Many
arguments can be advanced for why West Bengal should
have a government headed by a revitalised Left Front
government. Several of these reasons relate to the
broader necessity for taking forward the struggle
for democracy in all its various forms, including
both economic justice and broader mass participation.
But there can also be arguments that are based on
the genuine achievements of the government that has
been in power in the state. I propose to consider
two of these areas of achievement in particular, not
only because they are important for the life of the
people, but also because these are largely neglected
in the media and therefore do not form a sufficient
part of popular perception.
The first relates to the agrarian question, which
in turn is critical in determining the balance of
class forces in the countryside. This may seem surprising
to some, because recently the land question in West
Bengal has become the subject of much controversy
and there has been a tendency to portray the state
government and the parties that dominate it as being
insensitive to this matter. In fact, nothing could
be further from the truth.
Land use and rural property relations have dominated
policies and policy discussion in the state of West
Bengal ever since the Left Front government came to
power in 1977. From the early - and continuing - focus
on land reforms, to current debates around processes
of land use and land acquisition, the land question
has been the most significant political economy issue
in West Bengal for more than three decades. Indeed,
this is the primary point of difference between the
Government of West Bengal (along with other Left-led
state governments) and other state governments in
India: that it has confronted the agrarian question
directly.
This has been associated with different strategies,
ranging from the distribution of land to the landless
and the registration of sharecroppers, to the attempts
to shift some land to non-agricultural use as part
of a broader process of industrialization. These strategies
and the processes that they are associated with obviously
have strong implications for human development. And
because they seek to change agrarian relations, they
have inevitably created controversy, whether in the
form of resistance by large landowners to a diminution
of their control and power because of land reforms,
or in the recent highly publicised resistance of a
section of peasants to land being diverted to other
uses, notably industry.
The fact that land reforms were a major plank of the
state government’s activity in the early decades is
well known. Cultivated area in West Bengal accounts
for less than 4 per cent of the national total, but
even so West Bengal has accounted for 23 per cent
of the total land distributed in the country as a
whole since Independence, and more than half (55 per
cent) of the total number of beneficiaries of land
distribution programmes in the entire country. The
total number of gainers from all the various land
reform programmes in the state is even more, including
recorded bargadars (more than 15 lakh) and recipients
of homestead land (around 16 lakh), bringing the total
to more than 50 lakh beneficiaries. This means more
than half of rural households have benefited from
land reforms in the state since 1977, and SCs, STs
and Muslims benefiting disproportionately. Women have
also been recipients of joint pattas since 2003.
This part may be recognised, but what is not so well
known is that the process of land distribution has
continued apace, making West Bengal one of the very
few states in the country where agricultural land
still continues to be distributed to landless recipients,
or pattadars. All the publicity was given to the relatively
few attempts at land acquisition for industry. But
the amount of land that was associated with such moves
is actually tiny. West Bengal is not even among the
top ten states in the country, with states like Karnataka,
Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh taking over many multiples
of the amount of land that was even attempted in the
state.
In fact, the agricultural land distributed under land
reform has been much larger, on average well more
than double the amount of land acquired for all purposes,
including industry. Even in the period between 2005-06
and 2007-08 when the state government was being accused
of seeking to deprive peasants of their land because
of its industrialisation drive, nearly 30,000 acres
was distributed to landless peasant cultivators. This
was three times the amount that was acquired by the
state government for all purposes, including road
building and other development. In 2007-08, the same
year when the violent agitation in Nandigram was grabbing
national headlines, no one bothered to report that
the same state government had distributed nearly 11,000
acres, to more than 25,000 peasants.
This continuing emphasis on land distribution is quite
remarkable, not only because it has been sustained
for three decades, but also because the very experience
of decades of successful land distribution has meant
a much narrower base of land available for redistribution
in recent years. It also singles out West Bengal from
other states of the country, where there is no such
active and continuing programme of land distribution.
This record of the Government of West Bengal in terms
of land distribution is not just laudable, but also
far more impressive than that of any other state government
in India. The only states that come close are those
that have been or are ruled by other Left Front governments,
that is Kerala and Tripura. This is important because
land distribution remains an essential element to
prevent or restrain the control of landlordism in
the countryside. Without it, not just landlordism
but also the adverse and regressive social tendencies,
which are so evident in other parts of rural India,
would once again become significant in West Bengal.
For this reason alone, it is critical to retain the
political power of the Left Front.
The second important achievement of the Left Front
government in the state relates to improvements in
health indicators. Until about a decade ago, this
was not an area of much progress, with health indicators
in West Bengal basically keeping pace with the national
average. But recent data - not from the state government,
but from the central government’s office of the Registrar-General
of India using the Sample registration Surveys (SRS)
- show that West Bengal is now one of the best-performing
states in the country in terms of the most basic health
indicators.
