Death by Marx, Mandal

Once an object of derision as the state where everything had broken down and no progress, except in crime, could be expected, Bihar has within four years managed to top the states’ growth chart and today stands next only to Gujarat. That Gujarat is ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alone, and Bihar by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in which the BJP is an equal partner with Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal-United (JD-U), has its own lessons for those who have written off the BJP.

The growth rate of 11.03 per cent in Bihar’s gross domestic product, from 2005 to 2009, contrasts sharply with the complete breakdown in governance that the state witnessed during the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s reign under Mr Lalu Prasad, when casteism ruled and growth was negative, at 5.15 per cent. The NDA-ruled Bihar has not only been lifted out of negative growth in just four years, but its growth rate has also gone far ahead of the national average.

The Chief Minister, Mr Nitish Kumar, substituted “Mandalism” with focused development that was inclusive. He started by basic changes in health, education and infrastructure. Even non-political observers have found that in Bihar, where nothing seemed to work during the Lalu Prasad years, teachers are now back in schools, government servants are at their desks and police officers are on duty.

Significant improvement in law and order has enabled industry and businesses to resume work without fear of extortion or kidnapping. During Mr Prasad’s “Mandalised” rule, news from Bihar was only about kidnappings — extortion was the only industry in Bihar, with even a school to train criminals. But last July, a World Bank report, “Doing Business with India”, ranked Bihar 14th, ahead of even Tamil Nadu and other places in the country, for ease of starting business — a real tribute from outside the country to the progress achieved in the state.

Bihar’s deputy chief minister and BJP leader Mr Sushil Kumar Modi recently explained this massive difference between Mr Prasad’s 15-year-long era and the NDA’s four years. “The 11.03 per cent growth could be achieved only because we could spend Rs 35,368 crore during the four years of NDA rule as against Rs 25,000 crore spent in 15 years of Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress rule”, he said. What made a difference is also the discipline in the administration, beginning with discipline enforced in the Cabinet itself. Both the JD(U) and the BJP got non-performing ministers to quit and showed no mercy for criminal elements within their respective parties. One single instance of kidnapping and the government reached to the top-most police officer to set an example. For the first time in Bihar, the kidnapping industry found that rules had changed with the NDA government in charge.

Compare This with what is happening in Marxist-ruled Kerala. The expose of a terrorist recruitment and training ring following the arrest of Thadiyantavide Nazir, the suspected Lashkar-e-Tayyaba operative, as also the ruling Marxist party’s alliance with Abdul Naseer Madani’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have had tectonic repercussions. The Marxist party state boss Pinarayi Vijayan sought to dismiss this alliance as a minor affair but his own Chief Minister Mr V.S. Achuthanandan has listed this alliance as the prime cause of the Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) dismal performance in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. The other major component of LDF, the Communist Party of India, had opposed the tie-up in May 2009 itself.

The capture of Nazir in Bangladesh, after he escaped from Kerala police’s custody despite a hundred policemen surrounding him, has brought the Union home ministry into play. Nazir was leading the recruitment of young men from Kerala for first training in Pakistan and then terror strikes. He was also involved, along with others, in the burning of a Tamil Nadu state transport bus in Kerala, purchase and storage of explosive material on a large scale, two explosions in Kozhikode and the serial bomb blasts in Bengaluru. The scale and impact of his network that has been exposed clearly point to aid from terror mongers in Kerala’s political and police establishment. It is this that has prompted the Union home ministry to intervene and entrust all further investigations to the National Investigating Agency. That the Marxist state home minister, Mr K. Balakrishnan, is accusing the Centre of ignoring him is another instance of how the Marxists are now scared that the Centre will get to the root of how recruitment for terror flourished in the state under the Marxist regime.

And what about development? Nothing to show, say the numbers. Only Rs 2,000 crore of software export from Kerala out of Rs 1,25,000 crore worth of software export from the country despite the fact that the state has two IT parks. The only showpiece for the state is tourism and a burgeoning investment in real estate and gold — the $20 billion that come to the state from its workers abroad has no other investment outlet and so real estate prices are going up and crime is flourishing, especially aimed at the senior citizens and wealthy households receiving money from abroad. In fact, a huge corruption case is underway against the Marxist state party chief — desperate attempts by the Marxist bosses to stop the case that’s now in court notwithstanding.

In Marxist-ruled West Bengal too the situation is similar to what it is in Kerala. Industries are reluctant to troop back into West Bengal after their experience of dealing with Marxist party cadres. The Singur and Nandigram fiasco have warned prospective entrepreneurs to keep out of the communist land. By the time the Marxist top brass realised that enterprise is beneficial to people and that wealth creation is possible only when investments are made that yield good surplus, it was too late. The moral of the story is that Marxism has failed to deliver in India as well, like it did in the rest of the world.

Mandal can neither ensure social justice nor growth. Only regimes fired by strong nationalism and sense of purpose can ensure progress.

Balbir K. Punj can be contacted at punjbk@gmail.com