Bengal?s Nights Without End By Udayan Namboodiri, India First Foundation, Rs 500

When a person purchases a book priced at no less than Rs 500, he expects it to broaden his mind and enrich his analytical faculty. But when he finds that the author simply goes on describing micro-level events without attempting a macro-level conclusion, he has reasons to feel disappointed. Again, when the author is critical of something, the question arises, what is the alternative he is offering?

The contradictions here are all too evident. Referring to the agricultural classes of north India, Namboodiri writes, ?I do not want to sound like an apologist for farmyard morals upheld by the agricultural class of northern India. In recent years, polyandry and parricide have paled in terms of ability to shock against the emergence of a new scourge: the rampant foeticide of unborn girl children? But when you compare the images of prosperity that fills the eye on your travels through the countryside of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh with the gloom and terror of Bengal, you can?t help wondering which of the two evils is preferable: crude feudalism or phoney socialism??

It seems that the author has two alternatives in mind, and he thinks that one must choose either. It might be interesting to try and ascertain how many would favour crude feudalism, as the author seems to do.

Namboodiri?s sole purpose, seemingly, is to discredit communism and communists, not the CPI(M) only. He mentions the role of the Communist Party prior to Partition, when the demand for a separate state was being heard. But he has found it convenient not to discuss the role of the Hindu Mahasabha and Congress leaders, who preferred the division to the sharing of power with Muslims. Jinnah, after all, was ready to accept the Cabinet Mission plan but Nehru was not. Also, the way the Congress leaders of Bengal and Shyamaprosad Mookerjea did everything they could to bring about the partition of the Bengali nationality has been left untouched.

Namboodiri denies altogether the economic roots of the communal violence in eastern Bengal. During those pre-Partition days, violence on the part of Muslims was particularly directed against Hindu landlords. The author sees the religion of these landlords, not their class positions. He also never mentions the role of big Marwari businessmen in the partition of Bengal.

Namboodiri offers interesting titbits ? his talks with Amal Datta, the affair of Idris Ali and so on. But they offer little by way of analysis. In order to discredit the old Naxalites of Midnapore, Namboodiri finds a worthy authority in Ranjit Gupta, the Bengal police chief during the Siddhartha Shankar Ray era and who, as far as I can remember, was forced to leave the dais of an international conference in 1978 because the audience did not want to hear one whom they considered a killer. And nobody would accuse Gupta of being a champion of the peasantry.

The author is scornful of Operation Barga. Much can be said about this programme and the way it has been implemented. There are enough facts to show that the CPI(M) was never enthusiastic about pushing its land reform programme to its logical conclusion and that its claims in this regard have been highly exaggerated. Namboodiri, however, covertly suggests that peasants should not have been given any right at all. There are many other interesting comments, none of them backed by analysis however. Take this. ?By every known experience, the atomization of land holdings is bad... For maximizing yields and income from agriculture, big is still beautiful.? The author seems to be unaware of the experience of Japan. Even if we accept that ?big is beautiful? the question remains as to how this is to be done. By organizing the small into collectives or by helping the moneyed?

On Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee?s visit to Indonesia, Namboodiri writes, ?He told Salim group not to take his comrades back home seriously and even got them to sign a Memorandum of Understanding for the housing project. What?s more, the giant conglomerate...reportedly agreed to compensate the farmers whose lands would be gobbled up by the houses of the nouveau riche. No Indian state has ever felt such a dilemma in carrying forward an economic logic to its logical conclusion.? And yet Namboodiri would want the leftist government to carry forward the policy to its ?logical conclusion?, though farmers? houses would be ?gobbled up? by the rich.

Namboodiri uses the term ?Stalinism? to describe the ideology of the ruling coalition in Bengal. One can legitimately ask him about the precise meaning of the term. Is it the ideology of the real (not phoney) socialists committed to communism? Is it the ideology of capitalist knaves swearing by socialism but trying to strengthen bourgeois rule? Is it the ideology of the proletariat or the bourgeoisie, or of neither? While Namboodiri writes about the terror unleashed by the CPI(M), he does not care to show how this terror is the result of the politics of appropriation ? that of the methods of the Siddhartha Shankar Ray regime.