The Hindu

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2007/11/12/stories/2007111259681200.htm

Opinion - Editorials

The challenge of Nandigram

Three days after the Left Front in West Bengal appealed for peace and for the “safe and secure return” to villages in the Nandigram area of all people forced to live outside, and in the aftermath of the beginning of peace talks at the local level, violence has erupted again in this area of rural West Bengal. The Maoists have resumed their armed campaign of terror; working people have been injured and killed in political violence; and, ever-willing to give chaos a chance, Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee has been reported as saying that her party would “paralyse West Bengal” indefinitely. For 11 months, the campaign spearheaded by the Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC, or “Committee to Prevent Eviction from Land”) has brought administration and development work to a halt, and has sought to cut the area off from government and state power. According to one estimate, 15,000 children could not be given pulse polio doses; Rs.2 crore worth of expenditure on health infrastructure has had to be abandoned; health facilities have been unable to function; and Rs.2 crore worth of investment on electrification could not be made. People of the region, particularly peasant families owing allegiance to the Left Front, were systematically evicted from their homes and villages, with the number of refugees swelling to 3,500.

In February 2007, the government announced that the chemical hub would not be established in Nandigram. Even that announcement brought no respite. On the contrary, the forced withdrawal of the police from certain areas provided a new opportunity for the Maoists to set up an armed presence in the region, and for the opportunist alliance represented by the BUPC to regroup and continue their campaign of violence and externment, and of preventing the administration from functioning. No government worth the name can stand aside when people are indefinitely denied the right to occupy their homes and pursue their livelihoods in peace, and, when finally the internal refugees seek to return to their homes, their paths are blocked by arms and landmines. The Central government, which depends on the Left for survival, has eventually responded to the request by the Government of West Bengal by releasing a battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force for deployment in the Nandigram region. Intelligent and speedy deployment of these paramilitary forces can contribute to the resumption of peace directly by means of their armed presence and, more importantly, as a confidence-building measure among the people. This newspaper has editorialised on the part played by political slowness in responding to a tricky situation as well as administrative mishandling of a volatile situation in the tragedy of Nandigram in March 2007. But once the State government made it absolutely clear that the chemical hub would not be established in Nandigram, what raison d’etre could exist for the disruptive activities of the BUPC and the continuing violence of the opposition in West Bengal? What is now manifest is that the peace process in Nandigram has its determined enemies.

The role of Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi has, for a second time, come under the spotlight. In March 2007, he clearly stepped out of line in publicly airing his philosophical and tactical differences with the State government over Nandigram. He does not seem to have learnt any lessons from that experience and, in fact, his latest speaking out of line has had the effect of adding fuel to the flames. Let us concede that Nandigram represented a situation where the moral urge not to remain silent came into conflict with the restraints imposed by the constitutional office. Yet, of the restraints imposed by the office, there would seem to be little doubt, and a public statement critical of the government’s handling of the issue could not have been made without transgressing them. The Hindu has consistently regarded this as a major question of principle in the constitutional realm. The classic 1867 exposition of the role of the British monarch by Walter Bagehot applies equally to the office of the President and the Governor: “To state the matter shortly, the Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights — the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others. He would find that his having no others would enable him to use these with singular effect.” The right to advise and the right to warn are to be exercised in private and in confidence, and not through public statements. This restraint required of the head of state is not a mere constitutional formality but is based on sound democratic principles. In the first place, the head of state must not, through statements critical of its functioning, place himself or herself in conflict with the representative government, which has a greater democratic legitimacy. Secondly, the head of state should appear non-partisan and remain above the fray when controversial and divisive questions are being debated in the political sphere, and avoid any public statements that could give comfort to one side or the other. The Governor’s public statements on Nandigram both challenged the wisdom of the government’s approach and came down on the side of the critics of its action. Further, Mr. Gandhi laid himself open to the charge of remaining silent when the supporters of the Left Front were at the receiving end. His conduct through this crisis has been constitutionally indefensible. Yet the Left Front government must not get distracted by this. Its top priorities must be to re-establish peace, ensure human security, and resume development work in Nandigram. The CPI(M) has a special responsibility in this regard — among other things, to be manifestly fair in its dealings on the ground, and to restrain its cadre from any campaign of reprisal.

Received through a forward by Prof. Om Damani

We are writing this open letter to the editorial board of "The Hindu" to express our dismay at your coverage of recent events at Nandigram.

Most of us are regular readers of your paper. We have appreciated your balanced coverage of topics such as the Narmada Dam, Gujarat or the Agrarian Crisis. At least in our eyes, your principled reportage of these issues (and numerous others) has lent your newspaper an unusual degree of credibility. We believe that your paper's articles carry enormous weight in moulding public opinion and policy.

It is therefore a cause of collective concern when this credibility gets damaged. We are particularly disturbed by the editorial titled "The Challenge of Nandigram" (12th Nov. 2007) which displayed a marked slant. Even granting merit to the editorial's contention that the state government had to take steps to restore governance in the area, it seems beyond dispute that the methods adopted to do so were inherently incompatible with the rule of law in a democracy. We cannot comprehend how a full length editorial could completely fail to take note of the unchecked violence by the CPM cadres, the curbs that were placed on independent reporting, the attacks on reputed activists like Medha Patkar, all of which seem to have been facilitated – or at least condoned - by the state. None of these well documented events have any place in a society governed by law, and should have occasioned strong comment. We failed to see any critical editorial acknowledgement of these events, even after the chief minister had practically admitted having operated outside the law through remarks such as being "paid back in their own coin". This stands in marked contrast to the way the governor has been singled out for supposedly impolitic remarks. This selective silence opens the Hindu to the charge of being partisan in its outlook.

We also notice that, unlike many other issues of similar gravity, there has been a marked absence of centrepage articles on this topic. One would have expected The Hindu to flesh out the differing points of view on this issue as well as the dimensions of the human tragedy. By choosing not to do so, The Hindu abdicates its responsibility to its readers for fair and balanced reporting.

We would hate to see The Hindu be identified as a newspaper purveying party propaganda. It is important that the integrity of the newspaper be above all question. An erosion of The Hindu's credibility would be an immeasurable loss for journalism and for society.

Your Sincerely,

Academics from Harish-Chandra Research Institute Allahabad, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay/Kanpur/Madras, Institute of Mathematical Sciences Chennai, Jawaharlal Nehru University Delhi, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Mumbai. (A complete list of signatories is given below.)

