Click to play videoNew Delhi: It's a different brand of Marxism that West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattcharjee's selling.
It is a Marxism that doesn't shy away from economic prosperity and West Bengal's Deng Ziao Ping doesn't have any inhibitions about accepting World Bank loans.
It's a move away from tradition and Bhattacharjee doesn't mind taking on Left economists, the principal advisors of his party.
“We have faced many problems in agriculture and industry. I feel they are a bit academic,” said Bhattacharjee.
It's not just the difference between dhoti and mundu. The CPI-M in Kerala and West Bengal are pursuing two different development trajectories.
Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan remains a Leninist-Stalinist.
The limited reforms are guided by the traditional economic thinker, Professor Prabhat Patnaik, who Bhattacharjee has lashed out against.
“Patnaik is not a new face to Keralites. He is a very good critic of new liberal policies in India,” said member of the Kerala Planning Board K N Harilal.
But for the West Bengal government making a clear break from its ideological past, it is not just the issue of foreign bank loans.
Nandigram and Singur saw the Left-leaning intellectuals, friends of the party so far, turn fierce critics.
“I have serious differences with him (Patnaik) about what he is writing now-a-days about industrialisation,” said Bhattacharjee.
It's a debate, which the party has been brushing under the carpet for three years now. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has now brought it out in the open.
The CPI-M leadership, stunned by his public outburst is refusing to speak. But Bhattacharjee knows he can set the agenda because he has the crucial backing of those who matter in the red fortress.
(With inputs from Diptosh Majumdar)
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