Why does calcutta get a bad rap
Mohammad S. Hossain
The prNalinaksha Bhattacharyya wrote:
>
> Hassan Alam (has...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
> : Looking at an economist article on India, W. Bengal is somewhere
> : in middle of India's income distribution.
>
> : What is it about calcutta (as opposed to Bombay or N. Delhi) that
> : gives it such a bad rap? Mother Teresa?
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> What is a "rap"? If you mean image and reputation then Calcutta certainly
> has a bad image and reputation as a bad place to do business in. The
> reason is not Mother Teresa. Historically, the decline started with
> partition and the passing of power in the hands of the Western Indian
> trader/capitalist class. Financial centre was established in Bombay by
> Govt.action (all financial institutions were set up either in Bombay or
> Delhi). Industrial licensing was used to shift manufacturing activity.
> Freight equalisation was used to negate the locational advantage.
> Infrastructure was neglected. The refugees from Eastern India were
> discriminated against. Admittedly many of the policy measures also
> discriminated against other Eastern states like Bihar, Orissa and Assam,
> possibly much more then Bengal was exploited. More public funds get
> allocated for Bombay and Delhi and as a result these cities have better
> infrastructure than Calcutta.
>
> I have written about these before. If you have not seen my earlier posts
> on this topic, please let me know and I shall post it again. It contains
> much detailed evidence in support of my argument.
>
> --
> Nalinaksha Bhattacharyya
The presence of Communist Party (Mr. J. Basu) didn't help either. I
don't know why the Communist Party had or still does have such a hold on
West Bengal.
Mohammad Hossain
Nalinaksha Bhattacharyya
Mohammad S. Hossain (moha...@cyberramp.net) wrote:
: The presence of Communist Party (Mr. J. Basu) didn't help either. I
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
: don't know why the Communist Party had or still does have such a hold on
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
: West Bengal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Left front first came to power in 1977. If you count the United Front
govt, then the first post of power came to the communists in 1969. The
damage to the Bengal economy was done by policy in the period 1947
onwards under the benign rule of Congress.
CPM and Left Front have lot of corrupt people in them and in many cases
their cadre have behaved as a strong arm fascist force. However, the
alternatives (Congress and BJP) are even more damaging. The left front is
possibly the best choice in this backdrop.
--
Nalinaksha Bhattacharyya
Naeem Mohaiemen
Mohammad S. Hossain wrote:
> The presence of Communist Party (Mr. J. Basu) didn't help either. I
> don't know why the Communist Party had or still does have such a hold on
> West Bengal.
Because people vote for them?
--
Naeem Mohaiemen
_____________________________________________________
Everyone's your friend in New York City
And everything looks beautiful when you're young and pretty
The streets are paved with diamond and there's just so much to see
-They Might Be Giants
______________________________________________________
sayan bhattacharyya
Nalinaksha Bhattacharyya <bha...@unixg.ubc.ca> wrote:
>CPM and Left Front have lot of corrupt people in them and in many cases
>their cadre have behaved as a strong arm fascist force. However, the
>alternatives (Congress and BJP) are even more damaging. The left front is
>possibly the best choice in this backdrop.
There is truth to this "lesser-of-two-evils" theory. But there is
also a danger -- the lesser of two evils is also evil, and lending them
support only delays real solutions.
I have reached the conclusion that progressive-minded individuals who
really care about meaningful change should work _outside_ of electoral
politics, building movements at the grassroots level. Building democratic
and mass-based movements at the level of individual local communities
is what is needed. Another really important area for work is to build
an _independent_ labor movement outside of the tutelage of election-
contesting political parties and outside of their subservient trade unions.
Most workers in our country still work in the unorganized sector, and
so organizing workers in the unorganized sector should be a high priority
for progressives.
The problem with India (or West Bengal) is not so much that there are
a few bad people running the system (although of course there are bad
people and they do run the system), but that the system itself is
problematic. Therefore, we need to work outside the system and bring
pressure on the system from the outside. Reform from within the
system will always be impossible because of the "je jay lonkay, se hoy
rabon" scenario.
Joydeep Bhattacharya
In article <5fipdu$7oc$1...@news.eecs.umich.edu>, sayan bhattacharyya says...
[...}
>but that the system itself is
>problematic. Therefore, we need to work outside the system and bring
>pressure on the system from the outside. Reform from within the
>system will always be impossible because of the "je jay lonkay, se hoy
>rabon" scenario.
When you work outside the system, and bring pressure onto the system from
the outside, some day you may succeed in breaking the system. A new
system will appear; it has to (nature abhhors vaccuum!) Those who were
outside the old system will now be inside the new system. The
"je-jay-lonkay-shey-hoy-Rabon" principle will operate on the members of the
new system. Sayan, The Myths of Sisyphus boita poDecho ki? Tumi to French
jaano; hoito original ta poDecho?
Joydeep
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone talks about apathy, but no one does anything about it!
Joydeep Bhattacharya
Marshall School of Business, USC
Los Angeles CA 90025
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
sayan bhattacharyya
Joydeep Bhattacharya <joyd...@rcf.usc.edu> wrote:
>In article <5fipdu$7oc$1...@news.eecs.umich.edu>, sayan bhattacharyya says...
