Therefore Singur wasn’t badly managed by the CPM from the start. So it’s Mamata — she’s the explanation. No, the explanation is that in deciding to encourage formal industrial capital, the CPM perforce opened the windows of a closed political economic world. Here was an outsider whose prosperity didn’t depend on the Bengal model, who earns his bread by paying attention to laws and rules, who demands protection, isn’t grateful for it.

Such an agent being deployed in the transformation of Bengal means that the CPM’s capacity to manage is severely reduced. If Ratan Tata could be told by the CPM to hang around, have a cup of tea, talk football and culture, while it sorts out Mamata, the experienced CPM-watcher would have bet on the party managing Singur, despite Nandigram. But Ratan Tata can’t be told to hang around. He has options.

But the CPM, given its way of managing Bengal, doesn’t. It is used to being the monopolist in negotiations. It is used to institutions, like panchayats, that will bend to its will. It is used to ignoring or bending laws and rules and used to dealing with agents who like that sort of thing. None of that helps when formal industrial capital gets upset.

That’s why the Bengal governor enjoys the CPM’s backing when he writes to Ratan Tata. The party knows it can’t manage alone on Singur. It also knows that the Bengal model is exhausted. And that if it keeps its invitation to formal industrial capital open, its days as sole manager are over and, by extension, so are its days of all-encompassing politics. Therefore, the most interesting question in Bengal is not whether Mamata will change. It is whether the CPM can change.

... contd.