s get rich quick’ being the main mantra. We expect a continuation of rule through a mix of doles, violence, false cases and fear. We expect apathy and fear amongst common people, with their role in society and politics being limited to voting once in five years and keeping their mouths shut.

Though I am not a great believer in prayer, perhaps we should all pray for a miracle of good governance in the second term of this Government. Only a miracle can change things.

A Bengali version of the article was published at Ei Samay.

'W.Bengal Needs To Move From Adhocism To Food Security Act'

BY ANURADHA TALWAR

Political analysts have almost unanimously said that freebies were a major factor for the Trinamool Congress’s huge win in the 2016 Assembly elections in West Bengal. Cheap rice for almost everyone, cycles and shoes for school-going children, money for crop damage – all of these added to their votes.

Clearly enthused by this, the state’s Food and Civil Supplies Minister, Jyotipriya Mullick, has announced that a Ramzan package of chick peas, flour and sugar will be available at a subsidised rate through the public distribution system till June 24. Just in case he was accused of minority appeasement, Mullick followed it up with one more announcement: that there would be a similar package for Durga Puja later this year.

The Ramzan and Durga Puja packages are not the first of their kind. Special food packages have been announced time and again – for festivals or after disasters. The problem with these packages is that they are for short periods of time. Before ration card holders become aware of them, the schemes end. As a result, very few ration card holders actually pick up these special rations. Instead, the rations find their way into the black market with ration shop dealers acting in collusion with some Food Department officials.

Before the National Food Security Act was implemented, rice and wheat rations for Above Poverty Line families were provided in an equally ad hoc and irregular manner, and most of these food grains used to find their way to the black market as the consumer had no idea about the quantity or when rations would be given.

When ration dealers benefit

The ration dealer always reaps extra profits when quantities are broken up into many different categories and prices are not in round numbers. When this happens, consumers get confused and are easily cheated.

While the system has been simplified considerably after the implementation of the National Food Security Act, West Bengal still has five categories of ration cards and ration packages are priced oddly. For instance, in Jangal Mahal, wheat flour packets weighing 750 gm are priced at Rs 2.62 in ration shops. At a time, when it is difficult to find 50 paise or even Re 1 coins, how will customers or ration shop dealers return 38 paise as change?

What succeeds best is a rationing system with just one or two categories of cards and easily remembered and rounded-off prices and quantities.

In his Ramzan package statement, Mullick also said that “the government would continue with Rs 2 per kg rice for all during this period [emphasis added].”

Is this his way of saying that the Rs 2 rice scheme can be withdrawn later?

Under the National Food Security Act, the Centre gives the state government rice at Rs 3 per kg for 6.01 crore people. The state provides a further subsidy of Re 1 per kg and sells the rice for Rs 2 per kg. In addition to this, the state government has two cheap rice schemes under the Rajya Khadya Suraksha Yojana – RKSY 1 and RKSY 2 – which cover an additional 1.7 crore people.
While the entitlements of beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act are legally guaranteed, the extra Re 1 subsidy and the state’s RKSY schemes are part of Bengal’s pre-election largesse. There is no legal assurance to back these up. In fact, there are already reports of pre-election related rations being discontinued (for instance in Ward No 21 of Barasat city in North 24 Parganas.)

After the Trinamool Congress first seized power in the state in 2011, the Food and Supplies Department website of the West Bengal government for many days carried the slogan: Food For All. This was their principal promise to the people.

Streamline rations

If this is indeed what the Mamata Banerjee government wants, it should move away from the adhocism of Ramzan and Durga Puja packages and Rajya Khadya Suraksha Yojanas. The government should instead pass a State Food Security Act that guarantees rice at Rs 2 per kg for all citizens.

Also, if the government is seriously concerned about malnutrition and its impact on people’s health, it should provide subsidised cooking oil and pulses in addition to cheap food grains to improve diets with proteins and fats. This has already been ordered by the Supreme Court for drought-hit areas in the Swaraj Abhiyan case.

The state government should also start taking measures to help farmers produce food. It should ensure that distress sale amongst farmers stops by arranging for doorstep procurement of food grains, pulses and oil seeds at remunerative prices. Without such measures, food production is becoming a loss-making enterprise. Distress migration from our villages to other states and frustration amongst unemployed are becoming major problems.
 
The chief minister and her food and civil supplies minister should remember that the elections are over as is the time for short-term, populist, vote-catching packages. Instead, the government should back up its cheap rice schemes with a Food Security Act, which will ensure food grains, pulses and cooking oil at subsidised prices for all. It should also invest in agriculture and give legal procurement at remunerative prices to farmers to ensure food production.

This article was originally printed at Scroll.in

On Anna Hazare's Fast

By Anuradha Talwar

I have three strange measuring rods by which I measure the impact of any political happening in the country. 

