Report on the events in Nandigram on 14.3.2007 by Citizen's Solidarity

There are five reports.

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1. Tamluk Hospital, April 8, 2007


Kabita Das Adhikari, Gokulnagar


KD is a mother of two married sons, one works in Calcutta and the other in Haldia Dock area. Son-in- law works in an office in Haldia, K’s husband is unemployed.


Since March 17, KD has been in Tamluk Hospital. Injured in the right knee and left hand. She had undergone an operation on the right knee on April 7, was swathed in bandages and groggy with pain and after effects of anesthesia. Yet she was keen to talk.


The Das Adhikari family has 2.5 bighas of land and according to KD, 12 members are dependent on it. Since the trouble has been brewing in Nandigram in January, her son who works in Haldia dock has been unemployed. “I have stayed on in the village to participate in the movement to save and protect our land and take care of the family. If we all leave the area, the movement will die out,” says the son who is in the hospital to take care of his mother. He has joined the Committee since January 2007. Earlier he was a CPM staunch supporter.


On March 14, KD says that they had congregated near the Bhangaberia bridge. There was a “huge” police force and the police made an announcement on microphone and with “folded hands” urged the people to disperse. There were a “lot of women in front and they did not want to move away”. Soon the police burst tear gas and immediately they began to fire. “Everywhere it became very dark and people ran helter-skelter and I could not see. People fell down and policemen were beating them up.”


In this chaos KD broke her hand and knee. Many along with her had taken shelter in a room but the police chased them, broke open the door and beat them up. She said that girls were beaten up brutally but had not come to the hospital for treatment but was being treated in the village.


KD said at least 4,000 people had died. But when we asked her whether she had seen any dead bodies or knew any one who was dead, she said that she was hiding in a room with many others and did not see.


KD thinks that the police came that day to take over their land to build industries. “If we give away our land, where will we go? How will we survive? How much money will the government give? How will we eat? How do we clothe ourselves and where do we get a roof over our head?”


Said KD, “I have always voted the CPM. So has my family. They have become rajas with our votes. Today, the young boys in the village have to guard against the CPM at night so that they do not attack and take away our land. The CPM is still creating terror in the area.” When we asked her how she knew since she has been in the hospital, she said, it was in the newspapers.

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Chabi Mandal, 36 years old, South Khali. Mother of three children, CM’s eldest daughter is 15 years old. . Husband Badal Mandal is a wage labourer. Due to the ‘disturbance’ in the village, her children have not been attending school.


She was brutally beaten up on her left hand and leg. There was no women police in the force. “One policeman caught me by my hair and dunked me in pukur water and beat me up”. She lost consciousness. It was the villagers who took her to a room and helped her out. “Even today, my eyes are still burning and smarting due to the gas and my head feels strange”.


According to CM, on March 14, “anaker gola kete diye chilo, aar koto jon ke pete guuli kore che”. She said that she saw one boy being shot.


According to the CM, on March 14, the CPM supporters were present across the Bhangaberia bridge. “They came out of cars and vans and we saw them.” When asked what they were wearing, she said, “ clothes like the ones we wear.”


She went to Nandigram hospital for treatment only on March 21 because she has small children and could not leave them alone at home. At the Hospital, they gave her two tablets and asked her to go home. A few days ago, she came to Tamluk Hospital for treatment.


“I joined the Committee to save the little homstead we own. Unless we come together how can we protect our land. The government said, they will make industry, but how does that benefit me? We will have to leave the area and they will not give us any compensation. Where will we go with our children?”


Before she joined the Committee, CM has been a Trinamul supporter. “It’s a lie that the CPM families can not live in the village and have had to leave. They are the ones creating terror. Look at the new patients in the hospital, they were attacked by the CPM. Even today there is so much fear of being attacked in the area.”


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Anuradha Khara, 36 years old, Sonachura, S Jalpai. She has two sons who are 11 and 14 years old, her husband is very critical and admitted to SSKM with bullet injury in his stomach. AK has a bullet injury in her right knee.


The family owns a little more than one bigha of land where they cultivate paddy, potatoes, brinjal and other vegetables throughout the year ( “Why don’t you write I own 100 bighas” says AK jokingly). AK was feeling much better, during our last visit to the Hospital on March 24, she was a mental wreck worrying about the safety of her two young “missing” sons following the police clampdown and brutality of March14 on Bhangaberia bridge where villagers had gathered. She was refusing to eat or cooperate with the medical treatment, according to her relatives. Our team on enquiring found the boys safely with their aunt.


The family has been traditional CPM supporters but since January 2007 they had “left” the Party to join the Committee. “This is not a political party, but one to save our land,” said AK. “Even if I die I will not let go of my land. We are uneducated. Who will give us jobs? If we do, we will end up washing Salim’s feet.”

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AK claims that she was at the Bhangaberia spot since 3 am on March 14 because villagers were in turn guarding the area of fear of the police grabbing their land. “The cadres came in different vehicles like Tata jeep, dressed in police uniform and in chappals and some had their faces covered”. The crowd that had gathered, said AK, felt that seeing the women and children, the police would only restrict themselves to fire tear gas shells. When the crowd refused to “move away” after the police announcement, they began to fire.


AK was shot on her knee as she was running away. A young boy carried her and dipped her low limbs in the pukur and ran away to save himself. “Many people fell into the pond trying to save themselves as the police began to throw stones and bricks”. She dragged her self to the nearby field and lay down as she could not move. One villager tied her knee with a piece of close and brought her husband and her first to Nandigram Hospital from where they were asked to go to Tamluk Hospital. Her husband was then rushed to SSKM, Calcutta as his condition deteriorated.


According to AK, they joined the Committee “willingly to save our land”. “ Of course, it is natural there will be resentment against those who have left their homes and are now willing to return ( meaning the CPM supporters). I have heard tension is still brewing.” When told that houses of CPM supporters have been burnt down and members and supporters attacked, she replied, “ There must be reasons to do so, try and understand why. How can you be a panchayat with a gun in your hand? I thought CPM is a party of the poor, now I see they are indulging in mass crimes.”


“We do not know anything about why our land will be taken except that it will become a chemical hub. If so, we will never be able to cultivate our land.” According to AK, the Haldia experience has shown them that most of the villagers had not got compensation for their land . Such people are now their neighbours and are now fighting for their rights.


AK said “many women” have been raped but did not come to the hospital for treatment. “This is because of shame. Women cannot accept rape, all that they have is their right to motherhood. When this goes, they are full of shame.”


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G Hossain, 42 years old Jalpai village. He has been injured in the back and when we met hime he was lying flat on his back. His wife, according to Hossain, was injured in her head and back. He was lying straight on his back on the hospital bed as he was injured in the back.


He said he was with the “mother organization” of the CPM for the last 20 years. Duribng the 1970s land reform movement, the stae government gave his family 12 kathas of land and pukur. “We worked hard the whole day and followed whatever they (CPM) told us to do. We never understood their dhanda till recently”.


On January 3, there were many meetings, according to Hossain to protest the land acquisition plan of the state government. “We though that we would protest in front of the BDO, but he never turned up. Instead there was a lathi charge and women were forced to gherao because they were angry.”


Since then Hossain joined the Committee, and the “CPM men ran away from the village. They know that people refuse to follow them.”


“On March 14, we decided to pray, both Hindus and Muslims because we thought if we pray together, god will listen to us. All of us went to the meeting voluntarily, no body forced us to.” According to Hossain he and the other villagers had faith in the police, “they are human beings too. They will feel pity on us.”


When the police gather on tehotehr side of the bridge, the villagers were asked to sit down. Hossain saw two vehicles ( mini buses) “from where men in black – don’t know whether they are cadre bahini or police-got down.”


“ I saw boys being shot dead and falling down my nephew and my biyan’s son. I saw Immadul, 18 years old shot dead. Many fell down, I tried to save one but slipped and fell myself and rolled on. At this juncture, the police beat me black and blue.”


According to Hossain, “ We will feel safe if the CPM return to the villages. We can live together again and there will then be no more attacks. Many have returned but not the leaders. Earlier Badal Mandal was a big hero, he has a huge house in Chandanpur (?).” Hossain maintains that none of the poor CPM members want a chemical hub. “We are uneducated, how will industry benefit us, we will not get a single job. Our land is fertile, we do not need to buy vegetables or even onions. We will never give up our land even if we die.”


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The doctors involved with the treatment in Tamluk Hospital are:


Dr AK Shee, surgeon 9434035936
Dr S Maity, surgeon 9434148372
3. Dr Pradip das, GP ( post mortem) 9434229844

4. Dr S Patra Superintendent 9732592809







2. Tamluk Hospital , March 24, 2006


Shyamoli Mahato, 52 years, resident of Sonachura village. Her daughter, Shibani was nursing her in the hospital.


Shyamolie has a bullet injury in her head. According to Shyamoli the women and children had gathered on March 14 at the Sonachura side of the Banghabera bridge for Gouranga puja. The Jami Uchhed Coommittee had told them that they apprehended a possibility of a police attack and if women and children were in front, they would retreat and not try to enter the village.


She spoke of children been ruthlessly killed by tearing their legs apart. When questioned further she said she herself did not see the children being killed but everybody around in the hospital and village was talking about the brutality.


Shibani, her daughter said that villagers have been staying awake at night for the past 3 months since January in turns because they feared being attacked any time. They feared that their land would be taken. Shibani was at home on March 14 and had not witnessed the attack.


Both Shyamoli and Shibani were asked whether they knew that the Chief Minister had open declared in Kolkata that there would be no land acquisition if people of Nandigram did not want it. They said that they had no such information. On the contrary, they said that once the state government and the local CPI(M) have said that they wanted land implies that they would have to give surrender their land. They also added that there were no talks about any form of compensation. They were satisfied with the treatment in the hospital.


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Radharani Ari, 45 years, resident of Gokulnagar village.

Her daughter, ( daughter in law?) Sabita was in hospital to take care of her.


Both are being treated in the hospital for injuries that they received on March 14 incident.


Radharani said, ‘I was trying to escape, I ran madly…but they managed to get hold of me…they were all in police uniform, some 100 / 200 of them…I fell down and was madly beaten by the police…I prayed for forgiveness with folded hands…they used very abusive languages, refered to us as Khanki, toder abar ijjat. I was almost unconscious…the saree had torn in places…it was hardly covering my body…one of them put the baton through my vagina…I shouted out in pain…”


When asked about the details of the incident she said the women and children had gathered for Gouranga puja. “We did not know that there would be any attack…. We thought they will not harm us when they see women and children… just when we heard the firing from Khejuri we decided to sit down together. But within minutes they were throwing tear gases, it became so dark and the beating and shooting began…we all started fleeing…could not see anything as our eyes were burning…Many women ran into adjacent houses for shelter…the men broke open the doors…tortured and raped women…there was blood flowing all around. They shot indiscriminately from the back…if you all go to the place where pujas were performed you all will still find women’s undergarments lying here and there…please go and see them” she reiterated…”how they tortured us”


Radharani was bleeding heavily when she was admitted to the hospital. She said that the bleeding continued for a few days. “I am a bit better since past 2-3 days. All my family members are alive, she said. But I really do not know whether we will ever be able to stay as a family as we used to…they will not allow us…will attack us again…we have to flee from our houses. They have massacred everything”


Sabita was also ruthlessly beaten by the police when she tried to protect and save the injured; she showed us the bruises on her shoulders and hands. Sabita’s eyes filled with tears as she said…”see the marks…how brutally they have beaten us…they have killed whoever they could. So many people were killed and bundled into sacks”. When we questioned her how many bodies and whether she had witnessed any killing, she said the following. “I was running and my eyes were smarting and there was darkness all around…But I can say for sure I saw one boy who fell near my feet – He was shot by a bullet and was crying out for help. I know he could be saved…As I bent down trying to lift him up…the police once again started beating me…they dragged away the boy…folded him…and packed him inside the a jute gunny sack and tied up the mouth…threw the bag on the lorry…I still cannot eat after that…the scene keeps haunting me…the boy could have been saved.. I know it.


