PRAGOTI

It’s not just the infinite arrays of trucks and heavy vehicles that have got stranded on the Durgapur expressway for the past eleven days, but also the prospects of Bengal at industrialization in this new millennium. It is not to suggest that the entire industrial-economic future of the Bengal now hinges upon the four-seater family vehicle that Tata motor has planned to launch from its manufacturing unit at Singur, but certainly this small car would play an emblematic role against the vitriolic perception that was created since the late 60s by the political clique at New Delhi about industrial and economic prospects of Bengal.

With the demise of the ‘license-permit Raj’ in the early 90s, Bengal looked forward towards a new horizon of hitherto suppressed economic potentiality. However, the recent mockery of agitational politics brought into the political fore by the Trinamool Congress (‘TMC’) is intended at besmirching this horizon with political opportunism which benefits none except the Prima Donna of anti-left reactionary furor of Bengal (read Mamata Bannerjee et al.) and their/her new-found allies.

Much has hitherto been said and talked about the person named above; however, it is now imperative to cast a glance on her new-found aides and confidantes. In a recent press statement the aides have surpassed their protagonist in the fanatical furor to assert that they are not going to abort their ‘movement’ in Singur even if Mamata backs out. The inherent danger (if not a very immediate one) lies in the fact that these motley crowd of confidantes represents a much favoured ploy of the neoliberal political order which transcends the boundaries of the national under the aegis of the Bretton-Woods ideological framework: the ‘NGOization’ and apoliticization of politics in the name of civil society activism, thereby obliterating the questions of class, contradictions and consciousness. Due to the lack of a people’s mandate on these bizarre political elements, they need not have a broader perspective of socio-economic scenario as they owe accountability to none except perhaps their donor agencies. The youth, the students, the workers as well as the world of commerce had urged for a negotiation and dialogue between the TMC and the state government, to no avail. This enquiry as to the background of her aides and confidantes is essential not to cast personal aspersions on them or to attempt any character assassination. It is required primarily for the reason to pierce the devious veil of apolitics that most of her aides seek to take up and to draw a trail of the politics of apolitics that seems to have attached itself to the mainstream politics in Bengal since the past three years.

People’s Secular Democratic Front- this alliance, is a group of parties with little presence in the state, NGOs and Naxalite groups with agenda that couldn’t have been more dissimilar. These groups bring two strands together: a strong anti-industry line — which Mamata apparently doesn’t (leave the case of West Bengal) — and an ardent anti-CPI(M) stand which plays right into Mamata’s identity. Naxalites and former Naxalites walk in and out of these NGOs both as members and supporters. Some of the “political” groups don’t even have an office, one claims the support of 700 people across the state, and another got rarely 100 votes in the Hind Motors union elections. These groups joined Mamata in Nandigram and scenting success there — the government abandoned its SEZ plan — they are now emboldened in Singur.

“Paschim Banga Khet Majur Samity” seems to be having a grievance against the entire concept of industrialization as a whole as its chief Anuradha Talwar (a graduate from Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi and the ‘Tata’ Institute of Social Sciences) says “Industry is more powerful than agriculture, so agriculture and industry cannot sustain simultaneously. Industry always destroys agriculture. Industrial pollution will engulf agricultural land. So we are fighting to save agriculture from the Tata Motors plant in Singur” (what class interest is she espousing or what developmental agenda does she have at her disposal??!!). The Samity monitored NREG progress in the state and claims to have exposed failures in its implementation. Today, the NGO runs an 11-acre “collective farm” and claims it is funded by collections from locals and donations. Eight acres are used for farming — which Talwar says sustains the residents — and three acres is for homestead. An estimated 115 locals live here, eating out of a mass kitchen that runs throughout the year The claim to fame of this NGO is holding up bus loads of engineers and staff working at the Nano site on August 28 and it was after their threats of intimidation that Tatas decided to stop sending staff to the plant. Talwar and her husband had established an NGO back in 1984- “Gana Samhati Kendra” in North 24 Parganas who had started working on rural sanitation and healthcare. Under this aegis was Khet Majur Samity (a trade union body, which they claim has no political affiliation) was established, however, prior to Singur no sign of trade union activism of this body was ever visible in Bengal.

Sunanda Sanyal, a former professor who had allegedly fell out of CPM’s favour (allegedly regarding the seat of Vice-Chancellorship of the Calcutta University), emerged with his NGO “Gana Mukti Parishod” in the scenario. Sunanda Sanyal happened to be the convenor of the “Poshchim Bongo Gonotantrik Front” [an anti-CPI (M) forum of several political groups]. Former Secretary of the state Land Reforms Department Debabrata Banerjee is also associated with this NGO. Sanyal found in the Singur campaign a visible forum to take on the CPM and rushed in. During the last elections, he had actively campaigned for having NGOs as observers. Asked about his funding, Sanyal said: “We get donations from friends.”