CC:
1. N. Ram, Editor-in-chief
2. N. Ravi, Editor
3. K. Narayanan, Readers' Editor
4. N Murali, Managing Director
5. Board of Directors

List of Signatories:
1. Prof. M Suresh Babu, IITM
2. Prof. Rahul Basu, IMSc
3. Prof. Enakshi Bhattacharya, IITM
4. Prof. Milind Brahme, IITM
5. Prof. Dhiman Chatterjee, IITM
6. Prof. Supratik Chakraborty, IITB
7. Prof. Om Damani, IITB
8. Prof. Rukmini Dey, HRI
9. Prof. Avinash Dhar, TIFR
10. Prof. Raj Gandhi, HRI
11. Prof. Debashis Ghoshal, JNU
12. Prof. Rajesh Gopakumar, HRI
13. Prof. Purushottam Kulkarni, IITB
14. Prof. P B Sunil Kumar, IITM
15. Prof. Arul Lakshminarayan, IITM
16. Prof. Shiraz Minwalla, TIFR
17. Prof. Sunil Mukhi, TIFR
18. Prof. Ram Puniyani, retired, IITB
19. Prof. Sudhir Chella Rajan, IITM
20. Prof. Mahendra Verma, IITK
21. Prof. Spenta Wadia, TIFR

Contacts:
1. Prof. Om Damani, ompdamani@gmail.com, 9323003401
2. Prof. Rajesh Gopakumar, gopakumr@gmail.com , 532-2567732
3. Prof. Shiraz Minwalla, shiraz.minwalla@gmail.com

A response from Meher Engineer (received through an email)

The fwded Open Letter is useful as a reminder of how pallid objections to atrocities committed elsewhere can be. It is much too late to express "dismay" at the Hindu's coverage of Nandigram. Surely the author's have read the series of articles on West Bengal, all of them uniformly laudatory towards the CPI (M)'s performance in the state and all of them written by Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay, who, if he gets a fact or two from people not high up in the Party hierarchy in Kolkata, seems determined to never reveal that he does, in the paper's sibling magazine, Frontline. Were they not more than ample proof that deep ties of sympathy bind whoever it is that calls the shots in The Hindu to the CPI (M) .

I turn to the Nov 12th Editorial, "The Challenge of Nandigram". It has "disturbed" the signatories to the Open Letter. I feel no such thing. Reading it, reminded me of an earlier Editorial, "An Area of Darkness", which appeared in The Telegraph - a Kolkata newspaper that few of the signatories to the Open Letter probably read - on June 18th. That editorial began by saying " There is something rotten in the area called Nandigram, and it has nothing to do with the West Bengal government's project to build a chemical hub there after acquiring agricultural land in the villages around Nandigram", and ended with "There has been enough soft-pedalling.There cannot be a little republic of Nandigram within the republic of India".

My response to The Telegraph editorial was, "Tough luck! There is a little republic in Nandigram. Check it out for yourself. " I see no reason to think differently about The Hindu editorial, references to Bagehot and pleas for an above the fray Governor who may consult, advise and warn but who is forbidden from doing so so that all can hear, notwithstanding. The reference to "determined enemies of the peace process in Nandigram" merits quoting Voltaire's reply to a particularly inane letter, "Your letter is before me. Soon it will be behind me."

The editorialist seems to have forgotten the lessons that The Hindu learned when its Chennai office was raided, in November 2003, by the Tamil Nadu Police: that sovereignity minus real freedoms and real rights, for real people and not for the abstraction called "the people" that must necessarily appear in any Constitution, however brilliant in conception, erudite in expression and firm in its grasp of history it may be, is useless, and that the right to rebel against acts of despotism is part of the most fundamental of all human Rights, the Right to a dignified life.

The first lesson is obvious - even The Telegraph's editorialist will probably agree that it is! The second can be found in many places, in the writings of Spinoza for example, or in the old 17th century English pamphlets that said, "We want to be governed by countrymen like ourselves, that know our wants, and not by knights and gentlemen, that make us laws that are chosen for fear and do but oppress us, and do not know the people's sores", which appears in Needham's "The Grand Titration" and, more recently, in Chomsky's "Rogue States: The Role of Force in World Affairs."

What held for English countrymen in their time, holds for the people of Nandigram today. It is true that they have little relish for turf wars between the Trinamool Congress and the CPI (M). But the wish that they be spared such wars vanishes in importance when compared to the need that they openly express, for Indian citizens, from outside Nandigram, unattached to any political party, to stand by them in their new distress, and to keep standing there for as long as it takes to eliminate the causes of that distress.

They have absolutely no time at all for editors in distant, city newspapers who think that they deserved to be thrashed, whether the thought comes from a contempt for "the rabble", which holds, I think, for The Telegraph editorial, or from someone who lavishes much careful attention on his reading of Bagehot but forgets to do so, equally, for the relations between the people of Nandigram and the Left Front Government.

The challenge - I use the word even though it is quite inappropriate - in Nandigram can only be met by punishing the Left Front Government, hard, for its harsh and unrelenting cruelty towards a largely disarmed and defenceless but still alert and observant section of the people who they were elected to govern, for "daring" to challenge the kind of "development" that their masters had in mind for them, and continue to have in mind for the rest of West Bengal's people.

Meher Engineer.

Articles and debates

A debate. The headings are numbered and set in bold font.


1. Real estate, unreal methods
Hindustan Times
By Abhirup Sarkar February 7, 2007

Animosities over acquisition of agricultural land for non-agricultural uses have reached dizzying heights in West Bengal, Orissa and other parts of the country. In January 2005, several people were killed in police firing in Kalinga Nagar, Orissa. The feud had originated from an attempt of land acquisition for a mammoth steel plant proposed to be built by the South Korean steel major Posco.

More recently, history has repeated itself in Singur and Nandigram, both in West Bengal. In Singur, the strife is over land acquisition by the state government on behalf of the Tatas for constructing an automobile factory. Most recently, in Nandigram, a mere rumour of land acquirement for the purpose of building an SEZ by the Indonesian Salim group has led to bloody fights between rival political bands and the death of seven people.

The basic issue is one of industrial and infrastructural development at the cost of displacing sections of the agricultural population. The issue, which is being hotly debated both inside and outside the state and central governments, has deep relevance for the future course of progress of the country. Apart from crude economic calculations, there are problems with finer political, social and moral nuances that need to be carefully analysed.

As far as we can see, two fundamental questions are involved in the current debate. First, how far is it necessary, at this stage of development, to shift resources from agriculture to industry? In particular, how much should we worry about an unchecked and desperate sacrifice of agricultural lands imposing threats to future food security? Second, how far should the governments indulge themselves in the act of acquiring land, by force if necessary, from farmers and hand them over to profit-maximising investors? How far can we justify this infringement on private property rights?

