The alternative

Poster at Nandigram protest meeting in Calcutta, 2007. Slogan:
From Singur to Nandigram, Resistance's new naam (name).

The people's struggles in West Bengal over the last decade and more have brought to centre-stage the issue of land. City-folk, intellectuals, professionals, people who empathise with the peasants - are quick to point out that the old must give way to the new, that the spread of urbanisation is inevitable and irreversible, that a village cannot hold out against the advancing city, that industry is necessary and so on. And that, therefore, in a region of significant population density and relative land scarcity, it has to be agricultural land that is given up. They emphasise the issue of proper compensation and rehabilitation.

We are living in a time of great scams. Historically too, there have been some great conspiracies. And always, the poor and powerless have borne the brunt of these, and been simply forgotten. The bulk of the people in entire regions of the country have been living out, and continue to do so, direly, the ramifications of the planned consignment of their places to backwardness and zones of exploitation and extraction. Entire peoples and communities, cultures and languages, live out the consequences of the planned expropriation of a place by "enlightened" people from outside, and the conversion of the indigenous people into serfs, in a mutually beneficial plot between them and the state (colonial, Indian).

Although the mega-scam / conspiracy of forced land acquisition in Rajarhat by the CPI(M) mafia preceded Singur and Nandigram, and was held up as a "model" of consensus-based land acquisition, Rajarhat is now set to explode in the face of the arch-villain, Gautam Deb. In the documentary film on Rajarhat, "Their City on Our Land", an elderly farmer says, "we are not poor, we are rich, we have land, they have nothing, only money, but they don't have land. They buy our land with money, and become rich and we become poor." And just as the historic election in West Bengal comes to a close, the election in which the land question was perhaps the key issue driving the desire for change, in the very centre of the country, another explosion of the land question is taking place.

The city folk who empathise with the peasants but think land acquisition is unavoidable, a necessary sacrifice for collective advance - they must realise that democracy is not just about what they think it is about. Democracy in India implies an unflinching adherence to some basic parameters, that are being set by people's struggles in this land of historical injustice and inequity. The struggles are democracy in action, and the parameters set by them are directions for public policy and governance. Knee-jerk resort to assertions that "there is no alternative", "dams are vital", "urbanisation is inevitable", "land must be acquired" and so on is only part of the unquestioned continuation of status quo, regarding what "development" means and entails. It only shows what "power" is, and where it lies, who has it, and who does not. So, really, it is very clear that the empathic, development-oriented city-folk are with someone and against someone else.

But time is running out. The people of this country are not going to go on and on accepting that status quo, which is entirely one-sided: some sit in comfort while some suffer the earth sinking beneath their feet. The peasant whose land is being seized today, is not the peasant of an earlier age, who gave way to capitalist industry. He and she are here today, together with us, and contemporaneous with global capitalism. And fighting against it, unlike anyone else. Fighting for survival.

What is the alternative? That is what the city-folk ask. As if, over and above all the comfort and privilege they have enjoyed, they are now also privileged to have this formulated by the (powerless) people and handed over to them, to examine with cynical arrogance. What about them? What is their role? What can they do? Have they tried to immerse themselves in this concern, taking full responsibility? Instead of the sneering, despising disdain reserved for the poor and powerless. You better think fast, and think soundly, for your balls are otherwise going to be excised by the peasant's tangi.

If there is to be a market economy, that must be guided by people's interests. The lives of people cannot be dictated by unbridled market forces.

The poor are ingenious and enterprising, they must be in order to survive. In central Kolkata, slum dwellers hang around the spaces where the cars of early morning shoppers in New Market are parked. As soon as the babu goes off, someone will swiftly duck behind the car and crouch and empty his bowels, and thus get ready for another day of labour to sustain the fragrant city. That same ingenuity and razor-edge, do-or-die intensity must be brought to the engagement with the subject of "alternative" - by those who today only ask the question.

Against the "irreversible", "immutable" sway of global economy, the poor and powerless in Bengal, the ever rebellious land, have screamed out: you shall not take our land! The unstoppable advance of the jack-boot of economic forces, that goliath, may finally have come up against a little David in the Bengal peasant.

Which side are you on? Will you finally start working with the people and for the people, to fabricate an alternative, to produce a genuine local crop?

Shan sines again in Bengal

It took 32 years for the ghost of Siddhartha Shankar Roy to be buried, and for the self-destructive negativism underlying much of life in Bengal to be set aside. Bengal has rejoined the national mainstream. It has been part of a national wave, and played a significant part in enabling the formation of a stable federal govt committed to good governance, economic growth and social inclusion. Bengal had played a significant role in India's anti-colonial and freedom movement. Now, through its electoral behaviour, it has once again found its place under the Indian sun. The people of Bengal have to give flesh and bones to that promise and potential.

It is unlikely that any future govt will last for 30 years - or for that matter, whether "Bengal" as we know it today, will have any meaning in 30 years time, given the pace at which changes and transformations are taking place in the world. Any new dispensation in Bengal has only a short time within which it can carry out the work of repairing, rebuilding and renewing Bengal. It is not a question of pragmatism, or expediency or opportunism. Of erstwhile CPM-supported auto, bus-transport and union mafias, and real estate dons now doing business as usual with new rulers. It is a question of overturning and transforming the way life is lived in Bengal, of how people breathe, and what they are.

Bengal needs vision, inspiration and example; people need counselling and instruction and encouragement; and chastening and chiding and punishment and reward. In short, Bengal needs leadership. Bengalis are habitually averse to all these things. But the same Bengalis can do as much and more when they are inspired, and believe and trust. Netaji is long gone, and is not about to return. Even Prabhakaran, the mass murderer, who claimed Netaji's inspiration, is now dead. The people of Bengal have to find leadership within themselves, individually and collectively. Yes, Bengal needs a new Swaraj party.

With that, no one or nothing can stop Bengal from realising its place of destiny in this planet. A beautiful land, a peaceful and prosperous place, of gifted and quirky people, a different place, which is also a beacon for others.

Painting: The Sun Makers Free Your Mind, by Eric Singleton.

Mr Tata's unpaid bills

Ratan Tata, his puppy Buddhadev
Bhattacharjee on a leash, wonders,
"What happens to it nowadays when it
sees poor people?"

Please Pay Your Bill Before You Leave, Mr Tata!

by D. Bandyopadhyay

Published in Mainstream, Vol XLVI, No 51, 12 December 2008

I

On October 3, 2008, at a press conference at Kolkata, Ratan Tata formally announced his decision to move out the Nano Project from West Bengal squarely blaming the agitation led by the Trinamul Congress for his decision to relocate the plant. This statement clearly reflected some of the discussions that he had with the Chief Minister of West Bengal with whom he was closeted for two hours before the press conference. He spoke persuasively with unwarranted venom.

One cannot blame Tata for his lack of knowledge of the character, trait and heritage of the popular upsurges in West Bengal. Singur was one of the epicentres of the Tebhaga movement in the late forties of the last century led by the old and unsullied Communist Party of India. There is a famous story by Manik Bandyopadhyay called "Chhoto Bakul Purer Yatri" on that episode. Its locale was Bara-Kamalapur in Singur. A blue-blooded bourgeois totally alienated from the common people cannot have any perception about any popular movement against gross violation of their basic right to life and livelihood. He cannot be faulted for it.

After all, the Tatas made their primary accumulation of capital through opium trade in China in the nineteenth century. Use of opium was prohibited under law in China. The East India Company and its minor trading partners, among which the Tatas were one, started illegal importation of opium into China from India. The Chinese
Government strongly objected to this. The British waged the first Opium War (1839-42) in which China lost resulting in the Treaty of Nanjing, 1842. It imposed insulting and highly unfavourable conditions against China and in favour of the British. Then there was a second Opium War in 1856-60 wherein the British triumphed again and forcibly legalised contraband trade in opium in China. The Tatas and a few other Indian traders made enormous profit from this trade in a contraband commodity in China. Wealth creates hauteur. Hence we may excuse Tata for his slightly less than civilised behaviour in slandering Ms Mamata Banerjee at the press conference. He did not show any concern for or kindness to the land losers of Singur but it is reported that he donated US$ 50 million to Cornell University only recently.