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Gitanjali Bijli, resident of Gokulnagar. She has been admitted with a head injury and broken hand. As she fell down while running she was hit on her head. She also mentioned “the men stamping on my head with the boot”


“Many women fell inside the ponds while they were running for their lives…we were also almost blinded by the tear gas. They were almost 150 – 200 men all dressed in police uniform. Wherever we ran for shelter they broke down the doors…entered and tortured us ruthlessly”


I was brought to the hospital by some boys of a different locality…I do not know them. The area was filled with bodies all over. Those who were still alive and shouting in pain they just pulled them away” Where did they take them? “ I don’t know, some say the bodies where thrown all over…wherever they could.


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Bidyut Basanta, 42 years, resident of Sonachura. She has been admitted to the hospital with both hands broken


“ I ran as fast as I could and I fell into the pond. There were many inside the pond, some were taking shelter to protect themselves…The police surrounded the pond and was not letting us get out…whoever tried to get out of the pond

was violently beaten…their heads dunked into water and beaten up …they pulled at the dresses of women even when they were in water. They killed some men by beating them as they tried to save their lives inside the pond…’pukurer jal lal hoe gechilo go didi’ They have killed countless numbers…(when we asked if she herself had seen any body killed, she could not)


How did you manage to come out? “We were pleading with them for our lives…There were some police among those surrounding the ponds; they allowed and helped us to come out…had it been the cadres all of us would be killed there”


Could you identify the police from the cadres? “some of them had covered their faces with black cloth…

Were they cadres ? Do you know them? “No”


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Kakali Mondol (name changed), 35 years, resident of Kalicharanpur (??). She was gang-raped by 3 policemen. Her eldest son, a student of VII is taking care of her at the hospital.


Kakali was lying silently on the bed with the pallu of her saree and the back of her palms covering her face. We knew she was not sleeping but watching us quietly; earlier a nurse had pointed her out and said that she had been raped). She did not respond and look at us when we sat on her bed to talk to her. For more than 10 minutes we sat silently holding her hand, but she did not speak a word only looked right ahead with a vacant look. Then there was a slow but perceptible movement of her fingers as if she was responding. She spoke quietly, almost to her self, a current of words that had remained bottled up.


“amar eto diner parishram didi…char chele meye ke lekhapora sekhabo…koto asha…highway te sabji bikri kore…sab sesh…karo kache ar konodin mukh dekhate parbo na”


Subsequent bits and pieces of conversations revealed that Kakali has 4 children, a daughter and 3 sons. Daughter is the eldest in Class VIII and is 15 years old. Her sons are in class VII, IV and I. She is the main earner of the family selling vegetables. Her husband works as a daily wage earner, though not regularly. Her husband brought her to the hospital but since then has not come to visit her in the hospital because he is very poor and has to take care of the family.


On her own, Kakali began telling her story about her child hood days in Calcutta where she worked as a domestic in people’s homes before she was married off. She spoke of her children and her dreams of educating them and building a life where they would be better off than her. She spoke about her husband and how he toiled to make two ends meet and how she carried vegetables on her head to the market and earned for the family. “ I too supported the Committee, if I did not I would be thrown out once industry came. How would I feed my family. Where will I go?”


Of that eventful day of March 14, Kakali said that she was gang raped by policemen. When we asked her how she knew they were cops, she said, they wore uniform. She remembers being raped by three men before she lost consciousness. After a long silence, she said : “ What is this thing called rajniti ? What has this rajniti done for us?”


Only once did Kakali break down just before we were leaving when she said, ” How will I show my face to any one? After all my struggles…” We told her she had nothing to feel ashamed of as she had not committed a crime, those who had violated her were the criminals. She listened quietly and calmed down. On hearing that we planned to go the village where the trouble took place, she was all concern for our safety. She held our hands tightly and whispered ‘sabdhane jeo, ora kauke charbe na’.


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3. Kakali Mondol (name changed), Kallicharanpur, 8th April, 2007

We met Kakali Mondol (age approx. 35) in her home in Kallicharanpur on Sunday 8th April, 2007. She earns her living by planting rice on others’ land and selling her own vegetables, fish and coconuts, as well as others’ rice in the Nandigram market. She is married to Bikash Majhi who works for daily wages on neighbouring lands. They have four children - one daughter and son by Bikash’s late first wife, and two boys by Kajol.


When we approached her hut, Kakali was sitting silently under a low thatch. We asked her if she would be willing to talk to us. Kakali looked up and asked dejectedly, “Why have you come? What is there to say now?” We continued to stand there quietly. Then she got up and looked us straight in the eye. Suddenly she reached out to us with a muffled cry, leaning against us as we held her steady in a close embrace, and through inconsolate sobs she kept asking. “What is left now?…. Everything is over. ….How can I show my face to anyone now?….How can I show my face in the bazaar..…How can I work now?”


Eventually she calmed down and invited us to sit on a mat under a coconut palm by the pond. Her husband looked at her gently, then turned around to us and burst out in agitation that the police had attacked them at the pujo in Gokulnagar in hordes on 14th March and fired on them. A little later he went away, leaving us alone with Kajol.


Then Kakali continued: “We, in Adhikaripara and Kallicharanpur, did not go to Bhangaberia. We had organized our own pujo in Gokulnagar, Adhikaripara, and the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee had told women and children to reach there early in the morning. A police attack was anticipated and they felt that if the women and children were there the police would not get violent. There was news that police would enter four areas simultaneously that day – Bhangaberia, Gokulnagar, Maheshpur and the fourth place, I do not remember the exact name, I think was Osman Chowk. We had organized the pujo as a barrier to the police. We felt that if we were all at the pujo the police may come and talk to us calmly. We had gone early, on empty stomachs. We got some moori to eat there. Around 10-11 AM, during the kirtan the police entered. We all raised our hands asking them to go back, we pleaded with them not to attack us. First they seemed to retreat, then they came back in hordes. They flooded the maath (ground) “like waves”. They came in and attacked us with tear gas and gunshots. There was complete chaos. Some died, most of us ran back. The police followed, they entered our homes and attacked women there. In Gokulnagar, in one home three women and one 12 year old child were abused.


I was attacked in the maath. First the police beat me on the shoulder, then when I fell to the ground, they dragged me by the hair, and then fell upon me. I know they were the police from their uniforms. One of them bit my breast, see didi (she unhooked her blouse, tense with a helpless rage, to show a wound that had not yet healed). One, two, then a third one came upon me viciously, then I lost consciousness. I was found lying in a cowshed and was brought home.


I was taken to Nandigram hospital the next morning. Then I was transferred to Tamluk hospital on Friday evening. The doctor there said “its nothing.” That I would have no problems even though I’d been raped. The Nandigram doctors were OK. The Tamluk doctor was paaji (evil). He was tall, fair, and wore glasses. He wanted to get rid of the rape patients as soon as possible. There was another raped woman there too. Gouri Pradhan of Gokulnagar. He wanted to get rid of both of us. I came home on Sunday 1st April. I had severe breathing problems, the blood had clotted in my breast, and I couldn’t lift my right arm. They said it would take three months for me to get OK. I’m still v. weak. I can barely stand.


I don’t understand why this is so? Is it fear? I also have no confidence to go anywhere, no strength to do any work. Bombing can be heard everyday, the children were alone, so I had to come home as soon as possible.


Now we are guarding our land because they (he CPM) say they will take our vastu (homes) away too. They say they’ll set up a colony here. I go to the Nandigram market, I do business there, I sell vegetables and rice. Could I do that in Calcutta, or even in Tamluk? In a colony? I’ve voted for the CPM before, but not always for the same party.I never stayed with one party – I voted depending on what I liked about the party. I never went for a michil too; this time I went because of the pujo. The police are oppressors – and this is the fault of the CPM. The CPM in our villages left their homes to give up their land to Salim. Now they terrorize us from outside.


Tell Buddhadev to return our children. Tell him to restore my honour. The whole of India, the TV, the world now knows I have been raped. I don’t even feel like going out now. Laxman Seth and Buddhadev think us to be destitute and fools – we’re not. They think they can buy everything with money. Ek chagole kaan kaatle shob chaagale bhoy? I was violated. You’ve come as women to see me, to tell the world how we have been violated.


The police came to see me 8 days later, to talk to me, addressing me as “Ma”! I said “Don’t dare call me that. If anyone had done this to your mother or daughter, would you have let them dare talk to your mother or daughter 8 days later? Would they have talked?” Because I said all this, the police report said nothing had happened to me.


There was one Radharani, and one Muslim woman, both of whom were raped with the barrel of a gun – that is also rape, is it not? First they were beaten to the ground with the butt, and then raped with the barrel. Both women were in Tamluk hospital, they were Sonachura women, and were still on oxygen when I left.


There are many parties in the BUPC here – the TRC, the SUCI, the BJP, but they are not doing anything for us either. We are a movement in ourselves – it’s our land at stake. There was not discussion, no face-to-face, no explanation whatsoever, about what might happen. We heard from the TV and newspapers that our land will be taken, and after that came the bombing and gunshots. They say that we were armed. We barely have enough to feed ourselves – why would we blow up what little we have on bombs? There is still fear that they’ll take away our land – fear and terror….After the 7.30 PM news the bombing gets so loud, you won’t believe it.


The effects of the tear gas were so devastating that my eyes are still burning. I had been blinded for 2 whole days. One person – Chitto Das’ s wife - was actually paralyzed because she inhaled too much gas – I don’t know whether she will live. None of us could eat properly for two days – this was the effect of the gas and an overwhelming fear.


Why do they say we are against development? When Haldia was set up there was no resistance and no massacre. We too want development. Towns were developed – when Tamluk was developed there was no resistance. But now Buddhadev is selling our land to foreigners, to Salim. We object to that.


Now we want the terror to end. Those absconding from the villages should return, as they’re terrorizing us from outside. Once they’re home, fear will affect them as much as it affects us, then the terror will abate. There is no sleep now, for fear of the terror. I was used to tough labour – now I can’t work; this thought is eating away at me inside.”











4. Visit to Nandigram on 21 March 2007


We left for Nandigram at about 7.00 am. with members of the Microfinance Promotional Forum. We were about 32 persons in 4 cars. We were met by Swapan Panda and other members of Kajla Jana Kalyan Samity near Nandigram. So two more cars were added to the convoy. They were carrying relief materials including Fruits, dry rations like Muri, Chire etc.


We did not encounter any resistance for most of the way. We did not see any police battalions which have obviously been withdrawn. We saw just a few outposts with five young police personnel. However, as we started getting into the Nandigram area, there were TMC workers and villagers who stopped us. But seeing that we had relief materials and talking to Kajla workers, they let us go through. A few kilometres from Tekhali, we were asked to turn back as there was supposedly bombing in Tekhali. However, the villagers urged us to go saying that the people in Bhagabera and Gokulnagar needed help. After some time, we moved ahead and saw a group of very angry protesters asking for justice and punishment for Buddhdeb and all those involved. They also said there was bombing in Tekhali but that the police were not doing anything. The police apparently asked the people to wait until the firepower was exhausted and then come out.


