<p>A road journey from Kumardhubi, the small company township where your columnist grew up, to Calcutta once passed through one of India’s greatest industrial landscapes. Kumardhubi itself contained prominent engineering businesses, a specialised foundry and a large fire brick plant. From there, the highway ran through Kulti, Asansol, Raniganj, Durgapur, Burdwan and Uttarpara, past factories, mines, steel plants, engineering works and chemical complexes that employed millions of people. The names themselves told the story. Indian Iron, British Oxygen, Chittaranjan Locomotives, Pilkington Glass, Martin Burn, Sen Raleigh, Hindustan Motors and dozens of other companies formed part of a vast industrial ecosystem. Collieries were managed by distinguished business houses, ancillary companies flourished around the larger plants and entire towns lived off the wealth that industry created. </p><p>At the end of that journey stood Calcutta, the industrial and commercial capital of eastern India and, at one time, one of the great cities of Asia. Its port connected India to the world. Its banks financed trade, its stock exchange raised capital and its managing agencies controlled enterprises that extended across the subcontinent. Dalhousie Square and Fairlie Place contained some of the most important names in Indian business. Calcutta was also remarkably cosmopolitan. Armenians, Jews, Chinese, Marwaris, Punjabis and people from across India made it their home. They did not merely come to trade. They absorbed the culture of Bengal, contributed to its institutions and became part of the city’s social fabric. There was serious money to be made, but there was also theatre, literature, music and intellectual life. Calcutta possessed both commerce and character. </p><p>Much of that world was destroyed. Beginning in the mid 1970s and accelerating through the decades that followed, politics turned against enterprise. Militant unions were empowered, factory managers were intimidated and strikes became part of everyday business life. Governments came to regard private wealth with suspicion, even though it was private enterprise that provided employment and sustained the state’s finances. In 1984, as a young project engineer at a site in Durgapur, your columnist was made to stand on an oil barrel for four hours in the afternoon sun while union workers shouted threatening slogans. He had no idea what offence he had committed or what their demands were. Such incidents were not exceptional. They were part of the environment in which businesses were expected to operate. </p><p>Many companies tried to remain. Eventually, they gave up. Some closed, others were nationalised and the more farsighted relocated their offices, factories and capital. Business families that had helped build Bengal moved to Bombay, Delhi and other parts of India. As factories disappeared, employment disappeared with them. Consequently, the damage extended far beyond industry. Educated Bengalis began to leave in search of opportunity. Once, people travelled to Calcutta to build their careers. Subsequently, the most ambitious young people frequently looked elsewhere. A city that had attracted talent from across Asia became an exporter of its own talent. </p><p>The industrial belt between Kumardhubi and Calcutta became a rust belt. Factory buildings were converted into warehouses, housing developments and retail showrooms. Dum Dum airport, once connected directly with many of the world’s great cities, lost much of its international importance. Calcutta continued to produce fine minds, but increasingly their achievements were realised outside Bengal. The tragedy was not simply that businesses had been lost. The deeper tragedy was the destruction of confidence. A factory can be constructed in a few years, but confidence takes a generation to build. Once investors believe that contracts may not be honoured, land may become politically contentious, workers may be mobilised and the police may remain spectators, no financial incentive can easily persuade them to return. </p><p>The Left eventually recognised its mistake. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya tried to bring industry back, but the effort came too late and was handled without sufficient political dexterity. Singur and Nandigram then extinguished much of the remaining hope. The government that followed did improve some infrastructure and attracted investments in selected sectors, but it did not fully alter Bengal’s reputation for political interference, uncertain administration and an uncomfortable relationship with enterprise. That is why the present political transition matters. </p><p>No government can recreate the Bengal of the 1960 or 1970s. The old managing agencies will not return and many of the great industrial companies have disappeared forever. Bombay has become India’s financial centre, Bengaluru its technology capital, Hyderabad a major destination for new investment and Gujarat and Tamil Nadu powerful manufacturing hubs. History cannot simply be wound backwards. Bengal does not need to recreate its past. It needs to build a plausible future. </p><p>The new administration therefore has a narrow but important opportunity. Its first task is not to