>
>[...}
>>but that the system itself is
>>problematic. Therefore, we need to work outside the system and bring
>>pressure on the system from the outside. Reform from within the
>>system will always be impossible because of the "je jay lonkay, se hoy
>>rabon" scenario.
>
>When you work outside the system, and bring pressure onto the system from
>the outside, some day you may succeed in breaking the system. A new
>system will appear; it has to (nature abhhors vaccuum!) Those who were
>outside the old system will now be inside the new system. The
>"je-jay-lonkay-shey-hoy-Rabon" principle will operate on the members of the
>new system. Sayan, The Myths of Sisyphus boita poDecho ki? Tumi to French
>jaano; hoito original ta poDecho?
Joydeep (perceptive as he is) has raised a very important issue. I think
this is an issue that needs to be addressed.
It is quite true that "system", that is, some form of organization of
civil society, will exist as long as there are human beings, because
human beings are social animals (they live in society). So certainly,
new systems will always appear from within the shells of the old --
will arise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the old, if I may mix my
metaphors.
Joydeep's objection would have made sense only if I were asking for
utopia. But I am not! There are no utopias, and there is no end to
history. History never comes to an end (as long as human beings exist).
So I am not claiming at all that the system that will replace the
current system will be the final word. It will not. It too will
continue to evolve, and fall, in its own time, to some other system,
which sitting in this day and age we cannot anticipate as we cannot
look that far into the future.
Nor will the system that replaces the current system, guarantee that
all humans will be made happy. It will not be a perfect system --
because no system is ever perfect. It CAN and WILL, however, guarantee
that the possibility of human happiness is spread more widely
and much more equally than now: thus, even if we cannot guarantee
that everyone will be happy, we can certainly ensure that the
OPPORTUNITY of happiness is made widely available to everyone
equally. It seems to me that even if we could ensure that no one
will be denied opportunity simply because of the accident of
having been born into the wrong race, the wrong gender or the
wrong class, that alone would be an advance well worth the
effort.
At this point, Joydeep is asking: if we cannot ever build a perfect
system, why on earth should we bother to change the system at all?
My own answer to that question is that, even though we know that
every system is imperfect, it is still worth building new systems
to replace the old simply because the new system is _better_ than
the previous one. Remember the notion of the limit in calculus,
Joydeep? We can never ever actually reach the limit, because it
does not physically exist and never will, but what we CAN do is
to approach the limit arbitrarily closely; and the closer we
approach the limit, the better is our approximation to it. Thus,
although a perfect society is impossible to build, we can however
build closer and closer approximations to it.
So I don't think that the Sisyphus myth is the right analogy here.
Whenever Sisyphus dropped the stone after carrying it all the way
up the hill, he had to start FROM SCRATCH. But that's not the
way the evolution of society works. Every time we replace a system,
we don't have to build from scratch, but we can build on the
gains provided us by the existing system that we are replacing.
Certainly capitalist society has been a great advance on the
feudal society that preceded it. Great human achievements have
been made possible in capitalism which would have been unthinkable
under feudalism. Compared to previous ages, more people today
enjoy more rights than at any other time in history (even though
many are still left disenfranchised). But that does
not mean that we have to stop here. We can do even better. We
MUST do even better.
Hassan Alam
Joydeep Bhattacharya (joyd...@rcf.usc.edu) wrote:
: In article <5fipdu$7oc$1...@news.eecs.umich.edu>, sayan bhattacharyya says...
Look forward to the problem, when it comes. Till then we need
to reform current system.
: [...}
: >but that the system itself is
: >problematic. Therefore, we need to work outside the system and bring
: >pressure on the system from the outside. Reform from within the
: >system will always be impossible because of the "je jay lonkay, se hoy
: >rabon" scenario.
: When you work outside the system, and bring pressure onto the system from
: the outside, some day you may succeed in breaking the system. A new
: system will appear; it has to (nature abhhors vaccuum!) Those who were
: outside the old system will now be inside the new system. The
: "je-jay-lonkay-shey-hoy-Rabon" principle will operate on the members of the
: new system. Sayan, The Myths of Sisyphus boita poDecho ki? Tumi to French
: jaano; hoito original ta poDecho?
: Joydeep
: -----------------------------------------------------------------------
: Everyone talks about apathy, but no one does anything about it!
: Joydeep Bhattacharya
: Marshall School of Business, USC
: Los Angeles CA 90025
: -----------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Hassan Alam
Robin Chatterjee
Naeem Mohaiemen wrote:
>
> Mohammad S. Hossain wrote:
>
> > The presence of Communist Party (Mr. J. Basu) didn't help either. I
> > don't know why the Communist Party had or still does have such a hold on
> > West Bengal.
>
> Because people vote for them?
>
> --
> Naeem Mohaiemen
rural areas of west bengal.Also the whole of north bengal (apart from
the gurkha region) is stauch red flag area.I have heard the opinion that
the red parties helped the dispossed east bengali refugees a lot and
gained for themselves a permanent vote bank.Also all the kajer loks
which we had at home were always stauch cpim .So if you analyse voting
statistics you see that the cpim doesn't do so well in calcutta as in
the outlying areas
Robin Chatterjee
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