CBI proves CPI(M) men raped and murdered Tapasi Malik

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070629/asp/frontpage/story_7991746.asp

Singur enforcer in dock
- CPM leader held for murder
OUR BUREAU

Calcutta, June 28: The face of the CPM’s Singur mobilisation has been arrested on the charge of masterminding the murder of Tapasi Malik, a rising voice against land acquisition for the Tata Motors small-car plant.

The arrest of Suhrid Dutta, the Singur zonal committee secretary of the CPM, has put the party in a flap as it had been distancing itself from a suspect arrested earlier, Debu Malik.

Suhrid has been the most visible CPM leader in Singur, who marshalled forces to collect consent letters and build the fence around the plant site at the height of the backlash.

The arrest was executed this evening after CBI sleuths interrogated Suhrid for over eight hours in phases.

Suhrid’s arrest came three days after the central agency arrested Debu from Tapasi’s Bajemelia village. Debu, a CPM supporter, aroused suspicion because he kept insisting on TV that it was a suicide.

“Suhrid has been arrested for Tapasi Malik’s murder. We have booked him under Section 302 of the IPC. He is one of the key conspirators,” said CBI officer A.K. Sahay. The agency is also on the lookout for four other suspects.

The 18-year-old Tapasi was raped and murdered on December 18. Her torso was charred and the body was found in a pit on the land fenced off for the Tata project.

The only daughter of Monoranjan Malik, a sharecropper and a fish trader, Tapasi was a member of the Save Farmland Committee.

CBI insiders claimed that Suhrid had hatched the plan to eliminate Tapasi as she was gaining popularity in Singur for her campaign against the land takeover.

Under his orders, Debu and four others had raped Tapasi and set her on fire, the CBI sources added. The claims have to be repeated on paper without the cover of anonymity for courts to take cognisance of them. Suhrid will be produced in court tomorrow.

The CBI had sent Debu to Delhi on June 18 for a polygraph test, which he failed. A few days later, he was arrested.

CBI officials said Debu had not only admitted his role in the murder but also mentioned the names of a few others, including that of his mentor Suhrid.

“In keeping with Debu’s statements, we had called five persons from Tapasi’s village — Dibakar Das, Dilip Malik, Joydeb Santra, Subodh Koley and Suhrid Dutta,” said a CBI officer.

While four were released around 5.30pm, the CBI detained Suhrid and continued with the interrogation till 7pm. He was formally arrested after a check-up in a hospital.

The sources said Suhrid was brought face to face with Debu — flown in from Delhi this morning — during the interrogation.

Mamata Banerjee, who had called a 48-hour bandh to protest against the murder but curtailed the strike to 24 hours, said today her charges of the CPM’s involvement had turned out to be true.

“I have always been talking about the CPM’s role in the rape and murder. The government tried to suppress the facts and tamper with the evidence. I am told that Debu used to stay in a CPM leader’s house,” she said.

ON LAND-GRABBING

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?date=2007-01-14&usrsess=1&clid=3&id=170867

Dr Singh’s India, Buddhadeb’s Bengal, Modi’s Gujarat have notorious US, Soviet and Chinese examples to follow ~ distracting from the country’s real economic problems

By SUBROTO ROY

AT a business meet on 12 January 2005, Dr Manmohan Singh showered fulsome praise on Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee as “dynamic”, “the Nation’s Best Chief Minister”, whose “wit and wisdom”, “qualities of head and heart”, “courage of conviction and passionate commitment to the cause of the working people of India” he admired, saying “with Buddhadeb Babu at the helm of affairs it appears Bengal is once again forging ahead… If today there is a meeting of minds between Delhi and Kolkata, it is because the ideas that I and Buddhadebji represent have captured the minds of the people of India. This is the idea of growth with equity and social justice, the idea that economic liberalization and modernization have to be mindful of the needs of the poor and the marginalized.” With such support of a Congress Prime Minister (as well as proximity to Pranab Mukherjee), Mr Bhattacharjee could hardly have feared the local Congress and Trinamul would pose any threat in the 2006 Assembly Elections despite having more potential voters between them than the CPI-M.
Dr Singh returned to the “needs of the poor and the marginalized” at another business meet on 8 January 2007 promising to “unveil a new Rehabilitation Policy in three months to increase the pace of industrialisation” which would be “more progressive, humane and conducive to the long-term welfare of all stakeholders”, while his businessman host pointedly stated about Singur “land for industry must be made available to move the Indian manufacturing sector ahead”. The “meeting of minds between Delhi and Kolkata” seems to be that agriculture allegedly has become a relatively backward slow-growing sector deserving to yield in the purported larger national interest to industry and services: what the PM means by “long-term welfare of all stakeholders” is the same as the new CPI-M party-line that the sons of farmers should not remain farmers (but become automobile technicians or IT workers or restaurant waiters instead).
It is a political viewpoint coinciding with interests of organised capital and industrial labour in India today, as represented by business lobbies like CII, FICCI and Assocham on one hand, and unions like CITU and INTUC on the other. Business Standard succinctly (and ominously) advocated this point of view in its lead editorial of 9 January as follows: “it has to be recognised that the world over capitalism has progressed only with the landed becoming landless and getting absorbed in the industrial/service sector labour force ~ indeed it is obvious that if people don’t get off the land, their incomes will rise only slowly”.
Land is the first and ultimate means of production, and the attack of the powerful on land-holdings or land-rights of the unorganised or powerless has been a worldwide phenomenon ~ across both capitalism and communism.
In the mid-19th Century, white North America decimated hundreds of thousands of natives in the most gargantuan land-grab of history. Defeated Chief Red Cloud of the Sioux spoke in 1868 for the Apache, Navajo, Comanche, Cheyenne, Iroquois and hundreds of other tribes: “They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept any except one: they promised to take our land, and they took it.”
Half a century later, while the collapse of grain prices contributed to the Great Depression and pauperisation of thousands of small farmers in capitalist America in the same lands that had been taken from the native tribes, Stalin’s Russia embarked on the most infamous state-sponsored land-grab in modern history: “The mass collectivisation of Soviet agriculture (was) probably the most warlike operation ever conducted by a state against its own citizens…. Hundreds of thousands and finally millions of peasants…were deported… desperate revolts in the villages were bloodily suppressed by the army and police, and the country sank into chaos, starvation and misery… The object of destroying the peasants’ independence…was to create a population of slaves, the benefit of whose labour would accrue to industry. The immediate effect was to reduce Soviet agriculture to a state of decline from which it has not yet recovered… The destruction of the Soviet peasantry, who formed three quarters of the population, was not only an economic but a moral disaster for the entire country. Tens of millions were driven into semi-servitude, and millions more were employed as executants…” (Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism).
Why did Stalin destroy the peasants? Lenin’s wishful “alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry” in reality could lead only to the peasants being pauperised into proletarians. At least five million peasants died and (Stalin told Churchill at Yalta) another ten million in the resultant famine of 1932-1933. “Certainly it involved a struggle ~ but chiefly one between urban Communists and villagers… it enabled the regime to obtain much of the capital desired for industrialization from the defeated village… it was the decisive step in the building of Soviet totalitarianism, for it imposed on the majority of the people a subjection which only force could maintain” (Treadgold, 20th Century Russia).
Mr Bhattacharjee’s CPI-M is fond of extolling Chinese communism, and the current New Delhi establishment have made Beijing and Shanghai holiday destinations of choice. Dr Singh’s Government has been eager to create hundreds of “Special Economic Zones” run by organised capital and unionised labour, and economically privileged by the State. In fact, the Singur and Nandigram experiences of police sealing off villages where protests occur are modelled on creation of “Special Economic Zones” in China in recent years. For example, Chinese police on 6 December 2005 cracked down on farmers and fishermen in the seaside village of Dongzhou, 125 miles North East of Hong Kong. Thousands of Dongzhou villagers clashed with troops and armed police protesting confiscation of their lands and corruption among officials. The police immediately sealed off the village and arrested protesters. China’s Public Security Ministry admitted the number of riots over land had risen sharply, reaching more than seventy thousand across China in 2004; police usually suppressed peasant riots without resort to firing but in Dongzhou, police firing killed 20 protesters. Such is the reality of the “emergence” of China, a totalitarian police-state since the Communist takeover in 1949, from its period of mad tyranny until Mao’s death in 1976, followed by its ideological confusion ever since.
Modern India’s political economy today remains in the tight grip of metropolitan “Big Business” and “Big Labour”. Ordinary anonymous individual citizens ~ whether housewife, consumer, student, peasant, non-union worker or small businessman ~ have no real voice or representation in Indian politics. We have no normal conservative, liberal or social democratic party in this country, as found in West European democracies where the era of land-grabbing has long-ceased. If our polity had been normal, it would have known that economic development does not require business or government to pauperise the peasantry but instead to define and secure individual property rights and the Rule of Law, and establish proper conditions for the market economy. The Congress and BJP in Delhi and CPI-M in Kolkata would not have been able to distract attention from their macroeconomic misdeeds over the decades ~ indicated, for example, by increasing interest-expenditure paid annually on Government debt as a fraction of tax revenues (see Table).
This macroeconomic rot originated with the Indira Gandhi-PN Haksar capriciousness and mismanagement, which coincided with the start of Dr Singh’s career as India’s best known economic bureaucrat.

