WEEKLY SUMMARY SPECIAL REPORT OH, CALCUTTA! - INDIA'S TROUBLED STATE OF WEST BENGAL

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• Content Type: SUMMARY

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Secret
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
WEEKLY SUMMARY
Special Report
Oh, Calcutta! India s Troubled State of West Bengal
Secret
N! 42
3 September 1971
No. 0386/71A
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OH, CALCUTTA! --- INDIA'S TROUBLED STATE OF WEST BENGAL
In no other part of India is human suffering so widespread and intense as in
West Bengal, India's second most densely populated state. Even in normal times,
malnutrition, disease, and unsanitary conditions
dominate the life of most inhabitants, and pros-
pects for any relief grow increasingly dim.
In the five months since West Pakistan began
its military offensive against secessionists in East
Pakistan, fear and hunger have driven millions oi:
East Pakistanis to seek refuge in neighboring West:
Bengal. Officials in the state are sympathetic tc
the plight of the refugees who, like themselves,
are predominantly Hindu Bengalis. Nevertheless,
they resent the massive burdens imposed by this
human deluge, which only intensifies their host of
already serious problems.
Politically, West Bengal has been a virtual
battleground since 1967, when two decades of
Congress Party domination gave way to a series of
short-lived multiparty coalition governments in
which the Communists played a dominant role.
Although Prime Minister Gandhi's Ruling Con-
Refugee mother and child
gress Party made a surprising electoral comeback last March, the coalition it formed
lasted only until June because of internal squabbling and pressures arising from the
Pakistani crisis.
The state has almost no hope for political stability in the near future. A
penchant for political extremism has long flourished among the Bengalis; it is
currently manifest in their continued public support for and fatalistic tolerance of
such radical groups as the terrorist Naxalites. The Marxist Communists, whose aim is
to destroy the parliamentary system, are the strongest political force in the state.
Despite increased police suppression, numerous other ultraleft parties have stayed in
the field, urging peasants and industrial workers to join them in armed revolt.
For the third time in as many years, New Delhi has assumed administrative
control of West Bengal, and is now making special efforts to oversee and underwrite
the cost of refugee relief. At the same time, though probably without hope of
success, it is attempting to quell politically inspired violence and to stem further
economic deterioration. The Pakistani civil war hEs infinitely complicated the task.
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The Importance of West Bengal
New Delhi's concern arises partly from the
fact that West Bengal's importance to the national
economy is out of proportion to its physical size.
The state has a virtual monopoly on jute manu-
factures, India's major foreign exchange earner,
and also produces about a quarter of the second
largest earner, tea. West Bengal industries also still
produce a sizable share of the nation's output,
although economic progress has trailed far behind
the national average since independence, when it
was India's wealthiest state.
Calcutta, the capital, is India's largest city,
with slightly over seven million in the Calcutta
Metropolitan District. Dominating the wnole of
eastern India, it serves as the region's main pro-
duction and distribution center for goods and
services, the banking hub for public and private
enterprises, and the headquarters for major com-
panies and other organizations. Although the ton-
nage cleared through its port has declined sharply
since 1966, it remains important, especially to
service the vast iron and steel industrial complex
within a 300-mile radius of Calcutta.
New Delhi's interest in this geographically
strategic area has grown more acute as a result of
the Pakistani crisis and the official Indian support
for East Bengali secessionists who conduct cross-
border guerrilla operations from various points
along the 1,200 miles of porous East Pakistan -
West Bengal border. The threat of an lndo-
Pakistani war erupting in the eastern region of the
subcontinent hangs heavy over Bengali officials
attempting to feed and shelter six million refugees
and simultaneously restore some order and con-
trol in the political and economic chaos that has
wracked West Bengal without letup during the
past four years. But, if West Bengal is a major
economic asset to the modern Indian union,
Calcutta itself presents one of India's most serious
social problems.
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Life on the streets-the fate of millions
Thus the midday halt of Charnock-more 's the pjty!-
Grew a City.
As the fungus sprouts chaotic from its bed,
So it spread-
Chance-directed, chance-erected, laid and built
On the silt-
Palace, byre, hovel-poverty and pride-
Side by side;
And, above the packed and pestilential town,
Death looked down.
