People in Kolkata are finally getting a taste of western-style fast food. (Atirath Aich/CBC)

The winds of change are blowing over the Indian city of Calcutta, once synonymous with decrepit roads, urban filth, poverty and, of course, Mother Teresa.

There are signs of change everywhere in this bustling eastern metropolis, now known as Kolkata.

It's awash today in glitzy shopping malls, swanky highrises and a slew of high-end restaurants. Shiny new cars jostle for space on the new flyovers.

The city is finally riding the crest of India's economic boom and seems to be enjoying every minute of it.

Kolkata, it appears, is coming a full circle since its halcyon days as capital of British India a hundred years ago.

The bad times

The slide into squalor began in the late 1970s.

The Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI-M) led a leftist coalition to power in the state of West Bengal in 1977. For the next 23 years, its strident opposition to industry and its support for strikes and lockouts destroyed the capital city's economy.

And here's the irony.

Brands such as Reebok are now flooding a staunchly communist state. (Atirath Aich/CBC)

The same ruling party that drove big business out of Kolkata and the state is now bending over backwards to woo it back. That happened in 2000 when a new leader took over the CPI-M.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee calls himself a reformer, who admits mistakes were made in the past. The Marxist chief minister has opened up the state's economy and is courting corporate investment aggressively.

"If we have learned from the failure of the Soviet Union, we have also learned from the miracle of China," he said.

Leaving his Marx

You could call it the miracle of West Bengal. A once-moribund region is now India's third-largest economy (as well as one of its fastest growing) with a GDP of $23 billion US.

Mindful of West Bengal's poor reputation, the chief minister hired American firm McKinsey & Co. to rope in multinational corporations.

As a result, once-reviled U.S. fast food chains like McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut and Subway are mushrooming across Kolkata. Reebok has built one of its largest showrooms in Asia here.

Other capitalist giants such as IBM, Pepsi, and Mitsubishi are investing ten of millions of dollars in one of the world's staunchest communist bastions.

The Westside Mall is one of the many new shopping centres where the affluent middle class shops.
(Atirath Aich/CBC)

Success stories are all around. The city's information technology industry is growing at an astonishing 70 per cent a year. That's twice the national average.

"Reform, perform or perish," said Bhattacharjee.

But the chief minister himself leads a frugal lifestyle. He's an unobtrusive man who shuns the shopping centres and detests television. Instead, the 63-year-old prefers to read Bertolt Brecht and is an admirer of Noam Chomsky and Fidel Castro.

Bhattacharjee is widely lauded as a visionary for turning around the economic health of West Bengal and Kolkata. Even Bhattacharjee's most hardened critics admit his shift from ideological communism to pragmatic Marxism has helped West Bengal and Kolkata.

Return of the prodigals

Seshadri Chanda is the CEO of a mid-level manufacturing operation in the affluent Kolkata suburb of Salt Lake. He says investor-friendly policies of this government have helped in the exponential growth of his business.

"Today, I have clients as far away as Brazil and Argentina," he said.

The city is also beginning to see the first signs of reverse migration. Shaun Kenworthy, a chef from Manchester, U.K. has now spent six years in Kolkata. He runs an upscale restaurant in the trendy Park Street area and writes a weekly column for a local newspaper.

"I am here to stay," declared Kenworthy. "I love this city. It has character and vitality. I don't think I am ever going back."

More and more young executives are spurning foreign offers, and instead choosing to stay in the city. They say Kolkata is poised for a big leap and they don't want to be left out.

Others are coming back to India from lives in Britain, the U.S., and Canada. The local job market is booming. Salaries are growing between 12 and 18 per cent annually. And with more choices available to the consumer, the Kolkata middle class never had it so good.

...on the other hand

But not everyone is profiting. Millions of people are still mired in poverty, their presence obscured by shiny, glass-fronted office towers, malls and billboards.

Leftist ideologues allege the economic windfall of Kolkata is not trickling down to the rural population. Bhattacharjee remains defiant, saying only reform can eradicate poverty.

But the most serious accusation the CPI-M has faced is its neglect of the rural voter — traditionally a committed supporter. Critics blame the government for forcibly taking land from peasants to build industries. In March the sleepy hamlet of Nandigram, outside Kolkata, turned into a battle zone. The government had been trying to acquire land there to build a special economic zone. Police opened fire during a confrontation with locals, killing at least 14 people (unofficial estimates are much higher).

Bhattacharjee's political adversaries blamed him for selling out to "bourgeois interests." A penitent chief minister took responsibility for the deaths.

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