announce gigantic investment figures or conduct elaborate business summits. It is to establish credibility. The government must demonstrate that the police will enforce the law, that political workers will not interfere with factories, that permissions will be granted transparently and that investors will not have to negotiate with layers of unofficial authority. The second requirement is humility. Bengal must acknowledge that capital has choices. Investors do not come because a state believes it deserves them. They come when land is accessible, infrastructure functions, officials respond and managers can operate without fear. The government must listen to business rather than lecture it. </p><p>Bengal still possesses considerable strengths. It has a large market, a strategic location, important ports, fertile agricultural land, a strong intellectual tradition and access to eastern and north-eastern India. Calcutta retains good schools, universities, hospitals and a quality of cultural life that few Indian cities can replicate. The state also has established capabilities in steel, engineering, tea, leather, petrochemicals, food processing, logistics and services. Most importantly, Bengal has people of enormous ability. Bengalis lead companies, universities, hospitals, laboratories and public institutions across India and the world. The question is not whether Bengal has talent. The question is whether it can create conditions in which some of that talent chooses to remain or return. </p><p> Expectations should remain measured. Several decades of institutional decline cannot be repaired within a single term. Political habits are deeply embedded, vested interests will resist change and administrative reform will prove much harder than making speeches. There will be disappointments and perhaps some wobbly decisions along the way. Nevertheless, Bengal now has something it has not possessed for a very long time, a genuine opportunity to change direction. The opportunity may be lost, as previous opportunities were. But it exists. </p><p>When this columnist wrote about Calcutta a few years ago, he concluded that the fallen star had no credible prospect of recovering its former glory within his lifetime. He remains convinced that the old Calcutta cannot be rebuilt. But perhaps that is the wrong ambition. The objective should not be to restore a vanished city. It should be to create a new one, commercially confident, politically stable and open once again to people, ideas and capital. </p><p>Calcutta remains a fallen star. But, for the first time in many years, it may have another fighting chance. </p>
<p>A road journey from Kumardhubi, the small company township where your columnist grew up, to Calcutta once passed through one of India’s greatest industrial landscapes. Kumardhubi itself contained prominent engineering businesses, a specialised foundry and a large fire brick plant. From there, the highway ran through Kulti, Asansol, Raniganj, Durgapur, Burdwan and Uttarpara, past factories, mines, steel plants, engineering works and chemical complexes that employed millions of people. The names themselves told the story. Indian Iron, British Oxygen, Chittaranjan Locomotives, Pilkington Glass, Martin Burn, Sen Raleigh, Hindustan Motors and dozens of other companies formed part of a vast industrial ecosystem. Collieries were managed by distinguished business houses, ancillary companies flourished around the larger plants and entire towns lived off the wealth that industry created. </p><p>At the end of that journey stood Calcutta, the industrial and commercial capital of eastern India and, at one time, one of the great cities of Asia. Its port connected India to the world. Its banks financed trade, its stock exchange raised capital and its managing agencies controlled enterprises that extended across the subcontinent. Dalhousie Square and Fairlie Place contained some of the most important names in Indian business. Calcutta was also remarkably cosmopolitan. Armenians, Jews, Chinese, Marwaris, Punjabis and people from across India made it their home. They did not merely come to trade. They absorbed the culture of Bengal, contributed to its institutions and became part of the city’s social fabric. There was serious money to be made, but there was also theatre, literature, music and intellectual life. Calcutta possessed both commerce and character. </p><p>Much of that world was destroyed. Beginning in the mid 1970s and accelerating through the decades that followed, politics turned against enterprise. Militant unions were empowered, factory managers were intimidated and strikes became part of everyday business life. Governments came to regard private wealth with suspicion, even though it was private enterprise that provided employment and sustained the state’s finances. In 1984, as a young project engineer at a site in Durgapur, your columnist was made to stand on an oil barrel for four hours in the afternoon sun while union workers shouted threatening slogans. He had no idea what offence he had committed or what their demands were. Such incidents were not exceptional. They were part of the environment in which businesses were expected to operate. </p><p>Many companies tried to remain. Eventually, they