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Abominable living conditions rank Calcutta
high among the world's most dismal cities, and it
groans under a staggering population. Its history,
nevertheless, has been one of continuous expan-
sion. As the British capital of India, Calcutta
lured rural Bengalis who were desirous of the
Westernized, English-language education that the
colonists promoted as a means of grooming
employees for clerkships in mercantile houses and
the civil service. The British further accelerated
urban migration by imposing a land tenure system
that seriously limited the ability of Bengalis to
live solely off their landholdings. This fostered
the growth of a large urban middle class, which in
turn bred an intelligentsia versed in Western lib-
eralism. The Indian nationalist movement took
root in Bengal, and Bengalis were prominent
among the founders of the Congress Party in the
latter half of the 19th century.
When India was granted independence in
1947, Bengal was split into Muslim-dominated
East Pakistan and Hindu-dominated West Bengal.
Partition caused a continuous but fluctuating
flow of Hindu Bengalis from East Pakistan into
West Bengal; at least four million settled in West
Bengal and about one million in the Calcutta area
in the years before the current crisis.
New arrivals in Calcutta have long followed a
pattern of congregating in sections of the city
where members of their own religious, caste, or
ethnic community are settled. The city is actually
a patchwork of enclaves where Muslims and other
minorities live together, speak regional languages,
and observe their traditional practices. The ma-
jority of nonrefugee migrants are males who have
left their families in the village in hopes of finding
employment as coolies or factory labor in the
city, which probably has the highest unemploy-
ment rate in India. Thus, Calcutta's population is
weighted by a high percentage of unemployed,
uprooted males--many coming from neighboring
states-who live in slum-like conditions with the
expectation of eventually returning to their rural
homes. They represent pockets of poverty and
discontent that are easily identified and readily
accessible to political extremists seeking recruits.
A Proliferation of Radical Extremists
Although Calcutta has appeared to Western
observers as the obvious focus for a campaign of
political radicalization, it is only in the past two
years that the ultraleft movements of inde-
pendent India have made the city their major
target.
The Communist Party of India/Marxist
(CPM); which by 1967 succeeded a faction-ridden
Congress organization as the leading influence in
the political life of West Bengal, sought first to
wreck the state's parliamentary and bureaucratic
machinery. One CPM faction, which favored
Mao-style mass revolution in the countryside,
considered even this tactic tainted with "par-
liamentarism." In March 1967, a day after the
first C:PM-dominated coalition government took
office in Calcutta, this faction inspired a peasant
revolt in the Naxalbari District of northern West
Bengal. Although the CPM leaders in the govern-
ment opposed strong repressive measures, appar-
ently hoping for a reconciliation with the ex-
tremists, they finally sent in forces to quell the
insurrection. In 1969, the Naxalites (as they had
become known), with prompting from Peking,
formally broke from the CPM and founded a
more radical Communist party, the Communist
Party/Marxist-Leninist (CPML).
Ironically, the Naxalites' split from the CPM
was followed shortly by a shift away from rural
revolution. Toward the end of 1969, despite the
insistence of the leading Naxalite theoretician, C.
P. Mazumdar, on the necessity of establishing a
firm rural base, pressure developed within the
moverrent to begin urban guerrilla activities in
and around Calcutta. In part, this was a result of
the Naxalites' failure to win mass support in the
countryside because of peasant apathy and com-
peting attempts, some government-led, to effect
land reform. Moreover, the middle-class Calcutta
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college students who were recruited to politicize
the peasants and tribal peoples proved generally
unsuccessful in the unfamiliar rural environment;
most returned to their urban homes as police
surveillance became increasingly effective.
Thus, in early 1970 the Naxalites focused on
Calcutta and, since then, terrorism and violence
have persisted there almost unabated. Mazumdar
tried to justify this deviation in priority as an
attack on the bourgeois superstructure whose
base was simultaneously being undermined by the
Naxalites' "annihilation program" in the country.
In Calcutta, the students initially began attacking
schools and libraries, disfiguring statues of na-
tional heroes, and bombing theaters.
