Green signal, red crossing

The Tata small car project, at Singur, in West Bengal, has reopened simmering wounds in a Left bastion chasing Capitalism

Ashis Biswas Kolkata

The Left Front government in West Bengal has copped a lot of flak on the Tata small car project, at Singur, in Hooghly district, 50 kilometres northwest of Kolkata. Accusations have flown thick and fast. The CPI (M)-led coalition government has tried hard to hold its own against an avalanche of criticism.

Consider that up to 1991, Bengal did not receive any industrial investment from the public or private sectors. Its per capita income in 1975 was the lowest in land. The number of registered unemployed, at 78,00,000  today, is the highest in India. Even the Haldia Petrochemical and the Bakreswar power plant were built after bitter opposition and great financial difficulties. Congress (I) ruled out an electronic industry hub in Bengal on the curious plea that it was a ‘border state’. Is it any wonder that Bengal is desperately hungry for industrial investment?

This is not to suggest that the Left Front’s handling of the controversy, as well as its approach to the cultivators and common people at Singur, has been commendable. Most deplorable has been the behaviour of the police, who totally failed to handle poor, worried farmers with sensitivity. And the fact is there are uncanny questions surrounding single-  and double-crop fertile land, farmers’ mass displacement and compensation, apart from the economic model that the state wants to follow in the era of globalisation.  

A brief look at the facts of the Singur project shows that the area needed is 993 acres.  The total investment is Rs 250 crore initially and another Rs 1,000 crore will be invested later. The project involves direct employment to around 1,000 people and indirect employment for at least 10,000 people. The location is close to the industrial belt, the major highways; Tata’s experts want a territory close to major highways. They also asked for large open spaces to allow the manoeuvring of car-carrying trailers.

The area is predominantly agricultural, with a sprinkling of small industrial units. It falls within the suburban penumbra of industrialised ‘greater Kolkata’. Politically, there is sizeable support for the opposition parties in 11 out of 12 blocks. Besides, there are some double-crop agricultural plots. According to Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) leader Provas Ghosh, “Agriculture sustains about 30,000 people in this area.”

Indeed, since the large take over of farm and tribal land by industrial houses, and after the police firing on tribals at Kalinganagar in Orissa and protests elsewhere, adequate compensation and mass displacement has emerged as an emotive,

conflict-ridden issue across the country.  Surely, despite its strong ‘pro-farmer’ position on the SEZ policy pursued by the Centre, even the Left Front can’t escape criticism on this score in West Bengal.

Besides, under Jyoti Basu as chief minister, from Salt Lake to Bantala, valuable land close to industrialised Kolkata and the neighbouring districts has been virtually gifted away to business houses for developing a leather complex, luxury hotels and housing projects. ‘Joint ventures’ involving the state government have been implemented, yielding minuscule profits, whereas business houses gleefully made a killing. The fact is 1,50,000 poor farmers and plot owners have been pauperised! And apart from some NGOs, neither the Congress nor the BJP or Trinamul Congress chose to take up their cause. 

“Therefore, the heat the Left Front is facing over Singur is basically a bitter legacy of its own past policies,” says  political observer Charubrata Ray. “The Singur folks are luckier: they might receive the best possible compensation package in the circumstances now that there has been so much public exposure on this issue.”

It is also being stated by insiders that in Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the state now has a CPI-M chief minister, who will invite industrialists, but  never abandon the rural or urban poor. “I will meet the expectations of the Singur people to the extent possible. We have identified 4,000-odd poorest villages in Bengal and taken steps to help them. We are ruling only because we enjoy their trust. What has the Congress done for the poor all these years?” said Bhattacharya, speaking to Hardnews.  

The Bengal government has announced a rehabilitation package that promises payment of land prices at current prices, plus 52 per cent. Homesteads will be provided for those who lose shelter. The size of industrial plots has been reduced from a proposed 1,100 acres to 993, thereby saving some fertile land. Special training schemes have been planned to enable displaced locals to secure the new jobs that will be created. 

