A few months back, on a visit to Kolkata, I was repeatedly asked by senior persons in the media how West Bengal was doing vis-à-vis other states of India.  My answer was - not too badly really.  But non-Bengalis such as I tend to compare West Bengal with an average state. 

And yes, West Bengal has not been doing very badly when we compare it with say Bihar.  West Bengal today is, well, average (and slightly above average at best).  But the younger Indian researchers have only vaguely heard of the glory that was West Bengal.  We do not know that there was a time, when almost everything that was cutting edge in India, originated in West Bengal.

When Bibek Debroy and I started working on a paper on how West Bengal was performing, we took a conscious decision.  The best need to be compared with the best, not the average.  And West Bengal needed to be compared with states such as Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, not an average Indian state such as MP or Rajasthan.  We also decided to look at these states’ evolution across the past five decades.  What happened? Which incident or factors caused this? 

When the British had left India, there were two cities that dominated India’s industrial, commercial, intellectual and cultural landscape – Mumbai and Kolkata.  Today, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, and even Hyderabad have overtaken Kolkata. Give them some time, and soon Surat and Coimbatore it seems will overtake Kolkata.  What is so apparent when we compare Kolkata with other metros, is also reflected when we compare West Bengal  to other states.  Kolkata’s relative decline is only a symptom, the illness is in the state as a whole. What is this disease? How can West Bengal become healthy again? 

We looked at data published by the central and State governments, the oldest we could get was from the 1960s.  We compared this state level data with similar data from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, as well as other states.

We looked hard and deep, and found an astonishing all-pervasive pattern.

We looked across a range of parameters reflecting basic and higher education, basic and higher level health care, industry, agriculture, law order and justice, etc.  We studied violent crime, availability of doctors, manufacturing establishments, agriculture productivity, electrification, government’s capital investment, public sector performance, and a whole range of parameters that reflect the performance of a state.  In just about every area and parameter, West Bengal’s figures were better or comparable to TN and Maharashtra in the sixties and seventies.  But not any more.  Today West Bengal stands much lower.

We looked at population growth – could it be that West Bengal’s ever-growing population was making it inordinately difficult for the state to progress? And we find that states such as Maharashtra, had had roughly comparable population growth, but had far outstripped West Bengal’s rate of progress. 

Not satisfied with quantitative data, we looked at reports published by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.  And we find that this body has also been painstakingly documenting the malaise in the way West Bengal is being governed.

Since the mid seventies the left front government has had unhindered control over the state administration.  It has not only controlled the state government but most of its rural and urban local governing bodies.  It has had relatively good relations with the central government.  Much better than what many other states can boast of.

When every parameter shows a relative decline, when the malaise is overarching, when accounts of government run firms are not completed for many decades (yes decades!), when external factors are not more perverse than that faced by many other states, when population growth is not the culprit, when there has been political stability, what can account for this relative but stark decline?

The answer is apparent and for all to see.  But that is not where we end; there are many opportunities for West Bengal.  We identify a range of actions and simple reforms that can quickly enable the turn around of West Bengal’s downfall.  And it is never too late to get one’s act together.  

Laveesh Bhandari heads the economic research firm Indicus Analytics and can be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . 

Source: Tehelka