gave up. Some closed, others were nationalised and the more farsighted relocated their offices, factories and capital. Business families that had helped build Bengal moved to Bombay, Delhi and other parts of India. As factories disappeared, employment disappeared with them. Consequently, the damage extended far beyond industry. Educated Bengalis began to leave in search of opportunity. Once, people travelled to Calcutta to build their careers. Subsequently, the most ambitious young people frequently looked elsewhere. A city that had attracted talent from across Asia became an exporter of its own talent. </p><p>The industrial belt between Kumardhubi and Calcutta became a rust belt. Factory buildings were converted into warehouses, housing developments and retail showrooms. Dum Dum airport, once connected directly with many of the world’s great cities, lost much of its international importance. Calcutta continued to produce fine minds, but increasingly their achievements were realised outside Bengal. The tragedy was not simply that businesses had been lost. The deeper tragedy was the destruction of confidence. A factory can be constructed in a few years, but confidence takes a generation to build. Once investors believe that contracts may not be honoured, land may become politically contentious, workers may be mobilised and the police may remain spectators, no financial incentive can easily persuade them to return. </p><p>The Left eventually recognised its mistake. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya tried to bring industry back, but the effort came too late and was handled without sufficient political dexterity. Singur and Nandigram then extinguished much of the remaining hope. The government that followed did improve some infrastructure and attracted investments in selected sectors, but it did not fully alter Bengal’s reputation for political interference, uncertain administration and an uncomfortable relationship with enterprise. That is why the present political transition matters. </p><p>No government can recreate the Bengal of the 1960 or 1970s. The old managing agencies will not return and many of the great industrial companies have disappeared forever. Bombay has become India’s financial centre, Bengaluru its technology capital, Hyderabad a major destination for new investment and Gujarat and Tamil Nadu powerful manufacturing hubs. History cannot simply be wound backwards. Bengal does not need to recreate its past. It needs to build a plausible future. </p><p>The new administration therefore has a narrow but important opportunity. Its first task is not to announce gigantic investment figures or conduct elaborate business summits. It is to establish credibility. The government must demonstrate that the police will enforce the law, that political workers will not interfere with factories, that permissions will be granted transparently and that investors will not have to negotiate with layers of unofficial authority. The second requirement is humility. Bengal must acknowledge that capital has choices. Investors do not come because a state believes it deserves them. They come when land is accessible, infrastructure functions, officials respond and managers can operate without fear. The government must listen to business rather than lecture it. </p><p>Bengal still possesses considerable strengths. It has a large market, a strategic location, important ports, fertile agricultural land, a strong intellectual tradition and access to eastern and north-eastern India. Calcutta retains good schools, universities, hospitals and a quality of cultural life that few Indian cities can replicate. The state also has established capabilities in steel, engineering, tea, leather, petrochemicals, food processing, logistics and services. Most importantly, Bengal has people of enormous ability. Bengalis lead companies, universities, hospitals, laboratories and public institutions across India and the world. The question is not whether Bengal has talent. The question is whether it can create conditions in which some of that talent chooses to remain or return. </p><p> Expectations should remain measured. Several decades of institutional decline cannot be repaired within a single term. Political habits are deeply embedded, vested interests will resist change and administrative reform will prove much harder than making speeches. There will be disappointments and perhaps some wobbly decisions along the way. Nevertheless, Bengal now has something it has not possessed for a very long time, a genuine opportunity to change direction. The opportunity may be lost, as previous opportunities were. But it exists. </p><p>When this columnist wrote about Calcutta a few years ago, he concluded that the fallen star had no credible prospect of recovering its former glory within his lifetime. He remains convinced that the old Calcutta cannot be rebuilt. But perhaps that is the wrong ambition. The objective should not be to restore a vanished city. It should be to create a new one, commercially confident, politically stable and open once again to people, ideas and capital. </p><p>Calcutta remains a fallen star. But, for the first time in many years, it may have another fighting chance. </p>