But what about the Communist Party of India-Marxist? Did it not take a Royal Charter of monopoly for representing the "oppressed" who stood in constant opposition to the "oppressor" and who are in a constant fight, "a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the
contending classes"? The Chief Minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, while opening a SEZ project at the New Town Rajarhat on October 5, 2008, declared that he had "lost a battle, but not the war". A question naturally arises: for whom is he waging this war? While commenting on the adverse economic effects of SEZs, Professor Amit Bhaduri observed: "The devil in angel's guise would soon appear when large populations in rural areas would be rendered landless, jobless, homeless, incomeless, rootless and displaced making way for SEZs, the so-called epitomes of economic development." Bravo Mr Chief Minister, for so transparently exposing the class affiliation of yourself and your party! You have openly promised to wage a war in favour of the oppressors and against the oppressed. It is only to be hoped that it ends in the reconstitution of the society in favour of monopoly capital. In ensuring this objective, the CPI-M would fulfil its historic mission of total subjugation and annihilation of workers and peasants making the world safe for the bourgeoisie. It perhaps validates the saying "Money Speaks"!

The Government of West Bengal (GOWB) published 13 notifications under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 in July 2006 declaring its intentions to acquire roughly 1000 acres of land in five mauzas of Singur abutting the Durgapur Express Highway. All the 13 notifications had the same common clause. It stated that land mentioned in the Schedule below is likely to be needed to be taken by Government/Government Undertaking/Development Authorities, at public expense for a public purpose (emphasis ours), viz., employment generation and socio-economic development of the area by setting up of Tata Small Car Project, etc., etc.

Since the government cannot acquire any land for a private company except through the procedure laid down in the Chapter-VII of the Land Acquisition Act, the GOWB openly committed a fraud on the law and on the public by acquiring the land in the name of the West Bengal Industries Development Corporation (WBIDC-a government company) for leasing out the land to Tata Motors Ltd (TML). This chicanery on the part of the GOWB enabled the Tatas to get hold of 643 acres of land on lease without paying a paisa. But under this procedure land could be acquired only for a "public purpose". Section 3(f) of the LA Act defines "public purpose". There are eight items under it. But the caveat to this definition is very significant. It says "but does not include acquisition of land for companies". Thus the acquisition of land for the TML was totally illegal. The issue is now pending before the Apex Court. For the exercise of the doctrine of eminent domain a "public purpose" is essential. Hence the GOWB deceitfully tried to make out a case by stating that the small car factory would generate employment and result in socio-economic development in the area. There is no basis for this assertion. Firstly, it did not disclose how many direct jobs would be created in the factory. Secondly, it did not specify how many land losers would get direct employment. Thirdly, the promise of the process of economic development and the resultant prosperity was a rehash of the discredited and discarded "trickle-down theory". Hence it was an exercise in falsehood. Though not conceding the point, let us accept these contentions for the sake of argument. The whole thesis is predicated by the fact that the TML would set up a small car factory. Now that they have decided to move out and are relocating the factory outside West Bengal, the whole thesis vanishes into thin air. There is no small car factory. There would be no employment generation. There would be no socio-economic development of the area. Therefore, there would be no "public purpose". Thus the expenditure of public funds for this non-existing project was a total waste and, therefore, fully unjustified. It calls for criminal action.

This has very grave and serious consequences. The whole exercise of acquisition of 1000 acres of land through the use of force, building up of infrastructure for the project which does not exist, supply of free electricity and water, round the clock police protection for two years, construction of an 18.75 km of eight feet high boundary wall with watch tower at regular intervals, were done for nothing. Who would bear this cost? Even with a contrived and convoluted argument of "public purpose", there could have been a fig-leaf of justification of such enormous public expenditure. With the withdrawal of the Tatas all these expenses lose all validity. Some heads should roll.

The Tatas withdrew from Singur on their own volition. Therefore, they would have to pay for the cost. That is the logic. That is also the ethics. In fact, the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) of India should conduct a due diligence audit of the WBIDC, Commerce and Industries Department, West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO), Bhangore-Rajarhat Area Development Authority (BRADA) and the Police Directorate to compute exactly the loss to the public exchequer due to this abrupt decision of the Tatas to move out from Singur. The CAG should also fix responsibility for this wanton waste of public funds. It would be a slightly time-consuming process but it has to be done for the sake of public accountability, transparency and good governance.

Meanwhile to present a provisional bill to the Tatas an attempt is being made here to compute a figure based on the facts and figures as published in the print media about this issue. The Tatas caused enormous loss of public funds for their misadventure in Singur. This provisional figure would be altered once the CAG's report is made available. But it is fair that the Tatas should have an indication of how much they would have to pay back.

In the first place, but for the fraud perpetuated by the GOWB the Tatas would have to pay upfront the estimated cost of land acquisition under Chapter VII of the LA Act 1894. Now that there is not even a fig-leaf of public purpose, they would have to reimburse to the State Government a sum of Rs 200 crores, the paid out cost of compensation for the acquisition with some visible overheads.

Secondly, the WBIDC or some other State agency constructed an 18.75 km long boundary wall along the outer periphery of the acquired property. We do not know its specifications. It is locally said that the wall is eight feet high with a two-feet foundation underground. Estimates made by a couple of A-class CPWD contractors indicated that it would cost Rs 275 per running metre for a wall of this type with supporting pillars at regular intervals. Thus the estimated cost of construction of this wall would not be less than Rs 51,56,250, that is, roughly Rs 51.56 lakhs. With this one has to add the cost of five big gates. At a conservative estimate that would cost not less than Rs 25 lakhs. Thus the wall with gates would cost not less than 76.56 lakhs.

Thirdly, the government provided round-the-clock police protection both during the process of acquisition and after the land was leased out to Tatas. Newspaper reports indicate that approximately 2000 policemen were deployed day and night for the last two years and several months for the protection of the property of the TML. The government did not come out with any fact about it. But the Police Directorate of West Bengal has a standard formula of cost for deployment of 1000 policemen (one battalion strength) including ASI and SI but excluding the salaries of officers of the ranks of Inspector and above. The salary cost per month comes to Rs 80,70,000 which is 83.01 per cent of the actual cost. To this one has to add the cost of uniform, boots and some other basic equipments which would come to Rs 16,51,100 constituting 16.99 per cent of the total monthly cost. Thus the total comes to Rs 97,21,800 per month. This figure does not include the expenses of vehicles, POL, and other heavy equipments without which a police force cannot function. Excluding these items the annual cost of deployment of a battalion of police men comes to Rs 11.67 crores. For two battalions deployed to protect the Tata property the cost would be Rs 23.33 crores. For two years it would be Rs 46.66 crores. This is basically the salary component. The actual cost is much higher.

Fourthly, the GOWB committed another act of deception to give financial benefit to the Tatas. The Principal Secretary, Commerce and Industry Department of the GOWB wrote a letter on 12.10.2006 to the Managing Director of the WB Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) in which, inter alia, he mentioned:

"In order to bring investment (obviously NANO Unit) in West Bengal, we had to face competition from other States, in particular, Uttaranchal which enjoys zero excise duty benefit in a car proposed to be priced at Rs 1 lakh, the exemption of 16 per cent excise duty makes a major difference. Therefore, in order to make the investment attractive to the TML, the State Government has to offer significant support in the form of upfront infrastructured assistance."

So the Tata Housing Development (THDC) would enter into an agreement with the WBIDC to form a joint venture company. Five hundred acres of land belonging to Bhangore Rajarhat Development Authority (BRADA)would be given at a concessional rate to the THDC+WBIDC combine. And 50 acres of high-value land of New Town Rajarhat should also be given to that combine. The letter clearly mentioned 20 acres should be given for commercial purpose and 30 acres for residential purpose at rates which were half the prevailing rates. The letter went on to state that the profit generated by the WBIDC would be used by it "to meet its commitment of infrastructure assistance to the TML project without having resort to budgetary support". The term "infrastructural support" was deliberately used to hide the real intention of giving subsidy to the TML. This directive of the C and I Department violated several laws apart from being ethically unsupportable. But we are not going into it here.

