For sometime now, political stability has been a concern for some sections of our middle classes. This was more discernable, so far as the television watching and SMS using sections were concerned. The ultimate litmus test for this trend became apparent when their “icon extraordinaire” President Abdul Kalam also articulated the imperative of having a two party system.

There is another distinct section in our society, which is pitching for “continuity in policy”. These are the new liberal policy makers. Their advocacy for continuity and consensus is directed at insulating the policy direction from electoral interruptions. The most significant spokesman of this section was L K Advani during the NDA days. He went to the extent of claiming that the right to move a no confidence motion by the opposition in the Parliament ought to be severely circumscribed.

The prerequisite for stability and continuity is, at times emphasised to the extent of distorting the very fundamental basis of our democracy and of course the constitutional scheme. The executive’s accountability to the sovereign – the people – is absolute in our electoral system. And in between two elections, it is the elected representatives to whom the executive must be answerable. Advani was trying to strike at the very roots of such a constitutional arrangement.

Why do we have such an obsession with stability and continuity? The answer is not very difficult to guess. In the last decade and half, almost all elections, whether at the national level or at the state, incumbent governments were shown the door by the electorate.

Now, this period also coincides with the process of economic reforms in the country – in consonance with what was happening elsewhere in the world. The inference that one is constrained to draw from such a  development is that this process and its impact is not acceptable to the people at large.

Ultimately, in democracy, stability and continuity of our regimes depend on the extent of popular support that they enjoy. Perhaps, those who are so vociferously clamouring for stability do not realise this home truth; or even if they do, they find it uncomfortable to acknowledge this popular rejection of the reforms’ policy prescriptions.

In this background, it is little strange that there is so little attention and far less analysis of a rare political stability in a part of the country. This June 21, the Left Front government of West Bengal completed three decades of uninterrupted office. Not only in the country but in other parts of the world as well, where multi-party elections take place, this has no parallel.

Unlike most of the states and the nation as a whole, the policies of the Left Front in the state has brought about a major change in the co-relation of political forces. The nature of this change has been primarily driven by a major agrarian reform. This is so much so, that though West Bengal accounts for only 3 per cent of total agricultural land in the country, of all the land that has been redistributed, West Bengal accounts for 22 per cent. In all 13 lakh acres of land has been distributed to 25 lakh of people.

This has led to 83 per cent of the total land in the state being owned by small and marginal farmers. Added to this, nearly 20 lakh share croppers have been given the right to tenure of the land they cultivate. Considering each of these new land owners and share croppers have a family of four, 2.5 crore of people have benefited from this massive programme. And it is this huge army of rural poor - the toilers who stand firm as the electoral support base of the Left in the state.

With the background of this reform, the decentralisation of the development process in the rural areas is premised on a panchayati system which is led by the rural poor. Decentralised planning and development have led to expansion of irrigation from 28 per cent to 70 per cent of net sown area. This has in its turn, led to an agricultural growth which outstrips the rest of the country.

It is based on this resurgent rural economy that the state is now endeavouring to reverse the process of de-industrialisation which had been sought to be imposed on the state earlier. In the country at large there is a realisation that with the kind of strong rural economic base and the locational advantage that West Bengal has, it can serve as an important investment destination. The new “Look East” policy of the government has also significantly enhanced the locational advantage because the state happens to be the furthest point in the country to expand our outreach to South East Asia and East Asia.

In this backdrop that more than 50 per cent voted for the Left in the last Assembly elections, the Election Commission influenced by the opposition charge of electoral manipulation had initiated the most stringent conditions – virtual President’s rule – to hold the elections. But despite that, the Left Front came back with a thumping majority.

Without the people’s support there can be no stability. And the people's support will never be there unless the policies of the incumbent government improves their material conditions and quality of life. That is the lesson from the state which has ensured political stability and continuity, unseen in other parts of the country.
Are you listening, Mr Advani?

(The writer is member of the CPM’s central secretariat.)