The first is a phone conversation that I have almost every morning with my mother, who is a 75-year-old middle class lady. Whether it is the Maoist problem or our relations with Pakistan or price rise, as a woman who avidly reads all the important English newspapers in Delhi every morning, she has a strong opinion about the most important problems that face the country. Her responses give me a good idea about what the English-speaking middle class is thinking. This is confirmed by a quick surfing through all the English news channels in the evening, when talk shows tend to concentrate generally on the issue that seems to worry my mother the most that day. If these two indicators match each other, one knows what the middle class is concerned about.

And then there are the Bengali papers- seemingly talking of a different world, with their coverage of the viscous exchanges between Mamata and Buddha.  They write about happenings in Delhi as if that was another country - unless these happenings in Delhi actually visibly impact what is happening in West Bengal. This gives an idea of what the people of Bengal are thinking about.

Last but not least are the concerns of our members, which are much more difficult to generalise on because they tend to be localised and therefore very diverse. These come up in the phone calls they make to us or in their discussions during our meetings.

It is very seldom that all three measuring rods telling me the same thing - the Nandigram massacre was one such incident where each echoed the others in expressing disgust. Fortunately or otherwise, India’s win of the World Cup was another issue on which all three were effusive.

Anna Hazare’s fast for the Jan Lokpal Bill was an issue on which the three measuring rods did not match. My mother was effusive and enthusiastic about the near revolution she felt was happening at the Jantar Mantar. The English Language channels were equally voluble. The Bengali channels touched on the issue passingly and remained focused on Mamata’s Long March and Biman/Guatam/ Buddha’s comments. Surprisingly, neither party in Bengal spoke about corruption in the state in a very loud voice - the CPI(M) and Left obviously because they followed the adage of people in glass houses not throwing stones, the Congress because they were at the receiving end at Delhi and the TMC for some reason known only to itself (perhaps they were afraid of being upstaged by an old man who was not even in politics) - though one of their Ministers at Delhi did throw  a bombshell by offering to resign and join Anna Hazare’s fast, after saying there was corruption even in his party.   

Thus, despite all the hullabaloo in Delhi even in the midst of the state assembly elections, corruption has not become an election issue. Things are too polarised and supporters of both groups seem to feel that talking of corruption would make the polarisation disappear with both groups being painted black.

As far as our members in villages were concerned, they carry on with their demands for wages and work under NREGA, their rations from the PDS, their missing old age pension, their demand for inclusion in the BPL list, their fight against illicit liquor, oblivious of this old man who fasted in Delhi, as if Anna Hazare had nothing to do with their day-to-day struggles.

There thus remains a worrying disjoint between what is happening in Delhi and the concerns of our village members. The Delhi-walas seem concerned about the 2 G scam, the Commonwealth Games and the Adarsh Housing scam. My khet majoor comrade, Mumtaz Bibi, is worried that her daughter is marriageable age but still does not have a ration card, because she has not been able to bribe the right official or does not belong to the right political party.  Narayan Mahato, on the other hand, worries that the measurement in the NREGS work is giving him a wage of only Rs.72 per day, while the supervisor in collusion with the Panchayat staff and local party pockets the rest of his Rs.130 wage.  Small issues when you compare them to the lakhs of crores in the 2G scam, but these are bread and butter issues, issues of sheer survival for the large majority of our people, especially when raising one’s voice even on such a small issue leads to harassment and even false criminal charges.

There is also the experience of the past 5-6 years when we have seen (after UPA 1) a plethora of progressive legislation, and the ability of the system to turn them into non-performers. NREGA 2006, Right to Information Act, Forest Dwellers’ Act, Unorganised Sector Workers Welfare Act, Prevention of Domestic Violence Against Women – all of these were well-intentioned pieces of legislation with civil society efforts of varying degree put into drafting them and steering them through. None of them have lived up to the expectations they generated, many turning into damp squibs, unable to stem the rot in a system where the ones who are at the receiving end in society continue to get a raw deal despite these Acts.

In all these legislation, it was the build up of a movement that led to such an Act that was very beneficial for people’s movements as a whole. It led to mobilisation, awareness, militancy, removal of fear, voicing of protest and a pressure on the system that sometimes resulted in the system providing justice people. One can only wish that the activity at Jantar Mantar had lasted for a longer period of time to result in the involvement of grass root people in it and its spread to even remote rural areas.

For corruption to end, one needs corruption to become an issue that impacts elections  (which it is not doing at the moment in West Bengal), for the disjunction between the Delhi Jantar Mantar crowd and the khet majoor in Sunderbans to end and for a long-term movement rather than an instant legislation. Let us hope the future holds promise on all three counts.