In one stroke, HIDCO suffered a loss of Rs 60 crores for 20 acres of commercial land and a loss of Rs 75 crores for the residential land making a total loss of Rs 135 crores.

On the 500 acres of BRADA land, one could make some conjecture in the absence of hard facts. Assuming that price of land per cottah was Rs 1 lakh and that BRADA had to sell it at Rs 50,000 to ensure the profitability of the TML, BRADA lost Rs 150 crores straightway. (1 standard acre = 60 Cottah)

Two separate companies/authorities had been ordered to suffer loss to ensure profitability of the TML. The whole idea is preposterous apart from being totally illegal and unethical. A future Commission of Inquiry on "La Affaire Nano" would have to untangle the knots within knots of these totally unwholesome and messy transactions to assess the damage and fix responsibility. It was as well that the Tatas have left, otherwise most of these worthy gentlemen would have got themselves further entangled in illegality verging on corruption that they might have resulted in spending their residual tenure of life in some State Correctional Homes. Incidentally, with due diligence audit followed by a Commission of Inquiry, the possibility of their short-term stay in these Homes is not beyond the realm of possibility. It would be good if they improved the living conditions of these Homes when they were still in service. Now let us get back to the point.

The provisional exit bill of Tatas would be: (i) Rs 200 crores (LA cost) + (ii) Rs 76.56 lakhs (cost of wall) + (iii) Rs 46.66 crores(police protection) + (iv) Rs 135 + Rs 150 = Rs 285 crores (subsidised land transferred from HIDCO + BRADA) = Rs 532.18 crores (excluding all indirect and invisible costs) = Rs 532.18 crores (excluding all
indirect and invisible costs). The final bill would be computed only after the CAG's audit.

II

This episode cannot be ended unless some tit-bits of the parleys that took place on September 5-6, 2008 at the Council Chamber of Raj Bhavan, Kolkata, are recorded and made public. Since the GOWB unilaterally and unethically repudiated the agreement it entered into with the Opposition, the writer has no moral compunction now to mention some of the inner stories.

In the beginning the Facilitator set the ground rules. There should be no personal attacks. The attempt should be to find an amicable solution of the Singur impasse for the benefit of the "unwilling farmers", agriculture, industry and the general well-being of the people of West Bengal. It must be admitted that both sides adhered to the ground rules and carried on the discussions in a civilised and polite manner.

The discussion centred on the amount of land that could be made available within the project area for resettlement of the "unwilling land losers" on a land-for-land basis. Incidentally the "land-for-land" principle of R&R has been recognised in the National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy, October 2007. The Leader of the Opposition made it clear initially that, though debatable, his side would not discuss the merit or otherwise of letting out of 643 acres (approx.) for the mother plant of the TML. It was a major concession and it created immediately an amicable ambience for negotiations. Thus discussions centred on the residual 350 acres (approx.).

The government side pointed out that this area 294 acres has been set apart for ancillary units. After an hour of discussions it was found that the matter was not progressing. It was going round and round.

At this stage the Commerce and Industries Minister suddenly offered 40 acres of land in the project area for non-agricultural avocations on the basis of five per cent of the land cost per land losers. He also introduced the concept of R&R "in and around" the project area. With 40 acres already declared in favour of the land losers, there was an attempt to find out how much more land could be made available from the vacant but not yet utilised land in the project area, particularly, from the land earmarked for the ancillary units. Whatever proposal came from anywhere the stock reply of the Commerce and Industries Minister was: "The Tatas will not agree." It was like the repetitive refrain of a song in a cracked voice of a scratched HMV 78 RPM paraffin record. I counted this phrase 11 times before I gave up in disgust.

The Facilitator, a suave, charming and elegant gentleman, did not show any sign of displeasure, but very sweetly he asked the Commerce and Industries Minister "who had acquired the land". The reply was: it was the government. Then there was a further query that if the GOWB had acquired land under the LA Act forcibly, should not it have some view as to how the land should be utilised by the ancillary units? Did anyone ascertain the real requirement of each unit? To that the scratched record croaked: "The Tatas will not agree."

Then the Facilitator sought the permission of the Commerce and Industries Minister to ask a few questions to the MD of the WBIDC. The Minister promptly agreed. The Facilitator then asked the MD who had selected the ancillary units. The reply was -the Tatas. Then he enquired as to who had decided how much land one unit would require. The reply was - the Tatas. Thereafter, he wanted to know who decided where would that parcel of land be located. The answer was-the Tatas. Getting, perhaps, a bit perplexed, though not showing any sign of it, he politely asked to whom did the land belong. The reply was - the WBIDC. To this he further queried: "In that case should not the WBIDC have some say regarding areas to be allotted and their location" This time the Minister replied: "The Tatas will not agree." The MD supplemented the answer by adding that the WBIDC did not have the technical competence to assess the requirement and, therefore, it depended entirely on the Tatas.

Never in my service career of more than three-and-a-half decades both in the State and at the Centre had I seen such shameful subservience of a government to a business house. One felt ashamed to be in the same company.

It is time to relate an anecdote about Dr B.C. Roy. In 1951 he received a proposal from Morris Motor Co. of England for technical collaboration with an Indian entrepreneur for the manufacture of Morris cars in India. After studying the proposal, one day he told his personal staff: "Call him (Oke dako)." Totally confused his personal staff left his chamber not knowing whom to call. Then it occurred to someone that it could be G.D.Birla who had sought an appointment earlier. So they rang up Birla and fixed the appointment at 3 pm on the same day. Birla arrived at the appointed hour. Dr Roy was informed. He told his staff "Request him wait for a while (Oke boshte balo)." After a while Birla went in and stayed with Dr Roy for almost an hour. That was the beginning of the Hindustan Motors at Konnagar, the first motor car factory in Asia after the WW-II. The Chief Minister of Bengal did not kow-tow to any business tycoon to locate an industrial unit in the State.

III

Now what happens after the exit of Ratan Tata from West Bengal? Firstly, to the best of our knowledge on October 4, 2008, the earth went round its own axis at its usual speed of 24 hours per round. Further, the sun rose on that day in East and went down in the west as usual. There was no media report of heaven having fallen or the earth cracking up. The general populace went on their business in the usual manner, so much so that the "bandh" called by the CPI-M collapsed much before time. Life continues in West Bengal in its normal pace and stride since October 03, 2008.

Second, since an area of more or less 643 acres was let out to the TML for setting up a car factory, now that they have decided to go, a notice has to be given for the cancellation of the lease. Similar notices have to be given to all the ancillary units because they were captive to the TML

Third, it appeared from the media reports that about 200 to 250 acres of land where heavy construction had already taken place, agriculture would not be possible without enormous capital cost to restore its original fertility. Hence that area could be kept reserved for a future motor car factory. In fact advice of a reputed consultant should be obtained to ascertain how much land would be required to set up a manufacturing facility of 500,000 small and medium cars per year. On the basis of his assessment an area of, say, 350 or 400 or 450 acres of land could be set apart for the future factory. This should include the built up area of the TML.

Fourth, instead of any sweet-heart agreement with any crony capitalist there should be world-wide advertisement for Global Expression of Interest for setting up of small/medium car factory in Singur. The government should openly advertise what benefits and/or facilities it would offer. Respondents should be requested to indicate what terms and conditions they would offer for the well being of the land losers and for the State in general. After appropriate technical and financial assessement the party whose offer would be best should be selected to set up the manufacturing unit. The agreement should be open and transparent and there should be no secret annexures as in the case with the TML.

Fifth, the rest of land should be returned to the land losers. The Commerce and Industries Minister had been repeating like an untrained parrot that land once acquired cannot be returned. This is not correct. There are various processes of restoring the land. There is Section 21 of the General Clauses Act 1897. Its heading reads as follows: "Power to issue includes power to add, to amend, vary, or rescind notification, order, rules or bye-laws." Under this section lands to be returned could be denotified.