The author is Contributing Editor, The Statesman.

Society And Suicide

http://www.countercurrents.org/gl-chamaria220906.htm

By Amit Chamaria

22 September, 2006
Countercurrents.org

Certainly, a significant attention specially the PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh's attention towards Vidarbha district of Maharashtra is a welcome sign but of the consequences of unpleasant incidents. Obviously, not only the farmers of Maharashtra but the farmers of all states of India are under distress. But the problem of farmer suicides in Maharashtra has acquired the greater length. The number of suicides particularly, in Maharashtra has risen from1083 in 1995 to 4,147 in 2004.However recent announcement of relief package worth of rupees 3750 corers by the Prime Minister to solving the egregious condition of farmers has compelled to do a comprehensive debate by raising the question that-"Is this relief package a satisfactory solution of the problem of farmer suicide?"

Now, it is essential to understand the social analysis of suicide as a social problem. In this situation the significant work of Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist can't be forgotten. As per Durkheim's view simply, 'suicide' means 'self destruction'. But it reveals something lots. At least after the serial suicidal death of Vidarbha's farmers, it didn't remain confine to merely 'self destruction'-the simple means of suicide. If we go by Durkheim, suicide is a social fact and not simply an individual act but a product of social forces external to the individual. In fact, He rejects the various extra social factors such as heredity, climate, mental alienation, racial characteristics and imitation as the cause of suicide. Even 'Poverty' - the most general cause of suicide, as presented by media and politicians behind the every case of suicide, has been utterly rebutted by him. He, for simple understanding, argues that the greater the integration of individuals within the social group the less likely they are to commit suicide.

Apparently, one thing must be raised in our mind that why Durkheim negates poverty as one of the causes of suicide. If we believe at least some amount on a survey report conducted by the agency of the Govt. of India that reveals most developed states have more suicide rate as compared to the most backward states. In 2001, Maharashtra (14618), Karnataka (11881), Tamil Nadu (11290), Andhra Pradesh (10522) have highest suicide rates respectively. On the other hand all tribal dominated states like Arunachal Pradesh (111), Manipur (41), Mizorum (54), Sikkim (94), and the most backward states like Bihar (603) and Jharkand (250) have very less suicide rate. The place Kalahandi in Orissa at one time was the center of attention in media only because of serial deaths of persons and children due to hungry and malnutrition respectively. But it is quiet surprising that no suicide case was reported from Kalahandi at that time.

In addition to this, as per the ' Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers' conducted by National Sample Survey Organisation in 2003, the average monthly income (excluding rent, interest, dividend etc.) from all sources per farmer household ranged from Rs.1, 062.00 in the state of Orissa to Rs. 5,488.00 in the state of Jammu and Kashmir during the agriculture year of 2002 -03 and the all India average are Rs.2, 115.00.

To compare the average monthly income of per farmer household in Maharashtra (Rs.2, 463.00) and Gujarat (Rs.2, 684.00) from backward states like Bihar (Rs.1, 810.00), Orissa (1,062), Rajasthan (Rs. 1,498) and Madhya Pradesh (1,430.00), it can be easily revealed that lower monthly income is not a causative factor of suicide. By analyzing these statements it can be said that Durkheim is very close to the truth.

Then, what are the causes of farmer suicides?

According to him, this kind of suicide falls within the purview of 'Anomic Suicide' - one of the classifications of suicide. In fact, anomic suicide results from normlessness or deregulation in society. Although this kind of suicide occurs during industrial and financial crises, it is not because they cause poverty, since crises of prosperity have the same result but because they are crises of the collective order. If poverty and starvation are really the adequate causes of suicide then the suicide rate in all backward and northeastern states should have been high but it is not. Further he says that poverty protects against suicide because it is a restraint itself. The less one has the less he is tempted to extend the range of his needs. Sociologically, the incident of farmer suicides in Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra due to indebtedness is actually the result of the combined effect of 'Relative deprivation' and 'Sudden crises', which came in the category of anomic suicide. Significantly, the feelings of relative deprivation are the outcome of the first green revolution and these feelings has been augmented by the present market policy of Globalization. And it is one of the major drawbacks of the first green revolution. One thing that is essentially noticeable that mainly middle class peasants have committed suicide in that the effect of relative deprivation has fallen greater on them. The big achievement of the first green revolution was the enhancement of crops only by quantitatively not qualitatively.

Now, what should be the solutions of this menace? There are certain measures that should be adopted while formulating the new agriculture policy. Firstly, it is essential to provide better irrigation system and adequate rural infrastructure. So for better farming, farmers should be self-dependent and it can be achieved by maximizing the expenditure on irrigation and other basic facilities. Ironically, India has yet only one rural management institute IRMA after the 57 years of independence though major part of GDP depends on agriculture. Secondly, the causes should be found out that compel the farmers to taking debt either from moneylender or private and govt. banks. Essentially, farmers take debt mainly for boring well and for purchasing seeds and fertilizers.

So govt. should provide adequate irrigation system without disturbing the ecological cycle and a training camp must be organized in various places to provide the knowledge of rain harvesting system. And a comprehensive seed policy should be formulated but not under the pressure of WTO so that farmers could easily get seeds from their own product. The role of moneylender should be the least and in this place co-operative bank come should forward. One thing that is the most vital solution to the distress of farmers is to provide a better market without the intervention of mediators. A policy-"farmer's approach to market directly" should be adopted. But market should not be under the control of MNCs and some big business elites. The concept of market must be based on co-operative principle. Apparently the cotton cultivators committed suicide due to lack of proper market. Undoubtedly agriculture is the biggest source of employment generation. But the employment in agriculture is reducing gradually in accompanying with green revolution and increase in agricultural technology. Significantly the rate of development of employment in agriculture sector has reduced to 0.18 in 1994 from 2.17 in 1988, according to national sample survey report. The people are leaving off the practice of cultivation day by day. The situation of our agriculture will be improved only and only when people come forward for farming with their own pleasure but not as perfunctory. If the second green revolution would be the offshoot of the first green revolution then there is no need of second green revolution because we all have seen the aftermaths of first green revolution. Now it is time to frame a comprehensive policy for the development of sustainable agriculture with considering the every pros and cons in Indian perspective. A policy should be for "Aam Kisan" in that they are the real cultivators.

Amit Chamaria is a freelance journalist.He has done PG in Sociology From PU.
Address:
Amit Chamaria
C-251, Sector-19
Rohini; Delhi-85
Ph: - 9868457198

THUS CAPITAL I & II

THUS CAPITAL-I
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?date=2006-12-17&usrsess=2133175401228&clid=3&id=167697