The first question has a straightforward answer. For the employment-starved still predominantly traditional Indian economy, where an overwhelming majority of the labour force is struggling to earn a living in the agricultural sector, development entails growth of industry and services. Indeed, for the country as a whole, there is hardly any alternative but to shift labour from the low productivity primary sector to high productivity secondary and tertiary sectors. The globalisation endeavour has given a jumpstart to the industrialisation process. But this is yet to make a dent into the backwardness of a large section of the population. To drag this unfortunate lot into the mainstream development process, the country needs to embark upon an industrialisation drive on a much larger scale.

But industrialisation cannot be pulled out of thin air. To build factories, townships, roads, bridges, seaports and airports — all integral parts of industrialisation — one needs land. In a country like India, where the land-man ratio is pretty adverse and where most of the available land is already being used to grow food for the masses, any attempt to acquire land to build up industry and infrastructure must impinge on agricultural land. But that should hardly put a threat to our food security, for the fact of the matter is that the land requirement for industrialisation is minuscule in relation to the total agricultural land available in the country.

For example, the West Bengal government is contemplating acquiring around 1.25 lakh acres of land for its entire industrialisation drive (the Tatas requiring not even a thousand acres for their automobile project) which constitutes less than 1 per cent of the total arable land in the state. The situation should be similar in other states as well. Thus, acquisition of agricultural land cannot possibly impose any threat to our food security.

The problem, however, is microeconomic. It pertains to those who are losing their land and their livelihood. It pertains to the tillers of the soil and to others who depend for their daily bread on the appropriated land, to owner-cultivators, sharecroppers, landless agricultural labourers and even small local traders whose economic existence had so far been rooted in the tiny plots of land that are proposed to be handed over to the industrial investors.

In Orissa, West Bengal and some other states the government and political organisations are intervening in a big way to make sure that unwilling sellers do not impede quick land transactions. This is certainly important for attracting actual investors to the state and for sending the right signals to distantly potential ones. But the trouble is that this act of intervention, this feat of land acquisition by special power — by force if you will — is blatantly violating property rights. We have seen this violation in Narmada, and now we see it in Kalinga Nagar, Singur and other places. This brings us to the second question: how far should the government involve itself in acquiring land, especially for private investors whose interests are strictly confined to narrow profit motives?

Ronald Coase of the University of Chicago had a Nobel winning theorem which could be of relevance in the present context. According to the Coase theorem, initial distribution of property rights does not matter provided property owners can freely transact with one another. Indeed, through free market transactions they would reach the social optimum where the person who has the greatest use for a property would pay a suitable price and acquire it.

In the present context, the Coase theorem would imply that if the initially unwilling farmer were offered a high enough price, it is most likely that he would sell his land voluntarily. And if the government had allowed the investors to freely acquire their land by directly bargaining with the owners of the soil, not only would there be a smooth transfer of land but also the market would have ensured an efficient outcome.

Coase theorem, however, is unlikely to be relevant for land acquisition in India for a couple of reasons. First, small sellers of land are not in a position to bargain successfully with big multinationals and the government has to intervene to protect the interest of the small sellers. Second, if investors are asked to acquire land directly from the market, it might lead to speculation, holding up of land in the expectation of higher prices and unnecessary delay. The delay might even compel the potential investor to pack up and go elsewhere to set up his factory which, in turn, justifies government intervention in the process of land acquisition.

The only thing that needs to be ensured, however, is adequate compensation. Compensations are important not only because the government, which is acquiring land in the name of public interest, has a moral responsibility to compensate the loser, but also because the loser is the least likely candidate to get any employment in the factory to be set up by the investor. Moreover, the entire transaction process has to be made transparent. For, if land is acquired in public interest, the public has a right to know exactly what is going on.

Abhirup Sarkar is Professor of Economics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata



2. Sukla Sen < suklasenpatyahoo.co.uk> wrote: There is as yet no concept of compensating loss of livelihood and far less selfhood linked to work. If at all, only loss of property rights are compensated.

3.
Sir,
Abhirup Sarkar (Feb. 8) claims that "the finer political, social and moral nuances" of the drive to acquire land for new industries have not been "carefully analyzed." He then buttresses it with some gems of wisdom that I now summarize: that we should be g;sd because the quantum of arable land that needs to be acquired for setting up new industries in West Bengal is too small to threaten the future food security of the state's people, but sad because many of the same people will lose their livelihoods; glad because the process will be swift now that many political players are involved in the process, but sad because private property holders will be dispossessed; glad because a theorem of economics makes such acquisitions "socially optimal", but sad because the theorem does not apply to West Bengal; glad because adequate compensation to first-to-be-fired, never-to -be-hired land losers is all that needs to be ensured, but sad because the process of doing so remains abysmally dark, whereas all things done in the public interest should be transparent. It is thus okay for a State to commit mayhem in the public interest as long as it does so transparently (my addition).

Sincerely,
Meher Engineer

4.
Abstract
Globalization Challenges and the Need for Institutional Reforms: India's Ongoing Land Battles

Dr. Abhijit Guha
Dept. of Anthropology
Vidyasagar University
Medinipur: 721102
West Bengal,
India
E-mail: abhijitguhavuatrediffmail.com

No development policy in India could avoid the issues of reforming land legislation and of protecting those losing their lands to industrial and urban development. The common theme that runs through long periods of India's history is the encounter between the state and the people, who negotiated, bargained and often fought each other for control over this vital natural resource.
The State's recent reform policy for giving free field to the demands of globalization, by liberalizing the economy and confiscating lands through eminent domain on behalf of private enterprise ventures, facilitates the entry of private foreign capital investments. But it also creates, however, great social contradictions.
While the policy of economic liberalization assumes the creation of employment, the absence of a national legislation on displacement from land and on the state's obligations vis-à-vis peoples' resettlement paves the way toward the immediate dispossession and disempowerment of great numbers of people. Thus, the Indian State's democratic policies and institutions are receiving severe blows.
In this paper, we will describe this process with examples of development-caused displacements and impoverishment. We would also report the findings of the author's empirical and archival research in a district of West Bengal, India, which shows how the land management policy of the West Bengal government is being transformed, but at the same time is resisted by the people. The paper reviews atrocities committed in the process of imposing forced displacement without adequate mitigation, and describes the powerfully growing protest movements in West Bengal, and elsewhere, against such impoverishment. Finally, the paper searches ways for institutional reforms able to create a system of land management fitting for a democratic state.