We went ahead past Tekhali Baazar where the bombs were meant to have been thrown but heard nothing. The bombs had stopped by then. We reached Adhikarypara which is close to Gokulnagar, one of the places where the firing took place. A medical camp had been set up and many people, mainly women had come for medical attention. We were able to speak to some of the women who were very vocal but also very fearful of what was going to happen. I am giving below what some of them had to say:


Sabitri Das Adhikari: A middle aged woman described the incident on 14 March. She said that they were expecting the police to enter but thought that if they were unarmed and praying, they could ask the police to go back. So Women, Children and men were sitting together and praying – some reading the Quoran, others doing Kirtan in Gokulnagar when the police arrived. On the loudspeaker they asked the villagers to move and let them do their job. The villagers asked them to go back and said they would repair the roads themselves and that they did not want to give up the land. Immediately, the police fired tear gas and everyone ran helter skelter as their eyes began to burn. Then the police started a lathi charge and then began the firing. All of this happened within 10 minutes of the villagers saying they would not go back. After this everyone ran for their lives and women and children hid in latrines and cowsheds. The police followed them into these places, kicked open the doors and then mercilessly beat up the women. Sabitri said she went to the cowshed where about 10 young women were hiding. The police entered and began abusing the women saying ‘Saali beti Saitanguli, Bhumi Bachabe, Swami ke Bachabe, dakhachi tomader’ and began beating the women. In spite of her begging them to stop they beat her up, tore women’s clothes and hit them with iron rods. She showed us the marks on her body where she had been beaten. She said she recognised two of the men as ‘Sunil Bar’ and Chan Sheth (not sure if I got this name right’).


Sutapa Das Adhikary: A young woman and also Sabitri Das’s daughter in law. She described the incident in exactly the same way as her mother in law. She added that many were injured and fell to bullet wounds including children. Even after this the police beat them up with lathis and rods. Some people ran away to their houses and other ran away to the fields or houses of relatives. The mayhem continued from 10.30 –12 noon. The police then went, broke open doors and looted some houses. From the evening of the 14th till the 15th they went into people’s homes and sexually abused the women who were there, sometimes in front of their husband by tearing their blouses and biting their breasts. They also scratched the women on their breasts (khimche diyeche). She said the women were traumatised and unwilling to talk due shame. She also saw the police tying up young men and women and carrying them away. She noticed that all the men were in uniform and some of them wore chappals and had a red band tied around their wrists. She and others who had run away from their homes on Wednesday tried re-entering on Friday afternoon. But the police were still there and they unzipped their pants in front of the women and asked them to come to them. They ran away again in fear and came back on Friday night. She said they were now living in fear as they did not know when they would be attacked again. Many of them do not sleep in their homes at night for fear of further attacks. She said that she after everyone left, she id not know what would happen. She also talked about two men namely Bijan Rai and Rabiul coming in on motorcycles looking for their leaders on the 14th. According to her, the police ate the mid-day meal prepared for the children on that day. For two months the CPM goons have been attacking them and Lakhan Seth had been going to Khejuri every night and inciting the cadres. She felt the most important thing they needed was protection. Villagers cannot leave their village and go to the market for fear of being beaten up by the cadres.


She said that about 200 people had been injured in Gokulnagar of which over 50% were women, 20 people were hospitalised in Tamluk and 10 in SSKM and Nandigram.


Indrani Das: She was also hit by a rubber bullet and her clothes were torn and she was abused.


It is clear that many more people were injured than has been projected as many men and women were in hiding and had just come back to the village and were accessing medical help.


We then moved on to Sonachura and Bhangabera where the worst violence had taken place. On the way we came across some homes that had been burnt. In Sonachra we found that a huge meeting was on and we carried on to Bhangabera. Bhangabera has a border with Khaserberi. There is a bridge which you cross to enter Khaserbheri which is now totally dominated by the CPM . The Nandigram area is totally dominated by all those against land acquisition. These are villagers most of whom owed their allegiance to the CPM at one time but are now against them. On reaching Bhangabera we realised that most people were not at home as some had fled there homes and others had gone to the meeting we saw on the way. However there were a group of men most of whom had come in from other neighbouring villages who led us to the house of Sankar Samanta, a CPM supporter who was killed on 7th January. The house had been ransacked by the villagers and was strewn with clothes of women and children. According to them, about 150 CPM goons lived in this house and used to bring women in and rape them. This is the house from where the firing began. We went to the nearby houses to find them deserted. We met an old couple who said they were not there when the firing took place and had just returned.


I met a young man (whose name I did not get), who was from Khaserberi who had been living in Bhangabera for the past 4 months because he was against land acquisition. He was there when the incident took place. He said he ran away and hid but could see what was going on from a distance. According to him, he saw the police ripping of clothes from women and sexually abusing them. He said that Naba Samanta was there and that he was particularly violent with women and children.


We then went across the road where I met a few people. The first woman obviously did not want to say much and said she was in her house with her child when the firing happened and she did not know much.

Anita Paik: She was a young woman looking really traumatised. Her husband was in Tamluk hospital and she had not been able to go and see him because she had little children and it was very far away. Her house is very close to the bridge that connects Bhangabera to Khaserberi. She said that from about 6-9.30 in the morning there was a huge procession and then people sat down to pray. There were women, children and men. She was in her house with her mother in law, organising water for everyone who had come when at about 10.30 she heard the commotion and the tear gas and bullets being fired and saw people running away. Then policemen entered her house and started breaking everything. She ran away and hid in another family house with her husband and children. But the police came here too, broke the door and beat her husband till he lost consciousness. They abused and told her to stop protecting her husband and beat her up as well. Later the villagers helped take her husband to Tamluk hospital. She said she was saved from sexual violence because her mother in law intervened.

XX Jana: Did not get the full name. He said there was a procession of about 5-7000 people and then they sat down to pray. While people were anticipating police action they did not think that police would harm children, women and men who were unarmed and praying. According to him, at about 10.30 the police asked the crowd to disperse. When they said that they would not give up their land and asked the police to leave, the police began firing tear gas shells. Immediately the area was full of black smoke and their eyes began stinging. Instantly they ran towards the pond to splash their eyes with water. In the meantime the bullets stared firing and they saw people including children being hit and falling into the pond. He ran from the place and hid. He lost his brother’s wife in the firing. She was taken to Tamluk where she was declared spot dead.


Both Anita Paik and Mr Jana talked about how scared they were and that they were still spending nights outside their homes. It was clear that there is a huge sense of fear and insecurity amongst the villagers many of whom have still not returned. They still do not know how many women, children and men have actually died and how many are missing as many have still not returned home, they are still widely dispersed and they are not in a position to do a survey yet.


We then went to Nandigram Hospital On the way we met a woman who was very old and raving about what had happened on the 14th. Its was clear that it affected her mental balance. But she was articulate about what had happened and what she saw. She said that more that 200 women’s clothes were torn and many had to flee in their petticoats. She said that people were indiscriminately fired upon and that she saw a child being ripped apart by the legs.


At Nandigram hospital we found most of the inmates were women. The first two women we spoke to had been admitted only on Monday as they were in hiding till then. One of them was inconsolable as she talked about what had happened. She said that they were all praying when the police asked them to clear out. When they resisted, tear gas was fired followed by bullets. They ran helter skelter. She saw men, women and children falling to bullet wounds. She ran away and went into hiding and only came back on Sunday after which her husband brought her to the hospital. She was beaten up very badly.


We saw Janaki Das who had lost in her own world. She was not talking and had a glzed look in her eyes. A young girl sitting with her mother on the next bed said that she had lost all eight members of her family- they could not be traced and that she kept looking out for them. It was clear that she was in a state of acute trauma.


Salema Bagum: She was in Bangabera and talked about how she was beaten up and abused in a horrific manner. The rifle bayonet/rod was shoved up her vagina and she was still bleeding. She was naturally incensed with what had occurred and asked us if there would be no justice – if the perpetrators would not be punished. She said she would like to she Buddhadeb and Lakshman Seth’s heads being cut off and hung in the village square as punishment. She narrated how the CPM goons had broken her right arm during the last elections because she was not going to vote for the CPM. She was seething with anger. Her daughter Tanjila Khatoon, a young girl, who was present during the incident narrated what she saw. She also said the same thing as the others, that they were praying, the police came, asked them to let them do their job, the villagers asked them to leave and said they would repair the roads themselves, the tear gas was fired and then bullets. She saw a young neighbour, a 15 year old boy who was due to give his Madhyamik being hit by a bullet and his body fall into the pond. She saw children’s legs being ripped apart and thrown in the pond. Women, men and children were beaten mercilessly, women’s clothes being torn and women being sexually abused. Sheikh Al Masoor, who was standing by Salema Begum’s bedside said he saw a woman’s breast being cut off and stuffed into a pocket. He saw the police drag a small child away from the hands of his mother. The police then said ‘nibi, aye, aye’ and as she moved to take the child, he shot her.


It is clear from all accounts that this was a targeted attack on unarmed villagers and was brutal. Men, women and children were beaten mercilessly, and women were subjected to sexual abuse. Many died but a total count of the numbers is unavailable as the villagers do not yet have the information about who is missing, and who is in hiding. The villagers are in a state of constant fear and are still spending nights out in the fields.







5. Victims interviewed in Tamluk Hospital, 08.04.2007

Testimony 1- Sheikh Hosi Alam, age 27, owns a tea-stall, admitted with bullet injury on finger. Hosi Alam was the first person we encountered as we entered Tamluk Hospital.

After the first round of questioning (‘Who are you?’ ‘Why are you here?’) we went through the corridors of the usual filthy ‘type’ hospital with unfriendly doctors and nurses. Upstairs they have a created special enclosure for ‘Nandigram-victims’. About 97 have been admitted till date including 13 with bullet injuries and 2 rape cases –with question marks (as shown on the register).

Curiously, the victims at the Tamluk hospital wanted to talk to us and were eager to record their testimonies. Somehow they knew ‘sohorer didi ra’ (‘sisters’ from the city) function as pressure groups. Initially nothing particularly ‘new’ emerged from Hosi Alam’s or other interviews. It was the same horror tales we have confronted on TV and heard through rumors and other sources. Men, women and children had gathered to resist police intrusion on that ‘fateful day of war’. ‘Judhyer dine’ …as they put it.


“We were performing pujas, when we saw the police coming. We were told –the police won’t fire at women and children. Ours was a shanti michil. We were protesting against all that happened in Dec and Jan. We held our hands high, and said –go back- we won’t give our lands.”


Then they fired, first tear gas and then….Stories merged into one another.

Most of them were horrendous narratives of unimaginable atrocities. But our imaginations are limited; nothing that we learnt in schools and through life prepared us for this. Random firing, killing, rape, butchery. Some said ‘children were butchered’. ‘Where are the bodies and records’ we asked. ‘They were thrown into ditches, ponds…’ they replied. Exaggerations? Perhaps. May be its impossible to express a shock of such enormity otherwise. A cynical of friend of mine says –‘they are all TMC, they are liars’. Frankly, I sincerely hope they are all ‘lying’ - for all this is truly ‘unbelievable’.

The question of land distribution and its economy emerged as the connecting thread as we listen to the witnesses. Hosi Alam argued,


“We are to get only 4 Lakh per Acre…what will we gain? I have 10 kathas, and we are 5 brothers, what will each one receive? Where will we go? We have our land, our ponds, our farms…why should we go?’


Hosi Alam brought out a point that many repeated later. They know they are being culturally uprooted and therefore they are resisting.