If the annual rice yield falls by nearly two lakh tonnes, there is bound to be a food shortage even in a normal year
SIX successive Left Front governments, spanning 30 years, have denuded West Bengal’s pre-eminence in industrialisation achieved by Dr B C Roy in 14 years. According to a rough estimate, 65,000 units, including some state and central undertakings too, fell sick or were closed in these three decades owing mainly to labour unrest, aided and abetted by Leftist trade unions. West Bengal which was second in industries among the states till the 1960s, slipped to the eighth and sixth positions in industrialisation and industrial production, respectively.
As chief minister, Jyoti Basu made 21 trips to 26 countries between 1977 and 1993. His successor, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, toured Italy, Japan and some South-east Asian countries; Somnath Chatterjee, heading the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation, also visited a number of countries. All three drew almost blank. Towards the end of Mr Basu’s 23-year tenure, Haldia Petrochemicals and Mitsubishi Chemicals came up in Haldia but the first five years of Mr Bhattachrjee were virtually barren. Mr Chatterjee signed a plethora of MoUs, earning the nickname, ‘MOU Dada’ but nothing happened beyond reaching an ‘understanding’.
The industrial scene did not improve in the first tenure (2001-2006) of Mr Bhattacharjee either. Although 172 new units came up in 2004, with investment of some Rs 2004 crore, an estimated 276 lakh man days in close to 6,000 working units were lost because of industrial disputes, strikes, ‘go- slow’ and gheraos. On the contrary, the two United Front regimes and the successive Left Front governments have adopted a number of policies and programmes to ameliorate the lot of the landed and landless farmers. Suddenly, after returning to power for the seventh time in May this year, the LF government effected a U-turn vis-a-vis its pro-farmer policies. It set about acquiring thousands of acres of arable land in six south Bengal and two north Bengal districts, ignoring the pleas of farmers and sharecroppers as well as protests by opposition parties and social activists.
In Singur, the process of brutal acquisition by the police began on 2 December. Villagers were beaten up and teargassed. The patriarch Jyoti Basu and the Chief Minister frequently iterate the government’s determination to acquire and give the land to the Tatas by 31 December, failing which they may withdraw their offer. Experts have warned that the gains would be less than the almost certain losses. The government is in fact inflicting collateral damage. But the Chief Minister is defiant and determined to have the Tata factories in Singur... ‘at any cost’.
The state government’s wrong policies and programmes in education and health care are well-recorded and have even been admitted by the leaders of the CPI(M) and other constituent parties. Agriculture, happily, was not tampered with and Indira Gandhi’s Green Revolution in the 1970s gave it a tremendous boost with high-yielding seeds, gradual mechanisation, easy bank loans and subsidies to farmers as well as good monsoons, year after year. Agriculture in West Bengal is almost wholly in the private sector; the government subsidises only 5 per cent of the production costs. Although a steady increase in fuel prices has, of late, affected mechanisation, agriculture still remains a golden goose in West Bengal. In 2004-05, the state produced over 152 lakh tonnes of rice, about one-fifth of the country’s production.
Out of West Bengal’s total area of 88752 sq.km, or 219.13 lakh acres, some 132. 74 lakh acres come under seasonal cultivation. Only 7.76 lakh acres remain fallow for nine months in a year. On the rest, two or more crops are grown every year. There are in the main four types of soil: alluvial (East Midnapur, North 24-Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly, Nadia, Murshidabad and Malda), laterite (West Midnapur, Bankura, Birbhum and Purulia), saline (coastal areas of South 24-Parganas, Howrah and East Midnapur) and acid (most of North Bengal).
The government has received demands for at least 125,000 acres of land from no fewer than 20 Indian and two foreign companies as well as from three Central public undertakings for setting up various industrial units and projects. (See chart I). It has issued notices for acquiring some 44,000 acres, including 997 acres in Singur.
The crop intensity of 18 West Bengal districts ranges from 102 per cent in Purulia to 243 per cent in Nadia. The average production of mainly three varieties of rice ~ aman, aus and boro ~ being 905.3 kg per acre, the total yield in a year from 125,175 acres will be 192,363 tonnes. Adding the yield from land whose sizes are not reported, the total quantity of rice of all varieties, to be lost to industries, will be at least two lakh tonnes. A huge quantity of potato and other vegetables, grown in many areas under acquisition; will also not be available. West Bengal is deficient in wheat, edible oil and pulses; up to one million tonnes of each are imported from other States or countries (like palm oil from Malaysia). West Bengal has borders with Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa, none of which grow surplus rice or vegetables. These commodities flow from West Bengal to these states but seldom vice versa. Drought, floods, cyclone and earthquakes must also be taken into account. So if the annual rice yield falls by nearly two lakh tonnes, there is bound to be a food shortage even in a normal year.
The state’s population will increase, but arable land may get reduced further. The per capita availability of rice, which was 419 grams in 1977, increased to 454 grams in 2006. But with the rice yield decreasing by two lakh tonnes, it will go down further, accentuating hunger, malnutrition and starvation, particularly in tribal regions. The average size of land-holdings, particularly in south Bengal districts, is also decreasing. According to a ‘Status Report’, prepared by the Land Reforms department, West Bengal is becoming a ‘Land Critical State’ and loss of some 1.25 lakh acres to new industries and projects will aggravate this crisis. Already some 41.35 lakh acres, nearly 19 per cent of the total land area, have been occupied by infrastructure, industries and urbanisation. The department has warned that unless appropriate utilisation is made of the land resources, there will soon be a land crunch in West Bengal.
The government has not issued any comprehensive document on acquisitions, despite demands for a White Paper by the opposition. As per Kolkata-based media reports, at least 125,176 acres of arable land in nine districts have been demanded by investors and entrepreneurs and for much of it, acquisition notices have already been served. This excludes demands for some 2034 acres by a dozen Indian companies, namely, (i) by M/s Videocon in Taratala (South 24-Parganas) for manufacture of LCD monitors for computers and in Kalyanbeel in North 24-Parganas for SEZ, (ii) by M/s Patton Group in Uluberia (Howrah) and 60 acres in Falta (South 24-Parganas, (iii) by M/s Dabur near Siliguri for a food-processing plant, (iv) by SPS Group in Mejia (Bankura) and Durgapur (Burdwan) for the manufacture of a transmission tower and transmitter, respectively, (v) by the Indian Jute Mills Association (IJMA) for a Jute Park in Haringhata (Nadia), (vi) by M/s Amrit Group in the Sundarbans (South 24-Parganas) for setting up three non-conventional energy plants, (vii)14 acres by Tek Mahindra for setting up an IT Centre, (viii) 500 acres by M/s Hind Industries, (ix) 130 acres by India Tourism Corporation (ITC) for setting up a new, and extension of its existing, hotel, (x) 50 acres by a German company, M/s Metro Cash & Carry for doing wholesale trade in vegetables, and (xi) by M/s River Bank for setting up an IT Park and township in Batanagar (South 24-Parganas).




Thus capital~II
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?date=2006-12-18&usrsess=2133175401228&clid=3&id=167778

Robbery Of The Soil In West Bengal
Some companies have demanded land in Patharghata, Baruipur and Sonarpur ~ all in South 24-Parganas. Mukesh Ambani of Reliance has demanded land in a number of districts for setting up a retailers’ chain for marketing farm products. Notice has also been served for the acquisition of 1280 acres at Yafala near Kharagpur for a state government project and for building a thermal power plant in Katwa (Burdwan) in the state sector. The Union Ministry of Petroleum has demanded land adjoining the Haldia oil refinery for expansion and to set up ancillary industries.
The local MLA and MP have applied for the acquisition of a wetland, Mathura Bil in Gayeshpur near Kalyani for setting up an aquatic sports complex by some private companies. The rest of the acquisitions for 123,735 acres are summarised in the chart published yesterday.

More demands

The Centre has imposed a ban on the conversion of farm land for other purposes. The West Bengal government often cites this to stop the use of arable and wetland for prawn culture, brick kilns, and building real estate by promoters. There is also a provision in the West Bengal Land Reforms Act, prohibiting the sale of more than 24 acres to an entrepreneur or investor, which the Left Front government wants to scrap. The government has decided to permit the sale of barga land by the owners or the bargadars to other bargadars by amending a provision in the Land Reforms Act.
The agriculture minister, Abdur Rezzak Molla, says more than 100,000 acres of agricultural land, including 400 acres in Uluberia, 392 acres in Domjur (both in Howrah) and 2670 acres in Baruipur (South 24-Parganas), 26,000 acres in Rajarhat-New Town (North 24-Parganas) and 200 acres in Budge Budge (South 24-Parganas) for arsenic-free water project, are already under government occupation for various purposes. If another 1.5 lakh acres are also taken over, West Bengal’s self-sufficiency in rice will be endangered (see chart). The Marxists are opposing large-scale acquisition of farm land for industrial uses in other states but are doing just the same in West Bengal. The Politburo and the CPI-M’s ideologues are silent on this double standard. The Politburo is opposing the Centre’s approval to several states to create Special Economic Zones, saying they would be ‘islands of prosperity in a sea of misery’ and yet is keeping mum on the Left Front government clearing proposals for six SEZs.
The President and the Prime Minister are harping on the need for a second Green Revolution, to which the Left parties expressed support but cannot answer, how in West Bengal, with some 1.5 lakh acres set for industries, will this revolution be possible.
Over the years, the state’s population will rise by at least 11 lakhs per year but not arable land; on the contrary, it may shrink with more acquisition. The affected farmers will become aliens in their own habitats, like Upen in Tagore’s poem, Dui Bigha Jami, or Shambhu in Bimal Roy’s film, Do Bigha Zameen (1952).
West Bengal is not in an enviable position in agriculture. Production of foodgrains increased dramatically by about 69 per cent from the 1980-1981 to 2000-2001, thanks to high-yielding seeds, successive good monsoons, greater involvement of sharecroppers, mechanised irrigation and easy availability of fertilisers and other inputs. However, the population increase in these two decades has brought it down to 22 per cent and West Bengal to the eighth position among the states. In 30 years since Independence up to 1977, production of foodgrain rose by 214 per cent but in the same period under LF rule, it rose by 179 per cent.
Only about one-third of the farmers’ annual income comes from agriculture and two-thirds from non-agricultural pursuits. More than half of them run into debts, averaging over Rs 5,000 in a year. Their average landholding is less than an acre. Like arable land, the per capita consumption of cereals is decreasing and despite truncated rationing and anti-poverty programmes, hunger and starvation still stalk remote, tribal regions.
It is not easy to further increase the yield of foodgrains unless fallow and unutilised lands are made arable by irrigation. Even if no farmland is acquired for industrial use, a food shortage will loom over West Bengal in 10-20 years.
The Centre will soon take steps to usher in the Second Green Revolution by increasing the yield of foodgrains. Otherwise, India will face a food shortage of 2.8 crore tonnes by 2025. The Centre is also trying to increase rice exports and being the second highest producer of rice, West Bengal could prosper from its contribution. “Robbery of the soil” is bound to affect West Bengal 80 years after it was deplored by Rabindranath Tagore.
West Bengal gives its share of rice to seven major food-based programmes ~ the Public Distribution System, the Midday Meal Scheme in primary schools, the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, Annapurna Scheme, the Integrated Child Development Programme, Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana and the Food for Work programme. It also has to maintain a buffer stock of foodgrains to meet emergencies like crop failure, floods and drought. Punjab can afford loss of agricultural land, not West Bengal. Some four lakh acres are arid or fallow and 30 per cent of arable land is mono-crop. An average farmer earns one-third of his net yearly income from agriculture; the rest comes from non-agricultural pursuits.
More than half of West Bengal’s farmers are in debt, the average yearly debt per family being Rs 5,237. Most of them have land-holdings less than one acre. Increasing debt compels them to give up land or become landless labour.