Argues Bhattacharya, “Haryana got a breakthrough because of the Maruti factory at Gurgaon. In addition to the regular production of cars, these factories need a steady local supply of spare parts, large and small components and sundry other items. Many ancillaries came up. It will happen here, too, and many people will get work. We will have a large auto manufacturing hub in Bengal again, not just because of the Tatas. The Russian truck factory at Haldia and the new two-wheeler producing unit of the Salim group of Indonesia will be major new projects.”

While the Tatas have made no firm commitment, they have assured jobs for the displaced people. However, the opposition is not pleased. “How can anyone even think of the locals, mostly farmers, getting any kind of work in such a highly mechanised unit? Even engineers are looking for jobs in Bengal, what hope is there for the semi-skilled or non-skilled? They will be permanently the hewers of wood and drawers of water, once they lose their plots,” asserts Ghosh.

Others like Partha Chatterjee, Trinamul Congress leader and management expert, believe that the state has made too many concessions. “The state has 69,00,000 hectares of land under cultivation, with another 37,00,000 hectares either poorly or not cultivated. Why set up industries in agricultural areas?" he asks. Manas Bhuyan, of Congress, wonders, “Why is the government reluctant to release the 40,000 acres owned by the closed and sick mills for new industries?”

Manju Majumdar, state CPI secretary, feels the government should have discussed the project more thoroughly. It should have spelt out the compensation package and the concessions offered to the Tatas. The Left allies did not boycott the all-party meeting convened by Bhattacharya, like the Trinamul Congress, but they did complain of lack of transparency. There was also stinging criticism of the government for offering “unsually low land prices to the Tatas” — almost for free!   Nirupam Sen, Minister for Industries, points out, —No land is being sold, land is only being leased to the Tatas and initially they will pay Rs 20 crore over several years as payment of interest.” 

Says CPI(M)’s peasant leader Benoy Konar, “I cannot comprehend how Ghosh, of the  SUCI, calculates that 30,000 people make their living on 1,000 acres at Singur. In season, one bigha of land requires daily labour from 20 men, for boro cultivation it needs 27 men. According to our figures, Singur provided work for 400 men in boro and aman seasons, not even round the year. And only a few plots are double crop.” This has been strongly disputed by Chatterjee, of Trinamul Congress, and other opposition leaders. 

CPI(M)’s Centre for Indian Trade Union (CITU) chief Shyamal Chakravarty says, “Over the last few years, at least 550 small-scale units—petrol pumps, dhabas, eateries, tea shops, garages, informal cycle repair shops, shops, rickshaw and auto rickshaw stands— have come up at Singur. All these on agricultural land! Nobody objected. Neither we, nor the opposition, can prevent the urbanisation of villages near industrialised areas. This is natural economic development. Now that a major industry requires land, the opposition is feeling restive. In all growing economies of the world, the  role of agriculture is declining, while industry and the service sector are rising.  How can Bengal insulate itself from the economic process and remain a rural idyll eternally? Only days ago, the opposition parties blamed us for making Bengal an industrial desert.” 

At Singur, there is apprehension among the locals that without their land they will be thrown in uncharted territory. Said Nareswar Das, “Once they take our land for a pittance, they will never give us work, even engineers are jobless. We will be reduced to beggary. Everyday, the police threatens us, not even sparing our women. They don’t allow us to protest. We don’t believe in official promises.”

And yet, the government has gone ahead by paying off some farmers with cheques; 3,000 farmers have received payment. While Left leaders are satisfied, some of them are worried about the future of the displaced people. The truth is, farmers are cultivators, and that is their craft and livelihood since centuries, and land is their most precious asset. There can be no adequate compensation for farmers who are required to give up their land— certainly not class III or IV jobs. And, at best, the government can only minimise their suffering—they are bound to feel condemned, facing a sudden dead end, exiled out of their own land. This is a tragedy in the making.