5.
Abhijit Guha <abhijitguhavuatrediffmail.com> wrote: Date: 11 Feb 2007 11:16:09 -0000From: "Abhijit Guha" < abhijitguhavuatrediffmail.com>To: "meher engineer" <mengineer2003atyahoo.com>Subject: Re: Re: Re: Singur, Nandigram, Kashipur, Kalinga Nagar: Dispossession as 'Development'

Dear Prof.Engineer,
Please find the news item attached.It is interesting how the govt.is moving to combat critiques on land acquisition.The Trinamul led opposition is yet to raise the point that land acquisition ultimately affects land reform and also Panchayati Raj.This opposition, I believe will never raise this crucial point.No opposition in the W.B. Assembly or outside ever raised this point probably because every political party knows that if it shates power at any level of government it will support land acquisition for so called public purpose!!!That is why there had been no move towards changing the colonial law by any political party in India.No one is an exception.This is one of my findings which I depicted in my Ph.D thesis. It is only the NGOs who have demanded it.This is the irony of movements against development caused displacement in India.

Regards,
Abhijit

Abhijit Guha on 'Singur on the Kharagpur track' and Meher Engineer's response

http://thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?date=2006-12-27&usrsess=1&clid=4&id=168879
Singur on the Kharagpur track
by Abhijit Guha
[THE STATESMAN; 27 December 2006]

We learn from the print media that after Singur, huge amounts of agricultural land will be acquired in the Kharagpur area of Midnapore (West). But if we take a longer view of events revolving around land acquisition for private industries, we will find that worse things had happened in Kharagpur during the early 1990s, a few years before the declaration of the New Industrial Policy (NEP) by the Left Front government in 1994. Kolkata-based scientists and intellectuals who are now protesting against the acquisition of fertile agricultural land for Tata Motors at Singur, did not pay any heed to the dispossession of thousands of small and marginal farmers and bargadars (including tribals) for the pig-iron companies of the Tatas and Birlas at Kharagpur. The Opposition parties, too, were silent. No Opposition leader was found to storm the Assembly on the acquisition of farmland for private companies at Kharagpur. The report on the adverse consequences of land acquisition was published in the media, particularly The Statesman, but the intellectuals remained silent.The reasons behind the silence of Kolkata-based intellectuals and the Opposition parties over the land acquisition for the Tatas and Birlas by the Left Front government at Kharagpur in the early 1990s are more than one. First, anti-Left Front political parties (the SUCI and CPI-ML) and human rights groups (APDR and Nagarik Mancha) were not much interested in the land acquisition issue during that period when the Left Front-driven industrialisation was at its nascent stage, with promises of huge industrial investments by private companies in the state.Second, though the farmlands acquired in Kharagpur provided food security to vegetable growers of Gokulpur (it is also the name of a railway station between Kharagpur and Midnapore) and the adjoining villages, they were monocrop (jal soem in the departmental classification) in nature. We still find among those who are opposed to the acquisition of multicrop farmlands a notion which runs like this: “Well, monocrop land may be acquired since we need to have industrialisation in the state, but a multicrop land should never be allowed to be acquired for non-agricultural use.”There is hardly anyone in the anti-Left Front lobby who is demanding the upgradation of monocrop land into multicrop ones, which is the government policy. We often hear from the advocates of this anti-acquisition lobby: “Why isn’t the government building industries in Purulia, Bankura and Midnapore (West)?” As if people in these districts do not depend on agriculture but on something else! So, if industries come up in these backward districts, the poor will benefit. Third, despite the spontaneous but weak protests and resistance by farmers of Kharagpur during the mid-1990s, no Opposition party lent any solid support (as they have done in Singur) to them. The media did report the adverse effects of farmland acquisition and the protests of peasants. But these did not attract the attention of Kolkata-based intellectuals and human rights groups.They were at that time busy with other issues. After all, Kharagpur is not equipped with such a great number of anti-Left Front intellectuals of all shades and colours such as Kolkata. The reason the land acquisition scenario in Kharagpur is far worse than that of Singur is based on government records and field research over six years for my PhD thesis at Vidyasagar University. Let us state some of the dismal facts. Kharagpur and SingurAccording to information revealed through the print media, a total of 997 acres of agricultural land have been acquired for the Tatas’ small car factory at Singur and it took eight months for the West Bengal government to do it by bureaucratic machinery.The compensation rate, according to government sources, turned out to be a little more than Rs 7 lakh per acre (The Statesman, 14 December). Let us compare Singur with Kharagpur. In 1992, a pig-iron manufacturing plant named Tata Metaliks was set up by the Tatas on the monocrop land of six mouzas under Kharagpur I block of the erstwhile Midnapore district, though non-arable land was available in the vicinity, having communication and other facilities. A total of 217.23 acres was acquired by the state government and the acquisition was complete within a year through the application of the more coercive West Bengal Land (Requisition and Acquisition) Act, 1948 which became defunct after 31 March, 1993. The compensation paid by the district land acquisition department was Rs 20,686 an acre for a landowner, while for a recorded bargadar, it was Rs 11,211.75 an acre. On 1 June, 1992 in the West Bengal Assembly, Mr Manas Bhunia of the Congress wanted to know about the land acquisition for the establishment of the pig-iron industry by the Tatas at Kharagpur. The land and land reforms minister in his reply informed about the amount of land given to the company and the rates of compensation. No question was asked about the rehabilitation of the displaced peasants by any member of the Assembly (West Bengal Assembly Proceedings Vol 99; 1992). An unpublished report of the Midnapore land acquisition department dated 27-3-92 revealed that the lack of irrigation facilities and the monocrop nature of the acquired land led to the calculation of its market price at such a low rate. The department, too, did not explore the possibilities of rehabilitation of the affected families in terms of providing permanent jobs and/or land as compensation. The administration seemed to be concerned only with monetary compensation at the market price prevalent in the area.Three years later, people of the same area were served with notices by the district administration for the acquisition of their farmland in 10 mouzas covering about 525 acres for another pig-iron plant named Century Textiles and Industrial Limited (CTIL) owned by the Birlas. The local people, being totally disillusioned and frustrated with the government’s attitude towards rehabilitation and compensation in the Tata Metaliks case, began to protest against this decision of acquisition. This time, the land acquisition department prepared rates of compensation, which ranged between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1,00,000 an acre and Rs 7,000 an acre for the bargadars. The farmers objected to these rates and mass deputations to the district authorities began, and on 10 January, 1996, the peasants prevented soil testing by the company and blocked the National Highway 6 for eight hours. The farmers’ agitation continued for about five months and they also boycotted the parliamentary election in May, 1996. All these events were reported in The Statesman and some Bengali dailies. No political party came to organise this spontaneous movement of peasants, no social or human rights activist came forward to support landlosers of a rural area in West Bengal, just 120 km from Kolkata and well connected by trains. One former Naxalite peasant leader, with the help of a few local Intuc boys, led a brief but significant movement against land acquisition. The district unit of the APDR published a leaflet, held a meeting in the locality and gave a deputation to the district magistrate and that was all.The land acquisition episode for CTIL, however, took a horrible turn within a few years. After taking possession of 358.25 acres by April 1997 and fencing the land, the company decided not to deposit any money for payment of compensation. The company’s managing director, Mr BK Birla, in an interview with the correspondent of The Statesman, said they would not proceed with the project since “the national market of pig-iron has become very competitive because of the entry of China and Australia in the field”.The then state land and land reforms minister, Mr Surya Kanta Mishra, on the other hand told The Statesman: “We are not finding any takers for the land” (The Statesman, 18 November, 1999).This huge chunk of fertile agricultural land, which provided subsistence to nearly 3,000 families, remained unutilised till 2003 after which some portion of it was given to a private company but the larger area still remains unutilised.The Kharagpur scenario of land acquisition for industries is an important lesson both for the Left Front government and its critics. The government should now seriously ponder over what would happen to the 997 acres of agricultural land if the Tatas suddenly backed out from Singur due to the “disturbances” created by Trinamul Congress and other social activists? Will the land be returned to the farmers? That had not happened in Kharagpur.According to the survey conducted by the Kharagpur I Block Development Office, 73 per cent of families of the gram panchayats from which land was acquired for Tata Metaliks and Century Textiles and Industries Limited were living below the poverty line in 1997, that is, one to five years after the acquisition. Will the same story be repeated in Singur?Critics of the Left Front government, particularly social activists and human rights groups, should ask themselves what would be their activity if they lose or win in the Singur battle?Will they look for another issue or should they continue a sustained struggle in changing the Draconian Land Acquisition Act, whether it is employed to acquire multicrop lands near Kolkata or monocrop lands in far off districts inhabited by poorer people?