Twin evils

Promoters and real estate dealers are another threat to farmland. Having acquired ancestral homestead plots and houses on lucrative terms, they are now eyeing arable land. The twin evils ~ acquisition of farmland for investors and real estate deals ~ are being perpetrated on a massive scale. West Bengal will some day have to import rice in addition to wheat, pulses and edible oil.
The industries minister hints at the possibility of a shortfall in foodgrains and vegetables but hopes that by increasing productivity this can be made up. This is impossible, because for nearly every crop high-yielding seeds are being used. Further, the area under cultivation is decreasing every year. If the present trend of rampant acquisition by governments continues, arable land will disappear as in Singapore which does not produce an ounce of rice but lives entirely on imports.
Nobody, not even the affected farmers and the opposition parties, deny the need of industrial regeneration in West Bengal. What they emphasise is that arable land must be spared, as in China and Britain. Nobody could imagine that a playwright and culturally-inclined Marxist like Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee would, as Chief Minister, be so callous to human values.

Tata Car Factory in Singur Inefficient Compared to European Standards

http://www.geocities.com/bob_swf/motamot/5-1-07-tata-car-letter.pdf

In the name of development, people are being displaced without proper relief


To: Shri Buddhadev Bhattacharya
Chief Minister of West Bengal
Writers Bhawan, Kolkata - 700 001
cm@wb.gov.in
Phone 033-22145555, 22145588
FAX: 033-22145480

Subject: Tata Car Factory in Singur Inefficient Compared to European Standards

Dear Buddhadebda,

We write to express our opposition to the 997 acres of agricultural land being acquired for Tata's car factory at
Singur, which does not compare favourably with world standards for land usage. For example, in May 2005,
Toyota-Peugeot inaugurated a car factory near Prague that produces 300,000 cars/year and spans an area of 124
ha (306 Acres). The Toyota press release boasted: "It's built-up area of a mere 21 ha is viewed by the automobile
industry as a record-breaking low. Modern and compact, this work of architecture requires very low levels of
energy consumption to operate technology and run the plant."
If anything a car factory in India should have more efficient land-use than in a European country owing to our
population. The Tata's have said they will make 250,000 cars by 2008. Even if the
Tata's were planning for 500,000 cars/year, the area needed would be only about 500 acres, using the Toyota's
European standards.
However we should be able to do the Tata factory in much smaller area. In a European country there may be so
much open space that having a 1:6 ratio between built up and total area, as is the case with the Toyota factory in
Czechoslavakia, may be acceptable. But why should India's prime agricultural farmland that feeds a starving
nation be so sacrificed? What is going to be the built-up area of the Tata's factory at Singur? How do you justify
the 997 acres being acquired as being in public interest?
We request you to address our questions and strongly urge you not to sacrifice agricultural land of Singur for a
highly inefficient land-guzzling car factory being planned by Tatas.

Sincerely,

Dr. Ravi Kuchimanchi, Mumbai Phone: 022-25566703
Prof. Om Damani, IIT-Bombay Phone (mobile): 09323003401
Satabdi Das, Software Professional, Kolkata (mobile) 9830255001.
Rahul Chauhan, Software Professional, Kolkata
Debamitro Chakraborti, Software Professional, Kolkata 09911362364
Deepak Dhamija, Student, Kolkata
Prof. Rukmini Dey, Harishchandra Research Institute, Allahabad
Prof. Rajesh Gopakumar, Harishchandra Research Institute, Allahabad
Chandrika Ramanujam Chennai
Aravinda Pillalamarri, Mumbai
Nirveek Bhattacharya, Student, Johns Hopkins University, Maryland, USA.
Correspondence Address :
AID-India Kolkata Chapter: 82b/1 Ground Floor, Ibrahimpur Road, Jadavpur
Kolkata 32.
AID-India Mumbai Chapter: C-7 Banganga Coop, Govandi Stn Rd, Deonar,
Mumbai 400088.
AID-India Chennai Office: New No. 34, Rathnam Street, Gopalapuram, Chennai
- 600 086

From: Bigyan o Bigyan Kormi website

Capitalism-Marxism Brew

28 January, 2007
The Statesman

Should we congratulate the West Bengal government for resolving one of the great dilemmas that caused so much trouble to the world in the 20th century - that is, the schism between capitalism and Communism? Ever since the Russian Revolution of 1917, it seemed that the divergence between the two ideologies would lead only to violence, war and bloodshed.
And so it proved. The clash between those who believed in private enterprise and those who sought salvation in the “socialisation” of industry was aggravated as the century wore on. The early years of the Russian experiment inspired a whole generation of idealists with the tangible proof of the perfectibility of human society, while capitalism continued to wallow in depression, poverty and injustice.
The future, it seemed, belonged to socialism, just as Marx had prophesied. The war against Nazism and Fascism, which allied the West with the Soviet Union, reinforced the idea that “progressive” forces were in the ascendant. After World War II, the formal decolonisation of the old European empires proceeded at an accelerating pace. Almost all these countries claimed adherence to a socialist ideology of social justice, the defeat of poverty and a degree of self-reliance. Capitalism yielded ground to these realities; and the Western democracies set up their welfare states, to attach to themselves populations which might have been tempted to vote for a socialism which, even in 1945, seemed to the “advanced” countries to be at least as likely to deliver the goods as a capitalism scarred by war, impoverishment and inequality. The fight between these two ideologies shaped the lives of the world’s people, sometimes as Cold War, sometimes ~ in Korea and Vietnam ~ as bloody and brutal conflict.
There are few stories in history as dramatic and compelling as the rehabilitation of capitalism in the second half of the 20th century; so much so, that socialism crumbled and was swallowed up by the very injustice and inequality which had given birth to it. In the competitive struggle with the Soviet Union, capitalism created the consumer society - a rising standard of living that transformed Western society and re-landscaped it, so that it became a kind of parodic after-life which socialism could only dream of. In the process, the achievements of socialism looked drab, pinched and austere.
Little by little, the rest of the world opted for what had appeared in 1945 doomed and vanquished, and a regenerated capitalism swept all before it. The banners of socialism, tattered and faded, were consigned to the scrap-heap. I was in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia in 1991, when the dictator Mengistu, supported by the Soviet Union, was deposed. In a public park, I came across a pile of statues of Lenin and rusty metal red stars, the iconography of a fallen Communism reduced to chunks of broken masonry and twisted metal. For Communism was, and always had been, only a heretical version of industrial society. Marx never quarrelled with the industrialisation of the West ~ he had, as the Communist Manifesto attests, the greatest admiration for the “miracles” wrought by industrial society, which, in his view, overshadowed all the wonders of the ancient world.
The quarrel was not with industrial society, but with capitalism, which distributed its rewards with such promiscuous disdain for the rights of humanity. For Marx, the ownership by the people of the means of production and distribution would be the solution to the injustices of capitalism; and it was this doctrine that set the destiny of the workers at odds with the fate of a capitalism which, Marx believed, would bring about its own ruin. It would be wrong to attribute any great novelty to the thinking of the ideologues of West Bengal in their re-hash of Marxism. Their capacity for original thought should not be over-estimated. They have been inspired by the Chinese Communists who, all too aware of the fate of their sometime Soviet allies, were too smart to lose control of power.
They maintained the authoritarianism of Communism, and married it to a version of the free market. The spectacular runaway economic success of China is there for the world to see.
It is this model that has inspired the leaders of West Bengal to mimic the Chinese version of Communism, which is no such thing. West Bengal has a democratically elected government, but so secure and self-confident has it become after three decades of unbroken rule, that it behaves as though governing were its natural right. And in consequence, it exhibits as little concern for human beings as the unelected ruling powers of its mentor, China. West Bengal therefore exemplifies, within India the mending of the old sectarianism of industrial society. There is no conflict between capitalism and Communism ~ the struggle, violence and bloodshed of the past were all in vain. There is now commitment only to a single form of industrialism. Capitalism has triumphed, and the West Bengal government acknowledges this by its actions, though its rhetoric may not yet be ready to fall in step. The breach is healed. There is no more conflict. Capitalism and socialism can lie down together, and of this monstrous pairing, who can tell what levels of injustice, inequality and cruelty may not be begotten? Will the efficiency of capitalism be joined to the justice of socialism, or will the ruthlessness of capitalism attach itself to the brutality of totalitarian ideology?
It is in this light that the melancholy events at Nandigram and Singur, and in all the other places marked out for “development” in West Bengal should be understood. It seems clear that West Bengal is in the process of getting the worst of both worlds. The leaders of the State project themselves as being in the vanguard of progress ~ what could be more progressive than China with its industrial might, the majesty of Pudong, the Three Gorges dam and all the other soaring paraphernalia of development?
There is a flaw in this sunny second marriage of capitalism with communism. The fall of the Soviet Union revealed crisis in industrial society, but this was masked by the triumphalism of the West. We have won, they cried. Actually, they might just as plausibly have said the planet has lost.
The weight of global, industrial society upon the earth becomes heavier by the day. The “footprint” of humanity threatens to smash the fragile globe beneath its industrial jackboot. The precious, irreplaceable riches of the world, including its waters and its forests, have all been transformed into raw materials. These are to feed an economic growth without end, because humanity, no longer limited by what it needs, has been set in an infinite chase after all that it desires.
And because this is boundless, it will trample the constraints of a finite world with the same heedlessness as a flock of domestic animals trampling the hedge between pasture and crop. In the inexorable advance of this majestic progress, anyone who stands in its way will be destroyed. The message to humanity is don’t be a farmer, do not seek subsistence, do not be a herder or a nomad, do not be self-reliant, do not be an indigene, do not be a slumdweller, do not be poor or old or sick: if you are any of these things, you are dispensable, and will be compelled to make way for monuments to an industrialism, whose wealth and power are sustainable only up to the point where the resource-base of the earth collapses; a moment which draws nearer with each passing day.
The people of Singur, Nandigram, Kalinganagar and all the other sites to be expropriated, are the only people standing in the way of these malevolent processes. They deserve the support of all who value the survival of humanity above the survival of capitalism; among whom, alas, the Communists no longer can be counted.

