West Bengal: Tradition of Ignoring Revenue Since Independence

CM of West Bengal,

Your Government has recently formed a new service cadre called West Bengal Revenue Service in which it has merged 4 pre-existing departments namely Commercial Taxes, State Excise, Registration & Stamp Revenue & Agricultural Income Tax.

I'm afraid, the main objective of creating WBRS seems to be nothing other than intercepting & preventing smooth functioning of the revenue department & create obstacles for them. I've already elaborated about it in a separate blog in Bengali. https://dbsdesk.blogspot.in/2018/01/gst.html

Herein, as a common conscious citizen of the State, I won't hesitate to say a few more words regarding this matter at this juncture of time.

I've very closely observed that India, particularly the state of West Bengal had a tradition of neglecting the revenue department since long. In fact, the legacy started throughout India since independence, perhaps due to the leftist mentality of Jawaharlal Nehru, which gained momentum in West Bengal since the Leftists' regime, which is surely one of the major reasons of the Economic downfall of Bengal. The super-left TMC too, is no exception and are following the same legacy of their LEFT predecessor to neglect the revenue sector with the leftist conception of looking down on revenue as a kind of oppression upon the people. However, in reality, it is just otherwise. How? I'll come to that point.

First, let us discuss what is revenue? Revenue, or in other words, tax is nothing but the pooled money of all of us, the common citizens. Now, the question arises as to, who among us are taxpayers. Though many of us believe that only those relatively rich people who are liable to pay income tax on their income are the taxpayers while the remaining comparatively poorer section of the society are not, but the reality is not so. In fact, all of us are taxpayers. Even the most downtrodden man who is buying a matchbox or a pack of Gutkha from the roadside box-shop, is also paying an amount of tax even on that trivial commodity. So, why will he have to pay it? He is paying it for the Government to collect, cumulate and utilize the money for the total development in the sectors of common interest of all and that of the common areas & services of the State which are to be used & usable by all including me & even that downtrodden man.

But, in order to ensure that, it becomes the duty and obligation of the Government to put in the most sincere efforts to collect the entire tax money that has been paid by the common people with the faith of participating in the mission of development of their country, and also to ascertain that absolute clarity remains on the specific sector on which this collected tax money is being spent, so that even the most downtrodden common person knows where and how his money is being utilized for the common development of which he himself is also a beneficiary.

It is very true that oppressing people for collecting illegitimate tax from them is illegal & immoral. Similarly, non-collection of legitimate tax & helping dishonest people to evade legitimate tax is also equally illegal & immoral an action. Isn't it? If the Government indirectly inspires dishonest businessperson to evade tax by remaining indifferent about collection & inspections of their books of accounts, the honest & legitimate taxpayers get demoralized & the Government indirectly punishes the honest businesses for their honesty & tax-paying discipline. Isn't that immoral & obnoxious? Isn't that inculcation of an environment of dishonesty? Isn't that injustice to all the citizens of the State? Yes it is.

Therefore, ignoring taxation department is not only demoralizing for the taxation personnel, it is cheating the common people too. Common people are paying GST. If the Government doesn't render meticulous effort to collect it, the businessmen cumulates those amounts as extra & illegitimate profit. The common buyers, in any case, become a looser. Isn't it? The businessmen perhaps pay a share of his undue profit to the political parties & get the license to continue with his business. But giving subscription to political parties is not paying revenue to the State Treasury as subscription to political parties may help the party to prosper, but not the people.

During the imperialist British rule in India, the then rulers ensured the collection of taxes and revenues but were more interested to take away the lion’s share of the collected money to their homeland, England, thus developing their own country and were relatively much more reluctant in spending them on the development of their colony in India. For that reason, they placed the then revenue earners at the absolute helm of their administration. In this connection, it may be noted that, during and till the end of British rule in India, the bulk share of revenue came from land revenue, and hence the department that administered land revenue then did legitimately enjoyed the maximum importance in administration and thus the District Collector, the top person of that department in a district was also considered the top person of corresponding district administration.