(The author is Reader, Department of Anthropology, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore)


Meher Engineer on Guha on Singur
Something relevant to the concerns raised in Abhijit Guha’s article happened in Kolkata recently, at the Students Hall meeting on the questions that the Singur Car project raises. The meeting was called by Nagarik Manch, so the Hall was full. Recall that those present listened, silently, to the many speakers, both scheduled and unscheduled. Recall, further, that they even remained silent when one of the speakers berated them - liberally - for allowing a massive, urban, housing project to be built, before their eyes, on fertile land, by a party whose election promises have always included a reference to Land Reforms, and a reference to the party’s “best in India” record on that subject. The speaker was referring to the New Town project at Rajarhat.The people of Kolkata, particularly the intellectuals in it, did not protest then, when they saw fertile land being taken away from those whose livelihoods depended on it. They failed to say “You can’t do that.” What explains that massive indifference to the displacement of so many people?The answer surely lies in the fact that the number of people, based in Kolkata, who have taken any interest at all (since the mid-80’s?) to events occuring in the state’s rural areas can be counted on the fingers of a very small number of hands. Rural West Bengalis were left to the ever changing currents of state policy. That, in a state being run by an avowedly Leninist party, means disaster. Thus we, in Kolkata, now reap what we had then sowed. The indifference and the hostility that emanate from the party in power to its dictates is not a cause for surprise. I know of only one antidote to that kind of social poison: an alert citizenry, that is not content to sleep between elections, but which which keeps constant watch over its representatives to see that the latter perform as per the promises that they made.That was the whole idea of the JP led movement of the late seventies. It was also the idea behind the Gujarat andolan that followed JP’s movement, which tried to introduce the right to recall into Indian democracy. Neither movement succeeded. Both threw up a new generation of leaders, who succumbed, some soon some later, to the old style of Indian leadership.

Brinda Karat on Singur and repartees

http://www.hindu.com/2006/12/13/stories/2006121303421100.htm
Singur: just the facts, please
Brinda Karat
[THE HINDU; 13 December 2006]

