Seething Rage

Political parties are poised to face this ‘structural adjustment conflict’ in the next polls. So how are they going to represent the people’s aspirations in the face of such resistance? Will land become the main contradiction in the coming elections?

Sanjay Kapoor Delhi /Amit Sengupta Kalinganagar

Former Prime Minister VP Singh has an innate ability to understand the pulse of the people. He can simplify complex issues that go down well with ordinary people. When he parted ways with Rajiv Gandhi, he managed to weave corruption with national security and made the 'Bofors gun scam' a household name and de-legitimised the Congress government.

Then again he came out of retirement and terminal disease and ran a bruising campaign against the government of Mulayam Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh. The mantra of his campaign was that Yadav's government was giving away farmers land at throw away prices to Anil Ambani for building a gas-based power house in Dadri. Singh put his finger on the crisis in the countryside and how government policies were exacerbating the anxiety in the minds of farmers, who were unsure of how they should countenance the forces of globalisation.

By raising the concerns of the farming community he was merely giving precedence to an issue that had drowned in the din of tub-thumping resorted to by the chambers of commerce about the country's sensational growth rate. The UP assembly elections gave an opportunity to VP Singh to presciently define an issue that would make an impact when the national polls take place in not so distant a future.

Singh had no party and little support from others, but his campaign struck a chord with the farming community in the cowbelt that was worried over the manner in which the Samajwadi Party government was pandering to the corporate houses without showing any regard for their livelihood. Worse, Yadav's government did not publicly disclose at what rate they were giving the land to the power company.

Singh may have not got very much out of this campaign as all his candidates lost in the assembly elections; but his campaign played a stellar role in destroying Yadav's 'farmer constituency'. Singh managed to prove to the masses that the chief minister was only pursuing the agenda of crony capitalists who surrounded him and he did not have the interest of the farmers at heart. Yadav lost UP, his fake 'Uttam Pradesh'.

History bears testimony to what happened to Yadav, but there is little evidence that anyone in power learnt anything from this experience. Maybe they did not want to. The general belief is, giving away land to the industry means mega-bucks for all those who take this decision and serves the purpose of party fundraisers and power brokers. The only people who have a reason to be worried about the land policy are those who have to go back to the people for a fresh mandate.

Quite clearly, the communists in West Bengal seemed to be trapped in the same paradigm as the 'bourgeois' parties — of attracting industry to kick-start development in the state — whatever the political  and social costs. Instead of doing it right, they did it all wrong. They committed mistakes akin to that of Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Epitomising opaqueness so typical of communist bureaucracies, the CPM chose to give fertile agricultural farmland to the Tatas and the rather notorious Indonesian multinational Salem in Singur and Nandigram. Using police and their cadre in the use of extra-constitutional brutality, they also tried to force the farmers and share-cultivators when they refused to accept the development package. Consequently, Singur and Nandigram really blew up on their faces. Suddenly, the party that took pride in launching the land reforms of 'Operation Barga' in favour of sharecroppers and landless and small farmers was looking so ordinary. The CPM has not been able to recover from these wounds and looks extremely vulnerable electorally.

The fact is that the protracted Nandigram resistance was led by Muslims and Dalits, and it is they who were killed in the massacre. All independent grassroots surveys in West Bengal point to the shift in the support base of the PM: the poorest and the minorities who have been hurt by the state government's land policies have decisively moved away from the party. The recent Haldia municipal elections are a significant pointer. CPM heavyweight Lakshman Seth, the man who reportedly masterminded 'Operation Nandigram', calls the shots here. Last time the party literally won unanimously and uncontested — so strong was their muscle and cadre power. This time their vote share dipped massively and they lost several seats, especially in their poor and small farmers' strongholds. Indeed, despite baring their fangs on the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal and the threat to withdraw support from the UPA government, the CPM in West Bengal looks quite jittery about facing early elections.

In neighbouring Orissa, industrial development in its pristine interiors, especially in the Eastern Ghats, is driving tribals out of their traditional lands and eco-systems and feeding grievance against the State. So callous has been the conduct of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD)-BJP-led state government that they allowed the angry tribals agitating over the killings in Kalinganagar to squat for more than a year on the highway leading to Paradeep Port. The Orissa police had killed 13 tribals in cold-blood when they refused to allow the Tatas to build a boundary wall around their factory site. These tribals were complaining over inadequate compensation for their acquired land: they got bullets instead.