(The author lives in Britain. He has written plays for the stage, TV and radio, made TV documentaries, published more than 30 books and contributed to leading journals around the world. email:yrn63@dial.pipex.com)

PORTENTS OF FAMINE

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=3&id=172203&date=2007-01-28&usrsess=1208188831933

The acquisition of land and eviction of the peasantry amounts to a death warrant for five lakh agricultural households in nine West Bengal districts.

By D BANDYOPADHYAY

Notwithstanding the Right to Information Act, the Government of West Bengal has been consistently refusing to come out with their current plan of “industrialisation”. Investigative journalists have been able to piece together facts from various sources to indicate that the government is bent upon acquiring 1,40,000 acres of agricultural land in nine districts of Bengal which include Hooghly (6247 acres), East Midnapur (37,297 acres), West Midnapur (26,134 acres), Darjeeling (Siliguri ~ 25,200 acres), North 24-Parganas (5743 acres), South 24-Parganas (13,318) acres), Howrah (26,500 acres), Nadia (365 acres), Jalpaiguri (161 acres). (Courtesy: Bibekananda Ray: Thus Capital: The Statesman, Dec. 17 & 18, 2006).
Never in the history of industrialisation of Bengal had such vast areas of agricultural land been ever taken at a time by the government for the purpose of setting up units by the private parties for private gain. The parties involved, as far as the information goes, are the Tata Group and their associates, the Salim Group and their associates, Videocon, DLF, Reliance Groups of both the brothers, the Chatterji Group, the Birla Group and their associates, Reshmi Cements and the Jindal Group and their associates. So far only these names have been identified by the journalists.
The question that arises is one of social cost benefit calculus. How much will the society gain by these capital intensive investments compared to the highly diffused distributive system of income under the current agrarian economic system? We are being told time and again that high value industrial products should take precedence over the low value agricultural productive system. Looking from the macro-economic point of view it may appear to be highly attractive. But what about the loss of income and productive wealth of a large section of the rural population?
Another point which is being touted loudly by the Chief Minister and his cohort of party and government functionaries is that there is no non-arable land available in West Bengal for such large-scale industrialisation. The Chief Minister is on record having said that only one per cent of the land in West Bengal is not cultivable and thereafter he posed a question whether the new industries would be located in the sky or on the ground.
The Chief Minister does have many prerogatives but he does not have any right to prevaricate facts. The total amount of uncultivable land in West Bengal, according to the statistics given by the Bureau of Applied Economics and Statistics of West Bengal, is a little over 18 per cent. In absolute terms it is over 1.5 million hectares which means merely 3.7 million acres. In the joint Midnapur district the total such land available is about 2.52 lakh hectares . In Purulia the figure is around 92,000 hectres. In Bankura and Birbhum districts the figures are 1.2 lakh and 98,000 hectares, respectively.
With so much of uncultivable land available in the backward districts of West Bengal which are geographically not very far from Kolkata, how could the Chief Minister so brazenly make an incorrect statement that no uncultivable land was available for the purpose of industrialisation?
One aspect of this large-scale acquisition of agricultural land would be serious loss of foodgrain production. The average cereal output in West Bengal is a little over one tonne per acre. Thus in 1.4 lakh acres of land to be acquired the loss of production of foodgrain would be to the tune of 1.5 lakh tonnes.
The government would argue that it would not in any way affect the food security of the state. One can concede this point while taking a macro view of the situation. But the government should know that existence of foodstock does not and cannot prevent hunger and starvation death.
The family food security, which is the cardinal issue in the whole concept of food security, depends upon a family’s ability to buy food with their own income. With loss of livelihood of five lakh families and loss of land as well as shelter they would not have adequate income after a while to access food however much they might be available in the fair price shops or in the cereal mandis.
Did not Amartya Sen point out that in the great Bengal famine of 1943 it was not the absence of stock of food but inability of the households to access such food through their own income (entitlements) that 3 to 4 million men, women and children died mostly on the pavements of what was then Calcutta city due to hunger and starvation?
The print media reports indicate that the government has a much larger plan of acquiring more land than 1.4 lakh acres and these would all be agricultural lands. Since they are not thinking of going to the backward districts where uncultivable lands are available, no one knows how many more families would be involved in such eviction. If this phenomena continues, the state will gradually move towards the same situation as was witnessed during the Great Bengal Famine in 1943.
Eviction of peasantry on such a large scale will doubtless have a very deleterious effect on the social order. We have our own Naxalite problem arising out of landlessness and food insecurity. The world has witnessed the Zapatatista movement in Mexico and similar such movements in a lesser degree in various Latin American countries. The whole of Europe suffered from Jacqueries throughout the Middle Ages till the French Revolution which did not bring peace to any of the Kings and Emperors of different countries of that continent.
If in their blind rush to appease and to seduce private investors in West Bengal the CPI-M government would like to promote peasant uprisings, it would be their choice. They should not forget that with the mounting hunger and starvation what their policy would ultimately lead to. They will not remain very safe and secure within the sheltered premises of the Writers’ Buildings in Kolkata.

The author was secretary to government of India, ministries of finance (revenue) and rural development and executive director, Asian Development Bank, Manila.

The Developer’s Model Of Development Or The Economist’s?

http://www.countercurrents.org/eco-shrivastava220207.htm

By Aseem shrivastava

22 February, 2007
Countercurrents.org

“An epitome of beauty, serenity and colonial charm…”

- From an advertisement for The Carlton, a luxury hotel created by The Rahejas in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu

Two competing notions of development are increasingly at war in the Indian economic landscape. One model is familiar to economists and policy-makers of an earlier era. We shall discuss that model later.

Development according to developers: the new Indian way

With changing times it would be folly to cling to outmoded concepts. One such concept, which wasted the nation’s best resources during the days of the license-permit, Neta-Babu Raj, was the post-war notion of development. It sucked the human, capital and natural resources of the country for over four decades – for which we have little to show.

There is thus urgent need to create and implement an entirely new model of development which answers Indian aspirations in a globalized world with far greater success. Here is what it looks like.

There will be world-class apartments in impressive high-rises touching the sky. Prospective residents will have choices ranging from compact studios to 6-bedroom dupleix flats designed for traditional Indian joint families. The apartments will be equipped with handsome, marble-topped bathrooms, studded with Jacuzzis and golden bidets imported from Europe. Every room will afford a commanding view of the golf course within whose precincts the skyscrapers will be located.