THE SMEAR campaign against the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Left Front Government on the Singur issue has been marked by a remarkable absence of facts. Invective has replaced reason. The political acumen of the critics was on display when a comparison was made between the policies of the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Government, which only recently received a two-thirds majority from the people of Bengal, and the United States occupation of Iraq. So many wild allegations and fabrications have been hurled at the CPI(M) and the Left that it becomes necessary to put the record straight. In respect of consultation, consent, compensation, and concern for employment generation, Singur stands in favourable contrast to what is being done in other States.
Untruth No 1: The common theme for the charge of double standards is that while the CPI(M) opposes `forcible' acquisition of land elsewhere, in Singur its Government has done just that. According to them, "50-60 per cent of land is not sold and [the] majority of landholders in thousands are against the compulsory land acquisition and transfer of land and livelihood to the corporate."
Fact: Of the 997 acres required, the Government has received consent letters from landowners for 952 acres. Three fourths of the 12,000 persons involved, including sharecroppers, have collected the share of the total compensation amount of Rs.131.49 crore and others are waiting to do so. The large numbers involved point to the fragmentation of the plots compared with other States where there are no land ceilings and where the same amount of land would have less than one third of the number of persons. This process has been going on under the public gaze for the last three months in a claims office set up in the area, with not a single complaint that it has been anything but democratic and transparent. Indeed this is the one government that has had numerous meetings with the affected people and called all party meetings several times to discuss the details of the project, the nature of land being taken over, and the compensation package.
Untruth No. 2: "There is no compensation policy for the landless agricultural workers, unrecorded sharecroppers and rural households who are indirectly dependent for their lives and livelihood on land and agricultural activities."
Fact: It is well recognised that West Bengal under the Left has ensured registration of the majority of sharecroppers through a bitter struggle. In Singur, all the 275 sharecroppers will get 25 per cent of what landowners will get; and 170 more sharecroppers who are not registered have applied for compensation, which is under consideration.
West Bengal agriculture is characterised by a relatively high share of family labour on self-owned farms. That is why the vast majority of workers in the area earn their income through non-agricultural work. Government records for the five areas where land is being taken put the number of workers involved in non-agricultural work at around 7,700, including 1,000 women. Another 700 are involved in some type of household industry. Not surprisingly, the number of agricultural workers, around 1,230, is much less; and most of them have to do other work to ensure a minimum income. The Government has ensured alternative work for them. Already in that area, over 7,500 person-days of employment have been generated in the last few weeks. Employment for local workers will also be created in canal renovation, road widening, fence and building construction, and other activity. The Left Front Government is the only one in the country that has initiated different types of training programmes for landless workers and land losers, 1,800 of whom have already registered in different programmes. The effort is to ensure that alternative work and livelihood is ensured.
Untruth No. 3: Singur land is prime agricultural land. While the CPI(M) opposes the acquisition of prime agricultural land in other States, in West Bengal it is doing the same thing.
Fact: According to Government records, approximately 90 per cent of the land is single crop. 175.5 acres of fertile land in the command area of the deep tube wells have been excluded and less fertile land included. Land has been changing hands faster in Singur than in any other part of West Bengal. Over the last year or so, there have been 572 private land transactions of approximately 300 acres of land, at one-third the rate given as compensation in the Singur project. This is the opposite of what is happening in other States, where land is being acquired from the peasantry at less than the market price. According to Census data, the share of fallow land, wasteland, pastures and so on is only 1 per cent in West Bengal compared with the national average of 17.6 per cent. Clearly, for taking forward agricultural growth, expanding employment opportunities in agriculture, and ensuring industrialisation, a proper land use policy is essential. The State Government is preparing precisely this.
Untruth No. 4: "There was unheard of and unprecedented police brutality on December 1 — women are being sexually abused, their clothes torn off and children drowned in the local water bodies. Police had fired, several people are injured. [The] CPI(M) cadre are wearing police uniforms and terrorising the people."
Fact: This constitutes a cluster of fabrications so outrageous and so far removed from the truth that nobody takes them seriously. The report of the NGO `fact-finding' team cannot name a single child thrown in a water body nor one woman who was sexually abused. If there was brutal beating and repression, surely there would have been scores of people with fractured limbs and broken heads who would have no doubt been paraded before the media as proof. If there were police excesses the Government must take action. But as the women of Singur told me, in all these months when the process of giving consent was on, there was not a single policeman in their village. On the contrary, they said, 20 houses of those who had given land to the Government were damaged. Members of the Krishi Jami Raksha Samity (KJRS), an alliance of 19 parties ranging from the Right to the ultra-Left led by the local TMC MLA, tried to prevent the fencing work. Bombs were thrown at the police, which chased the crowd into the village, lathi-charged, and tear-gassed them.
When 12,000 directly affected people have given their consent and collected their compensation, it is clear that those who are involved in the violent protests, which are politically motivated, have little to do with the interests of those affected. The land has to be fenced off and the Government will be shirking its responsibility by not doing so. As the Chief Minister has said, it is unfortunate that the police had to use force against the demonstrators; but it is doubtful that a force attacked with bombs will respond differently anywhere.
The question arises: why Section 144? Why prevent people from visiting the area? Why the police force? The provisions apply to all parties, including the CPI(M). However, the critics have double standards.
When the CPI(M) and its Kisan Sabha organised a demonstration in the villages earlier in November before Section 144 was imposed, it was described by the KJRS as "intimidation." When bombs are thrown at policemen and women, it is the democratic right to protest! The West Bengal Assembly was opened for two days to the general public and a hundred thousand people went inside to see the damage and vandalism of the State Assembly by TMC MLAs.
West Bengal has seen the havoc and violence wrought by a politically frustrated Opposition. Singur is their target. Those being mobilised are not the peasants or workers affected by the project — but others led by the Opposition. Such a situation is likely to lead to counter protests, causing a law and order problem. Hence the use of Section 144. The sooner this is lifted, the better it will be but that is an assessment the Government will have to make.
The Left is conscious of the need to defend, consolidate, and advance the agrarian gains of the people of West Bengal. Nevertheless, the leaders of what are nowadays called `social movements' would do well to recognise that a progressive, people-centred social and economic policy cannot proceed if the very process of industrialisation is seen as sinister and alien.

(Brinda Karat is a member of the Polit Bureau of the CPI[M].)

