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STATES: WEST BENGAL
Appetite For Business Risk
These branches of
the Bengali brotherhood are orchestrated by two central functionaries
of the Naba Jagaran trust: General Secretary Ashok Dasgupta, editor of
Aaj Kal, a pro-left Bengali daily, and Executive President Tapan Mitra,
former chairman of the Indian Aluminium Limited (when it was a subsidiary
of the Canadian AlCan) and chairman of Haldia Petrochemicals Limited (HPL).
HPL is the West Bengal Government's flagship Rs 5,170-crore project in
a joint venture with Purnendu Chatterjee (backed by the funds of George
Soros, a US investor) and the Tata Group. Both enjoy a special relationship
with the ruling Left Front. During the May assembly election, Aaj Kal's
advocacy for the Front made a dent in the opposition campaign despite
its modest circulation. And the state Government retained Mitra, an old
CPI(M) favourite despite shareholders' persistent objection.
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Banking
on past success alone to regenerate Bengal's 'animal spirit' may
be far too ambitious.
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The presence of these two acknowledged friends-of-the-Left
has helped Naba Jagaran mobilise support from a string of middling Bengali
businessmen. One of them, Satyabrata Dey, runs Sreeleathers, a small but
high-profile company for making low-end shoes with sales figures touching
Rs 25 crore.
Another Naba Jagaran activist, Arnab Basu, has
successfully developed licensed production and retail network in Kolkata
of Monginis, a Mumbai confectioner. There is yet another, a Bengali-speaking
Rajasthani Kashinath Chaurasia who owns Ganguram, a well-remembered chain
of Bengali sweet shops. He was co-opted in the hall of fame of Bengalis
in business by Naba Jagaran activists for the sandesh he makes, an ambrosian
delight.
The elevation of these men behind the grocer's
counter to the status of the path-breaking entrepreneurs may overtax one's
imagination, but the Naba Jagaran leaders are none too particular about
balance sheet sizes as long as the entrepreneur is a Bengali.
Naba Jagaran may be lacking in support from
the more widely known Bengali business families, but it has a generous
pick of Bengal's cultural notables. Its ad hoc executive committee includes
apart from novelist Sunil Gangopadhyay, veteran film actor Soumitra Chatterjee,
football coach and former Olympian P.K. Bannerjee, magician P.C. Sorcar,
police dig Nazrul Islam and singers Indranil Sen and Ajit Pande. In individual
conversation, many of them say that they have been attracted to Naba Jagaran
by its promise of "doing something positive" for the uplift
of Bengal. Most of them have starry-eyed ideas about the state's future,
but no clear strategy. Some seem to have political ambition-like Islam
who is permitted by the Government to don the uniform on weekdays and
to propagate the cause of the Bengali people over the weekend. The organisation
is supposedly non-political. "We would not admit someone as a member
if he is connected with party politics," says Dasgupta.
But there is no denying that its political agenda,
couched in economic jargon, has an undercurrent of anti-Centre sentiments.
Mitra, for example, says that "many of our members" want the
states to get credit (instead of the Reserve Bank of India) for "every
dollar we earn through export". Its fallout in a federal structure
like India is unimaginable. Besides making the Centre a supplicant to
the states even to pay for the nationally important imports-like defence
and oil purchases-it can bring about a meltdown of the national currency
by a handful of states' collective show of hostility towards Delhi.
Despite its rhetoric, Naba Jagaran is a harmless,
if not amusing, fraternity till it remains an exercise to let the ageing
and successful members of the club dream up their own utopia-their private
"Sonar Bangla". The danger is that its love of Bengal and the
language fetish may acquire a parochial tinge over time. It could prove
to be an embarrassment for a state Government that is willing to trade
its ideology for private investment, regardless of who the investor is-Bengali,
Marwari, Gujarati or a Wall Street financier.
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