As you step out of the building you will find yourself before the 18th hole of the golf course nearest to you. If not in a golfing mood, you may choose to step out of the rear of your building: your eyes will alight upon an Olympic-sized swimming pool that has been built just for you. Look to your right and you will see Wimbledon-class tennis courts fully appointed with coaches and the latest equipment.

If you prefer independent accommodation we have for you a range of impressive townhouses and bungalows with sprawling lawns and their own private swimming pools. They come with all the facilities available for apartment-dwellers.

You will find your workplace within cycling distance of your residence. (100% safe biking tracks have been laid down on artificial turf to ensure your ease and comfort.) The building that houses your office is equipped with world-class business and communication facilities, including satellite links, global video conferencing facilities and broadband wireless internet connectivity.

Within your office building itself you will find a stress-busting massage parlor (offering a large variety of oriental massages), a mental health clinic (having world-class experienced professionals) and a beauty parlor (with some of the best herbalists in the world). There is also an in-house gym facility, a health club and an all-weather swimming pool.

For those of our customers connected to manufacturing, there are dozens of industrial parks within the city, properly zoned away from residential areas to minimize any of the negative effects of pollution (which itself is expected to be eliminated in the foreseeable future). These parks are fully provisioned with global quality infrastructure such as reliable, internally generated power facilities and ready and easy access to container and cargo terminals, making use of the latest international advances in efficient logistics.

SEZs (Special Economic Zones) are the latest innovation in Indian policy-making. They provide legal relief from archaic constitutional obstacles to rapid industrial growth: investors need no longer worry about paying taxes, minimum wages, health and pension benefits and environmental fines. We have several SEZs with irresistibly attractive terms of investment for both global and Indian players.

When you need to shop, you needn’t drive far. We offer you tens of thousands of global brands not far from your doorstep. There are dozens of dazzling shopping malls excelling global standards, where you can find everything suited to your taste. There are supermarkets, garment, fashion and design stores, footwear stores, jewelry shops, electronics and IT bazaars, music shops, book stores, drug stores, hardware stores, home improvement outlets and even car dealerships. Now you need not lose time on your vacations to shop: even curios from all over the world have been gathered and assembled at our malls for your shopping pleasure.

When you have guests from out of town they can be accommodated at one of the many internationally networked luxury hotels. Our hotels offer all the facilities and amenities available to our residents, with attractive discounts available for our regular customers.

For your entertainment there are half a dozen multiplexes in the city, showing over three dozen films at a time. The film theatres are abutted by gaming parlors where young people can compete with their counterparts the world over.

Adjoining the hotels are amusement parks with childcare facilities on offer. Busy guests traveling with their children need not worry any more: we take full responsibility to entertain them on roller-coasters and waterslides. Our customers will find it assuring that we have won the highest international awards for excellence in providing hospitality to our guests.

We also have some of the most interesting theme parks in the world. There are stimulating interactive facilities to enable visitors to learn Hindu mythology and religion by signing up at the Panchatantra Park. You can even don the armour of a Pandava warrior at our Mahabharata Theme Park.

The city boasts of a number of helipads from where chartered flights can take you to the nearest international airports enabling smooth connections. Arrangements can also be made for chartering jets of all sizes from the nearest airports. Our travel agents will look after all your travel needs, both for business and pleasure, offering you some astounding discounts on vacations at virtually every beach or mountain resort anywhere in the world.

For your children we have some of the best schools in the world, offering the International Baccalaureate diploma in three different languages. Our teachers are trained in London and Geneva and are required to know at least three globally recognized languages well. They are also required to have spent at least half their working lives abroad.

Given the scrupulously clean and hygienic environment we maintain within the city sicknesses and poor health are rare. But should you ever feel the need there are world-class hospital facilities managed by the world’s leading healthcare providers. You will be in the care of internationally reputed doctors and nurses.

Last, not least, every building and facility within the development is guarded by world-class surveillance equipment and security forces trained especially for you. You need never worry again for your safety once you entrust your security to us. Residents and visitors will especially appreciate the finesse with which our security personnel do their daily job without making themselves even remotely obtrusive or even visible.

Is it all only a fantasy?

The above is hardly a fantastic caricature of the promises made by India’s leading builders and developers today. Indeed, one may observe that in some cases the promises are close to being met – at the appropriate price.

Consider just a few promotional advertisements from some of India’s leading builders and developers. Rahejas have already been quoted above. Unitech, whose profits this year are 3000% higher than last year, offers us “Shoppertainment for Indians.” “Dreams are for achieving”, they say, not merely to be savoured as fantasies. Ansals, with an international endorsement (Norsk Akkredit Ering EMS 006), offer a “futuristic SEZ in Greater Noida” which will become the “greentech IT hub” and “will usher in the new age of an IT-led economy”. Parsvnath Parivar (with an ISO 9001/14001 certification) wish to invite us to join their family in order to enable them to create an “ever-enlarging footprint” across the length and breadth of the country. Any perceived irony is not intended.

It is evidently the case that India is “poised” to become a “developed” superpower at the cutting edge of the global economy. Those of us who are skeptical of the promises and the developments are either naysayers, doomsdayers, wet blankets or simply ignoramuses.

Unanswered questions

But some thorny issues remain. What about the people laboring to create and maintain these lavish establishments? What is their share of the promised prosperity? And what of those who the “developments” have displaced without rehabilitation? And what sorts of inputs of energy, water and resources are involved in the implementation of this world-class model of development? Where are the air and water-borne effluents from the establishments going to be discharged? Finally, hardly inconsequentially, what are the implications of these developments for that neglected and forgotten sector of the Indian economy, agriculture, on which two-thirds of our people – anywhere from 700 to 750 million – are directly dependent? Will the gathering crisis in agriculture endanger food security and supply in times to come, reducing to naught the gains made in the direction of self-sufficiency in food, canceling one of India’s great achievements since gaining independence from the British in 1947, and possibly reintroducing the era of famines in India?

Is there any reckoning of these questions in the meetings and discussions carried out in the boardrooms of our policy-making elites? One wonders.

Trickle-down or vacuum up?

The questions raised above can be answered optimistically only with some heroism. The only assumption under which the model of development outlined above can be of any tangible benefit to the teeming millions of impoverished Indians is that the growth induced by large investments in the real estate sector of the economy will bring benefits to the lower classes in the form of new opportunities of employment – both directly and secondarily, through spin-offs. This is the familiar refrain of pious promises of eventual trickle-down, which have yet to materialize anywhere in the world.

The narrow base of economic growth in India – focussed thus far in the IT-BPO sectors of the service economy – has meant that trickle-down theories of the spread of prosperity have remained confined to the sphere of illusions. The persistence of widespread hunger, malnutrition, poverty and unemployment reminds one of the economist-diplomat John Kenneth Galbraith’s acerbic observation that faith in trickle-down is a bit like feeding race horses superior oats so that starving sparrows can forage in their dung.

In fact, far from the benefits of growth trickling down to the downtrodden, the policies adopted since the mid-1980s and early 1990s have led to big losses of rural economies and livelihoods that are not reckoned on the negative side of the ledger (where they belong) in the growth calculations of government statisticians. Besides, the poor throughout the country are being rapidly dispossessed of the only real asset in a primarily agrarian economy: land.

What happened to the old idea of development?

One thing is clear. The paradigm of development that is in place bears a far closer resemblance to the developer’s model of development, as outlined above, than to the developmental visions of the first generation of planners and economists under Nehru. It ignores the repeated recommendations of seasoned thinkers like Amartya Sen (who has warned that even a 100 Cyberabads and IT Parks will make no dent in long-standing challenges of reducing malnutrition, starvation and poverty). Needless to add, the de facto “developmental” vision of our policy-makers does arrogant violence to Gandhi’s vision of village republics.

It appears that somewhere during the past decade the meaning of the term “development” has undergone a decisive mutation in the heads of our policy-making elite.

Is economic growth the same as development?

Every student of Development Economics learns on the first few pages of her textbook that economic growth does not translate directly into economic development. The two notions are in fact quite distinct. Though, typically, the two are seen to go together, up to a not insignificant degree development is possible without growth as growth is possible without development. Sri Lanka, for instance, while scarcely growing at all, raised its average life expectancy – a crucial indicator of well-being – by a dozen years during the first 7 years of its independence from Britain. Saudi Arabia, despite growing rapidly after the OPEC-led oil boom of the 1970s has failed to bring about a transformation in the lives of the bulk of its citizens. To see whether growth will lead to development, one has to scrutinize closely the content and pattern of growth. On this, more will be said presently.

The point is that aggregate figures like per capita income can be seen to rise rapidly with economic growth, but the inequalities of wealth and income might be such as to mask entirely the poor material condition of most people’s lives.

Economic growth in India in the last decade or so has been the experience of a minority, reflecting huge and growing corporate remuneration and the bloated salaries of skilled and English-speaking urban professionals belonging to upper and middle classes. Growth in the organized sector (including both private and public) has been largely jobless. In many cases, like at the manufacturing plants of Tata and Bajaj in the Mumbai-Pune belt, production has shot up dramatically during the last decade while, in fact, cutting back significantly on the employment of workers. Jobless growth, thanks to the path of labor-saving technology from the West, is the norm.