Brinda Karat’s Untruths
Paschim Banga Khet Mazdoor Samiti

“Untruth” means lies. So who are these people whom Ms Karat is accusing of being liars? Leaving aside the TMC who are the traditional enemies of the CPM, these liars include both the RSP and the CPI, Left Front partners who have repeatedly expressed their disapproval of the way in which the Singur issue has been handled, the police atrocities and the lack of transparency; Medha Patkar, her comrade of many struggles; Mahasweta Devi an 81 year old woman who has spent her life writing about the struggles of the oppressed; Justice Moloy Sengupta a retired Chief Justice, and many civil society organizations whose reports have been used below . The list could go on and on. Most significantly this list also includes all the newspaper reports and TV images that we have been seeing over the past 7 months since this struggle started on May 25th 2006.Last, but not least, it also includes the people of Singur who have been saying a loud NO to the Tatas project over and over again.But let us come to Brinda Karat’s untruths.Untruth 1: Of the 997 acres required, the Government has received consent letters from landowners for 952 acres.Facts: As early as 17 July 2006 the members of the Singur Krishi Jami Raksha Committee (SKJRC) provided the Government with letters from owners and sharecroppers of about 950 acres of land who refused to give their land for the Tata Motors project. Since then, some absentee landlords have given their letters of consent. Due to various pressures, some of the farmers decided to give their land. A sample survey done by Sanhati Udyog in November 2006 showed that of the 335 land holders that they interviewed, and who owned 261.49acres, only 20 were willing to or had already handed over their land to the Government. 315 households owning 237.19 acres had refused to give their land. Those willing to hand over their land gave reasons as “family pressure/other business/can’t fight CPI (M) andTatas/single-crop land.”On 6.12.06 the SKJRC provided us with signed letters from 300 farmers who have given the details of their land holdings amounting to 184 acres and have declared that “we have not and will not give our land to Tata Motors.” These letters and the land record detailscan be given whenever anyone wants to look at them. The SKJRC has collected such letters from owners of over 400 acres. A great deal of claims and counter claims are being made about consent letters. The best thing would be for the Government to publicly makeavailable the list of those who have actually given their land. On 12th December when Brinda Karat was in Kolkata, only 42 farmers said they had given consent. According to the Dainik Statesman (13th December 2006), when the CPI(M)’s Hooghly District Secretary, Shri Balaram Sapui was questioned at the site of Brinda Karat’s meeting about why only 42 farmers had signed the letter, he stated that the list of the other farmers who had given consent was publicly displayed at the Singur Block office. When we asked the BDO for thislist the next day, he said no list was available with him.Untruth 2: this is the one government that has had numerous meetings with the affected people and called all party meetings several times to discuss the details of the project, the nature of land being taken over, and the compensation package.Facts: Undemocratic and forcible land acquisition is the most deplorable features of the Singur project. The West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation status report itself makes this amply clear. In a column marked “Outcome” the report clearly statesthat no decision transpired at any of the 9 meetings with the local people. There is no other evidence given in this report of popular consent for the project. Similarly, the government report mentions that there was strong local resistance to the project andthat “entry to the land to explore the terrain and to ascertain the ground conditions by WBIDC could not be done till early December”.In spite of such clear evidence of resistance and local discontent the Government went ahead with acquisition after declaring Section 144 and using a huge police force to quell the peaceful resistance of the people.>From newspaper reports it is clear that the people of Singur resisted the Tata Motors project from 25th May 2006, the first day the Tata Motors team went to inspect the site. The team was gheraoed and had to be rescued by the police. A peaceful movement was startedafter that. Later, on rallies were organised by SKJRC to the BDO (1st July) and DM office 13th July), a road blockade (24th July), boycott of Government’s hearing (22nd August), lying down on the road by the village women to prevent delivery of notice by the Government (1-2 September). On the day when commencement of payment began (25th September), 7000 people gathered at the block office and were assaulted in the middle of the night after lights were put off deliberately by the police and party cadres. 40 people were injured and 1 person (Rajkumar Bhul) died.Blockades by all major political parties followed (26th and 27th September). Further agitations were organized all through October and November by the SKJRC and major political parties, but there has been no stop to the process in spite of a worsening politicalsituation. Discussion and dialogue have been totally absent from the entire process.Untruth 3 : It is well recognised that West Bengal under the Left has ensured registration of the majority of sharecroppers through a bitter struggle. In Singur, all the 275 sharecroppers will get 25 per cent of what landowners will get; and 170 more sharecroppers who are not registered have applied for compensation, which is under consideration.Facts : Nagarik Manch in a response to the WBIDC Status Report says that the status report puts the total number of bargadars as 407 (recorded and unrecorded. “As per Government standards, in undivided Bengal and, later, in West Bengal, right from the days of the Land Revenue Commission, under the chairmanship of Sir Francis Floud,1940, it is accepted that in any area, over and above the recorded landowners, there would be bargadars, and their number would be at least 20% of the number of landowners.” The WBIDC status report gives a total of 12000 landowners, so according to Nagarik Manchthere should have been ‘at least’ 2400 recorded and unrecorded bargadars. Similarly, Sanhati Udyog’s report claims that there are at least 1200 unrecorded bargadars in the area. The Government is therefore definitely depriving this section. The truth of the matteris that the need was for an accurate survey of actual land use and ownership before Singur was started , but in its haste to pander to the whims of the Tatas, the Government plunged headlong into acquisition without bothering to see who might be deprived.Untruth 4 :The vast majority of workers in the area earn their income throughnon-agricultural work. Government records for the five areas where land is being taken put the number of workers involved in non-agricultural work at around 7,700, including 1,000 women. Another 700 are involved in some type of household industry. Not surprisingly, the number of agricultural workers, around 1,230, is much less; and most of them have to do other work to ensure a minimum income.Facts : There seems to be some mistake in the figures being quoted by Brinda Karat. The total number of main workers in the five mouzas where acquisition is taking place is 7710. These include 1320 cultivators and 1224 agricultural workers or 33% of the workingpopulation which is directly dependent on agriculture. However, in an area as rich as Singur even the others (691 in household industries and 4475 in other occupations) would include those whose work is dependent on the agricultural production in the area.In a flourishing agricultural area, the income of shopkeepers and others around depends on the well being of those directly in cultivation. The Sanhati Udyog survey done in November estimates that there are 450-500 rickshaw pullers who transport vegetables,150 vegetable vendors , 200 households engaged in animal husbandry etc. They also mention about 1000 wage labourers, called garir kishen who come to work everyday by train from Bardhaman , Bankura and Hooghly , and about 800 agricultural workers who come fromJharkhand as seasonal migrants. The cold storage at Ratanpur nearby which gets its goods from these areas also employs 5000 migrant labourers.The truth is that it is assumed that it is only industry that has ancillaries. The fact thatagriculture also creates ripple effects and ancillaries and that flourishing agriculture can also lead to a rich and developed life is something that seems to be a truth which this Government once propagated and now seems to have forgotten.Untruth 5 : The Government has ensured alternative work for them. Already in that area, over 7,500 person-days of employment have been generated in the last few weeks. Employment for local workers will also be created in canal renovation, road widening, fence and building construction, and other activity.Facts : A village right next to the project site (Dobandi) has 63 agricultural worker families. All of them used to work in the fenced off area. They claim that they would have received work for two months on a continuous basis during the upcoming potato season, but are now facing starvation. None of them have been employed in the fencing work, where most workers have been brought from outside the immediate vicinity of the forcibly acquired land. Out migration was practically unknown in the area, but now all these agricultural workers will be forced to leave their homes in search of work. Also, all agricultural workers who used to come to this area on a regular work from nearby districts and Jharkhand will also lose their work.Untruth 6 : The Left Front Government is the only one in the country that has initiated different types of training programmes for landless workers and land losers, 1,800 of whom have already registered in different programmes. The effort is to ensure thatalternative work and livelihood is ensured.Facts : Nagarik Mancha states that the farmers in Singur are skilled at agriculture and other land-related activities. “Having targeted to ‘de-skill’ them, having made them virtually ‘unemployable’, a lot is being made subsequently about imparting training. Figures in the Government report show that only 0.7% (179 of the 20000) rendered jobless are receiving training for future employment at Tata factory or in the ‘probable’ ancillaries.”Even if Ms Karat’s figure of 1800 receiving training is correct, then the percentage of those receiving training becomes 9%. The advertisements of the organisations imparting these training quite understandably declare that there could be no job guarantee.Untruth 7 : : According to Government records, approximately 90 per cent of the land is single crop.Facts : The Government is relying on outdated land records for these figures. Nagarik Mancha’s report says that “The last land-use map available with the Government of West Bengal was drawn during the ’70’s. At that time the classification was based on theintensity of agriculture considering this area to be ‘rain-fed’. Since then the WB Government has set up four deep tube wells and renovated three DVC fed canals in this area. Productivity has increased manifold paving the way for 27 privately owned mini deep tube wells and hundreds of diesel/kerosene run mini pump sets for lifting water from channels. The ‘rain-fed’ land has become ‘irrigated land’. Presently there are 42 power-tillers in thearea. Could all these be there if this area was a predominantly mono-crop and partially double-crop land?Now which is a ‘fact’ — what the map drawn in 70’s says or what exists in 2006 on the ground level?”Untruth 8 : Land has been changing hands faster in Singur than in any other part of West Bengal . Over the last year or so, there have been 572 private land transactions of approximately 300 acres of land, at one-third the rate given as compensation in the Singurproject. This is the opposite of what is happening in other States, where land is being acquired from the peasantry at less than the market price.Facts : The compensation given by the Government for Sali land as per the WBIDC report is Rs. 8.60 lakhs per acre and Rs.12.76 lakhs per acre for Suna land. The land documents in the same mouzas however show that market land prices are higher. For example, Prasenjit Das has 12 cottahs (0.6 acres) of Sali land in Gopalnagar mouza, which is just outside the project. The land titles show that he has purchased this land for Rs.5 lakhs and that the Government valuation and registration fees for this land are also the same. This would amount to Rs.25 lakhs per acre only for the land costs while the Government award, which includes solatium, interest, a bonus for consent and crop compensation is only Rs.8.60 lakhs. The Government is acquiring land for the benefit of the Tatas at one third the market price - exactly what is happening in all other states!Untruth 9 : According to Census data, the share of fallow land, wasteland, pastures and so on is only 1 per cent in West Bengal compared with the national average of 17.6 per cent.Facts : Even if this is correct there are differences within West Bengal. Hooghly district is the district with highest crop intensity in West Bengal and with a huge population pressure. Why use this land? Why not ask the Tatas to go to Purulia district where 20% ofthe land is non-cultivable? Why not, as Kamal Kanta Khara, a hunger striker from the SKJRC suggested, go to mono cropped land in Talerbheri and Korerbheri and other neighbouring Mouzas that are about 1-2 kilometres from the present site? Why not go to Dankuni anindustrial area that is about 15 kms away? Or to the dozens of alternative sites mentioned by Mahasweta Devi and APDR?Untruth 10: The report of the NGO `fact-finding’ team cannot name a single child thrown in a water body nor one woman who was sexually abused. If there was brutal beating and repression, surely there would have been scores of people with fractured limbs and broken heads who would have no doubt been paraded before the media as proof. Bombs were thrown at the police, which chased the crowd into the village, lathi-charged, and tear-gassed them.Facts : As Brinda Karat herself admits, the police chased the crowd into the village ,lathi charged and tear gassed them. What was the police doing inside a village which has not had any history of violence? And where are the policemen who were injured by bombs? Why has the Government not “paraded them before the media as proof”? On 6th December, when we visited the affected villages, a number of women complained about sexual molestation, use of foul language and harassment by the police on 2nd December 2006. The women said it was male police who came into their houses, chasing them from the fields for a distance as long as 750 metres for Khaser Bheri and about 1.5 kilometres for Beraberi Purba Para , the two villages that faced the maximum police brutality. Their intention was very clearly not to deal with a law and order problem, but to beat the people into submission. The women recognized some of the police as being local party supporters dressed as police men. They were even able to name a few of these people.The complainants on the 6th include Rupa Koley who showed us her shirt that was torn by the police and wounds on her upper left arm; Bharati Das of Khaser Bheri , who also met Nilotpal Basu at Delhi on 6 th December, with fractured ribs and a smashed hand; Rita Das’s (Khaser Bheri) whose left foot was smashed by a rubber bullet; Maya Das (Bera Beri) whose foot was burnt by a tear gas shell.MASUM’s factfinding report on the 2nd itself mentions several other ways in which the police broke the law ; custody memos were not given , two minor girls were arrested and kept with adults in the lock up, the women’s cell was not used etc. They also spoke to menwho had been arrested and were in the District hospital. These include Dilip Das 44 years old who had a head wound that bled profusely for three hours before treatment and required eightstitches; Mritunjoy Patra , 55 years old with an injured right leg; Tapan Batyabol, 53 years old with heamatoma in both legs; Bilas Sarkar 26 years with injured left shoulder, lacerated injuries and swelling due to blows in many parts of his body. 10 other undertrial prisoners in the police lock up also showed injury marks.In West Bengal we are used to the CPM and the Government functioning in collusion. Seldom does the CPM criticize the Government and the Government always protects the CPM’s interests. We had expected the CPM outside West Bengal to be more objective in its dealings.However we seem to have been mistaken. PS Grewal of the Delhi CPM State Committee has been circulating a Government report to defend his party’s position . And Brinda Karat has relied on the same report by the perpetrators of an injustice to justify theinjustice. We invite her to visit Singur to see the truth for herself.



