Is Bengal beyond redemption after all? Today’s bandh call makes it more than a rhetorical question. No matter how some changes stir small hopes, disappointments are never far away. It is only incidental that the bandh has been called by Ms Mamata Banerjee this time. At other times, some other party would have its shutdown show. The leftists, of course, are the original sinners. Even their long years in the government have not stopped them from organizing bandhs on issues relating to the Centre’s policies. The Centre of Indian Trade Unions is planning yet another general strike across the country in December. The rest of India may not take much notice of it, but Bengal will surely shut itself down one more time. Ms Banerjee has clearly learnt much of her obstructionist politics from the Marxists themselves. But the larger problem goes beyond any particular politician, a party or even the issue on which a strike is organized. The trouble in Bengal is that one set of bandh-makers seems to always make way for another. The bigger problem has much to do with the mindset of the people who do not see this kind of politics as revolting. Worse, they seem to have accepted it as a way of life in Bengal.

Yet, there are signs of change at other levels. At long last, the Marxists seem to be learning the ways of the world. Once responsible for the flight of capital from Bengal, they have now changed strategies in order to woo investors. Gradually, old fears about Bengal are giving way to new hopes. But the past still casts its shadow on Bengal’s present. Unless Bengal breaks free from the bondage of bandhs, there is a real danger that the state’s future too will remain bleak. And now is the time to do so. Thanks to a liberalized economic regime, investors are looking at opportunities in Bengal, as elsewhere in the country. The automobile project at Singur, over which Ms Banerjee has called today’s bandh, is only a beginning. The issues that it has thrown up will come up again when other projects make their demands on agricultural land. The Centre has now cleared proposals for seven new special economic zones in the state. Two of these, by the Salim group of Indonesia, would alone require over 22,000 acres of land. That would be a big leap from the 1,000 acres required for the Singur project. The question is whether Bengal can change enough to think big.