Although the state government could remain
somewhat indifferent to Naxalite activity in the
villages, it could not ignore the mounting violence
in Calcutta. Police action became more effective,
NAXALITE ACTIVITIES IN WEST BENGAL
1.-1 carding t., Uffcia! Indian ! IgUres ,
12-Month Period
April 1970 - March 1971
particularly after the second CPM-dominated: gov-
ernment fell in March 1970, and President's Rule
was again imposed from New Delhi. Thousands of
Naxalite suspects were arrested, their publications
were confiscated, and some were tortured.
Repression, however, seemed only to trigger
more terrorist acts, now aimed at capitalists,
black-marketeers, the police, and the military.
"Antisocial" elements-a generic term used by the
Indians to refer to a broad spectrum of malcon-
tents, antigovernment intellectuals, thugs, and
underworld elements-joined the extremists.
Originally CPML ideologues made some effort to
indoctrinate the "antisocials," but police inter-
rogators reported that many of the detainees, as
well as top guerrilla leaders, were doctrinally
uninformed. In fact, large numbers flocked to the
Naxalite banner, not to further the party cause,
but for political cover to settle old scores with the
police and personal political rivals, particularly
within the CPM. Mazumdar did not repudiate the
"antisocials" because they were ready to carry
out his annihilation program, while the middle-
3%:-Month Period
April - 15 July 1971
Political murders . . . . . . . 63b . . . . . . . . . . 412
,,. 7=ir . . . . . . . . . . 340
;attacks on police . . . . . l. bob . . . . . . . . . . 431
. _ . . . . . . . . 255
by . . . . . . . . . . 41
66t. . . _ . . . . . 40
f police injured . . . . . . 1.1'55 . . . . . . . . . . 22/
. . . . . . 155
t -,Vaxalites believed respnnsibic.
'1n Naxalite attacks.
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class Naxalites who still form the
5,000-member hard core of the move-
ment tended to shrink from wanton
murder of "class enemies." At, the
same time, however, student involve-
ment in urban guerrilla activities has
declined. By April 1971, all 57 col-
leges in Calcutta had reopened, and in
June some 100,000 college students
appeared for examinations.
There has thus been some, but
not much, comfort for the govern-
ment's security forces. In West Bengal,
there are now at least nine Maoist
groups active under different labels,
fighting for supremacy and accusing
each other of "Cheism" and revision-
ism. They tend to divide over the use-
fulness of indiscriminate killing and
whether the peasants or industrial
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P A K; S T A N
Dacca C
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workers should form the vanguard of revolution.
Their tendency toward a high degree of decen-
tralization, however, compounds the difficulties
of keeping track of their activities. Within the
CPML, for instance, there are hundreds of small
"action squads" that operate independently and
without guidance from any higher authority.
Police estimate that more than half of the
approximately 1,300 murders that have been
committed-and reported to the police-in West
Bengal this year were politically motivated. Prob-
ably the largest number of these were the result
of CPM-CPML feuding. The CPM's fear of losing
its remaining extremist fringe to the Naxalites
keeps the two groups constantly at odds. CPM
leader Jyoti Basu, whose party won the largest
number of seats in the March state elections but
failed to pull together a coalition, has alleged that
the Naxalites are encouraged in their anti-CPM
assassinations by the non-Communists, including
the Ruling Congress Party and others who fear
Marxist proliferation. Today, an average of eight
to ten political murders occurs daily in the state.
Pipe-guns, home-made bombs, daggers, and
swords comprise the extremists' arsenal and are
supplemented by a small supply of guns, mostly
stolen from the police. It is possible that some of
the arms intended for Pakistani guerrillas are find-
ing their way into the hands of the Naxalites.
New Delhi's efforts to bring a semblance of
political and social order, especially through the
imposition of President's Rule, are met with
mixed feelings in West Bengal. Many residents of
Calcutta undoubtedly greet central control with
relief, because the seemingly endless chain of
strikes, murders, demonstrations, and street vio-
lence hurts business and is generally disruptive.
The coalition government formed after the elec-
tions in March fell after only three months in
office, partly in response to mounting dissatisfac-
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tion from student and youth elements within the
Ruling Congress Party over the government's lack
of tangible accomplishment and failure to
diminish violence.
