MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1970.. Communist Strength In West Bengal

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32253, 23 March 1970, Page 16

MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1970.. Communist Strength In West Bengal

The Prime Minister of India (Mrs Gandhi) may be facing the most serious test of her political skill in the state of West Bengal, where the Chief Minister (Mr Mukherjee) has resigned and there is open fighting between supporters of the parties which have ruled West Bengal in the United Front coalition for the last 13 months. The root of the trouble is the determination of West Bengal Communists to entrench themselves in power in India’s most populous and most industrialised state; but three rival Communist parties are disputing bitterly over how this can best be carried out. West Bengal, and its capital of Calcutta, have become the testing ground for communism in India. The pro-Peking party, the Naxalites (from the name of a village where there was a peasant uprising in 1967), are backing demands for “ revolution now ” with armed gangs in the streets and appropriations of land for their peasant followers. The Marxists, the biggest Communist group, have also encouraged the seizure of land as the only way to prevent their followers from deserting to the Naxalites. The original Indian Communist Party, pro-Moscow and the smallest of the three, is still aligned with Mrs Gandhi’s Congress Party and is working for communism by legal means. But amid the chronic poverty of West Bengal its influence has dwindled and Russian support is moving to the Marxists, who claim to be non-aligned in the China-Soviet quarrel. Mr Mukherjee resigned because of what he called the “ unbridled chaos ” created by the Marxists, the largest party of the 14 in his coalition. The police, under a Marxist Minister, have been reluctant to intervene in street fighting between rival Communist gangs and rival gangs of workers during the general strike this week. Some industrialists are paying “ taxes ” to the Communists to keep their factories open, and the crime rate has soared because of the refusal of the police to discriminate between political and criminal activity. Meanwhile, the Marxists and Mr Mukherjee’s Congress Party supporters are each exploring the possibility of forming a coalition without the other, which seems to be impossible on the present strength of the parties, and a minimum of order is being kept by troops under the control of the state Governor.

The central Government in New Delhi may have to intervene to restore order, presumably by putting down the Marxists and the Naxalites. Mrs Gandhi might welcome the opportunity to take a firm stand against the best organised and most disruptive Communists in India, especially as the Naxalites are receiving arms and money from Peking. This might be only a temporary expedient: but it would give the non-Communist Bengali parties a chance to reorganise for new elections. But there are signs that communism is now too deeply entrenched in West Bengal to be combated successfully by democratic means. This is the very centre of Indian radicalism, the birth-place of the Indian Mutiny and the drive for independence from Britain. Mrs Gandhi must be very conscious of the slogan surviving from colonial days: “ What Bengal thinks today, India thinks “ tomorrow ”, New South Zealand ? The Premier of New South Wales (Mr Askin) has offered a variation of the perennial suggestion that New Zealand should federate with Australia: he wants this country to federate with New South Wales. The proposal looks most attractive—for Mr Askin. Overnight he would double the population and resources of his state. It would become the dominant unit in the Australian- Commonwealth, with twice the voting power of its permanent rival, Sir Henry Bolte’s Victoria. Instead of having to form an uneasy liaison with the Victorians whenever he wanted to dominate the four smaller states or challenge the Federal Government, Mr Askin could “ go it alone He would even get ready-made armed forces with his new province—something no Australian state has had for 60 years. For New Zealand there would be easy access to New South Wales steel and wines; but these benefits might be more than offset by the aggregation of that state’s disgruntled, and uneconomic, dairy farmers with this country’s highly efficient dairy industry. But why not an initiative from this side of the Tasman? Mr Askin could be invited to submit firm terms for the merger, and Sir Henry Bolte would certainly make a counter-offer, with cheap Victorian motor-cars (and more wines) as bait. Better still, why not invite New South Wales to secede from the Australian Commonwealth and join New Zealand? If nothing else, this would have the incongruous effect of leaving Canberra, the Australian Federal Capital, suspended on a tiny pocket of Australian territory hundreds of miles inside the “ foreign ” country of New South Zealand. And think what bargaining power the new federation would have the next time the Tasman Free Trade Agreement came up for review!