Meher Engineer on Brinda Karat on Singur

Dear Anuradha,
You ask for comments on Karat’ s article. I start with the advice that it ends with. The advice is offered to those who she calls ”the leaders of what are nowadays called “social movements.” She also calls them outright liars and slanderers, and accuses one of them of exhibiting a low level of political acumen. But we can ignore those things because the people of Singur do not make up a debating society. It is her advice that the leaders refrain from seeing all industrial development as sinister and alien, which is of interest.We can easily evaluate the advice by recalling a statistic quoted in the recent Oxfam report on “What’s holding others back?” (Page 31)(www.oxfam.org/en/files/serve_essentials2/downloadis).The statistic, which was taken from an earlier report of the Planning Commission’s (2000) ‘Special Group on Targeting Ten Million Employment Opportunities per Year’, New Delhi, Government of India, says: ”In India, in the post liberalization period, unemployment on a Current Daily Status basis rose from 6 per cent in 1993–94 to 7.3 per cent in 1999–2000 resulting in an additional 27 million job seekers. Of these, 74 per cent are in rural areas and 60 per cent of them are educated.”Now the Karats of the Indian left would not describe that development as either dextral or homely, if only because they see themselves as pro people paragons. But neither would those leftists who do not go along with the Karat’s, who then treat them, as paragons will, as political pariahs. I submit that neither the abuse nor the distinctions serve any useful purpose. Why?I can think of four reasons why: that Oxfam, which is not known in India for being part of the revolutionary left, has nevertheless clearly realized that a ‘90’s kind of industrial development will lie like a kafan over this country, a kafan far more dreadful than the one in Premchand’s story because it will smother the hopes of common folk; that the states where the Left was in power in the nineties were not immune to the effects of that spurt in industrial development; that the Left is correct when it blames the bad policies of the Central Government for the effects, but falters when it dismisses the question “What did the self described pro people Left parties do to counter those policies, in the states where they ruled, if not elsewhere?” that then follows; and finally, that the answer to the question is, “It is most probable that Left did nothing worthwhile, and certain that it did nothing new.The claim of the Karat’s, to being pro people, is seen to be a fiction. It is a weak fiction in those parts of the country where the Left is weak. The fiction gains in strength in West Bengal where the people of the state have elected a Left variety to power for almost three decades. It is at its strongest now in Singur, because the Left Front has determined that it alone is competent to ascertain the wishes of the people of that place and that Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code shall rule there till the people agree with their rulers.I am reminded of Bertolt Brecht, who told the rulers of the now dead German Democratic Republic when they complained to him about the lack of popular enthusiasm for their rule, that if the government felt that the people had betrayed the government, perhaps the government should “abolish the people and elect a new one.” His advice comes, unbidden, to one’s mind.