If one wanted to stay within the four corners of the Supreme Court judgement in the Bhaskaran Pillai case (1997- 5 SCC.432), the surplus land should be handed over to the Singur Panchayat Samity for "planned development or improvement of existing village sites". Five mauzas have been devastated by reckless land acquisition proceedings. These villages should be developed in a planned manner as provided for under section 3(f)(I) and (v) of the LA Act, 1894. Land losers should be initially given a 999-year lease.

In due course, a local amendment should be made in the LA Act, on the lines of the Tamil Nadu Amendment to return land to the original owners. It may have to wait for the change of government.

The CPI-M requires to be cautioned that it would be totally illegal to go on a fishing expedition to find out a project which could fit into the definition of "public purpose" to utilise this land. The acquired land has to be used primarily for the purpose for which it was initially acquired.

It is said that "there comes a time in the history of any State when its hypocrisy must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced". It was time we did it in West Bengal.

IV

It is a polite submission to Mr Tata. Please do not misunderstand us. We are not begging you to foot the bill. We are not putting pressure on you to pay the bill either. We would only like to remind you of a common saying: "A gentleman always settles his bill before he leaves."

......

The author was the Secretary to the Government of India, Ministries
of Finance (Revenue) and Rural Development, and the Executive
Director, Asian Development Bank, Manila.

Justice for poor Tapasi

From Zeenews Bureau

Former secretary of the CPI(M) Singur zonal committee, Suhrid Dutta, and supporter Debu Malik, convicted for murder of teenage girl Tapasi Malik were awarded life sentences by the Hoogly district court in Chandanagore on Wednesday.

The sentencing came a day after the court convicted the duo in the 2006 murder case. The sensational case had turned high profile after the ruling Left Front government had to handover the case to the CBI owing to the allegations by the opposition that the guilty were being shielded due to their affiliations with the ruling party.

CBI counsel Partha Tapaswi told reporters yesterday, "The verdict proves that our investigations were correct."

The half-burnt body of 18-year-old Tapasi, a farmer's daughter at Singur, who was in the forefront of the agitation of the Krishi Jami Raksha Committee after land acquisition for the Tata Motors Nano project, was found on December 18, 2006 at Bajemelia.

The case, which led to a public uproar, was initially handled by the CID, but was handed over to the CBI by the West Bengal government after demands by the Opposition.

Debu was arrested five months after the CBI began investigations and Dutta was arrested shortly afterwards. The central agency submitted the chargesheet against the two in September 2007.

The Statesman reports: Welcoming the judgement, Tapasi's father, Mr Manoranjan Malik said: “We were confident that we would get justice. I am happy that my daughter's murderers were finally found guilty.” But Dutta's elder brother, Mr Saroj Dutta, who is the secretary of the CPI(M)'s Bara local committee in Singur, said: “The conspiracy against my brother and our party is still on. We will unite the mass against the conspiracy. The legal battle will go on.” In Singur, several hundred locals joined in a rally that originated near Tapasi Malik's residence demanding capital punishment for Suhrid Dutta and Debu Malik. “We want Dutta and Malik to be hanged. They were convicted by residents of Singur much before. Today they were convicted in a court,” said Ms Aparna Dhara, a friend of Tapasi. The Singur Krishi Jami Raksha Committee organised several other rallies in villages across Singur demanding death penalty for the Tapasi murder accused. The CPI(M), however, asserted the two accused were falsely implicated. Reacting to the verdict, Mr Benoy Konar, CPI(M) central committee member said it only “confirmed the Bengali saying that whatever the master wishes is carried out.”

The Trinamul Congress and the Singur Krishi Jami Jiban Raksha Committee will organise a rally at Singur on 5 December in memory of Tapasi Malik.

Read Dr Mrinal Bose's fictional account of the murder of Tapasi here.


Murder mastermind Suhrid Dutta (The Statesman).

Nano Nanny

I was at a discussion this afternoon on the global financial crisis and its implications. Towards the end, activist and journalist Nilanjan Dutta mentioned Noam Chomsky's use of the term "nanny state" to refer to the practice of state bail-out of collapsing delinquent corporations.

My friend Sandip Bandyopadhyay couldn't help saying aloud "Nano state", which could apply to our own deeply beloved govt of West Bengal.

Perhaps we should now start calling the CPI(M) led govt of West Bengal, Nano Nanny.

Earlier this year, another close friend (who must remain anonymous) had sent me his poem, in Bangla, on the Nano affair. I wanted to carry that too here, in Bangla, as its simply untranslatable. But I could not find it. However, I did eventually find it and so I'm reproducing that below.

Mamata bolche "Chorte debona"!
Buddha bolche "Kyano?"
Mamata bolche "Tao janona?
Chotto tomar Nano!"

Some articles

Here are some articles I've been reading recently, which may be useful in helping one gain a perspective as well as personal focus vis-a-vis living in Calcutta and India today.

"Imminent ruin and desperate remedy: Calcutta and its fragments", by Swapan Chakravorty.

"The Use and Abuse of Democracy in West Bengal", by Sanjeeb Mukherjee.

"Democracy and Economic Transformation in India", by Partha Chatterjee.

"Prescribed, Tolerated, and Forbidden Forms of Claim Making", by Ranabir Samaddar

"Communalism: An Ignored Malady" by MKA Siddiqui.

An Open Letter to Mr Ratan Tata

25 October 2008

Dear Tata-ji

Thanks for your enlightening “open letter” which appeared in a section of the press on 17 October this year. But for this letter, we would never know that you were cherishing a noble “dream of contributing to the industrial revival of West Bengal” – our hapless state, which is foolish enough to disrupt your dream by a “politically motivated” agitation that finally forced your Nano out.

As a young boy in the early 1960s, I would look at the sky-high Tata Centre in Calcutta (Kolkata), awestruck. I was sure that my audacious eyes would never be able to straddle the Centre’s height, to try to touch the firmament. And now, at the age of 55, I once again understand that the experience and education I have gained meanwhile is too small to gauge the depth of your intelligence and imagination.

Two years ago, you had embarked on a small car project at Singur because you had “tremendous” faith in the policies of the West Bengal government, led by Mr Buddhadev Bhattacharjee. I wonder what made you so sure that Mr Bhattacharjee and his cohorts represent the public sentiments of the entire population! You never cared to probe the public mind of West Bengal since you entered into a secret deal with the state government over the said project.

In your letter, you have held out the prosperity that your project could usher in by creating jobs, providing livelihood to the local people and thus “enhancing” the quality of their lives. But why didn’t you make a clean breast of your plan and project to make the imbeciles that we are see how generous you are; to realise that while we are only fond of agitation, you stand for benediction? Why did you rather go to court to prevent the terms and conditions of the deal from coming to light? You have advised us to express our “views and aspirations” as to the future of West Bengal. Being a “good, contributing, corporate citizen”, why didn’t you set the example yourself?

You certainly remember the inaugural chapter of your Nano tragedy, scripted on 2 December 2006. The Singur peasants refused to part with their farm land – the source of their living. The police went on the rampage, pounced upon them and forcibly occupied the fertile land for your project, in your name. Sorry Tata-ji, we are too callous to understand how benevolent you are! By virtue of your wisdom, you have finally chosen the right “M”, but alas, our experience continues to misguide us by (mis)taking “T” for terror, rather than your celebrated surname.

With best wishes,

Sandip Bandyopadhyay

Bliss

Bliss is it in this dawn to be alive.

But to be in Bengal is very heaven.


Image: Bengal Landscape, Gaganendranath Tagore, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

Tata bye bye

Finally, Mr Ratan Tata has announced that the Nano car plant of Tata Motors will not come up in Singur. The reason he has cited for his decision is the agitation led by Ms Mamata Bannerjee, on behalf of the farmers whose land was forcibly acquired for Tata by the West Bengal state govt.

But all thinking people can only welcome this decision. Sure, when someone loses something, they are not going to give it up gladly. They are going to scream and shout and rant and rave and protest and sulk and pout... The shrill cacophony of demolished delight over West Bengal's imagined industrial resurgence is just that.

The truth is that the Tata pullout is good news, for a number of reasons.