With independence, the situation should have changed. The nation deserved a change in the approach towards spending of revenue money. Now, the people of India deserved a Government of their own, who would now spend the common man's own money which he pays as taxes for the development of his own country and the well being of himself. But in reality, the Congress Government first headed by Jawaharlal Nehru and later by his dynastic descendants did nothing but carrying forward the same imperialist approach through developing a system of spending the tax money according to the whims and fancies of the leaders in power. Only in order to pacify the common people whom they looked down upon as their subjects, and in order to gain their support in the form of votes, these dynasts indulged in distributing only a meagre portion of the collection as doles and assistances, just in the same fashion as somebody gives alms to beggars. Hence the development of the nation and its people kept on staggering. Thus the Government themselves fortified the idea among common people of India to look down at taxes to be nothing more than a mode of oppression. The same Nehruvian legacy was carried forward in West Bengal by the leftists.


The only change that came with independence was that the importance of the government officials in administration got replaced by the public representatives. But now perhaps because most of the public representatives of that time, though possessed unquestionable devotion towards the nation, but lacked the necessary experience in administration, did not try to introduce any significant change in the legal and official procedures, and instead opted to continue with the procedures laid down by the British. They either denied to address or were unable to address the social changes that took place all across the globe after World War II. One such social change was that, gradually the position of land revenue as the prime source of revenue got replaced by taxes on sale of commodities. Thus though within a decade and half after independence, revenue collection from sales tax surpassed the collection from land revenue, but the public representatives failed to address it. Though with time the States of India other than West Bengal gradually started to address this change, but West Bengal Government stuck to its adamant stance of denying the importance of sales tax as the prime source of revenue. In fact, as the LEFTIST Government of West Bengal actually denied the importance of revenue as a whole, hence they did not hesitate to ignore and undermine the prime source of it.

Thus, looking down upon the revenue and in turn upon the revenue department is an age-old disease of the so called people-friendly leftist or super leftist Government of West Bengal. In fact, the leftist legislature formed a parallel Government using their own party cadres. TMC is doing the same using their hooligan-brigade. However, neither the LEFTs nor the TMC can attempt to annoy either the Indian Administrative Service officers or the State Civil Service Executives as they help the ruling party in the elections. But the department which earns monetary resources for the State is being undermined & heckled here as a tradition. Peculiarly enough, this is just opposite to what happens in a normal family where the earning members are given topmost priority & importance for the development & well being of the family. In West Bengal, it is the contrary. This is perhaps a negative recognition to the bread earners of the State. The legislation knows that the taxation men are their prime necessity. So, they purposely neglect them, so that the taxmen never assume to feel very elated about their due importance & necessity. They are unduly neglected so that they don't feel their due importance. This is the sad tradition of Bengal. And this is the main reason why Bengal is traditionally lagging economically behind since the Leftist regime. Insulting, neglecting & ignoring Laxmi'Ji can never help a place or a family or a man grow from any perspective. West Bengal has always chosen to be that intellectual fool to neglect the sources of prosperity!

However, if a Country or a State has to grow & achieve prosperity, its taxation system must be well developed. The taxmen must be supported with due empowerment and the system should be organized enough not to allow them to get corrupted. But to prevent taxmen from being corrupted, the matter of State taxation itself cannot be neglected. That's injustice to each & every citizen of the whole State.

Hence, the call of the hour for the common people of West Bengal is to raise the demands :

Government should give prime & maximum importance to its taxation department!

Government should develop excellent taxation infrastructure.

Government should, simultaneous to punishing the corrupt taxmen, also announce special rewards & pay special incentives to the taxmen if they achieve something praiseworthy for the Government treasury.

Government should be lenient & supportive to honest businesses and at the same time be ever strict to the evaders & dishonest business approaches & empower the taxmen to invigilate them.

But Government should never neglect taxation department as they are doing here in West Bengal since the last seven decades unlike any other State of India.

Again if we refer back to history we will see that in all ancient civilizations like Egyptian civilization, Chinese Civilization, Mesopotamian civilization, & in all the developed countries of today, the taxmen were and are the pivots of the administration only unlike our State. Why are we so much out of the main track? Doesn't it mean deliberate evil intention? However, in our West Bengal, the State Administration had always said that Commercial Tax was not a revenue at all, though almost 90% of the State's earning came through this particular source. Then what is the revenue of our State as per their definition? You will be surprised to know that still they marked the Land & Land revenue as the revenue of our State whereas the collection amount from land revenue was now less than even 0.001% of the total collection of Commercial Taxes.