Testimony 2- Anima Jana, 32 (husband Prasant Jana, has 3 daughters) lay there, still striving to deal with trauma. She said,


“They were hurling bombs; and firing tear gas….I jumped into a pond but they rushed in there and hit me on left arm, elbow, head, back, chest…with the baton. I have not returned home since then. We are poor what will we do when we go back home?”


Indeed, many were staying on in fear, moreover simply to survive – to get their daily bread from the hospital. And back home, fields are lying cultivated, they have not sown new crops; they are busy fighting. Anima recounted ,


“We are bagh chashi. We cultivate paddy, pulses etc. We are agricultural laborers. We have about 10 kathas of our own. But my husband has 6 brothers. What will each get? Then we heard our land will be taken away…we were told to join Jami Bachao Committee…I was CPM earlier….

On that day some of the muslim bhais saved me. And then the one who gave me water (Ratan Das) died later. They hit women on their belly, on their backs….Initially we were told they are killing people in the hospitals so I came in here after 5 days….”


Testimony 3-Shoba Rani Sinha , age about 50-55 ( ‘How would I know how old I am ?’ she said). She sat there with a devastated look. Shoba Rani was evidently reeling under physical and emotional wounds. It appeared as though her back was broken. She was admitted with broken leg and injuries on the hip; she still had tremendous pain and could hardly move.

‘When did you come to the hospital?’ I enquired.

“I came in after some days… there were rumors that they will inject poison in our bodies”.


Shoba Rani grabbed my hand and said,

“You know, they pulled the child from my lap and slit his throat”.

We looked at her in disbelief. ‘But where is the body…?’ we murmured.

“They took it away in gunny bags” she said softly.


I thought ‘she surely is exaggerating’; but the look in her eyes made me think otherwise. May be she was exaggerating, but it hardly means all this are untrue.

I asked her, ‘but why won’t you give land?

‘Would you give it if more money is offered?’


“No never! I have my cattle, I fish …why should I give my land? How can I live a room in the colony?”


‘Are you TMC?’ I quizzed. Shoba Rani looked around and whispered in fear – ‘yes’.


“On the day of ‘war’ they killed our daughters, our sons... Lakhshman Seth was there, I saw his car… I don’t think they will let it go so easily. They will return to seize our land….They will prosecute us, our sons cannot go out of Nandigram, beyond the border…they cannot get work”.


Shoba Rani’s narration was muffled with fear. We couldn’t follow her at times, she was speaking very softly and at times words didn’t make sense. 14th March had left deeper wounds than what we could see easily. Most the people work as agricultural laborers. After the harvest they grow vegetables or pulses. During the monsoons the fields get flooded. Then they use the land as ‘fisheries’. A man said, ‘I think the fighting will stop with the rains’. ‘Where are our rainmakers?’ someone murmured. For now, however, they are fighting to keep their bhite-mati (home and land) as they continue to live in apprehensions.


Testimony 4- Salma Bibi, age 42, resident of Garachakraberia (husband Fakrul Islam Khan, has 4 grown up children, her sons work as tailors in Calcutta),. They own about 3 bighas of land. They cultivate vegetables.

Salma Bibi was staying in the hospital with her 20 years old daughter – Tanjila Khan. Tanjila refuses to go back, she is simply scared to go back home, she went on saying- ‘give me a job, take me along’.

Salma has been bleeding since 14th March; the police kicked her on her belly. Salma said-

“The police were hitting right and left …they were also picking up girls. They hit me with their boots…later I hid behind the tall coverings of betel leaf fields….If you go to Nandigram and stay there you will see they are still fighting every night”


14th March, however, was only the beginning of her miseries. The doctors in the hospital misbehaved as well.


“While they were examining my wounds they were laughing. I was taken to a room, where there were no coverings. Two policemen tried to peep in, my daughter protested. You know the doctor lifted my saree and called out to a nurse and said ‘let’s both see, its no point looking alone’”.

‘What is the name of the doctor?’- “I wouldn’t know”.

‘And, what treatment did you receive?’

“They did USG tests … I don’t know exactly, they have given some medicines… They are not referring me to SSKM”.



Madhuja, April, 2007.

Residents return to Nandigram

www.telegraphindia.com/1070609/asp/bengal/story_7899412.asp

Return of natives in Khejuri
IMRAN AHMED SIDDIQUI


Nandigram, June 8: The first batch of land war refugees has returned to ravaged homes facing the daunting task of starting life afresh.

Police escorted 35 people, who had been forced to flee CPM-dominated Khejuri, back to their villages last evening.

On the other side of the divide, a group of CPM refugees was scared away by a Trinamul Congress procession in Nandigram, a reminder that any hope of a return to normal life was still only a glimmer in the horizon.

Satyaranjan Maity, 35, of Khejuri was in tears not because his house has been stripped of the furniture and utensils and the stacked-up rice has been looted. He was just happy being back after five months.

The owner of about an acre and a half of land and two ponds was a CPM supporter until last year.

Neighbours who support his former party made the homecoming sweet by providing food, which came with the unspoken assurance that the people wanted things to change.

“My four-year-old son had almost forgotten the house. The children are still not feeling at home,” the Bhoomi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee supporter said, standing outside his thatched house.

With wife Rekha, two daughters and son Subrata, Satyaranjan had fled to a relative in Trinamul stronghold Sonachura. His other daughter, Mousumi, the eldest, could not appear in her Madhyamik. She was sent to a relative in Calcutta.

Till December, Satyaranjan earned Rs 3,000-4,000 a month selling vegetables and fish.

“Our neighbours are sending food now. We don’t know how we will survive a couple of months on,” Rekha mumbled.

But thinking of life months on is a luxury the CPM supporters in refugee camps at Khejuri, Baharganj and Sherkhanchowk can ill afford.

Life in the camps, crammed with people, is miserable. “People are being taken ill everyday and there is no arrangement for proper treatment,” said Ramu Das of Tekhali.

They were so near home yesterday, yet so far. The Pratirodh Committee will not let police escort them.

“We were so happy, but…” said Pompa Das of Adhikaripara, who has been staying at Sherkhanchowk with her husband Anjan and one-year-old son since January.

The flicker of hope was evident in her voice: “Peace should prevail, at any cost. We don’t want anything else, but just to return home.”

CPM district secretariat member Ashok Guria said the party would try again tomorrow to send its supporters back to Nandigram. “We kept our word and allowed their supporters to return to Khejuri, they didn’t.”

If Pratirodh Committee leaders think like the happy-to-be-home Satyaranjan, the party might well succeed. “We have learnt the hard way how painful it is to be away from home,” Satyaranjan said.

Trinamul and committee leader Abu Taher said: “The police needn’t come with them. We’ll provide all help.”

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070610/asp/frontpage/story_7902741.asp

First trickle of a homecoming
- 18 pro-CPM families back in Nandigram after five months
IMRAN AHMED SIDDIQUI

CPM supporters on Tekhali bridge on the way back to their homes in Gokulnagar on Saturday. Picture by Pradip Sanyal
Nandigram, June 9: As Manindranath Das stood before his house at Simulkundu, its doors and windows ripped off, the asbestos roof shattered and everything inside looted, the CPM supporter’s eyes brimmed with tears of joy.

“I am ready to start life all over again. I can’t believe I have returned home after five months,” the 45-year-old marriage registrar said.

Nandigram’s bumpy road to peace became a two-way street today with the return of the first batch of 18 families out of the 3,600 CPM supporters driven out since January.

On Thursday, 35 refugee families from the other side of the divide — supporters of the Bhoomi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee — had crossed the Tekhali bridge with police escort to their homes in Left-dominated Khejuri.

A few pro-CPM families, too, had set out from their camps but the committee wouldn’t let them enter its pockets if the police accompanied them. Last evening, the committee relented.

“We persuaded the local people to let the refugees back in the interests of peace,” said committee leader Abu Taher.

Some may have braved the journey without escort: while the police said 18 families with 88 members had returned home to Simulkundu, Gokulnagar and Ranichowk, district CPM secretary Ashok Guria claimed the number was 24.

The number of those yet to return is still 3,500 from the CPM’s side and another 500 from the Opposition’s.

Of the CPM refugees, only 1,200 are staying at the three camps in Bhangabera, Sherkhanchowk and Baharganj while the rest are scattered at relatives’ homes outside Nandigram.

Das plans to get three of them back soon. “I shall put a polythene sheet on the roof tomorrow and bring back my wife and two daughters who are staying with my in-laws in Khejuri.”

“The homecomings happened only because of the initiative taken by the local leaders,” a senior police officer said. “They met at the Nandigram police station eight days ago. Then they exchanged lists of refugees through us.”

But the political battle continued in Calcutta. The Trinamul Congress, which is leading the Opposition in Nandigram, held an hour-long chakka jam from 5 pm on the issue of forcible land acquisition anywhere in the state. The protest disrupted traffic in parts of Moulali, Entally, CIT Road, Hazra, Brabourne Road and Tollygunge.

Some of those who returned were cagey. “I am happy but I don’t know how long I shall be able to stay. There is so much uncertainty,” said 50-year-old Narain Debnath at Gokulnagar.

Debasish Boral, additional superintendent of police, Haldia, said there was no reason to worry. “Pickets have been posted in these villages and patrolling intensified.”

But late at night, Guria alleged that bombs were being burst on the Tekhali bridge and at Ranichowk, where four families returned today. “They are trying to scare these families,” he said.

Das had a pleasanter welcome. His neighbour Lakshmi Rani Samanta, whose family supports the Pratirodh Committee, was waiting for him.

“Kemon aachhen? Shob thik hoye jaabe, chinta korben na (How are you? Everything will be all right, don’t worry),” she said as Das gripped her hands and began sobbing.

Job compensation

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070609/asp/bengal/story_7899402.asp

DLF job for landlosers
A STAFF REPORTER
Calcutta, June 8: A concern sweeping boardrooms was reflected again today when DLF promised one job for a member of every family to be displaced by the Dankuni township.

The government’s pact with the real estate company in February for the 4,870-acre project had promised “preferential employment for displaced people”.

Today, DLF said it has committed a job to each of the 600 families to be evicted for the Rs 33,000-crore project.

Only a week ago, the Jindals promised a job for every landloser family and stakes in its steel plant in Salboni, West Midnapore.

The Prime Minister had recently preached inclusive growth to corporates, urging them to ensure every strata of the society benefitted from growth.

“Since the scope of employment is so huge, one member from each family will surely get a job. It is good for us and good for them,” said A.S Minocha, chairman of DLF Commercial Developers.

In the city for a road show on DLF’s forthcoming public issue, Minocha said the company also plans to develop some schools in the area and build medical centres as part of its “social obligation”.

The township is about 15 km from Calcutta and not far from Singur, where a section of landlosers is still waging war against the government.

DLF has already promised plots or flats at nominal rates for the displaced. Those living below poverty line will get them free. It will fund the education of children from these families up to Class X and ITI training for one student from each family.

The company has paid Rs 55 lakh an acre to bag the project — which includes textile, food processing and light engineering units — through an international auction.

DLF wants to build a 200-acre township in Siliguri and hotels, service apartments and IT parks elsewhere.

Land compensation

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070609/asp/frontpage/story_7899394.asp

Singur land bargain
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Calcutta, June 8: The CPM has agreed in principle to offer land in exchange for plots acquired from “unwilling farmers” in Singur.

The party leadership, however, appeared divided on the location of the alternative land — inside the Tata Motors project area or outside.

The lack of clarity prompted Mamata Banerjee to step up pressure by vowing to go ahead with a multi-city protest programme in July. Mamata wants land within the project site to be returned.

