sumit sarkar on singur
Anivar Aravind
A question marked in red
Sumit Sarkar
Posted online: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 at 0000 hrs IST
As a lifelong Leftist, I am deeply shocked by recent events in the
countryside of West Bengal. On December 31, a group of us went to
Singur, spent the whole day there, visited 4 out of the 5 most
affected villages which border the land that has been taken over. We
had conversations with at least 50-60 villagers. Almost all rushed to
us and told us their complaints.
>From this brief but not necessarily unrepresentative sample, three
things became very clear, because of which the West Bengal
government's version cannot be accepted. One, the land, far from being
infertile or mono-cropped, as has been stated repeatedly, is
sextremely fertile and multi-cropped. We saw potatoes and vegetables
already growing after the aman rice has been harvested, some of them
actually planted behind the now fenced-in area which the peasants had
lost. Two, there is no doubt that the vast bulk of the villagers we
met are opposed to the take-over of land and most are refusing
compensation. It should also be kept in mind that at best the consent
of the registered landholders as well as sharecroppers is being taken.
But agricultural production also involves sharecroppers who are not
covered by Operation Barga since they have come in later, as well as
agricultural labour. Under the government-announced scheme for
compensation, such people are not being remembered.
Three, we found much evidence of force being employed, particularly on
the nights of September 25 and December 2. We met many people — men
and also a large number of women — who had been beaten up, their
injuries still visible, including an 80 year old woman.
What the villagers repeatedly alleged was that along with the police,
and it seems more than the police, party activists, whom the villagers
call 'cadres' — which has sadly become a term of abuse — did the major
part of the beating up. Clearly, the whole thing had been done without
consultation, with very little transparency, and in a very
undemocratic manner.
As for the official claims of land being mono-cropped, the Economic
and Political Weekly in an editorial of December 23 has pointed out
that the last land survey of the area was done in the 1970s which
means that the records with the government are backdated. Surely there
must be much more investigation on the ground and consultation with
panchayats and other local bodies. No one, not even the government,
has actually claimed that such consultation has taken place. It was
done entirely from the top.
These mistakes, to put it mildly, are being repeated on a much bigger
scale in the Nandigram region. This has become far more serious
because a much greater area of land is being taken — with the same
lack of transparency, absence of consent and massive brutality. Once
again, one is hearing reports of CPM cadres engaged in an offensive
against peasants. What is happening at Nandigram is a near civil war
situation.
The West Bengal government seems determined to follow a particular
path of development involving major concessions both to big
capitalists like the Tatas and multinationals operating in SEZs. Yet
the strange thing is that these, particularly the latter, are things
which Left parties and groups as well as many others have been
repeatedly and vehemently opposing. No less a person than the CPM
General Secretary in the course of last week made 2-3 statements
attacking SEZs. The CPM has been at the forefront of the struggles
against such developments in other parts of the country.
Surely there must be a search, at least, for paths of development that
could balance necessary industrial development with social concerns
and transparency and democratic values. Is this SEZ model that implies
massive displacement and distress really the only way? If the West
Bengal government thinks so, then it also has to accept that the
inevitable consequences are going to be a repetition of Nandigram
across the state.
This is the price that will be paid by government, ordinary people as
well as investors for this model of development.
The writer is an eminent historian