ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the CPIM’s post-transition policy dilemma: how to modify its ideological agenda without losing its core base of political support. This story of the political core of the transition rarely finds any acknowledgement in mainstream literature, and has been developed in this chapter based on four themes: (1) a review of the industrial fortunes of West Bengal post-1994; (2) tracing a continuous undercurrent of ambivalence on part of the CPIM leaders and ministers on issues related to industrialisation; (3) an examination of the CPIM’s search for an alternative legitimising discourse in the hope of achieving consensus, and the ambiguities inherent within that discourse; and (4) analysing how the CPIM leadership went about negotiating/explaining/justifying the renewed discourse and its stance on industrialisation to its own cadre base, trade union activists and other Left parties in the coalition. Based on the concept of the political rationale (Chapter 3), the overarching theme of this chapter is to show how the management of the transition – both in its intent and meaning – came to be intensely politicised even within the higher echelons of the Left Front.
