In a scathing denouement, a group of intellectuals led by historian
Sumit Sarkar who visited West Bengal's Nandigram and Singur areas
have stated categorically that the people of these areas were not
consulted about the land acquisition programme. This indicates a
clear disconnect between the ruling Left Front and its cadres - the
rural masses of Bengal.
More importantly, the chasm between India and Bharat is ever
widening. Two and a half years ago, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition found itself
floundering because of the undue importance it gave to its India
Shining campaign, where it tried to highlight its economic
achievements which were urban agglomerates focused. Rural India was
unfortunately peeved as it discovered that it was not part of this
growth story. Growth had to be all-inclusive. And this became the
mantra for the new government cobbled up with the support of the
60-odd Left MPs.
But in
the run up to government formation, Communist Party of India (CPI)
leader A.B. Bardhan sent the stock markets into a tailspin. Black
Monday is still remembered with bone chilling reality. May 17 became
a red-letter day in the history of Indian bourses because it had to
shut down twice due to the panic that set in. Bardhan and his
comment - loosely translated - "to hell with disinvestments"
compounded everyone's agony. Various people tried desperately to
bring sanity back to the markets.
Now, the wheel has come full circle. The poster child of Left
reforms, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, is being
targeted by his own rural masses for distributing large tracts of
land to corporate entities. You can argue that Mamata Banerjee is
adding a political hue to the protests, but the stark reality of the
CPI and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) offices being
torched in Nandigram is an inescapable fact.
What this entire episode has also managed to do is set back this
government's big-ticket reformist plan of setting up special
economic zones (SEZs). SEZs have unfortunately become a clone of the
India Shining blitz and have now been put into cold storage so long
as an effective rehabilitation policy for the farmers is not put
together. The Left, which has constantly carped on various reform
measures, is now trying to grapple with a reformist reality in its
own backyard.
Did SEZs then become a vehicle for land grab by corporate entities,
without addressing the needs of the tillers whom they were
displacing? There is obviously a civilisational component to this
problem that governments in New Delhi and in states need to quickly
come to terms with.
What is the edifice of West Bengal turning into a Left bastion for
close to 30 years? Why is it that the Congress has more or less been
banished from Bengal? In 1978, the Left ushered in sweeping reforms
through Operation Barga, which won them the unstinted support of the
rural masses. Actually this started a few years earlier when the
second United Front government in the late 1960s saw local peasants
recovering more than 500,000 acres of benami land and
distributing it among the landless multitude.
This movement became more or less official when the Left Front swept
to power for the first time in 1977. Operation Barga was constructed
through the Bengal Land Holding Revenue Act 1979 and Revenue Rules
1980 allowing the recording of the names of sharecroppers (bargadars),
avoiding the time consuming method of recording through the
settlement machinery. Slowly a rural transformation of sorts began
to take place in Bengal. In the past, it had been impossible for a
tenant to prove his tenancy rights legally.
The Left has over the years succeeded in distributing 384,000
hectares of vested land among over two million farmers, thereby
acquiring surplus land and allowing rural poor and landless
agricultural workers to till the land. Further studies show that
aggregate agricultural production in the 1980s was a staggering 6.4
percent per annum against the annual growth rate of agricultural
output during 1965-80 being 2.2 percent. And therein lies the rub.
Now, the proponents of this radical reform seem to be reneging on
this promise. What is the agitation in Singur against the Tata small
car plant and in Nandigram against Salim Group's based on? Why has
it turned so violent? Is it only the handiwork of political
opposition? No, it is an emotive issue because these same farmers
are resenting the fact that agricultural land is being given away,
perhaps displacing the landowners.
Not for a moment can one believe that Mamata alone can create the
existing condition in these areas. As anybody in Kolkata will say,
she is an urban politician who has just not managed to bridge the
rural divide in Bengal politics. But with the land acquisition
issue, she has managed to propel herself to the forefront of
agitational politics.
But this anger against being displaced is not new. Early last year,
in Kalinganagar in Orissa, a Tata Steel plant agitation saw 12 to 21
adivasis being killed. One thing may well lead to another. Even as
Naxalite activities are rising in what are now large tracts of the
Indian hinterland, the rural protests may well acquire a different
colour. The other day, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, conscious of
the slowly building up 'aakrosh' (anger) in rural India,
categorically asserted to a room full of industrialists and
businessmen that it was imperative that a rehabilitation policy be
firmed up for displaced farmers.
Industrialization is obviously required if India needs to improve
its appalling infrastructure woes. But will this be done at the cost
of displacing the poor, is something that we need to ruminate on.
West Bengal may well become a case study. What has been seen in
Singur and Nandigram is not isolated incidents, but part of
systematic revolt on part of the agricultural poor to ensure that
they stay tied to their land. SEZs are fine because they will
provide the necessary impetus to radicalize manufacturing growth.
But an all inclusive industrial policy that allows various strata of
society to feed into the benefits accruing from frenetic
urbanization is critical.
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In a scathing denouement, a group of intellectuals led by historian
Sumit Sarkar who visited West Bengal's Nandigram and Singur areas
have stated categorically that the people of these areas were not
consulted about the land acquisition programme. This indicates a
clear disconnect between the ruling Left Front and its cadres - the
rural masses of Bengal.