CPM and Left Front sources said Jyoti Basu would like the government and the Tatas to be “flexible”. But chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and industry minister Nirupam Sen, who attended today’s CPM secretariat meeting where the issue was discussed, are in no mood to nudge the company.

Unhappy at the way Basu had “unsettled the settled facts in Singur” by allowing Mamata to club it with Nandigram during their Monday meeting, Bhattacharjee and Sen reportedly told the veteran it was too late to ask the Tatas to redraw the layout.

Asked if the “land-for-land” will be carved out of the Tata project area, Basu said: “No alternative land is available there, but elsewhere. But why will they (Opposition) accept it?” The question is being seen as an indication of Basu’s disapproval of the formula.

“The formula for settlement is still possible. But I don’t know how the problem will be solved. I can’t say what they (Opposition) will settle for,” Basu added.

“Nirupam is looking into the matter of returning the land. There are some legal complications. He is preparing a note on it.” The note is expected to be placed at a front meeting tomorrow.

The sources said Basu would like the government to explore the possibility of altering the boundary without compromising the contiguity of the Tata site.

While the 645-acre mother plant is to be spared, he wants to see whether some land-losers can be accommodated in part of the 300-odd acres meant for ancillary units. The rest can be settled elsewhere or given an “attractive compensation package”.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070609/asp/nation/story_7898321.asp

Options on Singur table
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Calcutta, June 8: Several options are on the CPM table as the party tries to make up its mind on the Singur land-for-land deal.

The West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation has not yet allotted land for ancillary units, though it has received around 70 applications.

A section of the party and allies wants the government to consider whether a part of this land could be given to the “unwilling farmers” in Singur.

But CPM leaders like Benoy Konar feel that the low-lying land between the Tata Motors site and the Durgapur Expressway — under the PWD — might be a better option.

“It is not possible to offer land by redrawing the Tata factory site. Neither is it possible to divide the mother plant and ancillary industries. It will affect the project badly and the Tatas would leave,” Konar said.

Another suggestion came from the land reforms commissioner, P.K. Agarwal. He said the government could buy plots under a scheme called “land and homestead for landless people”. Agarwal said Rs 1.9 crore of the fund is lying unused.

The Trinamul Congress feels that the ancillary units could “easily’’ be shifted to “huge tracts of low and marshy land” opposite the project site.

In the event of a political decision to return acquired land — there is no provision in law to do so — officials said a Supreme Court order offered a way out.

“The apex court has said land not required should be auctioned off. We can return the land to ‘unwilling farmers’ while recording it as an auction in our records,” an official said.

The CPM leadership has censured land minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah for suggesting that a way could be found around the legal bar.

Cuba ahoy

After announcing a countrywide protest from June 22, Mamata Banerjee has set sights on communist Cuba. “Some of our representatives will visit Cuba. I have asked them to take two farmland activists along and see what is happening there in agriculture,” she said.

Articles from MANTHAN

http://sanhati.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/manthan_ma_2007.pdf

Malini Bhattacharya on Nandigram

http://www.epw.org.in/epw/uploads/articles/10647.pdf



Page 1 Economic and Political Weekly May 26, 2007 1895
Nandigram and the Question of Development
MALINI BHATTACHARYA

While ill-founded rumours of many kinds contributed to thebuild-up of tension in Nandigram, there is no question that the people of the area had genuine fears of what industrialisation and the associated displacement held out for them if a special economic zone was established in the area. These concerns have taken a new dimension in the context of the countrywide agrarian crisis which has had an impact on West Bengal as well. As a member of the National Commission for Women, I have beenmeeting a number of people of theNandigram area, particularly women, whohave been affected by the violent happen-ings there in the last four months. Theseevents have received much media atten-tion, particularly the tragic climax whichcame on March 14 when, following at-tempts by police forces to enter the area,the totally unwarranted death of 14 peoplefrom the locality, including two women,took place. I have met both women whowere in hospitals as victims of this action,as well as others who had been forced toleave their villages as a result of violenceunleashed in the area since January by theso-called Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Com-mittee (BUPC).The fact of violent displacement of largenumbers of people in the name of deve-lopment is not unknown in India and hashappened in other states like Orissa,Maharashtra, Gujarat or Madhya Pradesh;in this case, actual displacement has nottaken place, but violent incidents havefollowed a mere proposal to set up arelatively small special economic zone(SEZ) in West Bengal. What is unprec-edented and unwarranted is that the violenceand the subsequent loss of lives due to police action has taken place in a state wherea Left Front (LF) government has been inpower for the last 30 years. The left partiesled by the CPI(M) have been the onlyorganised political force in the country totake a strong and consistent stand againstneo-liberal policies promoting indiscrimi-nate opportunistic handing over of na-tional resources to transnational capital.The left parties have also perceivedSEZs as an outcome of the same neo-liberal policies long before their political opponents in West Bengal raised a hue andcry over Nandigram. The CPI(M)’s statedstand on this has been that in the presentsituation, mere opposition to SEZs would not prevent them from coming up and it was imperative to prevail upon the centralgovernment to introduce regulations onland use in SEZs so that industry hasprecedence over real estate business andlabour rights are preserved. Nandigram has been a testing ground for working outto what extent a state government, con-strained by many limitations, may cullsome advantages for development andgeneration of livelihood, from the basi-cally adverse national situation created byneoliberal policies.The reverses ofNandigram have shown how complex thewhole question is.A mere circular, subsequently with-drawn, enumerating areas which might