First, a resounding slap has been administered on the face of the CPI(M). In May 2006, riding high on a wave of media hype and puff, the party had declared that Tata's Nano unit was going to be located in West Bengal. In less than two and a half years, they have been brought to their knees, and entirely by their own idiocy and arrogance.  The CPI(M) thought (and still thinks) that they own the state, that they can do as they please, that they can snarl and kick people into submitting to its dictates.  Well, they have learnt a lesson, but yes, given what CPI(M) is, it never learns the right kind of lessons.  But learn or don't learn, they have had to face facts. And that is indeed something positive.

Second, in recent weeks the discourse on the Nano project has brought to the fore the fact that the West Bengal govt is in effect subsidising Tata Motors, to enable the car to be priced at Rs 1 lakh (one hundred thousand rupees, or about $ 2,500). Now why should the state subsidise Tata Motors? Why should it subsidise a car project? Why should it subsidise purchasers of a car? Why should it subsidise personal transport? In economists' jargon, the opportunity cost of state expenditure on the Nano project, i.e. what is lost by such support, or the alternatives upon which this could instead have been spent, was simply too high.

Third, from about 2005, the CPI(M) had been hoodlumming through its land acquisition drive, to please its capitalist masters. The Nandigram agitation had punctured that. And now, the Tata withdrawal from Singur has just emphasised once more to the CPI(M), in brutal terms, that it cannot grab farmers' land. It was protest in Singur, from 2006, that had catalysed people's agitations across West Bengal, and begun the process of demise of the mafia mobster party, something most people could never have anticipated. 

All that remains now, the icing on the cake for the people of Bengal, is the verdict of the court on Suhrid Dutta, the CPI(M)'s Singur zonal committee secretary. He is in custody and facing trial on the accusation of organising the rape and murder of Tapasi Malik, a teenage girl who was a member of the farmers' anti-land acquisition movement in Singur. I wonder what ideological obfuscations the CPI(M) would proffer when he is sentenced to death.

If the people of West Bengal want something positive for themselves, then they should not depend upon the CPI(M) or on external vultures like Tata Motors to give it to them on a platter. That will only bring deceit and destruction. There is much that can and should be done. There is public transport. There is public healthcare. There is public education. There are closed industries that need reviving. There are many, many products that can be produced, which would be wholesome in every way. But for that, vision, enterprise and effort are needed. Thanks to the CPI(M)'s noxious nurturing these are hard to find in Bengal today. But unless the people of Bengal come forward to build Bengal's future, the only prospect is submission to CPI(M) and Tatas, the road to slavery.

The slaves and the slave contractors are wailing at the exit of Tata. But if there was ever a bright day for Bengal, then it was 3 October, the date of the Tata pull-out. For this date tells the people of Bengal that freedom won through hardship is more precious than the comfits of slavery.  

Apparently the state industries minister, Nirupam Sen, has said that he does not feel like living in Bengal. Well, I hope he goes away very soon. It seems he has begun to get a taste of what the common people of the land have been feeling for over 2 decades. Thanks to the presence of his wonderful party, there has been a mass migration of people from the state, by choice and by compulsion. Any person in his or her senses, who knew what was best for one's future, left the state. Only vultures flocked to the land, and the party was their lapdog. But with the Tata pull-out, people should start reconsidering. Maybe its time for all those who had forsaken Bengal, all those who had been driven out, to think of returning. There's a future to be built. The rats will be leaving their sinking ship. And for those who held on to hope and humanity and stayed behind, perhaps vindication is finally arriving.

Leaders

Overheard:

Nephew: Hello, all well I trust.

Uncle: Yes, in the well ... as usual! How are you?

Nephew: All’s well. Been very busy!

Uncle: Busy as a bee? Or like a Big B?

So what do you think, are the Tatas saying ta-ta?

Nephew: I hope so. If everything was fine with Singur, if Mamata did not even exist, then was everything glorious in West Bengal? Hardly. Its a criminal mafia raj here, with no rule of law at all. The constitution of India does not function here. But of course the media and the stinking capitalists love to have a single point to make deals with, looting the land and the people.

Uncle: Or is it that the land and the people allow themselves to be looted by the stinking fellows?

Either way its sad...

Nephew: Absolutely. But then you need leaders who raise the people, above their level. Here the leaders sink the people even below their existing level.

Uncle: Wanting a leader is a sign of slavery!

Nephew: Spartacus led a slave rebellion, remember?

Uncle: After all, people should raise themselves. It is this want that has sown the seeds of slavery.

Nephew: I don’t want a leader. I am merely observing. We need leaders who teach the people self governance, swaraj, to be a ruler of oneself.

Uncle: Another such want is for a guru!

People are capable of teaching themselves.

Nephew: We need leaders who teach people the harsh realities of life but encourage them to work hard and journey together with resolve to collectively achieve fine things for all.

Uncle: It is such misplaced trust in others that causes downfall. There is no need for such saffron-clad or topi-clad guys.

Nephew: See where we have reached with leaving things to people! But yes, things have actually not been left to people. People are powerless. And the so-called leaders are unaccountable. Hence the basic spirit of self governance, ordinary decency, has decayed.

Uncle: People have common sense which they should use and they do use it when crisis dawns.

After all democracy is for, by and of people. Where is the question of leaders in democracy? It is needed for dictatorship and in pseudo-democracies like ours.

If you want leaders you should allow them to loot us, and rape us too!

Nephew: Thanks for this stern sermon. Yes, you are right. We need genuine democracy.

Uncle: Then we should trust people and not the leaders.

Nephew: I heard someone say that the two houses of parliament should be converted, one house into a Hindu go-shala and the other one into a Muslim abattoir.

Uncle: We should not complain about the tricky leaders since we have put them there.
It’s a leaders’ parliament and hence it is rotten. It should be a people’s parliament. Which is a utopia!

Nephew: So what is to be done?

Uncle: Lets keep our fingers crossed and learn to accept the realities of life, like dumb cattle.

Nephew: And then?

Uncle: We all die and go to heaven hopefully.

Nephew: Proceed mutely and meekly to slaughter?

Uncle: Slaughter is unavoidable, so why make a noise?

Nephew: Yes of course, all is maya, we slaughter millions of beings even as we breathe. So, likewise, someone else is slaughtering us. All be in maya and enjoy in the meanwhile, eat heartily, have fune, what difference does it make!

Uncle: Sorry, I have to go for my piano lessons, to slaughter western music. Bye.


Image: Rotten Rulers, A novel by Terry Deary, a book in the Horrible Histories Special series, Scholastic, 2005.

Believe it or Not!

I was astonished to read in today's newspaper that the infamous Tata group has been hailed as the world's third most transparent and accountable corporation by Britain's One World Trust in their Global Accountability Report!

The assessment is supposed to be "a measure of the extent to which organisations have the policies and systems in place to enhance consistent and coherent accountability to the people they affect."


Victims of police firing, Kalinganagar.

In January 2006, 13 people (including a woman and a boy) were killed in police firing in Kalinganagar, Orissa, when indigenous communities protested against the setting up of a Tata steel plant and demanded rehabilitation of the evictees.


Tapasi Malik's charred body.

And later in 2006, the Tatas were in a hush-hush deal with the CPI(M) in West Bengal to obtain land to set up a car plant in the fertile agricultural zone of Singur. Almost exactly a year ago, Tapasi Malik, a young girl participating in the anti-acquisition movement, was brutally raped, murdered and burnt by the local powers that be, with a view to terrorising the agitationists into submission. (Read Dr Mrinal Bose's story on Singur here, and Sandip Bandopadhyay's article on Singur and Nandigram here.)

Here's my letter to the One World Trust (info@oneworldtrust.org).

Dear Madam or Sir

I am writing from Calcutta, India, after reading about the Tata group in India being named the world's third most accountable and transparent company in the One World Trust's Global Accountability Report.

I am dismayed to read this. In the last year and a half, people in Calcutta, in the state of West Bengal in India, and also elsewhere in India, have been extremely concerned about the secret deal made between the Tatas and the West Bengal state govt, for land in Singur to set up a car manufacturing plant in an extremely fertile agricultural belt. Both the company and the govt have shrouded the whole matter in secrecy. But given the fact that a large number of farmers and farm workers would be displaced, the matter is one of acute public concern. In December 2006, Tapasi Malik, a young girl participating in the anti-acquisition movement, was brutally raped, murdered and burnt by the local powers that be, with a view to terrorising the agitationists into submission.