Since 1997, both crude birth rates and crude death
rates have improved much faster in West Bengal than
in India as a whole. The crude birth rate (live births
per 1,000 people in a year) in West Bengal declined
by 28 per cent from 22.4 to 17.5 between 1997 and
2009 (or by 28 per cent), compared to a decline of
19 per cent for India as a whole. The death rate in
West Bengal fell by 25 per cent over the same period,
as compared to 20 per cent for India as a whole.
As a result, among the major states, West Bengal in
2009 had the fourth lowest birth rate (after Kerala,
Tamil Nadu and Punjab) and the lowest death rate among
the major states, even lower than that of Kerala.
What is also noteworthy is that the state’s rural-urban
gap has closed for the death rate. In 2009, the rural
death rate in West Bengal was 6.1, which was lower
than the urban rate of 6.4, whereas for India as a
whole the rural death rate was higher by 34 per cent
- it was 7.8 in rural compared to 5.8 in urban areas.
Even Tamil Nadu, the state that has otherwise performed
very well in health indicators, shows a high rural-urban
gap in the death rate of 29 per cent.
One major - and positive - reason for the decline
in death rates in West Bengal is the decline in infant
mortality rates (IMR) in the state. The infant mortality
rate - expressed as the ratio of the number of death
of infant of one year old or less per 1,000 live births
- is often regarded as the single most important indicator
of overall health conditions in a particular area.
The decline in IMRs in West Bengal has been the most
rapid in the country after Tamil Nadu. This made it
one of the best performing among major states with
the IMR of 33 putting it in fourth position after
Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. The rural-urban
gap in the IMR has also improved, making it one of
the smallest in the country. It is also remarkable
to see that in 2009, the urban IMR for West Bnegal,
at 27, was lower than the urban part of Delhi state,
which has one of the highest per capita incomes in
the nation as well as a much larger per capita health
budget.
What is worth noting is that West Bengal throughout
this period has had a very low - almost negligible
- gender gap in IMR, thereby making it very different
from several other states of the country. This is
also confirmed by other survey data - for example
the various rounds of the National Family Health Surveys
have found the gender gap in IMR to be always among
the lowest in the country.
The other very important indictor of both health conditions
and the status of women is the maternal mortality
ratio (MMR) which is the rate of maternal deaths per
100,000 live births among women aged 15-49 years.
Once again, MMRs are lower in West Bengal than the
national average, and have been declining faster as
well. The lifetime risk of maternal death (defined
as the probability that at least one woman of reproductive
age of 15-49 years will die during or just after childbirth
assuming that the chance of death is uniformly distributed
across the reproductive span) was only 0.3 per cent
in West Bengal in 2004-06, compared to 0.7 per cent
for All-India and 0.2 per cent in the best-performing
state, Kerala.
What accounts for this recent improvement of health
indicators in West Bengal, especially in relation
to the rest of the country other than Tamil Nadu?
A number of possible explanations can be considered.
First, there has been a general improvement in institutional
conditions, especially in the West Bengal countryside,
in terms of the number of hospitals and health facilities
and the increase in access of women to ante-natal
and post-natal services. This has been enabled not
only by increased public expenditure in certain areas,
but also by a programme of more decentralised public
health delivery, with greater autonomy given to local
and village health committees in terms of spending
and care systems. Thus, the NFHS surveys have found
that there was a gradual increase in the percentage
of mothers who made at least three ante-natal visits
during their last birth in West Bengal, from 50.3
per cent in 1992-93 to 62.4 per cent in 2005-06. This
compares favourably with the national averages, which
were significantly lower.
Second, since health is intimately related to both
sanitation and nutrition, some improvement in both
of these variables is also likely to have played a
positive role. The extension of better sanitation
facilities to rural areas has accelerated, and the
state has been recognised by the central government
as a star performer in terms of improvement, though
these facilities still remain inadequate. It is likely
that the improvement in both IMR and MMR has been
most marked in those districts where the sanitation
programme has been more successful.
More significantly, the state government has been
able to use to a greater extent the decentralised
panchayat system for implementing greater autonomy
to village health committees and allowing for more
flexibility in health treatment that has allowed the
resources for public health to be used in the most
effective manner. This builds on the other great achievement
of the Left Front government, of first creating and
then continuously strengthening, the locally elected
bodies. This has had many positive effects, but it
is noting how this institutional arrangement, which
has been such an important feature of Left run governments
in the country, has also enabled improvements in basic
conditions of longevity and health.
Both of these point to some very significant successes,
but of course there is still a long way to go. And
this means that it is crucial to consolidate these
gains and move forward, rather than allow them to
be dissipated or even reversed. For concerned citizens
of the state, these would constitute very important
reasons for voting Left.
