Is the connection between CPM (the Common Minimum Programme) and the CPM (Communist Party, Marxist) merely a jumbling of the letters or is it a deliberate, subliminal message sent by the wannabe “human” face reformers? Whatever the connection, the fact remains that the CPM is the party of choice, having been returned to office, again and again. Since their entry into governance some twenty six years ago, the Indian political scene has moved from Congress to coalitions, from stationarity to anti-incumbency. There is today only one explanation for election results – not leadership, not Economic, not Hindutva, not swadeshi – plain anti-incumbency. Except in West Bengal, and to a lesser extent, Bihar.

Consequently, all political parties have made requests to the CPM to explain the basis for their success. And they have unabashedly, and with only a trace of false modesty, replied. Their answer: good governance. The CPM has actually worked for the poor. Instead of lining the political party coffers with designated state expenditures for the poor, the CPM has delivered governance and responded to the people's needs, and done so especially in education and health. This reasoning appears to have been bought both by the ideological left and the Congress party. Thus, the "reform package" was named to resonate with CPM (CMP), with obsequious references to the need for a "human face" (read CPM face) of reforms. The face, it is contended, is the defining difference between the present government and all previous governments, not excluding the original Congress reform government of the early nineties.

No sooner had the plaster dried on this face-lift when news came from Andhra Pradesh that suicides by farmers were continuing unabated. So it wasn't lack of face on Chandrababu Naidu's part that did him in. Somewhat more disturbing to the CPM/CMP model of governance was the recent news that starvation deaths were reported in CPM's own backyard wrong-side-of-the tracks tribal village of Amlasol. To which a CPM functionary is reported to have said:" It is impossible for a tribal to die from starvation... They can always eat snakes".

How can the West Bengal model of governance be subjected to a "logic" test? Elections can be won by other means, thuggery and intimidation being two. But it does seem like sour grapes to contend that the conscience-ridden Left would ever employ Bihar like means to gain votes. It must have been governance. One outcome of governance is increased schooling. The rich always went to school - so increases in school enrollment reflect pro-poor performance. Another index is the female to male education ratio i.e. for each 1 year of education that a male child gets, how much does a girl child obtain?

The WB model of governance is tested with respect to government data on expenditures and schooling. National Sample Survey (NSS) are available for the large sample (over 125,000 households) surveys conducted in 1983 and 1999-00. These data are used to obtain two indicator variables on service delivery to the poor - the change in school enrollment ratios for children ages 5-16 and the change in the female-male school attendance ratio. The attached table reports these data for West Bengal, and that other anti-incumbency defying state of governance - Bihar - as well as for the rest of India (ROI). Since education is a state subject, the table also reports on the resources (real expenditures per student) that each state utilized for educating the poor.

If the WB government has genuinely performed, one should obtain each of three results: on the two indicators they should have done better than average, and certainly better than the worst-case scenario of Bihar. Further, that the increase in per-student expenditures should be on the low side i.e. significantly less than average. In other words, progress in education should not have been obtained by throwing money away on buildings, teacher salaries, administrative expenses etc; rather, good governance means accountable and efficient delivery of social services.  

On all three indicators West Bengal not only performs badly, but actually performs the worst. School enrollment: from a base of 50 percent in 1983, the expansion is only 18 percentage points (PP). Contrast that with Bihar which increased its enrollment rates by 15 PP, or Haryana, 27 PP or MP, 23 PP. The Rest of India (badly governed according to anti-incumbency election results) registers an increase of 23 PP, from 50 in 1983 to 73 percent in 1999/00.

As per the advocacy of both the right and left NGOs (only item they possibly agree on) the enhancement of gender equality is the sine qua non of successful development. Perhaps the WB model was concentrating in uplifting girl's education - the truth is considerably further removed from "reality" than fiction. The female-male school attendance ratio increased by only 11 PP in West Bengal, compared to an increase of 27 PP for Bihar and 21 PP for ROI. Indeed, ROI was 17 percent behind WB in 1983 - in 1999, the gap had been virtually closed. (Not reported in the table are impressive performances in the bad-governance states of Haryana and UP - from 56 to 92 in the former and 50 to 82 in UP). A detailed state by state analysis indicates that West Bengal, along with Gujarat and Assam, is the worst performer among all the major states in India; and on each of the above two indicators.

Maybe the West Bengal government became poorer by delivering other services to the poor, so that it did not have enough resources for uplifting either education or gender equality. But reality bites hard on the human face. West Bengal registered the highest growth rate in educational spending - an increase of 160 percent between 1983 and 1999; this was more than four times the increase observed in the rest of India (37 percent) and more than twice that observed in otherwise poor Bihar (107 percent).

The increase in spending in West Bengal is so large, and the observed effect on education so low, that it brings into question whether expenditures earmarked for "good face" purposes of education actually are spent on education. It's higher than necessary expenditures account for more than 1 percent of the state GDP. One easy, and constructive, policy that Manmohan Singh's government can implement is the policy of "truth in expenditures". If the CMP is to truly have a face tilted toward honesty and the poor, then the citizens need to know where the expenditure of all the ostensibly goody- goody policies (e.g. education, health, food for work, guaranteed jobs programs etc.) is going. It was after all a previous Congress PM, Rajiv Gandhi, who revealed to a shocked India that less than 15 percent of expenditures earmarked for the poor actually reached the poor. In the case of Communist West Bengal and casteist Bihar, that figure seems like a gross overstatement. If the ground reality is close to what Rajiv Gandhi had contended, then is it not most unfortunate that Ms. Sonia Gandhi should be attempting to implement precisely the policies that her husband had so courageously warned against? And, oh by the way, neither West Bengal nor Bihar won over anti-incumbency because they implemented policies for the poor. Indeed, just the opposite. So what does that mean - pro-poor growth policies are hazardous for being re-elected ? Is that why Messrs Narasimha Rao and Atal Vajpayee lost? Is that why the CMP eschews reforms and argues for politically (and electorally ?) correct anti-poor human faced policies?