Though the Tata group had tended to be regarded with a modicum of respect in India for its socially concerned policies, it is evident now that with the intensification of globalisation the company has decided to discard such principles and hunt with the hounds.

The state govt with which the Tatas made this deal - is one which is notorious in India today for its failure of governance, with the state ranking among the lowest in India in human development indicators. It is the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) that is running the state, rather than the govt. It is a parallel state within the state, unconstrained by laws and constitutional strictures. Every aspect of life in the state is controlled by the party. As witnessed through 2007 in Nandigram, another site of proposed land acquisition, the party rules by its murderous might. Yet the Tata group, for its commercial interests, has chosen to make a secret deal with this party, giving short shrift to the interests of people. The party then uses its proximity to the Tatas to boast about its success in attracting investments to the state.

The car plant being built in Singur is to manufacture the very low-cost car being developed by the Tatas. However, much more than cheap cars, what India needs now is a drastic overhauling of transport policy to address paralysing congestion, frightening pollution and escalating accidents. The Tatas have chosen to entirely disregard such concerns.

But in January 2006, well before the Singur land acquisition, 13 people (including 3 women and a boy) were killed in police firing in Kalinganagar in the neighbouring state of Orissa, when indigenous communities protested against the setting up of a Tata steel plant and demanded rehabilitation of the evictees. In its alacrity to make secret deals with pliant govts, all concern for the well-being of the country's people, and especially the poor and vulnerable sections, has been thrown to the wind. Amnesty International had conducted an investigation into this incident and concluded that the land acquisition was shrouded in secrecy, without the slightest transparency or public accountability.

Incidentally, the Global Accountability Report comes close on the heels of the news of the Tata vehicles being rated the worst in South Africa.

In the light of the above, one is compelled to dismiss the Global Accountability Report as something not worth paying any attention to, or even, more cynically, see it as a means to help the Tatas shore up their rapidly eroding credibility with a little bit of cosmetic make-up. However, the govts who make secret deals with the Tatas would undoubtedly be very pleased to read about the "distinction" granted to their friends, the Tatas.

Yours sincerely

V Ramaswamy
Calcutta / INDIA

Nandigram lament

The current issue of the Economic and Political Weekly carries an article titled "Reflections in the Aftermath of Nandigram" by "A CPI(M) Supporter".

Wooly-headed so-called "ideology" and hollow jargon appear to be of more importance to the writer - than reality.

His (I presume it must be a man) heart bleeds for the victims of Nandigram. But his pious plea for the West Bengal state govt led by the CPI(M) to show an alternative way to the neoliberal paradigm of foreign investment based economic growth - is plaintively disingenuous.

It would be no exaggeration to say that today the CPI(M) has no concern whatsoever for the common citizen of West Bengal. The only concern is the short-term interest of the party. The key indicators which reveal the real face of the CPI(M) are in primary education and healthcare. West Bengal ranks among the lowest in the country on these counts. The socio-economic and human development status of the Muslims in West Bengal is also pathetic. And all that can be said by the rulers, after 30 years in power, is that the Muslims have only themsleves to blame for being backward.

The party has eroded the fabric of law and order in the state; it has destroyed the edifice of democratic governance, with the party rather than the institutions of govt running everything. It has supervised an insidious privatisation of the public space, and criminalisation of life and politics.

The lack of any effective and credible opposition in the state has enabled the CPI(M) to attain this character. The party and the govt are completely bankrupt in terms of having any vision, strategy or capability to bring about positive improvement in the quality of life of the labouring masses. Rather, it has ensured that acceptance of living in utter degradation has seeped into the very psyche of the masses. It has crushed the very dignity of the common people, reducing them to servile begggars and ugly criminals.

In that respect, the resistance in Singur and Nandigram are definitely most cheering; they tell us that people cannot be taken for granted endlessly. But with no prospect of emergence of any progressive, anti-communal front to challenge the ruling party - the only thing on the horizon is destructive, violent opposition by various disgruntled elements, leading to growing instability and anarchy.

The true picture of the state of affairs in West Bengal has been given by Sumanta Banerjee in this article (also in the EPW). He writes:

West Bengal is in need of an opposition to challenge the hegemony of a partisan and oppressive CPI(M) governance. ... The alternative ... has to emerge from within a new democratic Left, with constituents that are seriously committed to the ideology of socialism and courageous enough to restore the moral integrity and high principles of the movement.

Related articles:

Sumanta Banerjee on Singur, and on the changing face of crime in Calcutta.

"Strategy for Economic Reform in West Bengal". This was published in 2002, but is still informative, especially the narrative on pg 23 of the document, just before the "Conclusion", about corruption and privatisation of public space.

In the wake of Nandigram

A call by concerned citizens

The valiant struggle of the peasantry in Nandigram against the acquisition of their land and homesteads for the proposed chemical hub SEZ has drawn nationwide attention. Despite the massacre of March 14 and the continuing reign of terror unleashed by the police and the hired killers of the ruling party in the state, Nandigram has remained defiant and refused to surrender. On the contrary, it has sparked unprecedented mass protests across West Bengal and elsewhere. People’s movements in various parts of the country against the forcible acquisition of farmlands, forests and other natural resource base of the poor in the name of SEZ and for the so-called industrial projects have also drawn inspiration and sustenance from Nandigram.

The time is now ripe to bring all the people’s resistance movements across the country under one coordinating network. Towards this end, we are proposing an All India People’s Convention, followed by a huge Rally, in Kolkata on 2-3 June, 2007 (before the onset of monsoon). We call upon all our friends in the people’s movements and people’s organisations, irrespective of political or ideological moorings, to come forward and actively participate in this programme. May the Convention/Rally become the launching pad for a united nationwide resistance struggle against government’s land acquisition policy for SEZs and other industrial projects.

The convention/rally, and the countrywide movement to be launched from there, will be raising the following demands:

1. Scrap the SEZ Act, 2005 that aims to set up ‘extra-territorial’ authorities within the country and acquire huge tracts of farm and forestlands for the corporate capitalists while endangering the lives and livelihoods of millions.

2. Abolish or reformulate (in consultation with the people) the colonial and draconian Land Acquisition Act of 1894 that serves as the chief instrument of land acquisition by the government.

3. The Chief Minister of West Bengal, who has owned up to the responsibility for the mass murders in Nandigram, must resign. Everyone who has had a hand in the Nandigram massacre, directly or indirectly, must be punished.

4. People’s institutions at the grassroots must be allowed the autonomy to act so that a life of peace and dignity returns to Nandigram and wherever conflict has erupted over land acquisition.

Send your endorsement ("I ENDORSE") with your name, phone, e-mail contacts and how you would like to describe yourself, e.g. professor, filmmaker, activist, etc. or your organisational/ institutional identity) to the following e-mail addresses:

chowdhuryaditi@yahoo.com, sumit_chowdhury@yahoo.com

Read more about the People's Convention here.

Development & Discontent

Media Solidarity presents "Development & Discontent", a programme of film-screenings and discussion.

Date: 3-4 May 2007

Place: Max Mueller Bhavan, Calcutta

3rd May:

3.00 - 3.30 pm Inauguration and Keynote Address.

3.30 -5.00 pm Life and Debt (Jamaica / 85min)

a documentary look at the effects of globalization on Jamaican industry and agriculture, by Stephanie Black.

5.30 - 6.00 pm Who’s Land Is It Anyway? ( India / 28min.)

a documentary on peasant movement against land acquisition in Singur, by Ladly Mukhopadhyay.

6.15- 7.30 pm Interactive Discussion: Economy of Development

Moderator: Subhendu Dasgupta. Participants: Anjan Chakraborty, Jaya Mitra, Raghab Bandyopadhyay and others.

7.30-8.35 pm Aftershock: The Rough Guide to Democracy (India / 64min.)

a documentary about the transformation of the welfare state into an instrument of corporate governance after Gujarat earthquake, by Rakesh Sharma.

