A new rise on the block

Economist and political scientist Samir Amin, in his fantastic work, 'Delinking', predicted increasing localisation of natural resources amid growing non-correlation between global capital and the state. Grant of mining rights to the world's second largest coal block with 2.1 billion tonne-capacity in Bengal's Deocha-Pachami-Harisingha-Dewanganj area of Birbhum District indeed marks such a delinking from global industry of extraction, and builds up a local autarky for land, labour and other resources. Furthermore, it provides an opportunity for degrowth that combines local recycling of resources into various sectors of the economy, impacting better income distribution and enhancing purchasing power. Mamata's immediate objective of providing fair compensation to those who would lose agricultural land, and by giving jobs to the land donors in the police department of the state, are spectacular, to say the least.

The larger economic script embedded in her pronouncements is the state's fast growth in per capita GDP despite the lockdown, and the state standing at sixth place in all-India ranking in terms of real GDP in 2021. Given such a fast-growing economy, the factor market would get a boost with new coal blocks, while the product market would reap benefits from such a factor market advantage. Transaction costs for energy-dependent industries and labour-intensive agrarian sectors would also come down with availability of coal, as the extra income multiplier effect generated by it would add to the faster growth of employment, income and net state domestic product.

What remains politically very germane is Mamata's pronouncement that land acquisition shall follow the principles laid down in Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. This gives Didi a political upper hand over the brutal history of erstwhile Left Front that indulged into reckless violence in Nandigram and Singur. Her announcement of a 10,000-crore package for compensation empowers the poor and the landless in the area of south-western Birbhum coal belt, where the new block has been found. What is politically significant is her foresight of winning over the electoral masses as well as ensuring a greater complementarity between agriculture and industry through mining.

She needs land to acquire, but ways and means to be adopted has to be lawful, moral and politically correct, given that her movement against forcible land acquisition in Singur and Nandigram brought her back to power consecutively for the third time, a record of sorts that her rivals cannot probably fend off. Her pledge to not use force, and to follow the principles of fair compensation arises not only from her political ascendency from Singur and Nandigram, but also from her practical success in employment generation and in maintaining a stable quality of life for rural, semiurban and urban poor in Bengal. Apart from this aspect of social engineering, Mamata's drive for protection of people from eviction from the so-called eminent domain is another big achievement that strengthens her almost religiously sacrosanct 'Maa-Mati-Manush' commitments. Her politically committed objective of giving money to the poor, as per Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee's suggestions, reflects a new dimension in her pledge not to repeat Nandigram in Bengal. This is how she pushes back the memory of repeated state-sponsored violence on poor people during 34 years of the Left era and exposes Centre's strong-arm policy of land acquisition for infrastructure projects.

As Samir Amin showed how the state, as a forebearer of capital, increasingly gets divested from medium-term interests of social classes in the process of developing peripheries — which exactly happens when land is forcibly acquired and people are displaced for big-ticket projects. Neoliberal rules further facilitate taking over of natural resources without paying any compensation. Mamata's economic policy is an alternative to such paradoxical operations of neoliberal strategies of governance and it charts out what theorists have termed as 'alternative development'. The outgoing Finance Minister Amit Mitra ensured a proper balancing of the factor side of the economy by prioritising support towards land and labour connected to both primary and tertiary sectors, while the secondary sector provided the much-needed revenue. This unconventional and creative style of running the economy without much support from financial institutions and Central Government, remains an example of 'atmanirbhar Bengal' that goes a long way in building trust in capabilities of labour classes of Bengal. Indeed, Mamata and Mitra are able to remove the age-old Left dogma of organising labour unions against factory owners by turning labour into a rooted and organised source in the primary product market. Agri-based and forest-based industries of Bengal thereby did not have to depend on off-time labour from the farm sector; it is rather the case that the industrial and semi-industrial labour force of Bengal found a complementary job space within the agriculture sector. Though there are strains in agriculture due to rising cost of inputs and presence of middlemen, yet Bengal is one successful example of a committed agrarian labour force with access to health, education and political representation.

A big political message arises from this thrust on labour and self-sufficiency achieved in agrarian sectors of Bengal. The politically disempowered agrarian labourers of the Left era find themselves not only supported by Mamata's rural thrust, but also get an adequate representation of their economic interests in local self-governing panchayats. This further creates a bottom-up resistance to unplanned diversification of rural workforce into industrial and service sectors and enables a young generation to look for urban jobs. Indeed, a self-employed, educated gen X from rural households, pushed back the Left discourse of class assertion in favour of enlightened individualistic careers by young men and women — liberating them from both monopoly of urban economy as well as from strangleholds of Panchayat gentry. This 'silent revolution' over the last 15 years is what brought Mamata back in power in 2021.

Another big political symbolism of mutuality and reciprocity arises from rural Bengal. Opposed to statelessness and targeting of a section of people as 'illegals' — as may be the case in Assam — Bengal could embrace displaced victims of violence from Bangladesh within the rural economy. Though rural Bengal on the Indian side does not have much pull factor, as labour force is nearly exhausted, leaving no place for others, yet inclusion and accommodation of migrants of both Hindu and Muslim community in the rural economy is naturalised and not trivialised in the name of 'illegals'. For example, bidi industry in Murshidabad, or quarrying in Birbhum, and many such primary sector initiatives can accommodate late migrants in Bengal's growing economy. This was not the case during the Left era, as the Left could not accommodate labour force in agro-based industries the way it has happened since 2011 with the rise of Didi in power. This entire process of rejuvenation of rural Bengal and urban product markets helps dissolve political barriers of Hindus and Muslims that the rest of India suffers from. Probably, it is here what Mamata does today will inevitably be replicated in the whole of India.

Views expressed are personal