[As part of the ongoing post-Nandigram debate, we publish below three more responses to Prabhat Patnaik’s earlier attack on non-CPM Left intellectuals. We publish them here for record and general interest and do not necessarily endorse all the comments. – Admin]

[Praful Bidwai’s piece was first published in Mathrubhoomi magazine. It was forwarded to us by way of Manju Menon with the following interesting prefatory comment:

“The West Bengal Coastal Zone Management Authority (WBCZMA) that recommended the change in status of Nayachar from CRZ I to CRZ III so that the chemical hub can be located here has as one of its members Smt Tamalika Panda Seth, the Haldia Municipality Chairperson. She is the wife of CPM MP Laxman Seth (“who was largely held responsible for the spiralling violence in Nandigram.”). She was made member of the
Authority when it was reconstituted in March 2005. She was elected as Chairperson when the CPM retained its power in Haldia in the 2007 civic polls.

The state Cabinet had approved the Nayachar site in its August 17 meeting. After this, it was only a matter of time before it prevailed over the WBCZMA! No amount of ‘scientific data’ can possibly stop the change of status of Nayachar from CRZ I to III.

‘Another case of regulatory capture’?”]

THE LEFT NEEDS RETHINKING, NOT ABJECT APOLOGIA

By Praful Bidwai

Prabhat Patnaik has done what no other intellectual allied to West Bengal’s Left Front has even attempted after Nandigram: namely, try to turn the tables on Left-leaning critics of the CPM by gratuitously attacking them for their ” messianic moralism” and their presumed
“disdain” for “the messy world of politics”.

His agenda goes well beyond defending the CPM or apologising for one of the most shameful episodes in the Indian Left’s history, involving the killing of peasants, devastation of thousands of livelihoods, sexual violence, and gross abuse of state power. It is to declare all criticism of the CPM’s policies and actions illegitimate and
misconceived, however sympathetic or inspired by radical ideas it might be.

The impact of Patnaik’s article will be to prevent rethinking within the CPM, which could produce course correction. Ironically for Patnaik, it will only strengthen the party’s neoliberal orientation and the “cult of development” that neoliberalism spawns, which he
rails against.

Worse, it will harden the West Bengal CPM’s readiness to brutalise peasants and workers (in whose name it speaks) in the interests of the rich and powerful, like the Tatas, Jindals, and the Salim group which is a front for Indonesia’s super-corrupt Suharto family.

Continue reading Three Responses to Prabhat Patnaik – Praful Bidwai, Dilip Simeon, Manash Bhattacharjee →