In spite of that, till the end of 2017, the State Administration kept on claiming that Commercial Taxes (i.e. GST as of now) is no revenue but tax. What a hoax! The bread earners of the State were not even given the titles of the bread earner.

They wanted to say tax & revenue were different. So the Land & Land Revenue department which earned peanuts for the State treasury were the prime revenue service of the State & the service which earned 90% of the States income, were nothing but mere taxes. This ridiculous malpractice continued here for last 40 years. What a crying anomaly!

But now, when the GST services of all the States are at the verge of converging into a single federal service format, the WB State Administration formed a conjoint West Bengal Revenue Service, WBRS, in which they have included GST along with State Excise, Registration & Stamp Revenue & Agricultural Income Tax. My legitimate question to the CM is that why is the department which was never recognized as the main revenue service of the State in spite of contributing 90% of the State revenue, is now included in the state revenue cadre? Is it because now they have received an all India opening for them and your Land & Land Revenue Lilliput officers out of jealousy wanna stop them moving into the countrywide federal taxation cadre?

Are you being a puppet in the hands of those Lilliputian Executives of your close arena, madam? Please be careful! They are pulling down not only the State, but also your political prospect. It's vividly appearing that the jealous bureaucrats of the Land & Land Revenue Department & also of the Finance Department are desperately trying to inhibit the career prospects of the true revenue personnel of the State. This tussle between them would hamper even your political career, ma'am! You are a politician. Your objective should be to take bold steps for the benefit of the State's common men & not to fall in the trap of bureaucrats who would try to utilize you for their own little gain. If they're trying to tell you that once GST goes under the federal taxation cadre, the State would lose control on them, then they're misguiding you as the State would never lose control on its own officers as long as it's a matter of SGST. Don't you have sufficient control on the State-cadre IASs ma'am? Likewise, you'll have similar control on your State's taxation personnel too.

Therefore, please put due importance to the true taxmen of our State & don't plan to pull them down. Please don't unnecessarily be a part of a bureaucratic conspiracy of your Lilliputian Land Revenue Officers against the true revenue officials. As a politician if you can reform the State's outlook towards taxation & build up proper infrastructure & motivating working plan to render due recognition to the State's GST department, you'll end up stabilizing yourself on the path of your political career.

The people of Bengal have paid a huge price of this bureaucratic malpractice & defective outlook towards revenue for last 40 years. Now time has come for this outlook to change. Put due importance to revenue and at the same time have a strong system to check corruption of the revenue personnel. Provide State-of-the-art infrastructure to the revenue personnel to empower them to help honest businesses & shun the habitual evaders.

If an honest businessperson observes another one of his fraternity to continue with dishonest practices at ease, then won't he feel morally down & also indulge into similar dishonest practices & in turn make the whole business atmosphere of the State rotten & dishonest? Why should we uphold & inculcate this dishonesty in our State? Why would you allow it as the Chief People's Representative of the State?

Rather if there's a platform where the honest businesses may lodge legitimate complaints against the dishonest businesses & if proper measure may be taken promptly against them, then the honest businesses would feel motivated & morally encouraged to do better business & in turn pay better revenue to the State as well as create more employment opportunities. And as the majority is basically not dishonest as I believe, hence, if they can do business freely without the fear of being back stabbed by the dishonest businesses, then the industry, as a result, would grow in Bengal without disturbing the State Agriculture even a little bit. Isn't that a good idea?  The clue to Bengal's industrial growth is in the empowerment of the revenue sector, in true sense of it. Empowerment however certainly doesn't mean empowerment to oppress the businesspersons.

The clue to progress of Bengal is the fact that whosoever would be able to change this anomalous scenario of the State, whosoever would be able to reform the outlook towards revenue, would gain the ground of Bengal. If TMC fails, BJP perhaps would not fail to grab the opportunity!