In a field of human activity in which a week is a long time, thirty years should be measured in terms of eternity. The Left Front’s uninterrupted rule in West Bengal for over three decades is paralleled only by the record of the Liberal Democratic Party, which has been in power in Japan for nearly fifty years. This parallel has received insufficient attention from academics and political commentators. There are no apparent similarities between Japan and West Bengal that can help explain this parallel. The Left Front’s triumph in seven successive elections mirrors in many significant ways the priorities and preferences of the society that votes it to power.

Bengali society, as its electoral preferences reveal, is risk averse in the extreme. It has chosen stability and continuity over change. Not for West Bengal the hurly-burly of political turmoil that ensues whenever the anti-incumbency factor works against a ruling party. West Bengal has preferred the slow pace of inertia instead of the dynamism and the dangers associated with a state, like Gujarat, that is committed to economic growth and development. The people of West Bengal found in the Left Front, which for the better part of the thirty years was led by Jyoti Basu, a political formation which promised and provided that stability. It is a matter of record that in spite of the rhetoric and the presence of Mamata Banerjee, the Left Front under Mr Basu and his successor, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, has never had a formidable challenger who proposed a viable alternative to the policies of the Left Front.

The Left Front thus cruised along till in the Nineties the winds of change caught its sails. The opening up of the Indian economy changed the parameters of governance and raised expectations. There was also an international dimension. The collapse of socialism and the emergence of globalization saw erstwhile socialist regimes in China, Vietnam and elsewhere change gears to promote private enterprise and capitalism. West Bengal was slow to start but the Left Front leadership was wise enough to read the tea leaves. West Bengal, in the last few years, has embarked on a journey of adventure at the end of which is economic development and industrial growth. The people of West Bengal, however, have a bizarre propensity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. There are sections of the population that are opposed to the Left Front government’s efforts to industrialize the state. This has resulted in turmoil. The management of this unrest without abandoning its project of building a new West Bengal is the challenge the Left Front faces as it completes thirty years in power.