Where did West Bengal go wrong?
Communism destroyed Bengal. Bengal was the forefront of all human endeavors till 1960’s like art, music, science, education, industry, trade, technology etc. Till mid-1960s, Calcutta airport was busiest in India and now its not in top 10! Communism saw exit of industry, educated skilled manpower from the state, brought poverty and lazy culture and a 24x7 dharna culture.
Mother Teresa was doing selfless service to mankind from her charity organisation based at Calcutta (now Kolkata) for decades before she was given Noble peace prize in 1979. After getting Noble prize, her organization became globally famous and charity money started pouring in from across the globe. Lot of Europeans and Americans came to Calcutta to observe her charity organization and contribute with money and material support. Some people called it ‘poverty tourism’. Calcutta under communist rule that time and was passing through its worst phase in 1980’s. Poverty was omni-present even in metro city like Calcutta due to industrial shutdowns, population influx from eastern UP and Bihar, refugees who came to India during 1971 Bangladesh liberation war got settled there creating huge demographic pressure. Every square inch on footpath became temporary shops or slum in Calcutta. Even the local sub-urban train station platforms became pigeon-hole house as people dug up area below platforms to live.
One such person was American Doug Basler who came to Mother Teresa’s charity in Calcutta to see her work. He was a billionaire from USA and owner of multinational company called United Conveyor Corporation (UCC) which has Engineering operations in many countries. He came to Calcutta in early 1990s and spent a week in Mother Teresa’s charity. He was highly impressed by her work and asked Mother – if he can do something for her charity organisation? Mother Teresa told him – if you want to do something, do something for this ‘city of joy’. After her death in 1997, Doug Basler started a factory in an industrial pocket in Calcutta and by 2002 that was making equipment’s for ash handling plant, heat and power product automation systems. Total employee strength in factory was around 300 and its office was 11, Shakespeare Sarani, a prime business address in Calcutta. The plant often remained shut due to industrial strike and labour issues as that was common during communist rule and UCC was losing money for 5-6 years. In 2009, a Delhi based consultant was hired for turnaround of the plant and after one year observation, consultant suggested to shift the plant outside Bengal. Three alternatives were identified – Pune, Chennai and Gurugram, in that order of preference. By 2010, the factory was shifted to Pune and all employees were given chance to move to Pune. Only 20% people availed the offer and rest 80% preferred live in poverty than leave ‘city of joy’. By 2013, UCC Pune operation went live and Kolkata office was either shutdown or reduced to small marketing liaison office. There was other corruption problem, regular political pressure on top management which I don’t want to get into. This one such story of industrial failure under communist Bengal.
Consultant who helped UCC India in turnaround
There are 5000-6000 industrial stories like this which were closed down or shifted out of Bengal during communist rule. In 1967, there were 438 ‘industrial disputes’ involving 165,000 workers and resulting in the loss of five million man hours. By 1969, there were 710 ‘industrial disputes’ involving 645,000 workers and a loss of 8.5 million man hours. That was a taste of things to come in the following decades. By the time Jyoti Basu demitted office, West Bengal had nothing to boast of except closed mills and shuttered factories; every institution and agency of the State had been subverted under his tutelage; and, the civil administration had been converted into an extension counter of the CPI(M) with IAS babus happy to be used as doormats.
Now, CM Mamata Banerjee who kicked out Tata Nano car project is asking Pharma industries to set up vaccine factory in Bengal. It will be interesting to see how many pharma companies will respond to her call considering past five decades of industrial unrest, business extortion and violence in the state.
Jyoti Basu is still respected and people just don’t want to realize that how much damage he did to the state. This is because people of the state addicted to leftist principles and there is a saying – ‘once a communist is always a communist’.
Picture source: Google
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