Kalinganagar, like Nandigram, has become a classic case of peasant and tribal uprising in modern India. Mostly inhabited by Munda tribes, this sprawling and fertile landscape has now turned into a tribal fortress of resistance with people now refusing to move once inch to give way to the Tata Steel Plant, which would have been functionally linked to the ravaged Sukhinda mines in Orissa. Indeed, Kalinganagar has witnessed several tribal uprisings against corporate take-over of their land in the past, almost always facing police repression, arrests and forcible displacement. The tribals have always found that they are cheated and condemned to live in ghettoised rehabilitation colonies far away from their communities with no facilities, no roads, schools or health centres. “Look at this sprawling green ancestral land of ours. It has everything which nature can give, and we have nourished this land. How can we leave this motherland to these outsiders and profit-sharks, and why should we leave our indigenous homes,” said a tribal leader.

While women are at the vanguard of this resistance, there have been alliances made across the nation. The tribal farmers of Kalinganagar visited Nandigram in solidarity after the massacre. They met writer Mahashweta Devi and others. Medha Patkar has visited their homes many times. CPM, CPI and CPI-ML-Liberation leaders and activists are constantly in touch. There are reports that underground Maoists have also pledged support, though the locals deny it.

There are other areas in Orissa where the old development debate between industry and agriculture is being played out in all its violent hues. Land for South Korean steel giant, POSCO, is still in a catch-22 scenario despite the massive investment promised, which is also being vociferously backed by the UPA government. Farmers in the remote villages on the road to Paradeep Port at Jagatsinghpur and beyond refuse to leave their land. They have erected bamboo barricades and blocked inner lanes in the villages which are slated to be displaced. Posco or government officials are not allowed to enter the site area, where the people have dug up their flags. Huge public meetings are being held, and key leaders don't always operate openly because 'Posco goons' are all over, invisibly. The public mood is still angry and the divide and rule policy is not working. Not too long ago, some employees of Posco who were trying to acquire tribal land were forcibly detained. In all these areas, journalists are routinely asked by the locals to show their 'identity' card, lest he/she be an industry/government informer — so deep is the distrust.

Vedanta and scores of other companies are facing problems in acquiring land, which, according to the new land acquisition policy put together by the central government, would become the responsibility of private companies. The struggle in Kashipur against Aditya Birla's mining company has intensified while tribals in this bauxite rich area across the area bordering Koraput and Rayagada have refused to move, despite series of arrests and muscle-flexing by goons and the police. Against the Vedanta mining project in Lanjigarh, and the proposed international university next to a reserved sanctuary and sea coast near Puri, tens of thousands of people are up in arms. One lakh people are directly affected with the project near Puri. “This is fertile land. It belongs to our ancestors. Why should we give it,” said the farmers in a public meeting in mid-September in the area.

Puri being a commercial and religious tourist-cash heaven, this site, just about 20 kms away, might rake in the bucks for Vedanta. But people have not been consulted. There has been no consensus. “They want to make this place into a Bangkok. A sex tourism sea resort. We will die but we will not accept forcible displacement, though, majority of us supported the BJD,” said activist Vasudeva.  Big public meetings and protest rallies are routinely being organised in Kalinganagar, Vedanta sites, Kashipur and 'Posco areas';  there are alliances being formed, supporters are landing up from all over India, global email campaigns are underway, and Nandigram is the flashpoint of this landmark struggle between industry and agriculture, the corporate versus the rural and tribal. “We will make another Nandigram here,” is the catchword everywhere.

Meanwhile, the lurking presence of Maoists is everywhere - they come and go with their red flags, guns, distributing pamphlets and literature, celebrating their annual functions, commemorating martyrdoms. Between the tribal areas of Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand, with common borders, their movements can't always be monitored by the police, but the people know them. “They come from across those mountains, from Purulia and Midnapore,” said a farmer on the Jamshedpur-Ranchi highway. Another said, “They will come and have tea with you. They will be sitting next to you. But you won't even know they are Naxalites, and armed.”