Page 2 Economic and Political Weekly May 26, 2007 1896

have to be acquired for the SEZ in Nandi-gram, created a conflagration leading toan enforced withdrawal of all administra-tion from the area. The situation was pre-cipitated by the ill-advised police actionon March 14, 2007, at Sonachura andBhangabera.The use of arms by thoseresisting police entry cannot be ruled out.But there can be no doubt that instead ofresolving the impasse the police actionaggravated the situation; the governmenthas subsequently admitted that mistakeswere made. It is particularly regrettablethat the major victims of violence rightfrom the month of January, whether theysuffered in the hands of the BUPC or onMarch 14 from police action, are ordinarypoor people who are still living in anatmosphere of fear and uncertainty. In spiteof the unequivocal declaration by the stategovernment that there would be no landacquisition without people’s consent andsubsequently that the proposal for SEZ inNandigram was being withdrawn, theadministration is still being prevented fromentering Nandigram and violence withinand around that area is still continuing.Class Terror?Many people have seen this as a spon-taneous peasant uprising from the groundlevel. When, however, one looks at thecoercion and violence unleashed upon asection of the poor peasants, agriculturalworkers and petty producers in the area bythe BUPC since January 6, 2007, and thecontinuing enforced displacement of thissection from their homes, one is unable toendorse this view. If this had been aspontaneous peasant uprising, suchterrorisation would have been unnecessary.One woman of Kalicharanpur with verylittle land, whose husband suffers fromulcerative colitis and is therefore hardly ableto work, had been allegedly gang-rapedby three persons one of whom sherecognised as a member of BUPC; oneman who has a small business producingand selling gur, agreed to go along withBUPC, but when they started extractinglevies he was unable to pay, he decidedto escape from the area to avoid them; buthe was caught and although he managedto save his own life, all his equipment formaking gur was confiscated so that he isnow entirely without a livelihood. Anotherwoman was ousted from her home forhaving dared to give evidence to the StateWomen’s Commission regarding the brutalmurder of 17-year old Sumita Mondol,in which some members of BUPC wereallegedly involved. Such incidents are dailyoccurrences in the area today. So if thisis “class terror” arising from a spontaneousmovement from the grassroots, why arehundreds of people from the poorer classesat the receiving end of it? Why did theBUPC find it necessary on March 14 touse force on a number of women andchildren to place them in the line of policefiring and to erect barriers of bamboo andrope behind them to prevent them fromretreating when the police charged? Wehave been told by many women who wereobviously taking part in the resistance thatthey had been in the forefront on that daybecause they had been told that the policewould not fire on them; others again haveinformed us that they were forced toparticipate, some of them at gunpoint, inthe resistance. Such evidence indicates amost unscrupulous manipulation of thedoubts and fears of the masses for gainingopportunistic political control.At the same time, however, it cannot bedenied that this manipulation becamepossible not only through directterrorisation of people with a differentpolitical inclination, but by working uponsome basic fears, which had been theregenerally in the minds of the rural poorin the area. Nandigram differs significantlyfrom Singur, with which its name is veryoften uttered in the same breath, insofaras the former is a less fertile area, wherethe soil is saline and agriculture is possibleonly for three months in the year; unlikeSingur, it is not located on the nationalhighway and speculation in land has notbeen so rampant as it had been in Singurfor quite some time even before the Tataproject came up. Above all, the proposalin Nandigram was to set up a SEZ, whereasin Singur, the acquisition of land was forsetting up a car factory; and while in Singur,the transactions involved some agricul-tural land alone (single, double ormulticrop), in Nandigram, acquisition ofhomestead land was also a possibility, thusevoking the fear not only of dispossession,but also of dislocation. Such dislocationwould affect not only people earning theirlivelihood directly from agriculture, butalso other people living in the area forgenerations and those providing variousservices to them. It would certainly affectthe previously mentioned gur producer,irrespective of whether or not he possessedany land or he earned his livelihood partlyas an agricultural worker. These are veryreal fears which have to be addressed before any kind of land acquisition is proposed.These specific fears of dislocation arealso contextualised by more general fearsfrom which the peasantry is suffering allover the country today. These are very real fears prompted by what economists havedescribed as the worst agrarian crisis in thecountry since colonial times. This is notone brought on by natural causes, but isthe direct result of neoliberal policies andthe pressures of imperialist penetrationinto the agricultural sector of third worldcountries manifested through the impera-tives of institutions like the WTO, whichhave opened up our agrarian economy“to the volatility of global markets and tounfair trade” (Utsa Patnaik, ‘Deflationand Déjà Vu’, in Agrarian Studies (eds),V K Ramchandran and MadhuraSwaminathan, Tulika, 2002, p 119). It hasbeen pointed out that acute immiserisationin the agrarian sector has been the directresult of “income-deflationary and trade-liberalising” policies dictated by globalagencies such as the one mentioned above.In West Bengal, the beneficial effects ofland reforms on agricultural productionhave, to some extent, counteracted theeffects of this countrywide crisis so thatin the Tenth Plan period, when the growthrate of agriculture in the rest of India camedown to 2 per cent, in West Bengal, it wasstill over 3.5 per cent. But West Bengalhas had other problems such as the extreme density of population, as a result of whichthere has been considerable fragmentationof land with about 65 per cent of the totalpopulation depending for their livelihooddirectly or indirectly on agriculture. Thestagnation in employment opportunities inthe urban sector has compounded thelivelihood difficulties and the imperativefor setting up not only small and mediumindustries, but also larger ones, has to befollowed by a state government which,under the existing circumstances, has toexplore all available options for employ-ment generation. Generation of employ-ment on a scale that the agricultural sectortoday is unable to sustain, has been per-ceived by the Left Front government as themajor objective of industrialisation.Dearth of EmploymentA number of women, from families ofthe labouring poor in Nandigram who hadbeen ousted from their villages by theviolence unleashed by BUPC, told me thatthere was a dearth of livelihood opportu-nities in the area; some of them were even--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Page 3 Economic and Political Weekly May 26, 2007 1897
sending their young children to Delhi as domestic labour and were forced to marry off their daughters at a very young age.They felt that if there was industrialisationin the area, this might give them moreopportunities for employment, althoughthey were not specific about the kind ofemployment the poorer and untrainedsections of the local population might havefrom the setting up of a chemical hub. Still,they said very clearly that the soil beingsaline and groundwater level being verylow, traditional agriculture could not yieldsufficient livelihood in the area. They alsosaid that they had been assured that therewould be sufficient compensation for anyland acquired, even for a tree or a pondsituated on this land. This was not deniedeven by the men and women injured in thepolice action whom I met in the hospitalswhere they were being treated. But thelatter said that they had no intention ofparting with agricultural or homesteadland whatever the compensation may be,and that they had disbelieved even thedeclaration made by the chief ministerbefore March 14 that no land would beacquired without their consent. When askedwhy they had persisted in resistance whenthe chief minister had already declared thatthe chemical hub would not be set up inNandigram, one young man blurted out:“But he is still talking of industrialisation!”Thus for them the term “industrialisation”itself had come to be synonymous withdispossession and displacement and theyhad been swayed by the campaign and byreports in some newspapers that the assur-ances were eyewash and land acquisitionwould start as soon as the administrationentered the area.I have felt very strongly that this cam-paign would not have had such a stronginfluence on a section of the local peopleif the impact of the countrywide agrariancrisis had not been felt by the rural popu-lation in West Bengal as well. While thereis no denying that a false campaign hasbeen running rampant and that particularlyafter March 14, concocted and grosslyexaggerated accounts of police atrocitiesare being circulated deliberately toembellish the actual atrocious incident ofthe loss of 14 lives, it must also be admittedthat the fear and uncertainty of the agrarianpopulation cannot be wished away. It hasbeen nurtured and developed into a para-noia in Nandigram among some sectionsof the people, but doubts as to whether ahuge industry involving massive dis-location would solve the problems of the countryside could be more widespread. Ithas also seemed to me that a doubt has beencreated in the minds of many small pro-ducers in the agrarian sector, whether thissector will be accorded the same priorityas industry. Since neo-liberal policies ofthe central government have made agricul-ture a loss-making proposition for farmers,there is no doubt that that part of theagricultural population which has receivededucation and is upwardly mobile wouldshift out of this sector as soon as it findsalternative opportunities, but even thenagriculture and the thousands of smallproducers associated with it will remain.They need to be assured that the problemsthat beset the agrarian sector will not beneglected, but will remain a major concernof the state government.Trauma of WomenThe women I met in the hospitals werein a traumatised state and this traumawas being constantly fed with rumours ofatrocities spread by those who were com-ing to visit them, but it was clear from theirstatements that, rumour or not, the fear oflosing their homesteads and/or agriculturalland, had made them confront the policeon March 14. Some of the people we metin the camps told us that, at the local level,the CPI(M) had already started a campaignthat radical steps towards industrialisationwere on the way, that this would requireland and that whoever gave his land wouldbe assured of ample compensation. Thuseven before any official agreement wassigned, the message communicated to thepeople was that land acquisition on amassive scale was unavoidable, and itwould start within a short time. Instead offilling them with hope for a better life, ithad had the effect of aggravating the fearsof a very large number of people. I have notfound in my experience that people in therural areas in West Bengal are backward-looking and averse to change. The agrariancrisis holding the entire countryside inthrall is something felt by the peasantry intheir bones, and in ordinary circumstances,few sections of the rural poor in WestBengal would deny the need for a trajectoryof change that would lessen rural poverty,mitigate land-alienation and enhanceemployment opportunities. They alsowould not deny the need for industry toreduce the pressure on land or that it mightbe necessary to acquire land for the pur-pose. But it is most important that theyshould be able to understand and participatein changes that would be affecting theirlivelihood and their daily living.What about those people who had notwished to resist the administration andwho had even hoped to improve theirstandard of living through alternativeemployment should there be industrialdevelopment in the area? Most of thempossessed little or no agricultural landanyway, but the fact that they expectedalternative livelihood from industrialdevelopment does not necessarily meanthat they are prepared to be displaced fromareas in which many of them have beenliving for many years. What they said ratherindicated that they were not thinking interms of possible displacement in order toaccommodate industrialisation. What thewomen in the refugee camps said was:“Our men might get some jobs when theworks come up”, indicating that they hopedto continue living in the same area. Thequestion remains whether, even if the siegeis lifted and they are able to return home, thepossible displacement for future benefitsthat big industry may eventually bringwould be acceptable to them or whetherindustrialisation through an SEZ wouldallay the uncertainty they feel about theirlivelihoods.Land acquisition is necessary for industria-lisation, particularly in a land-constrainedstate like West Bengal. Since much of theland is already being utilised for agriculture,it is impractical to think that acquisitionof agricultural land can always be avoided.For the left parties the crucial issue wouldbe to what extent and by what means thedecline in agriculture could be stalled andhow soon industrialisation would be ableto create permanent alternative means oflivelihood. The whole question of the extentto which the setting up of big industriescan compensate for the loss of livelihoodcaused by dispossession and dislocationand go on to provide a positive growth injobs under the present circumstances, is adebated one. The question applies particu-larly to the poorer sections of job-seekerswho do not possess the needed skills. Iffear and uncertainty in the agrarian sectorcontinue to grow, then the basis fordevelopment that has been created inWest Bengal in the last three decadeswould be undermined. It is not just aquestion of how much compensation isbeing paid to those who are losing land;because compensation presupposes thatthe problems of those receiving it would beresolved at one go. But the question oflivelihood is a much more complex one--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Page 4 Economic and Political Weekly May 26, 2007 1898
which cannot be calculated simply interms of ready cash.Alternative livelihood does not growautomatically out of compensation money;it has to evolve in coordination with localproduction relations. A SEZ in the areawould mean not just a radical change in thelocal economy, but extensive demographicand ecological changes as well. Spaces forgrazing domestic animals, trees yieldingproducts that could be used and sold andwater bodies used for domestic purposeswould no longer be available to the com-munity, particularly to the poorer sections.Their absence to people who had been usedto them would not be merely a matter ofnostalgic regret, but would signify material,economic and social deprivation. Compen-sation in terms of an acceptable alternativelivelihood and not just in terms of moneyis therefore important. Large industries docreate some employment opportunities forunskilled labour when infrastructural de-velopment is going on, but in themselvesthey are very rarely labour-intensive. Theremay be a greater possibility of downstreamgeneration of employment opportunitiesin terms of production of goods andservices, but that may take several yearsor decades to materialise. It would requirecareful planning and consistent efforts atimplementation on the part of the stategovernment to guarantee that the settingup of massive new economic, demographicand ecological systems in an area does nothappen without addressing the question ofdispossession and displacement that maybe necessitated by it. Even if the settingup of new industries is able to offset someof the job-loss caused by the closing downof other industries and by the decline inagricultural growth, it can hardly solve theproblem of actually existing unemploy-ment and underemployment. There alsohave to be plans for encouraging smallproducers with financial support and byfinding markets for them. Otherwise onecannot allay the very real fears of the ruralproducers that they will be bypassed bydevelopment.There is another aspect to this question.Since the setting up of industries will hardlybe able to relieve the pressure on land toany significant extent, the problem of thedecline plaguing agriculture becomes moreacute. As I have said earlier, this declineis the direct result of the neoliberal policiesbeing promoted at the national level fromthe early 1990s under the pressure of globalagencies representing new strategies ofimperialism. It is not possible for any stategovernment to reverse the trend. In thedeveloped capitalist world, a much smallernumber of people is dependent on agricul-ture for their livelihood, but state protec-tion for large-scale capitalist productionenables such countries to be self-sufficientin food. In our country today, the trajectoryof capitalist development in agriculture,dominated by global market forces, is notlikely to be similar; there is much morelikelihood of such development leading tocaptive markets in agriculture for globalcapital, The growing pressure to introducecontract-farming and to allow FDI in retailtrade are manifestations of this tendency.But the problem for a state which hasdeveloped so far on the strength of itsflourishing agriculture is that this vitalityhas to be maintained. At least it has to seethat immiserisation is not precipitated andsuccour to the farmer is provided by ensur-ing minimum support prices for agricul-tural products, enhancing availability of--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Page 5 Economic and Political Weekly May 26, 2007 1899

essential commodities, diversifying agri-culture while maintaining food securityand initiating employment generationprogrammes in the countryside. Onecannot move forward in industry whileleaving agriculture behind. The rural pro-ducers have to be assured that agricultureis as much of an economic and socialpriority, so far as the state is concerned,as industry.Some “apolitical” people have beensaying that the crisis in Nandigram hasbeen caused by the undesirable politici-sation of developmental issues which,according to them, should be kept abovepolitics, and they take peculiar pleasure incalling for a plague on both their housesand suggesting that the CPI(M) is nowbeing paid back in its own coin for startingthe undesirable game. But developmenthas always been a political issue, demar-cating the contradiction between the power-ful and the disempowered. Most of thefamiliar models of development today haveembedded in them the political tendencyof reinforcing or even aggravating theinequities which produce this contradic-tion. It seems to me that, in Nandigram,the politics of the poor and the dis-empowered in the agrarian sector has tobe put back in place with due priority to thequestion of development. It will necessitatenot just even-handed administrative action,but clear political will. It is the responsi-bility of the left parties who are in powerin the state to make this possible.