Development, as conceived by economists, planners, policy-makers and political leaders after decolonization in the middle of the last century, was about the socio-economic and political transformation of the lives of hundreds of millions of ordinary people. It was much more than just raising the real per capita income of the developing country. Importantly, it had nothing to with the fairy-tale dreams of builders and developers. For that matter, the Indian constitution does not even make a commitment to economic growth!

In addition to real per capita income (which in any case glosses over glaring and widening inequalities), by 1990 the pre-eminent international institution concerned with development issues, the World Bank, had learnt to include at least two other features in what began to be called “human development”: average life expectancy as an indicator of health and the literacy rate as an indicator of education. When one observes trends in India’s ranking among countries with respect to HDI, one sees that it has yet to fall below the 120s (China hovers between 70th and 75th). A per capita income of $2 a day at market exchange rates (China is $6-7 and the US is $100) is unbecoming of any country, let alone a purported or aspiring superpower.

Development with dignity?

How much dignity remains for those who are thrown off their farmlands in order to make way for the growth and progress of the nation in the form of a real-estate boom, the ultimate aim of property developments? And how much for those, sometimes the same people, who live “on the other side of the wall”, so to speak, from the developments, and have to make do with open sewers, lack of drinking water, poor hutments, lack of hospitals and schools?

As far back as in 1972, soon after Indira Gandhi launched her idea of Garibi Hatao, the economist C.T.Kurien had written thus in an article entitled “Strategy for Development”: “The development process in India has not yet become a mass movement. The development process cannot become effective until it becomes a movement” (Seminar, January 1972). It went on to say: “If development is for the people it has to be by the people also. Herein lies the connection between development and mass movement.” The main policy recommendation of that piece was a public works programme by a district-level Land Army of those who were looking for work in the countryside, a proposal not dissimilar to the NREGS launched belatedly last year, so far with dubious success.

Amit Bhaduri’s recent book Development with Dignity has argued forcefully the case for full employment in India. Here are his main observations:

1) “Our unforgivable failure has been the persistence of mass poverty and destitution. It is a matter of utter shame that nearly six decades after Independence, we have anywhere between one-third and one-fourth of our people desperately poor and denied the minimum conditions for human existence - the largest number of illiterates, millions of children crippled or blinded due to malnourishment.”

2) India’s continuing reliance on English has sustained a linguistic divide and inequality of opportunities between those who speak and those who do not speak English.

3) Agriculture is so overcrowded and devoid of earning opportunities, thanks to destructive trade and other agricultural policies of the governments after 1991, that in poor states like Bihar and MP, even selling peanuts on the streets brings more income. Disguised unemployment is extremely high.

4) “India’s immense diversity creates a bewildering variety of identities, and politicians try to manipulate them to their advantage in the game for gathering votes at any cost.”

5) “India has given its citizens political rights, but not economic rights to a decent livelihood, with or without economic liberalisation.”

6) “Narrow minded policies focussing on ‘cost’ reduction fail to see that cost is a concept defined in a particular social context of contending economic interests.”“The worker might think of profit as the ‘cost’ he has to bear for being employed, just as the employer thinks of wage as the ‘cost’ of employing the worker!”

Thus, Bhaduri proposes that “the developmental process that we must strive for is not simply a higher growth rate; nor should it mean simply an elaborate bureaucratic mechanism for income transfer to improve the distribution of income in favour of the poor. It has to be viewed from a different perspective altogether in which growth and distribution are integrated into the very same process, while breaking systematically the social barriers of discrimination and prejudices based on gender, caste, language, religion or ethnicity. This is what Development with Dignity must mean for us in India” (emphasis added). The author, one of India’s well-known economists, adds with authority: “This is not a utopia. It is the only reasonable economics that this country can pursue with the support of the majority of its citizens who are poor to varying degrees.”

So, importantly, Bhaduri proposes that redistribution of income and wealth and reduction of poverty and inequality happen through the growth process itself, not something that happens once growth has been achieved (by which time it is usually too late, since each growth strategy has a distributional strategy implicitly built into it).

For illustration, Bhaduri argues: “Nowadays in big cities, and even in small towns, bottled drinking water is available at a price, which at most only the top 10 per cent of the income earners can afford. And yet, while the market naturally has no compulsion to make a basic good like safe drinking water available to the poor, it might produce more of bottled water and this could step up our statistic of the rate of growth!”

In an primarily market-driven economy the only reliable way of bringing most people to an acceptable standard of living is by creating employment opportunities which will put purchasing power into the hands of the hitherto poor, thereby altering in their favour (as also of aggregate growth data), the direction of market signals which determine what will be produced and in what quantities.

For instance, by putting the rural landless to work on infrastructure projects like road-building or environmental projects like watershed management, a demand for basic food, clothing and shelter will be created. The market mechanism will take over after that and supply the goods in the required amounts. This will tackle several challenges – of the creation of infrastructure, the conservation/regeneration of the environment, the alleviation of poverty, the creation of employment, and the growth of the overall economy – at one stroke. The same strategy could be applied equally well to infrastructure and environmental projects like watershed management or soil conservation to generate mass employment and income.

For a public spending of less than 4% of our GDP the families of some 40 million people (totalling about 200 million) could be lifted out of poverty. Taxation, public borrowing, or even printing the required currency are all viable options for financing such schemes if the economic activity undertaken is productive and generates income and demand in the economy.

Bhaduri is not unmindful of the staggering diversity of this country. So he wants such schemes to be administered not centrally – by the state or central government – but by local Panchayati Raj institutions.

Thus, like Kurien and many others, Bhaduri advocates a two-pronged economic strategy for a country like India. The rich and middle classes can hope to gain from the booms generated by a globalized market economy. However, what’s good for the goose is sometimes poison to the gander: countless millions can only expect disruption of their livelihoods and ways of life on account of the powerful interests operating in the country (and its countryside). For such people – running into several hundred millions – an altogether different strategy of development is called for. Bhaduri advocates an employment strategy much along the lines advocated by Kurien and already enacted in the NREGS regulation, though, as already mentioned, the attempt has been feeble and half-hearted.

In sum, recognizing the false promises of trickle-down Economics, Bhaduri advocates a strategy of “employment first, with growth as outcome” and not “growth first, and full employment later.”

Needless to say the expenditures on health and education, long advocated by economists like Amartya Sen, are equally urgent if underprivileged India is to be lifted out of underdevelopment.
None of this is pie-in-the-sky daydreaming. On the contrary, to change the content and pattern of economic growth in the country is an imperative to sustain its level. When one considers, to take just one among many similar instances (the potential contribution made to effective aggregate demand by the poor being another), the shortage of skills being reported from all corners of Indian industry today, it becomes clear that in the future there will be no growth without development in the true sense of the word.

Development according to developers must be restrained, while the old idea of development must be awakened from its slumber in the minds of the policy-making elite. A failure to achieve this is likely to prove economically costly, quite apart from generating a political derailment of the growth process, with worse outcomes to follow in the shape of rising social tensions, political violence and crime.

Aseem Shrivastava is a trained economist and an independent writer. He can be reached at aseem62@yahoo.com.

A TRAGEDY OF ERRORS - An evolution gone wrong

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070620/asp/opinion/story_7940539.asp

A TRAGEDY OF ERRORS
- An evolution gone wrong
Dipankar Dasgupta
The author is former professor of economics, Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta


The state of West Bengal is rent apart now by a controversy that does not promise any easy resolution. A deep divide exists between the warring groups and bridging the gap will be as illusive an exercise as discovering the Darwinian missing link.

It is hardly surprising that the Darwin analogy suggests itself in this context. For Darwin was concerned with a theory of evolution. And whether the parties involved in the raging civil war appreciate this fact or not, industrial revival in West Bengal cannot be treated as the construction of a bare superstructure adorning a primarily agrarian society. We are concerned here with the inescapable fact that only a fraction of the eight-crore-strong population of this state can survive on the basis of agriculture. A solid development of industry is a sine qua non for protecting the state from transforming itself into an economic wasteland. Any such development, however, is a process of evolution, involving fundamental changes in ways of life.

In the past, we have discussed in these columns the reasons why agriculture received primacy in the policies followed by the Left when it assumed power. The economic objectives that underlay its agricultural policies, however, have been fulfilled to a large extent insofar as productivity is concerned. If the state has to improve its per capita state domestic product further, as well as retain a healthy growth rate and a meaningful employment scenario, then the scope of economic activities needs to be expanded.

It is not too difficult to appreciate the thrust of the argument posed so far. Indeed, even the so-called opposition camp keeps harping on the theme of West Bengal’s much-needed industrialization. But there are errors that both parties are committing.