In many of the 'land-forest-struggle areas' in Orissa, they make quick public meetings. They sometimes stay back in the nights in remote villages. If not so frequently in the mainline areas as in Jagatsinghpur or Kalingananagar, in forest areas, and in tribal conflict zones in the interiors of Koraput, Rayagada, Malkangiri and Bolangir, their armed, underground, often scary presence is tangible and effective. The irony is that most of the people's movements here are strongly non-violent and peaceful, including the resistance in Kashipur and Kalinganagar. But the fact is that the resistance is strong. And the Maoists' understand this classical contradiction. That is why they have wowed not to allow the vast mineral rich forest areas of Bastar and beyond to be converted into SEZs. And their bandh calls in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have been successful.

In Jharkhand as in Orissa, mining companies are reportedly bribing politicians and bureaucrats and getting large chunks of land allotted to them. Even bureaucrats and officials are apparently interested in mining contracts. The original inhabitants are either paid off or chased out. Little wonder that most of these areas have come under the Maoists sway. And there is a big campaign underway against the 'mining mafia'.

Besides, all these aggressive acquisition by industrial houses would mean that a large mass of people would have no option but to become refugees and migrants to urban areas looking for a job, for which they are not trained, exiled, homeless and condemned. It does not take much imagination to figure out the devastation which will hit tribals and peasants who are doing marginal farming in the remote areas of Orissa or Andhra Pradesh, or sustaining their communities in synthesis with the eco-system, preserving and nourishing nature, living a hard, stoic and beautiful life.

In Andhra Pradesh, too, the land issue is giving space and legitimacy to the Maoists, who have been hit hard by the grey hounds after the failure of talks with the government. The major demand of the Maoists is land reforms. For years they have been fighting for the implementation of land reforms, but the nexus of feudal lords, politicians and police has been stalling it. The recent Khammam firing in which farmers died is a pointer: the movement was led by the CPM and CPI seeking redistribution of land for the poorest of the poor, including Dalits. And let's not forget that Khammam is in the epicentre of the historic peasant uprising in Andhra, led by the undivided CPI earlier, and later by the Naxalites.

However, the bigger problem for all the political parties is going to show up when the special economic zones begin to acquire land and corporates get down to their business. There are going to be more than 400 SEZs in this country, bulk of which would be in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Gurgaon district in Haryana would have the maximum number of 52 SEZs. These would come up at the expense of 34 per cent of agricultural land.

While Gurgaon may witness a sudden increase in number of 'crorepati- farmers' who sell land to the corporates — it is unlikely to contribute in helping the fortunes of the political party that presided over this new order. There is a high possibility that the farmers may just spend all the money they get as compensation without creating a self-sustaining and enduring livelihood. Indeed, Bengal's Industries Minister Nirupam Sen is on record that many displaced farmers don't know how to spend compensation money — they spent it on motorcycles.

It is true that there are many farmers who are reeling under the crisis created by low productivity and an unpredictable market and they would be glad to sell off their land to the highest bidder — but the corporate houses are not keen to touch these lands. Why is the government not building SEZs and other industrial enclaves in suicidal Vidarbha or the cotton belts of Andhra where farmers are committing suicide for want of funds, or in barren land elsewhere? Surely, some of them might be keen to sell off their land and pay off their debts, especially because the government has refused to help them out even as the macabre dance drama continues unabated.

On the contrary, the best arable land, often in the most pristine and ecologically precious zones, is going to the corporate houses for business projects. Kashipur, Kalinganagar, Jagatsinghpur, Bastar, Singur, Nandigram, Raigarh, Dadri and Gurgaon are all case in points where development can take place without the special economic zones or one-dimensional corporate projects, displacing the locals. The government should have pushed these developers to go to places where agricultural productivity is low and unviable, or the land unfertile and barren. Then, land acquisition would have been easier, based on social justice and sustainable development, and the government would have fulfilled its legitimate role as the just arbiter of social goods for the greater common good.

Political parties are poised to face this 'structural adjustment conflict' in the next polls. So how are they going to represent the people's aspirations in the face of such resistance? Will land become the main contradiction in the next polls?