4th May:

3.00-3.35 pm SEZ: A Prelude to Anarchy (India / 35 min.)

a critical, in-depth documentary on Special Economy Zone projects, by Atul Pethe.

3.50- 4.35 pm Development at Gunpoint (India / 45min.)

a film on peasants’ resistance movement at Nandigram and the massacre following it, by Pramod Gupta.

5.00-5.30 pm Filming Eviction

Filmmakers Pramod Gupta and Ranu Ghosh share their experience.

5.30- 7.00 pm Interactive Discussion: Reporting from the Edge - Singur and Nandigram.

Moderator: Raju Raman. Participants: Journalists who reported from Singur and Nandigram.

7.00-8.50 pm. Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (Canada / 120 min.)

The 78-day stand-off in 1990 between Mohawk Indians and the Canadian government provides the basis of this insightful documentary that focuses on the Mohawks’ courageous defiance and determination to protect their land in the face of mortal danger. By Alanis Obomsawin.

Or

The Fourth World War (USA / 76 min.)

this documentary offers an eyeball-to-eyeball look at the people’s battle against the growing global empire. By Richard Rowley.

On industrialisation

If multi-party parliamentary democracy means giving people a wide range of political choices, we have it in plenty in India, parties big or small with a variety of labels. However, if we have to choose also the content in critical areas of economic policy there is hardly any choice anymore. A marked convergence among political parties is taking place, less apparent in their rhetoric, but unmistakably clear in their actions.

One could have believed that this is the result of compromise of coalition politics at the centre. But when the same thing happens at the level of states, and political parties of different labels follow with equal vengeance the same economic course, no room is left even for illusions. Grand terms like 'growth, 'industrialisation', and 'development are used by politicians with abandon these days to hide the poverty of their economics and politics. And, the central question remains unanswered.

If a high rate of growth necessarily entails a certain type of industrialisation, is this industrialisation synonymous with development?

Thus begins an article, "Industrialisation: Which Way Now?", by Amit Bhaduri, Professor of Economics, University of Pavia, Italy, and Medha Patkar, social activist and leader of Narmada Bachao Andolan and National Alliance of People's Movements.

Read the full article here.

In Solidarity

SANHATI (meaning "solidarity") has been created to resist neoliberal forces in West Bengal and to spread the spirit of dissent that has been sparked by Singur. The forced acquisition of agricultural land and the consequent dispossession of thousands of farmers made many of us rally in Calcutta, elsewhere in India and abroad. Democratic forces, leftist forces, people who stand for human rights and civil liberties all came together to form the Chhatra Chhatri Sanhati Mancha (Students' Solidarity Forum) in Calcutta. Sanhati is inspired by this solidarity of resistance.

Singur marks a watershed event in the moribund political landscape of West Bengal. A loud and resounding NO has been heard all over Bengal – a strong negation of a linear anti-people development model. With their livelihoods threatened, thousands of peasants have united in resistance. The State has responded with terror.

We are voices of dissent. We oppose the murderous politics of the state government of West Bengal as well as the cheap populism of otherwise pro-liberalism parties. We stand in solidarity, in Sanhati, with all forces that oppose police terror in Bengal and the inhuman urban-industrial vision. We staunchly defend the rights of tillers over their lives and their lands.

We have a vision that Sanhati will develop both as a clearing house for ideas and as a platform for people looking for a new way - from old third-streamers to new activists. We may be the last generation to be able to realistically organize. We may be the first generation to drive back the “development” beast.

The above introduction is from the website of SANHATI. The website is a valuable resource as it makes available important documents, such as the reports of APDR and a medical team on the Nandigram massacre. Upcoming events have also been announced, such as the Cultural Convention, featuring Kabir Suman, Dohar, Moushumi Bhowmick, Joy Goswami and others. Several important recent articles on the forced land acquisition in West Bengal and the resistance movement against it are also accessible here.

Kanu Sanyal on Nandigram

The Statesman recently carried an interview with Kanu Sanyal, the founder of the Naxalbari movement, by Bappaditya Paul. I reproduce extracts from that below.

Q: What is your view on the latest industry-agriculture conflict in West Bengal? How do you take the ongoing anti-farmland acquisition movement at Singur and Nandigram? Do you find any similarity with the Naxalbari Movement?

There is hardly anyone who doesn’t want industrialisation in Bengal. But the question is for whose benefit it is. The industrialisation policy has been adopted and implemented by the Left Front government solely to benefit the imperialists and so, we oppose it. We say, set up need-based industries, keeping in mind the resources of a particular area and drive it for the general wellbeing of the common man. But the government is ruthlessly adamant on setting up industries by trampling farmlands.

The chief minister is harping on industrialisation and believes that everyone, barring himself, is wrong. But my question is, if Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee wants to rejuvenate the industrial scenario, why doesn’t he first reopen the nearly 56,000 closed industrial units in the state? Why is there no effort to save the tea gardens in the Dooars and the labourers from starvation?

Singur and Nandigram have unmasked the cruel facets of the CPI-M, which fancies itself to be a party of the underprivileged. The movement that has generated out of Singur and Nandigram, if explored properly, can bring about a sea change in West Bengal. So far as the form is concerned, I find a great deal of similarity between Nandigram and the Naxalbari Movement. The ongoing fight in Nandigram, in particular, has the potential to excel the Naxalbari Movement. The only thing needed is a strong, selfless, political leadership to sustain it.

Q: Why single out Nandigram, when the same fight is on at Singur?

Mamata Banerjee has ruined the movement in Singur. By embarking on a hunger-strike, she spoilt the ignition of the Singur farmers.

I am sure the farmers of Singur will never get back their lands and Miss Banerjee is solely responsible for this. Just take a look at the happenings in Singur, as long as the farmers were battling it out themselves, the state government could not erect a fence on the acquired land. But soon after Miss Banerjee hijacked the movement and started her fast, the focus shifted to Esplanade and fencing work went on in Singur unabated. Whereas in Nandigram, farmers and locals relied on their own strength and even on the face of a persistent joint offensive by the police and CPI-M goons, they have so far managed to resist the imperialist invasion.

Q: But Miss Banerjee is the one considered capable of throwing out the Left Front? In fact, the Jamaat-ul-Ulema-e-Hind leader, Mr Siddiqulla Choudhury, is talking of a grand alliance with the Trinamul and others, to fight the CPI-M?

Capturing power is one thing and fighting the imperialists is another. For the moment, even if a grand alliance were to pull down the Left Front government, would it make any difference to the poor, the framers? Rather, the alliance would continue in the wake of what the CPI-M-led government is doing now, albeit with a different set of propaganda. I say this because like the CPI-M, the Trinamul, the Jamaat and the rest lack the political will to work for the common people. If I am wrong, then let them first make a public declaration what radical changes they would initiate for the benefit of the farmers, if elected to power.

Q: In this context, how do you rate the role of the Left Front allies?

I don’t find their role satisfactory either. If parties like the CPI, RSP and the Forward Bloc are really opposed to the CPI-M’s ruthless industrialisation agenda, why don’t they step out of the Front? I advised some of their leaders to come out of the government, at least that would have created pressure on the CPI-M. But despite continuous humiliation at the hands of the CPI-M, they seem only too eager to continue sharing power.

Q: If we were to leave out the Trinamul, the Jamaat and the Left allies, who then would lead the movement forward?

United Naxalites alone can guide the movement on the right path. I urge all Naxalite factions to form a common platform and take the anti-farmland acquisition movement to every corner of the state. Forget about the elections, just make a collective effort to intensify and sustain the struggle generated out of Singur and Nandigram.

Read the entire interview here.

Nandigram: Left Front must go!

Jaga re jaga re jaga sara sansar!

Awakened, awakened, awakened!
The whole world’s awakened!

Pictures from yesterday’s Nandigram protest rally and demonstration at Esplanade, Calcutta, are accessible here.

The meeting demanded the resignation of the Left Front govt of West Bengal, led by the murderous CPI(M). Speakers expressed their rage and revulsion against the govt. Singer-activist-mediaman Kabir Suman exhorted the police to revolt against the govt. Naba Datta, of Nagarik Manch, called for exemplary punishment for those responsible, like Binoy Konar, the so-called peasant front leader, who must be held accountable for his explicit incitement to murder, which was no different from the incitement to kill Muslims by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in 2002.