Let us begin with the government’s own position regarding the matter. During the first twenty-five years or so of its existence, the Left Front government earned for itself the dubious distinction of being an enemy of industrial capital. Labour militancy, strikes, bandhs and what have you became the hallmark of governance in this state. Even mildly put, and despite the distortions and exaggerations in many of the stories that circulated about West Bengal in the rest of the country, there was an undeniable truth in the industrialists’ perception of West Bengal as an unfriendly destination.

Children in the state were introduced to Marxist principles right from their cradles, with the result that Das Kapital turned into a household expression and the majority of the populace of the state “graduated” into self-proclaimed expositors of Marxian economics concerning the alienation of producers from ownership of the means of production and the extraction of surplus value by evil capitalists.

In the meantime, agriculture thrived and the economy, whatever the Left Front’s detractors felt, managed to display a reasonable growth rate of per capita output. Over time though, the size of the population grew and the inevitable realization dawned that outside the sphere of agriculture, “party work” alone could not define a sustainable occupation for the Marxists. Consequently, industry was recalled. Even if the present chief minister is credited with initiating this drive, it is likely that the soul-searching process started well before he was anointed successor to the master.

A confidence-building exercise, or, bluntly put, a metamorphosis was therefore in order. The image of capital-hatred needed total transformation into one of capital-adoration and that too at reasonably short notice, for the growth drama was well in progress all across the country. Capital had to be wooed now and there being nothing fair or foul in love and war, we decided to bend over backwards with whispering humbleness and cater to the whims of the Tatas. One does not know therefore why the farmlands of Singur were the only acceptable venue for the Tata venture. The Tatas wanted it — so it was written and so it was done!

Compensations were doled out, needless to say, to the farmers who lost their land willingly or unwillingly, but the principles governing the calculation of land price remained a closely guarded secret. The same scenario was prepared for Nandigram. Only, the farmers there, either on their own or aided and abetted by the opposition, revolted and we are aware of the fiasco that ensued. Later on, of course, sense dawned and the Jindal package in Shalboni tried to address the concerns of the displaced farmers.

The gaping hole in the government’s approach to the industrialization issue lay in the fact that a person traditionally accustomed to tilling the land could not be lured to embrace an alternative means of livelihood merely with the aid of a lump sum compensation money. The all-important question that remained unanswered was how he would use his financial wealth. Clearly, the handful of factories that would be mushrooming in the state at the incipient stage of industrialization would not be able to provide employment for the entire landless work force. Some, for sure, would be absorbed after a training period. What, however, would the rest be doing?

It is precisely here that no homework was done by the government, preoccupied as it was with its love affair with capitalists. The problem obviously is that an industrialized society supports livelihoods that have little to do with a farmer’s accustomed occupations. To be a part of the newly emerging society, one has to set up shop, so to speak, and integrate oneself with the needs of a new world. One hears, of course, of ancillary industries, of agro-based industries and so on, but the details of such suggestions are not available. Short of Moses-style miracles, few human beings would be prepared to accept the vague prospect of a promised land unless he is assured of a foothold in the immediate future. And immediate means tomorrow, that is, the day following the one on which he hands over of his plot of land.

What is missing in this confusing scenario is an institution such as Mohammed Yunus’s Grameen Bank, which had agents visiting its beneficiaries on a daily basis to keep track of the way they were using their money as well as to impart entrepreneurial skills and information regarding opportunities. Jyoti Basu’s recent statements refer to an exercise being worked out by the industry minister aimed at rehabilitation of the displaced and one hopes that, even if belated, something in the nature of the Yunus model is being contemplated.

So much for the government’s errors. Going over to the opposition now, it is not difficult to grasp its motives. For all practical purposes, it had been wiped out at the general polls. Pirandello-style, it was literally reduced to a handful of characters in search of a cause. Luckily enough, the cause was handed over to it on a platter as it were by the Marxists, who forgot in the midst of their confabulations with the Tatas, Salems and others that it would take them far longer to build up an industrial base than it did to destroy it. Quite clearly, the opposition does not have a single piece of feasible or constructive proposal for economic development of the state. Its one-point agenda that land should not be snatched away from unwilling farmers, however people-friendly this may sound, is as erroneous as the government’s overnight industrialization dream. If industrialization succeeds in Singur, a possibility the opposition dreads, the farmers themselves would not wish to continue as farmers. Farmers holding on to scattered plots of agricultural land in an industrial hub will be reduced to Robinson Crusoes, desperately waiting for a serendipitous journey back to civilization. Given the track record of the leaders of the opposition, however, it seems unlikely that anyone amongst them would be in command of that rescue ship.

Urbanisation and industrial growth

http://thestatesman.org/page.arcview.php?date=2007-03-20&usrsess=1065188838847&clid=3&id=177671

KP Bhattacharjee


In 2000, the world leaders met at United Nations and agreed on the establishment of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). They committed themselves to a clear set of targets to sharpen the focus on priorities and chart the course of action. Effective achievement of many of the goals rests on cities and communities; it has been estimated by the UN Habitat that 50 per cent of the world’s population will be living in cities by 2020. The sustainability of cities is threatened by global urbanisation.

Free services

The UN has predicted that by 2020 the world’s population will be 8.4 billion and the urban population is likely to reach 4.2 billion. By 2020 the world’s slum population is likely to increase to 1.4 billion. By the year 2025, India will have a population of two billion, and the urban population will be around 500 million. About 60 per cent of the urban population will be living in Class I cities. The migration from rural-urban areas and intra-urban areas also needs to be considered. According to Williamson, a World Bank consultant, India’s cities will grow at the rate of about 3.2 per cent a year.
In West Bengal, with a population of over 80 million, Kolkata is the major city. Its metropolitan area has a population of over 10 million and there is a floating population of one million who come to the city daily to earn their living and use its services but do not pay any tax to the local municipality.
In view of the concentration of population in urban centres, particularly in primate cities, there is urgent need for creating employment opportunities in agriculture, industry, commerce and trade. There is a need to practise intensive cultivation to achieve high yield per acre and at the same time preserving and extending those agricultural fields where two and three crops can be grown annually. Furthermore, agriculture-based industries need to be encouraged in rural areas and on fallow land; such measures will discourage rural to urban migration.
While industrialisation is essential for rapid economic development, it also creates pollution and encroaches on agricultural land. Hence it is essential for the government to earmark in advance land for industries to ensure that such industries do not encroach upon high-yielding agricultural land, housing colonies and water bodies. This also ensures that pollution and climate change is minimised so that sustainable development can be maintained.
This calls for preparing a land-use plan. Basically, land is classified primarily into the following categories: agriculture, residential, open and green, commercial and industrial for making the best use of land for the benefit of the communities and ensuring sustainable development, and this is primarily the task of the state and the local government. In India, the earliest planned use of land can be traced back to 1894 when the British introduced the Central Land Acquisition Act primarily for housing its military and civilian population in settlements adjoining a few existing urban centres and for establishing new towns.
Fertile agricultural land is an asset for the state and the world, hence such land must never be used for industry. Preferably, fallow and wast land are to be used for industry and the state must provide minimum infrastructure there. The rest to be developed by industrialists who can always add the additional costs for infrastructure development to their products. It was wrong on the part of the state government to allow Tatas to choose the land to their liking. Its decision to select Singur is based on economics; it has the basic infrastructure and services; Kolkata, its port and airport are within a short distance and this will reduce their investment and as well as their recurring expenses since the company proposes to sell the car at Rs 1 lakh.
There are many important issues closely linked to the sale and transfer of land, and these are compensation for the evicted, their rehabilitation and total transparency in all transactions. As reported, the Tatas are looking for technical people (among the evictees) and so far they have identified only 24 persons and another 40 to 50 (educated in general stream) who can be trained to work in the general service category. It indicates that only a small fraction of those evicted will be rehabilitated. The rest of them will have to struggle.

Chinese riots

Transparency in all dealings is very important. It is because of the West Bengal government’s refusal to disclose the details of the terms and conditions that has angered the people in general, including those supporting the government. Land acquisition and transfer of land to developers of industry and building complexes involves corrupt practices not only in West Bengal, but also in communist China. “This time, riot by Chinese farmers breaks ground” screamed the headline in Wall Street Journal (Asia edition) on 29 June 2006. The report by Edward Cody describes the corrupt practices of Chinese officials who have admitted that officials paid a low price for land forcibly acquired from the farmers, and then to be sold at a much higher price. A farmers’ riot broke out in Sanzhou on 14 June. Local officials were held hostage by the peasantry.
There is a parallel between these two case studies ~ Sanzhou in China and Singur. It is worthwhile to note how the two states have responded to the crisis. While the West Bengal government has treated the unrest of farmers with contempt, and the protest by the opposition parties with sarcasm, the government in China has treated the farmers with sympathy and has provided additional funds for their rehabilitation. Both China and Bengal practise Communism. But the difference in approach is palpably stark.