Ever since Jyoti Basu left us, the socio-political roots of his charismatic personality have attracted wide attention. It would seem, however, that he needs to be judged from the economic policy-making angle as well. The puzzle of his economic performance has not yet been adequately addressed, even though there is no dearth of data to accomplish the task.

The available data allows us to divide up the Left Front rule into three distinct periods, from 1980-81 through to 1992-93, 1993-94 through to 1999-2000 and 2000-01 through to 2007-08. The first two link to Basu’s era and the third to the post-Basu phase. The second of the two Basu periods represented a change in Left thinking, since this is when it donned an industry-friendly cap for the first time and joined the bandwagon of private capital wooers. In the third period, Basu had no role in governance, but the period is long enough to allow a sensible comparison of economic events that occurred under Basu’s guidance with those of the post-Basu government.

Before getting down to the nitty-gritty of numerical tables, it is worth our while to remind ourselves that the primary economic concern of the first period of Basu’s government related to the rural sector. Distribution of agricultural land exceeding the Estate Act-imposed ceiling constituted a cornerstone of his policy.

A second component of Left reforms concerned the rights conferred on sharecroppers. And third, an all-important thrust of government programmes lay in strengthening the prevalent panchayat system.

One should not fail to note, of course, that 73.53 per cent of West Bengal’s population was concentrated in the rural areas according to the 1981 census. Quite apart from ideologies, therefore, there was a political compulsion in treating agriculture as the government’s pet child. Basu stuck to this policy throughout the first of the delineated periods of Left governance.

Table 1 notes a few of the consequences of Left economic strategies. West Bengal’s total agricultural output as a share of India’s agricultural output rose from 6.7 per cent in 1980-81 to 7.2 per cent in 1990-91 and then to 9.4 per cent in 1999-2000. Correspondingly, the per capita agricultural growth rates were three per cent from 1980-81 through to 1992-93 and 2.27 per cent from 1993-94 through to 1999-2000. Although in the second of our Basu periods the growth rate of agriculture had fallen somewhat, the share remained impressively high. The fall in the growth rate is possibly explained by excessive fragmentation of land, leading thereby to a fall in productivity.

Yet, it is worth noting that West Bengal dominated the per capita agricultural growth rate for India as a whole, as it grew at the rate of 1.1 per cent only during the entire period of 1980-81 through 1999-2000. In other words, there is no myth in the claim that West Bengal’s performance in agricultural production was a showpiece for the entire country under Basu’s chief-ministership.

Once again, the 1980-81 census reveals that only 26.47 per cent of West Bengal’s population lived in the urban areas. They didn’t count as far as the election calculus went. Thus, industry, concentrated mostly in the urban areas, was ignored. Table 1 reveals the extent of the neglect. West Bengal’s industry share in India fell from 8.1 per cent in 1980-81 to 5.5 per cent in 1990-91 and then to a mere 3.7 per cent in 1999-00. It is immaterial to examine the role of militant trade unionism in this context, since this has been discussed ad nauseum over the years.

The growth rate numbers point out an interesting fact about industry. Though West Bengal’s per capita industrial growth rate languished at a paltry figure of 0.7 per cent from 1980-81 till 1992-93, remarkably enough, in the second of our chosen periods, it jumped up to 3.9 per cent. Of course, the rise in the growth rate did not translate into a share-wise increase, the base itself having been very small. But why did the growth rate rise in the first place?

Quite clearly, this is the period when realization had dawned on the Left Front government that even to keep the rural population happy, industrial development was called for. On account of endless land fragmentation, the output from farmers’ plots was turning out to be too small to keep their families alive and kicking. Employment opportunities were called for outside agriculture and the Left Front did a volte-face by riding on the liberalization wave, with Basu still at the helm of affairs.

It is tempting to conclude, therefore, that he had a role to play in bringing about industrial resurgence in West Bengal, at least in terms of the growth rate.

Before moving on to what happened beyond Basu’s tenure, let us look at Table 2, which compares West Bengal’s per capita net state domestic product growth rate with that of India’s per capita net domestic product. During the first of the Basu periods, West Bengal lagged marginally behind India and in the second, it overtook India substantially.

It is not clear if Basu alone was responsible for the Left Front government’s economic performance, good or bad, neither is it fair to ignore the contribution of others, since governance is a joint responsibility. However, there can be little doubt that Basu cannot be held responsible for what happened after he retired. And what did happen indeed?

The shares of agriculture and industry fell respectively to 9.0 and 3.4 per cent respectively in 2007-08 from 9.4 and 3.7 per cent in 1999-00 (Table 1). Further, the agricultural growth rate fell to an abysmal 1.1 per cent and industry to 1.7 per cent during 2000-01 through 2007-08. (The agricultural share fell marginally, even though the growth rate fell substantially, probably due to a corresponding fall in the all- India growth rate.) Finally, the per capita net state domestic product growth rate fell substantially below the all-India rate also. Whatever Basu’s liability might have been in converting West Bengal into an industrial wasteland, it appears that he did deliver on the same industrial front when the Left changed its stance. And it is also evident that the government that succeeded him underperformed on most of the economic fronts we have attempted to capture.

There is little point at the same time in going gaga over Basu’s contribution to West Bengal. It was he who was at the head of the government when the Left parties paralysed the state they governed by calling bandhs to oppose the Union government’s presumed tyranny. It was during his regime that work culture in West Bengal deteriorated to an all-time low. It was his socialist government that failed to provide proper healthcare and universal literacy. Nonetheless, the numbers appear to reveal another face of the man too.

No doubt then that Basu will remain an enigma for years to come. Indeed, the mystery surrounding him may never ever be resolved.