The question of alternatives etc – is not pertinent at this point. The govt must go, and all else will follow.

Whatever “moral” authority Mrs Sonia Gandhi had – has been squandered by her studied silence on the Nandigram massacre. She should have visited the affected areas immediately after.

Meanwhile, a group of spit-licking “leftist intellectuals” has set a new record for shamelessness and obsequiousness by issuing a statement to condone the Left Front govt’s actions – after 10 days of silence following the massacre. This includes Amiya Bagchi, MK Raina, Malini Bhattacharya, Utsa Patnaik, Jayati Ghosh, Mohan Rao, Nasir Tyabji, Teesta Setalvad. It is shocking that Teesta Setalvad should have added her name to this shameful apologia. Did she ask for Narendra Modi to be excused after the Gujarat riots and pogrom?

I am astounded that not a single minister in the West Bengal cabinet thought it fit to resign because of the massacre. But I guess I should be astounded at my wishful thinking.

Left Front chairman has alleged a deep-rooted conspiracy to destabilise the govt. He should forget his schoolboy cloak-and-dagger fantasies and know that it is simply a clearly-expressed hatred of the ugly criminals who make up his CPI(M), that is widespread and is now finding voice thanks to the Nandigram resistance.

A group of women activists from Calcutta visited Nandigram yesterday for a first-hand appraisal. Their report will be available soon.

A mass movement has been kindled by Nandigram. But the ramifications of the stark vacuum of civil society stares at us. Perhaps for the first time in decades, civil society is emerging. The soil of Singur and Nandigram should be consecrated by anyone who cherishes human dignity. It may be difficult to build martyrs’ memorials in neighbourhoods throughout the state and country. But people can make them within their own homes. They can build the memorial in their hearts, and pay tribute to the victims of Nandigram through their action. In the new topography being mapped by the resistance to the all-powerful nexus of global capital and the pliant, corrupt local state, Singur and Nandigram are sacred sites. Children born now should be named “Singur” and “Nandigram”, expressing their parents' fervent wish that they shall grow up to usher in and live in a world of dignity and justice.

For Nandigram

Nandigram is a symbol of humble people’s defiance, protest, militant resistance and sacrifice against the globalising local state. It has broken the stupor, apathy, cynicism and mute, opportunistic acceptance defining the intelligentsia and middle classes in Calcutta and West Bengal.

Singur began the process, which Nandigram ignited. And Nandigram tolls the bell for the CPI(M) and the traditional left who have been in power for 30 years.

The region is a border area, between plains and hills and between Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. That Nandigram is in the soil of Mednipur, where the earth has for long been irrigated by the blood of people’s resistance – makes it revered and sacred.

I was reminded by anthropologist Madhusree Mukherjee that during British times, prolonged rebellions rent the area, beginning with the Sanyasi-Fakir rebellion (1770 to around 1800), the Chuar rebellion (early 1800s, until about 1830), the Sepoy Mutiny or First War of Independence (1857) and the Quit India movement (1942-44). There was also a Santhal rebellion.

During the Quit India movement, which tragically merged in this area with the Bengal famine, the region's leaders ran a parallel government quite independently of the British government. Its courts were very popular with the people. The parallel government was disbanded at Gandhi's orders, after he was let out of jail, and it is said that many cried in disappointment.

One of the leaders during the Quit India movement, Sushil Dhara, is now an invalid and spends much of his time in a coma resulting from some illness. He reportedly expressed a wish to go to Mednipur and see the new freedom movement for himself.

Once again, the villagers had created a Muktanchal, or "Free Zone."

The people of Bengal and India owe the people of Nandigram their hearts, hands and heads. So many things need to be done:

- Being with and standing beside the people
- Relief and rehabilitation
- Medical and psychiatric care
- Obtaining compensation

- People’s investigations, Tribunal and Hearings
- Music concerts and CDs
- Art works, installations and exhibitions
- Poems, poetry readings and books
- Film screenings and festivals

- A memorial / people’s monument in Nandigram, that would express the sacredness of the soil.

And ultimately an independent political front has to emerge, which can put up candidates for elections from every constituency. I do not see this guilty govt lasting out its tenure (till 2011). We need an alternative to the CPI(M) and to all the other parties at play in Bengal. A people’s coalition, which takes up on behalf of the people the duty of restoring the tattered fabric of the state. With a mission to realise through office a basic minimum programme. Such a front should be in power for at least 10 years. This would also be a period during which the whole political culture of democracy could be rewritten, and new parties emerge, by formation or reform.

West Bengal today offers this opportunity. Once again Bengal shows the way to the rest of India, and today, in the context of globalisation, to the whole world. Not the elite or intelligentsia of Bengal, but the poor rural folk.

You cannot put a good thing down. After four decades of merciless assault by history, the people of Bengal have again stood up, and the fragrance of this sacred soil again gives us the whiff of freedom, that substantial freedom that Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi dreamt of, not mere political freedom, but social and economic emancipation.

The giant, slow-growing Saguaro cactus in the Sonoran desert in America draws water from the earth and grows over decades until, bloated, it collapses; and this event then nourishes an array of life forms whose very continued existence depends on these rare events. The people of Nandigram have made us aware of us what we are.

If I am proud to be Bengali, its Nandigram I am proud of. The soil of my childhood, which filled me with all its reverential essences, long-parched under a cruel sun, has awakened and called me and I hear its call and hearken.

Tomaar naam, aamaar naam, Nandigram Nandigram!

(Your name, my name, is Nandigram, Nandigram!)

Destruction of ecology

I have written (e.g. here and here) about some of the fundamental problems defining the city of Calcutta and threatening the future of the city. Long ago I had the good fortune of learning about the geo-hydrological aspects of the way the metropolis was growing from Subrata Sinha, a former deputy director general of the Geological Survey of India.

So I was glad to see an article by him in yesterday’s Statesman, on this very subject, and in the context of what’s happening right now. As a citizen of Calcutta, I am deeply disturbed by what he says.

Subrata Sinha writes:

Globally, prime farmlands are virtually categorised as Endangered Species. The Singur zone falls precisely in that category. After tampering with it, the West Bengal government is now out to pursue its eco-demolition agenda further. It has gifted the stretch from just beyond Rajarhat down to Baruipur-Kulpi within the Sundarbans deltaic wetlands zone, to construct a major N-S highway and develop a Special Economic Zone with Kulpi Port and ancillary hubs. This will destroy the residual wetlands ~ the lifeline of Calcutta and bulk of the sub-continental watershed.

The Calcutta wetlands form part of the deltaic region of the geo-hydrologically connected Ganga-Hugli-Meghna-Brahamputra river systems and part of the trans-national watershed comprising the Himalayan mountains. The shareholders mainly include India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. Unfortunately, the wetlands have been severely affected by urban encroachment; largely crippling their functions.

The urbanisation of Rajarhat New Town was the first item on this despicable agenda. Contrary to its erroneous depictions as non-wetland, it is a swampy marshland, within the wetland definition ambit. Situated near the northern headlands of the deltaic region and close to the recharge zone for the deeper Calcutta aquifers it falls directly in the path of the prolific monsoon overland flow from the upslope regions of the river basin. Moreover, numerous rivulets of the shared Indo-Bangladesh deltaic drainage system originate here. Adjuncts of intensive urbanisation (like roads, buildings) will act as a wall across the flow route, with the runoff getting diverted towards Bangladesh and core Calcutta, already plagued by flooding and drainage congestion. It will also affect the “Sunderbans” multifunctional ecosystem that forms the vital sea-face for most of sub-continental watershed.

As its main shareholder India cannot shirk the responsibility of maintaining geo-hydrological equilibrium within the watershed. The consequences of implementing these projects shall thus spell disaster.

Tragically, in its zeal to promote the interests of the corporate and affluent sectors, the State is sacrificing its natural bounties and welfare of the overwhelming rural majority. Calcutta will be the proverbial sacrificial goat!

Read the full article here.

Image: Landsat image of metropolitan Calcutta region.