Changing Patterns of Political Leadership in West Bengal

Abstract

HE PROCESS BY WHICH a new leadership is emerging in many parts of Asia 1 provides one key to understanding the dynamics of social and political change. With the achievement of independence new leaders emerge with new interests and demands. How well these fragile democracies will be able to withstand the pressures exercised by new leaders and new groups is one of the fundamental questions of our times. It is the purpose of this article to explore the changing pattern of leadership in a single state in India during the past forty years and to suggest the kinds of demands likely to arise in Indian political life as a result of these changes.' It also considers what effect these demands are likely to have on the freedom with which economic planning may be pursued by the Indian government in the years ahead. Certain preliminary considerations need to be kept in mind. First of all, under Western colonial rule the countries of Asia have experienced a quiet but profound change in the character of their political leadership. One could view the nationalist movement in India, as elsewhere, not only as a struggle by Indians to replace their British rulers, but as a struggle by one group of Indians-a Western-educated class of journalists, doctors, lawyers and administrators-to replace an older leadership of maharajas, landlords, and hereditary administrators. To understand modern India, one must understand this new leadership, the social background from which it derives, the groups with which it is associated and whose interests it articulates, the values and ideologies it propagates, and the influence which it wields. Secondly, this new leadership has itself been undergoing many changes. The late i9th and early 20th century leadership which participated in the Indian National Congress, was largely drawn from middle income groups in the coastal cities of Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and their environs. In the i920S major changes occurred within the nationalist movement: not only did the advent of Gandhi mean a change in the style of the movement (from