However, the most luminous amidst the motley confederation is undoubtedly Medha Patkar. After her dire failure at winning the legal battle on Narmada Dam issue and arranging for compensation for the displaced populace there, it seems she has chosen West Bengal (especially Nandigram and Singur) as the stage to recoup the grounds. Despite several requests by the state government to attend a dialogue on rehabilitation, she seems to exude the same arrogance and adamancies of her political kin (The TMC supremo) on the issue of land for the project. Her group- National Alliance of Peoples’ Movement has joined with Talwar, Sanyal, TMC and the rest of the brigade at Singur. Albeit, she identifies globalization and imperialism as the greatest foes of humanity, questions may be raised as to where was her activist zeal and this resistance to the two when the subsidies on fertilizers were taken off during the NDA regime or the cross-subsidization of rural electricity was dismantled or when there has been a death toll of more than 1200 cotton cultivators as suicides under the burden of elephantine debts which had primarily ensued from usage of the Genetically Modified varieties of cotton-seeds around her home town in Vidharbha and Marathwada districts of Maharashtra.

Mintu Dey, the secretary of “Group For Rural Alternative Movement” claims that all members of this organization are “Naxal-minded persons” (note the “apolitics”) from around Jadavpur University. The NGO was formed with the pointed goal of organizing and supporting the “farmers’ agitation” in Singur. He boastfully asserts that “There is no question of a compromise regarding Singur. If Tatas leave, so be it”. Asked about his group’s funding, he said: “We get money from well-wishers and small collections from sympathizers.” It is ambiguous as to what brand of agrarian struggle they are espousing and towards what aim. This ambiguity also persists with “Jana Sangharsha Samity” which was set up during 1975 as part of Jayaprakash Narayan’s Nav Nirman movement and which claims to have a single-point agenda of “socialism”. Secretary Himanshu Mukherjee admits that the group has no “definitive” sphere of work. His statement not only testifies a sheer lack of concrete aims and strategies, but also a huge ideological void which he tries to smirk off with the comment- “We believe in socialism. Tatas should go back. That is the solution to all the problems in Singur,” however, without providing any explanation as to how this would further the goals of socialism in India.

Belur Shramajibi Hospital has stepped in with the claim to provide health care services to the farmers of Singur which has been in its activity since the last twenty five years. Asked about the monetary support to their services, they replied that: “We collected money from local people and workers of Belur area to build the hospital. We are not bearing any cost of this makeshift stage in Singur. We run the organization with public collections,” said A.K. Saha, the secretary of the organization.

Four Naxalite factions are part of the 21 of Mamata’s Singur alliance. One of them is the “CPI(ML)-state organizing committee,” a breakaway group of Kanu Sanyal’s CPI(ML), who claims to have 700 followers in the state (a state which has a population of approximately 8 crore!). It consists of the three leaders who were expelled from the CPI(ML) after they joined Mamata’s agitation in December 2006- Pradip Banerjee, Purnendu Bose and Dola Sen. Bose is presently the convenor of Mamata’s People’s Secular Democratic Front. The CPIML (New Democracy)’s Singur unit is headed by Paltu Sen, a trade union leader based in Uttarpara in Hooghly district who got about 100 votes when he contested the Hind Motors trade union elections in 2007. The other party is CPIML (Jana Shakti) led by Alok Mukherjee based in Birbhum. The party has no office or any public activity (at least till date) camped in Singur. United Students Democratic Front which is a Naxalite student faction along with Mazdur Kranti Parishad (who has some presence in Hind Motors and some other factories in Belghoria, North 24 Parganas) has also joined the combination. Among other parties are the Indian Union of Muslim League, Janata Dal United, Samajwadi Party, Samata Dal. These groups have had no history of movement and politics in Bengal (except the occasional effigy burning of the CM by Vijay Upadhyay- the Samajwadi Party chief of Bengal, who had shown immense dexterity at that) and have joined Mamata only on a single point agenda of CPI(M) opposition. For example, the Samajwadi Party, ridiculed by the CPI(M) for voting with the UPA in the trust vote, has found its platform to get back — in Singur.

There is also an alliance of some of these organizations called Samhati Udyog which has 10 organizations, including the Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), NAPM, Khet Mazdoor Samiti, Mazdoor Kranti Parishad, Nari Atyachar Virodhi Manch, Ganapratirodh Mancha and the Bandi Mukti Committee as its constituents. The survey of this forum amongst the “landlosers” in Singur forms the basis of the TMC rhetoric on “land grabbing” at Singur. Samhati Udyog was claims involvement in Nandigram and claims to be working on rights of sharecroppers, minimum wage and distribution of pattas. When asked about his sources of funding, very interestingly, Samar Das (secretary of the forum) declined to comment.

This in brief, is the combination and inclinations of the components of the “apolitical” group that represents the “struggle” at Singur today. Absent any mass organizational agenda of these elements and their clear delineation of policies and objectives, it is difficult to gauge their aspirations and accountability. It is perhaps the greatest wonder of the last one decade in Bengal as to how do these groups with such doubtful accountability and objectives hold the industrial prospects of the state at ransom for opportunism and anarchy.