Email: idsk1@vsnl.netEPW

Globalization And Democracy: Some Basics - Michael Parenti

Globalization And Democracy: Some Basics
Michael Parenti
26 May 2007
<Michaelparenti.org>
The goal of the transnational corporation is to become truly transnational, poised above the sovereign power of any particular nation, while being served by the sovereign powers of all nations. Cyril Siewert, chief financial officer of Colgate Palmolive Company, could have been speaking for all transnationals when he remarked, “The United States doesn’t have an automatic call on our [corporation’s] resources. There is no mindset that puts this country first.”[i]
With international “free trade” agreements such as NAFTA, GATT, and FTAA, the giant transnationals have been elevated above the sovereign powers of nation states. These agreements endow anonymous international trade committees with the authority to prevent, overrule, or dilute any laws of any nation deemed to burden the investment and market prerogatives of transnational corporations. These trade committees - of which the World Trade Organization (WTO) is a prime example - set up panels composed of “trade specialists” who act as judges over economic issues, placing themselves above the rule and popular control of any nation, thereby insuring the supremacy of international finance capital. This process, called globalization, is treated as an inevitable natural “growth” development beneficial to all. It is in fact a global coup d’état by the giant business interests of the world.
Elected by no one and drawn from the corporate world, these panelists meet in secret and often have investment stakes in the very issues they adjudicate, being bound by no con­flict-of-interest provisions. Not one of GATT’s five hundred pages of rules and restrictions are directed against private corporations; all are against govern­ments. Signatory governments must lower tariffs, end farm subsidies, treat foreign companies the same as domestic ones, honor all corporate patent claims, and obey the rulings of a permanent elite bureaucracy, the WTO. Should a country refuse to change its laws when a WTO panel so dictates, the WTO can impose fines or international trade sanctions, depriving the resistant country of needed markets and materials.[ii]
Acting as the supreme global adjudicator, the WTO has ruled against laws deemed “barriers to free trade”. It has forced Japan to accept greater pesticide residues in imported food. It has kept Guatemala from outlawing deceptive advertising of baby food. It has eliminated the ban in various countries on asbestos, and on fuel-economy and emission stan­dards for motor vehicles. And it has ruled against marine-life protection laws and the ban on endangered-species products. The European Union’s prohibition on the importation of hormone-ridden U.S. beef had overwhelming popular support throughout Europe, but a three-member WTO panel decided the ban was an illegal restraint on trade. The decision on beef put in jeopardy a host of other food import regulations based on health concerns. The WTO overturned a portion of the U.S. Clean Air Act banning certain additives in gasoline because it interfered with imports from foreign refineries. And the WTO overturned that portion of the U.S. Endangered Species Act forbidding the import of shrimp caught with nets that failed to protect sea turtles.[iii]
Free trade is not fair trade; it benefits strong nations at the expense of weaker ones, and rich interests at the expense of the rest of us. Globalization means turning the clock back on many twentieth-century reforms: no freedom to boycott products, no prohibitions against child labor, no guaranteed living wage or benefits, no public services that might conceivably compete with private services, no health and safety protections that might cut into corporate profits.[iv]
GATT and subsequent free trade agreements allow multinationals to impose monopoly property rights on indigenous and communal agriculture. In this way agribusiness can better penetrate locally self-sufficient communities and monopolize their resources. Ralph Nader gives the example of the neem tree, whose extracts contain natural pesticidal and medicinal properties. Cultivated for centuries in India, the tree attracted the attention of various pharmaceutical companies, who filed monopoly patents, causing mass protests by Indian farmers. As dictated by the WTO, the pharmaceuticals now have exclusive control over the marketing of neem tree products, a ruling that is being reluctantly enforced in India. Tens of thousands of erstwhile independent farmers must now work for the powerful pharmaceuticals on profit-gorging terms set by the companies.
A trade agreement between India and the United States, the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture (KIA), backed by Monsanto and other transnational corporate giants, allows for the grab of India’s seed sector by Monsanto, its trade sector by Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill, and its retail sector by Wal-Mart. (Wal-Mart announced plans to open 500 stores in India, starting in August 2007.) This amounts to a war against India’s independent farmers and small businesses, and a threat to India’s food security. Farmers are organizing to protect themselves against this economic invasion by maintaining traditional seed-banks and setting up systems of communal agrarian support. One farmer says, “We do not buy seeds from the market because we suspect they may be contaminated with genetically engineered or terminator seeds.”[v]
In a similar vein, the WTO ruled that the U.S. corporation RiceTec has the patent rights to all the many varieties of basmati rice, grown for centuries by India’s farmers. It also ruled that a Japanese corporation had exclusive rights in the world to grow and produce curry powder. As these instances demonstrate, what is called “free trade” amounts to international corporate monopoly control. Such developments caused Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad to observe:
“We now have a situation where theft of genetic resources by western biotech TNCs [transnational corporations] enables them to make huge profits by producing patented genetic mutations of these same materials. What depths have we sunk to in the global marketplace when nature’s gifts to the poor may not be protected but their modifications by the rich become exclusive property?
If the current behavior of the rich countries is anything to go by, globalization simply means the breaking down of the borders of countries so that those with the capital and the goods will be free to dominate the markets.” [vi]
Under free-trade agreements like General Agreements on Trade and Services (GATS) and Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), all public services are put at risk. A public service can be charged with causing “lost market opportunities” for business, or creating an unfair subsidy. To offer one in­stance: the single-payer automobile insurance program proposed by the province of Ontario, Canada, was declared “unfair competition”. Ontario could have its public auto insurance only if it paid U.S. insurance companies what they estimated would be their present and future losses in Ontario auto insurance sales, a prohibitive cost for the province. Thus the citizens of Ontario were not allowed to exercise their democratic sovereign right to institute an alterna­tive not-for-profit auto insurance system. In another case, United Postal Service charged the Canadian Post Office for “lost market opportunities”, which means that under free trade accords, the Canadian Post Office would have to compensate UPS for all the business that UPS thinks it would have had if there were no public postal service. The Canadian postal workers union has challenged the case in court, arguing that the agreement violates the Canadian Constitution.
Under NAFTA, the U.S.-based Ethyl Corporation sued the Canadian government for $250 million in “lost business opportunities” and “interference with trade” because Canada banned MMT, an Ethyl-produced gasoline additive considered carcinogenic by Canadian officials. Fearing they would lose the case, Canadian officials caved in, agreeing to lift the ban on MMT, pay Ethyl $10 million compensation, and issue a public statement calling MMT “safe,” even though they had scientific findings showing otherwise. California also banned the unhealthy additive; this time a Canadian based Ethyl company sued California under NAFTA for placing an unfair burden on free trade.[vii]
International free trade agreements like GATT and NAFTA have hastened the corporate acquisition of local markets, squeezing out smaller businesses and worker collectives. Under NAFTA better-paying U.S. jobs were lost as firms closed shop and contracted out to the cheaper Mexican labor market. At the same time thousands of Mexican small companies were forced out of business. Mexico was flooded with cheap, high-tech, mass produced corn and dairy products from giant U.S. agribusiness firms (themselves heavily subsidized by the U.S. government), driving small Mexican farmers and distributors into bankruptcy, displacing large numbers of poor peasants. The lately arrived U.S. companies in Mexico have offered extremely low-paying jobs, and unsafe work conditions. Generally, free trade has brought a dramatic increase in poverty south of the border.[viii]
We North Americans are told that to remain competitive in the new era of globalization, we will have to increase our output while reducing our labor and production costs, in other words, work harder for less. This in fact is happening as the work-week has lengthened by as much as twenty percent (from forty hours to forty-six and even forty-eight hours) and real wages have flattened or declined during the reign of George W. Bush. Less is being spent on social services, and we are enduring more wage concessions, more restructuring, deregulation, and privatization. Only with such “adjustments”, one hears, can we hope to cope with the impersonal forces of globalization that are sweeping us along.
In fact, there is nothing impersonal about these forces. Free trade agreements, including new ones that have not yet been submitted to the U.S. Congress have been consciously planned by big business and its government minions over a period of years in pursuit of a deregulated world economy that undermines all democratic checks upon business practices. The people of any one province, state, or nation are now finding it increasingly difficult to get their governments to impose protective regulations or develop new forms of public sector production out of fear of being overruled by some self-appointed international free-trade panel.[ix]
Usually it is large nations demanding that poorer smaller ones relinquish the protections and subsidies they provide for their local producers. But occasionally things may take a different turn.
Thus in late 2006 Canada launched a dispute at the World Trade Organization over the use of “trade-distorting” agricultural subsidies by the United States, specifically the enormous sums dished out by the federal government to U.S. agribusiness corn farmers. The case also challenged the entire multibillion-dollar structure of U.S. agricultural subsidies. It followed the landmark WTO ruling of 2005 which condemned “trade-distorting” aid to U.S. farmers. A report by Oxfam International revealed that at least thirty-eight developing countries were suffering severely as a result of trade distorting subsidies by both the United States and the European Union. Meanwhile, the U.S. government was maneuvering to insert a special clause into trade negotiations that would place its illegal use of farm subsidies above challenge by WTO member countries and make the subsidies immune from adjudication through the WTO dispute settlement process.[x]
What is seldom remarked upon is that NAFTA and GATT are in violation of the U.S. Constitution, the preamble of which makes clear that sovereign power rests with the people: “We the People of the United States . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution reads, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” Article I, Section 7 gives the president (not some trade council) the power to veto a law, subject to being overridden by a two-thirds vote in Congress. And Article III gives adjudication and review powers to a Supreme Court and other federal courts as ordained by Congress. The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” There is nothing in the entire Constitution that allows an international trade panel to preside as final arbiter exercising supreme review powers undermining the constitutionally mandated decisions of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
True, Article VII says that the Constitution, federal laws, and treaties “shall be the supreme Law of the land”, but certainly this was not intended to include treaties that overrode the laws themselves and the sovereign democratic power of the people and their representatives.
To exclude the Senate from deliberations, NAFTA and GATT were called “agreements” instead of treaties, a semantic ploy that enabled President Clinton to bypass the two-third treaty ratification vote in the Senate and avoid any treaty amendment process. The World Trade Organization was approved by a lame-duck session of Congress held after the 1994 elections. No one running in that election uttered a word to voters about putting the U.S. government under a perpetual obligation to insure that national laws do not conflict with international free trade rulings.
What is being undermined is not only a lot of good laws dealing with environment, public services, labor standards, and consumer protection, but also the very right to legislate such laws. Our democratic sovereignty itself is being surrendered to a secretive plutocratic trade organization that presumes to exercise a power greater than that of the people and their courts and legislatures. What we have is an international coup d’état by big capital over the nations of the world.
Globalization is a logical extension of imperialism, a victory of empire over republic, international finance capital over local productivity and nation-state democracy (such as it is). In recent times however, given popular protests, several multilateral trade agreements have been stalled or voted down. In 1999, militant protests against free trade took place in forty-one nations from Britain and France to Thailand and India.[xi] In 2000-01, there were demonstrations in Seattle, Washington, Sydney, Prague, Genoa, and various other locales. In 2003-04 we saw the poorer nations catching wise to the free trade scams and refusing to sign away what shreds of sovereignty they still had. Along with the popular resistance, more national leaders are thinking twice before signing on to new trade agreements.
The discussion of globalization by some Marxists (but not all) has focused on the question of whether the new “internationalization” of capital will undermine national sovereignty and the nation state. They dwell on this question while leaving unmentioned such things as free trade agreements and the WTO. Invariably these observers (for instance Ellen Wood and William Taab in Monthly Review, Ian Jasper in Nature, Society and Thought, Erwin Marquit in Political Affairs) conclude that the nation state still plays a key role in capitalist imperialism, that capital - while global in its scope - is not international but bound to particular nations, and that globalization is little more than another name for overseas monopoly capital investment.
They repeatedly remind us that Marx had described globalization, this process of international financial expansion, as early as 1848, when he and Engels in the Communist Manifesto wrote about how capitalism moves into all corners of the world, reshaping all things into its own image. Therefore, there is no cause for the present uproar. Globalization, these writers conclude, is not a new development but a longstanding one that Marxist theory uncovered long ago.
The problem with this position is that it misses the whole central point of the current struggle. It is not only national sovereignty that is at stake, it is democratic sovereignty. Millions, of people all over the world have taken to the streets to protest free trade agreements. Among them are farmers, workers, students and intellectuals (including many Marxists who see things more clearly than the aforementioned ones), all of whom are keenly aware that something new is afoot and they want no part of it. As used today, the term “globalization” refers to a new stage of international expropriation, designed not to put an end to the nation-state but to undermine whatever democratic right exists to protect the social wage and restrain the power of transnational corporations.
The free trade agreements, in effect, make unlawful all statutes and regulations that restrict private capital in any way. Carried to full realization, this means the end of whatever imperfect democratic protections the populace has been able to muster after generations of struggle in the realm of public policy. Under the free trade agreements any and all public services can be ruled out of existence because they cause “lost market opportunities” for private capital. So too public hospitals can be charged with taking away markets from private hospitals; and public water supply systems, public schools, public libraries, public housing and public transportation are guilty of depriving their private counterparts of market opportunities, likewise public health insurance, public mail delivery, and public auto insurance systems. Laws that try to protect the environment or labor standards or consumer health already have been overthrown for “creating barriers” to free trade.
What also is overthrown is the right to have such laws. This is the most important point of all and the one most frequently overlooked by persons from across the political spectrum. Under the free trade accords, property rights have been elevated to international supremacy, able to take precedent over all other rights, including the right to a clean livable environment, the right to affordable public services, and the right to any morsel of economic democracy. Instead a new right has been accorded absolutist status, the right to corporate private profit. It has been used to stifle the voice of working people and their ability to develop a public sector that serves their interests. Free speech itself is undermined as when “product disparagement” is treated as an interference with free trade. And nature itself is being monopolized and privatized by transnational corporations.
So the fight against free trade is a fight for the right to politico-economic democracy, public services, and a social wage, the right not to be completely at the mercy of big capital. It is a new and drastic phase of the class struggle that some Marxists – so immersed in classical theory and so ill-informed about present-day public policy - seem to have missed. As embodied in the free trade accords, globalization has little to do with trade and is anything but free. It benefits the rich nations over poor ones, and the rich classes within all nations at the expense of ordinary citizens. It is the new specter that haunts the same old world.
NOTES
[i] Quoted in New York Times, May 21, 1989.
[ii] See Lori Wallach and Michelle Sforza, The WTO (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2000); and John R. MacArthur, The Selling of “Free Trade”: Nafta, Washington, and the Subversion of American Democracy (New York: Hill & Wang, 2000).
[iii] New York Times, April 30, 1996 and May 9, 1997; Washington Post, October 13, 1998.
[iv] See the report by the United Nations Development Program referenced in New York Times, July 13, 1999.
[v] Project Censored, “Real News”, April 2007; also Arun Shrivastava, “Genetically Modified Seeds: Women in India take on Monsanto”, Global Research, October 9, 2006.
[vi] Quoted in People’s Weekly World, December 7, 1996.
[vii] John R. MacArthur, The Selling of “Free Trade”: NAFTA, Washington, and the Subversion of American Democracy (New York: Hill & Wang, 2000; and Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh, “Nafta’s Unhappy Anniversary”, New York Times, February 7, 1995.
[viii] John Ross, “Tortilla Wars”, Progressive, June 1999.
[ix] For a concise but thorough treatment, see Steven Shrybman, A Citizen’s Guide to the World Trade Organization (Ottawa/Toronto: Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives and James Lorimer & Co., 1999).
[x] “US seeks ‘get-out clause’ for illegal farm payments” Oxfam, June 29, 2006. http://www.oxfam.org/en/news/pressreleases2006/pr060629_wto_geneva
[xi] San Francisco Chronicle, June 19, 1999.
[Michael Parenti’s recent books include The Assassination of Julius Caesar (New Press), Superpatriotism (City Lights), and The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories Press). For more information visit: www.michaelparenti.org]
© 2007 Michael Parenti

