The Hindu Business Line : <I>Nemesis of Bengal? </I>

With Ms Mamata Banerjee's call for a 48-hour closure beginning Thursday, there is now the strong possibility of West Bengal losing the economic advantage it had carved out for itself during the past couple of years. The danger is clearly there now of all the good work that the Left Front Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, has done since he took over the mantle from Mr Jyoti Basu being flushed down the drain.

After all, the State took more than three decades to shake off the stigma of an unhelpful labour complement in the business of production which, among other things, led to a strategic flight of capital from the State, which was once known to be the Ruhr of the Indian economy. A similar prospect is now staring the State in the face — that is, if investors already operating in the region and those who are keenly watching the economic scene before putting their money into it begin to feel that things are getting back to the `good old days' when the Lal Jhanda ruled the roost in West Bengal while the rest of the country cantered past it as far as economic progress if concerned.

Body blow

If one is looking at bandhs as an effective form of protest on serious issues, one can say that the entire concept — which is said to have a century-old tradition — has been dealt a body-blow by the Trinamul leader's call for a 48-hour exercise (the first in recent memory) on the issue of the discovery of a partly-burnt corpse of a young girl within the fenced area of the proposed Tata car factory at Singur. As Ms Banerjee has herself said: "The Chief Minister has lost moral authority to remain in power after the brutal killing of an innocent girl. He should resign immediately."

The Trinamul leader does not have to tell the world that the killing of the girl is a very serious issue (irrespective of the Singur problem). But to hold the economy of the State to ransom — which will also affect adversely the living condition of her own supporters — by calling for a two-day work-stoppage (even before the circumstances leading to the death of the girl have been established) is something which borders on the verge of the incomprehensible and, therefore, cannot be supported. After all, as one company head has been quoted as interjecting: "Will this new bandh get any of us anywhere? Will it solve the Singur issue, or help nail the girl's murderer? Isn't the bandh call just a desperate media attention-grabbing exercise?"

Blow to economy

Ms Mamata Banerjee is on an indefinite fast the objective of which is to shift the Tata car project from Singur. There is nothing wrong in this politically, and as a politician she is entitled to make her own choice as to which mode of agitation to adopt to get her way. But in the process, she should not harm the economic prospects of West Bengal because an economically rejuvenated Bengal can only become a better place to live in for no one else but the people of the State itself

It seems the time has come for popular protests to be staged against the holding of bandhs as frequently as has been done over the past few weeks by politicians who have begun to take the hapless people of West Bengal for a ride.

Ranabir Ray Choudhury

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