But the central government's role in West
Bengal is also resented, for reasons well grounded
in Bengali history. Bengal has always been on the
periphery of the great Hindu empires and prob-
ably was the area least subject to central control.
Although the region shares basic affinities with
other parts of India, it is also a distinct cultural
region. Most Bengalis are Hindus, but Bengali
Hindus differ in many important aspects from
other Hindus; unorthodox Hindu cults in the
region have been a major factor in the formation
of a distinctly Bengali culture and literature. The
quick-witted Bengalis are exceedingly proud of
their language, one of the most highly developed
on the subcontinent. They attach great impor-
tance to intellectual and educational attainments
and disdain manual labor. For much of the pre-
independence period, Calcutta was India's major
center of higher education, and Bengalis con-
tributed a large percentage of India's writers,
artists, and intellectuals.
The period since independence, however, is
etched with disappointment and frustration. The
partition of Bengal in 1947 into predominantly
Hindu West Bengal and Muslim-dominated East
Pakistan was the last of a long series of partitions.
These reduced the state to less than one seventh
of the size of Greater Bengal a century ago and
left only one third of the Bengali-speaking people
under the state's administrative control. The shift
of political power to Hindi-speaking areas and the
central government's promotion of Hindi and a
Hindi-speaking culture adds to the Bengalis' re-
sentment of New Delhi and a growing sense of
alienation. Moreover, while Bengalis look to New
Delhi for financial support, they also complain
that their state never receives an equitable share
of federal assistance.
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Efforts to Improve the Situation
New Delhi's intrusion in Bengali affairs has
increased steadily during the last six months. Last
winter, the central government took the un-
precedented step of deploying soldiers to assist
West Bengal police in ensuring peaceful and fair
state and national elections. The presence of
50,000 troops undoubtedly played a key role in
encouraging a surprisingly high voter turnout (60
percent), despite the murder of four candidates
during the campaign. Military units continue to
supplement local security forces, but the- troops
could be reassigned to more conventional duties
in border areas as Indo-Pakistani tensions rise.
The formation of a Ruling Congress-
dominated coalition last April lent hope that
some progress could be made toward restoring
more normal economic conditions. Harassment of
businesses by gherao (a tactic whereby workers
imprison management personnel in their offices
without food or water until the workers' demands
are conceded) has declined. Nevertheless, fac-
tories continue to close because of labor problems
and material shortages, profits and investment
capital continue to leave the state, and an at-
mosphere of insecurity pervades the business
community. As a result, there is an absence of
new industrial investment, and most major firms
are planning to expand in more tranquil states.
Frequent strikes and interunion clashes have ac-
complished little more than to contribute to the
state"s economic decline.
Despite this generally grim picture, a World
Bank assessment-formulated before the Pakistani
crisis-saw some room for hope in West Bengal.
Mild optimism centered on the creation last
September of the Calcutta Metropolitan Develop-
ment Agency (CMDA). There have been many
plans for arresting decay and stimulating develop-
ment in Calcutta, but the CMDA is unique in its
command of resources and wide-ranging power, as
well as in its ability to finance, coordinate, and
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supervise whatever programs it deems necessary.
A $200-million program has been drawn up and,
although financing has not been completed, new
sources of funding have been found. A tax has
been imposed on goods entering the metropolitan
area, and $8.6 million has been borrowed by
means of public bonds, the first time in years that
any Calcutta authority has successfully entered
the bond market. Special assistance, about $40
million, is expected from New Delhi. Previous
Pakistani refugees being transferred by train from West
Bengal to other parts of India
development efforts have been stymied by lack of
resources, by uncoordinated executing agencies,
and by institutional and political difficulties, but
the CMDA has moved ahead with unusual dis-
patch. In addition, a sorely needed second bridge
to span the Hooghly and give Calcutta another
link with the rest of India is scheduled to begin in
the near future.
Bengali officials have insisted that New Delhi
must bear the financial burden of refugee care
and are pressing for the dispersal of the refugees
to other states. So far, however, only a fraction
have been transferred, partly because New Delhi
is reluctant to lessen the slight chance that at least
some of the refugees might return home. Mean-
while, food prices have risen 10-30 percent and
wages have fallen as much as 40 percent because
of the glutted labor supply.
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