Abhijit Sen and Abhijit Guha on the Vietnam vs. West Bengal debate

The Vietnam experience
By Abhijit Sen
The Statesman
10 May 2007
Many of the hypothetical fears about the conflict between agriculture and industry can be dispelled by a visit to Vietnam and a study of their methods in conditions very similar to those obtaining in West Bengal, says ABHIJIT SEN
The sudden outburst of Singur and Nandigram over land acquisition for industry has caught most people by surprise. After all, this was not the first time that land has been acquired for industry. Decades ago, when Bengal was the leading industrial state in the country, huge tracts of land had been acquired for mega projects like Durgapur Steel Plant, Alloy Steel Plant, expansion of IISCO, DVC projects, Farrakka, and so on.
Of course it can be argued that these projects were set up before land reforms, which gave peasants rights over the land they till. But even after land reforms many large industrial projects have come up on farmland. Examples are Dankuni, Haldia Petrochem, Haldia Refinery, Fritolay and Dabur factories in North Bengal and many more. Therefore, the attachment of peasants to their land after land reforms cannot be the main cause of the present troubles.
Threat to food scarcity is often cited as a reason for not setting up industry on agricultural land. Here again the fears seem unfounded. In the past two decades, in spite of conversion of land to industry without a hitch, West Bengal has emerged as the leading agricultural state in the country in rice, potatoes, fruits and vegetables.
It can be argued that modern industry is capital intensive and not labour intensive, and therefore the labour displaced from agriculture cannot be absorbed by industry. At first sight this seems to be a valid argument until we examine, for each square mile of land, how many people can be supported by employment in industry and commerce and how many can be supported by agriculture. This exercise will show that each unit of land can give maximum employment concentration in shops, offices, restaurants, software and BPO, then in industry and lastly agriculture. It must not be forgotten that agriculture is a land intensive activity and much more land is required to support a person in agriculture than in commerce or industry. A comparison of Burrabazar with Nandigram will illustrate the point. Nandigram is not the only place in the world where land has been sought to be converted from agriculture to industry. In practically every part of the world such conversions are taking place every day. How has this been achieved without riots and police firing?
It may be instructive to look at the experience of Vietnam. The land area of Vietnam and its population is almost the same as West Bengal. If anything the population density of Vietnam is somewhat higher. Like West Bengal, 70 per cent of the population of Vietnam is engaged in agriculture and in both places the principal crop is rice. The per capita income is also similar in both countries – if anything the per capita income in India is slightly higher. With so many similarities, is Vietnam facing a problem of acquiring agricultural land for industry? The answer is a resounding “NO”. New SEZs, industrial parks, software parks are coming up in huge numbers in Vietnam.
The author visited one park (out of many such) which employed 60,000 people and had exports of $ 1.3 billion. Another was dedicated to 600 Japanese companies. Industry in Vietnam is growing by leaps and bounds and the country is rapidly moving from its original agricultural base to become an industrial power house. This is not to say that agriculture is being neglected. From being a devastated famine stricken country at the end of the war, Vietnam has now become a leading food exporter. In fact, it is the world’s second largest exporter of rice, the very crop which is said to be most affected by conversion of land to industry.
Many of the hypothetical fears about the conflict between agriculture and industry can be dispelled by a visit to Vietnam and a study of their methods in conditions very similar to those obtaining in West Bengal. This state has very long and very close emotional ties with Vietnam. The cries of “Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh” and “amar nam tomar nam Vietnam” still occasionally resound on the streets of Kolkata and one of the most important streets of Kolkata is named after the Vietnamese hero. However, we cannot just rest on past ties. The Vietnamese are practical people and while not forgetting the past, are more interested in the present and the future. In the past West Bengal has been in the vanguard in giving support to the Vietnamese war effort. However, it is a sad fact that the current material interchanges are almost non-existent. Now that West Bengal faces a continuing crisis over using land for industry, it is our turn to look to Vietnam for help in resolving the crisis. An intensive study of the Vietnamese methods by West Bengal delegations of both Left Front and opposition leaders will surely help in resolving the current impasse which is threatening to nip in the bud the nascent industrial revival in West Bengal.
Things should not come to such a pass in West Bengal where all progress is brought to a halt by a never ending face-off between the government and opposition over an issue which the Vietnamese experience shows is a non-issue. Our political parties must show a modicum of statesmanship in finding a solution to the problem, especially when an exemplary solution is available in a nearby country like Vietnam. (The author is former president of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce)


ABHIJIT GUHA’S REPLY
Areas where Vietnam scores over West Bengal
The Statesman
31 May 2007
Sir, ~ In the article, “The Vietnam experience” (10 May) Abhijit Sen has compared Vietnam with West Bengal in terms of their population, proportion of population engaged in agriculture, the principal crop produced and the per capita income. However, he has found one striking dissimilarity. According to him, Communist Vietnam does not face any problem in acquiring land for industries as is currently being encountered by the Leftist government in West Bengal. Further, by introducing SEZs, industrial parks, software parks and so on, Vietnam has been able to move out from its “original agricultural base to become an industrial power house.” The author also tells us that “Vietnam has now become a leading food exporter.” With due respect to Mr Sen who is a great captain of industry and commerce in Bengal, I would like to bring to his kind notice the following facts:
1) In 2002, the West Bengal government organised an international seminar on agrarian relations in which scholars from Russia, China, Vietnam and Cuba presented their papers and two noted economists VK Ramachandran and Madhura Swaminathan edited the published versions of those papers in a book entitled “Agrarian Studies: Essays on Agrarian Relations in Less Developing Countries”. The paper by the Vietnamese scholar, Noguen Tan Trin, depicted the condition of agriculture and the government policies in Vietnam from 1945 to the present period. His paper clearly reveals that land reforms and formation of agricultural cooperatives were the two major activities which helped Vietnam to achieve self-sufficiency in food crop and literacy. In West Bengal, according to government reports prepared by N Mukarji and D Banerjee (1993) and Jayati Ghosh (2000), let alone the cooperative movement, the process of land reforms became slow since the mid-1980s and landlessness began to emerge as an alarming trend! This is a major difference between Vietnam and West Bengal.
2) Another dissimilarity between Vietnam and West Bengal is the new land law which the former enacted in 1993. By that law, land belonged to the people and the government only had administrative control over it. The law also empowered individual and communal owner of land to give the land in lease to others for large-scale cultivation, social forestry, pisciculture and salt production.
The Vietnamese government is presently encouraging farmers to reclaim uncultivable land to form “ideal large farms” to avoid land fragmentation. At present, there are nearly 130,000 such farms in the country.
In 1994, the West Bengal government introduced the new industrial policy to invite huge capital-intensive investment and began to acquire fertile farmland without changing the colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1894. The failure to check land fragmentation through cooperatives in West Bengal is well known. The Jayati Ghosh report strongly recommended the formation of agricultural cooperatives.
3) In Vietnam, the government is targeting to bring down the number of persons engaged in agriculture to 50 per cent by 2010 through technological improvement in agriculture and not by large-scale land acquisition.
Additionally, in Vietnam there is a strong emphasis on expanding village-based cottage industries, agricultural marketing and services in the rural areas.
The West Bengal Leftists also had such plans and experts committees are still recommending such activities, but the government is paying all its attention to installing big industries and SEZ under the pretext of “successful land reforms”.
~ Yours, etc., Abhijit Guha,
Vidyasagar University, 11 May.

Compensation

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070601/asp/frontpage/story_7861139.asp
Jindal offers shares for land
A STAFF REPORTER

Calcutta, May 31: For the first time in the country, a project promoter has offered shares in the company to owners of land to be acquired to set up the factory. The Jindals, who will build a steel plant in Bengal with a capacity of 3 million tonnes in the first phase, today offered cash and stock to compensate 742 families from whom they expect to buy land at Salbani in West Midnapore district. “I want to make each family giving land for the project a stakeholder,” Sajjan Jindal said after announcing the package. Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, to whom Jindal made the proposal at a meeting today, might be greatly relieved by the news after being stung by a burst of bad publicity over Nandigram and yesterday’s setback in a civic poll near the troubled area. “I think it is a good model. We will tell all businessmen who want to set up industries to look at it,” a smiling chief minister said. He appeared, however, to be sceptical about the popularity potential of the model. Under the scheme, each family will be paid the entire value of the land in cash and an equivalent amount in shares. The cash component will have two parts — one half will be paid directly and the other will be placed in an annuity scheme to be managed by the Life Insurance Corporation that will hand the family a monthly income. On offer is also a job for one member of the family in the project. Sukhdeb Mahato, 52, who owns a three-bigha plot in the area and has a daughter studying law, reacted positively to the package. “I don’t earn much from the land now. The annuity scheme will be very helpful,” he said. The shares of JSW Bengal Steel Ltd, the company that will put up the project, will be held for the landowners in a trust under the district magistrate’s management. When the company gets listed on a stock exchange closer to the start of production in 2011, the landowners will have the option to sell the shares. “The shares are being offered at par at Rs 10 now. I think it will appreciate substantially when listed,” Jindal said. Biswadip Gupta, who will head the Bengal project, said the company had been identifying the landowners for the past two months. Of the land required, about 4,060 acres belong to the government that will be made available to the Jindals at a price of Rs 1.9 lakh an acre while 570 acres have to be bought directly from the farmer. Jindal didn’t say that the inspiration for the idea came from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s speech recently at the Confederation of Indian Industry where he described “inclusive growth” as the priority of his government in its remaining two years. IT industry organisation Nasscom’s president Kiran Karnik, a strong proponent of inclusive growth, welcomed the Jindal model and revealed that in an upcoming IT park in Pune, landowners themselves had formed a co-operative and teamed up with a developer.