नंदीग्राम लाल सलाम

12 Nov 2007 - How CPM recaptured Nandigram

2007-11-12T10:40:00.001-08:00

12 Nov 2007 - How CPM recaptured Nandigram

MIDNAPORE/KOLKATA: The plan to recapture Nandigram was drawn two weeks back in a meeting between two top CPM leaders from East and West Midnapore. An MP from East Midnapore and a state minister from West Midnapore were also present at the meet. The main point of discussion was how to bring back Nandigram, out of bounds for CPM supporters for the last 11 months. Armed men were used from at least three districts — West Midnapore, Bankura and North 24 Parganas — for ‘Operation Nandigram’ to flush out the opposition.

The first attempt to re-enter the villages and oust Bhumi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee supporters, who had held fort since early 2007, was made on March 14. The operation was conducted mainly by state police and did not bring the desired result. CPM had to go on the backfoot following widespread protests after the March 14 massacre. Since then no CPM leader has been able to set foot in Nandigram.

The party’s East Midnapore district unit was under pressure from its supporters in Nandigram who were forced to flee to Khejuri. Despite the talks of peace and aborted attempts to make the refugees return to the villages in small number, the guns along the Nandigram-Khejuri border were hardly ever silent. Leaders from both the districts had to set aside their differences to sort out the problem. CPM could not afford to let Nandigram remain out of its control till next year’s panchayat polls.

Also, the West Midnapore district unit has the experience of leading such an operation — Keshpur — in 2000. On November 4, local DYFI unit held a meeting at Heria (close to Khejuri) where it pledged to send back its homeless supporters to their villages. Two days before that, the process of withdrawing police from the troubles spot had already started.

Cadres — local criminals mostly involved in dacoity cases — for the operation were drawn from Chandrakona and Garbeta zonal committees. Also, cadres were sent from Narayangarh and Keshiary areas. Another group of around 250 armed CPM supporters and criminals came from the villages of Punishol at Onda and Rajpur, Taldangra in Bankura.

Sources said criminals were given money in advance and given a free-hand to bring whatever they could from the empty homes once the operation is complete. Sources said one such group that has returned to Onda came with motorcycles.

The Bankura group reached Nandigram after travelling by train and then road. The group boarded trains and allegedly got off at Balichak, four stations after Kharagpur, and then headed towards Nandigram via Khejuri in the guise of daily wage earners. They take the same disguise when they go to Bihar and Jharkhand to collect arms, sources said.

Most of these people are suspected to be running arms smuggling rackets. The arms used in the recapture operation are believed to have been supplied from these suppliers.

Another cache of arms came from Purulia where party workers had received arms to combat Maoists. It is also suspected that the arms gone missing after the Purulia arms drop are with CPM supporters and were smuggled to Nandigram.

The coal mafia from Burdwan is also believed to have played a key role in the operation. The money from the mafia is believed to have supplied funds for the operation, helped in procuring ammunition and hire vehicles that carried the armed men to the interior areas as the attack progressed.

November 11, 2007 - Who is fighting this turf-war, and why sides need to be taken

2007-11-12T10:38:00.001-08:00

November 11, 2007 - Who is fighting this turf-war, and why sides need to be taken

By Partho Sarathi Ray, Sanhati

A few months ago Nandigram erupted over the question of forcible land-acquisition, protesting neo-liberal models of “development”. Today it can be said that the battle over Nandigram is not about the SEZ directly anymore - it is about territory. Economic questions and progressive issues have taken a back-seat, while all that seems to go on is turf-war. It is necessary to examine this, and clearly understand why one must still take sides, and in doing so who it is one supports. The CPI(M) district leadership has clearly stated that they are out to “recapture” lost territory. It is unthinkable for the CPI(M) that the people of a certain area has defied them and set up a pocket of resistance where the writ of the CPI(M) cannot run. (My home is in an area where not even a street light can be fixed if the CPI(M) doesn’t want it - a generic feature in the city, magnified thousandfold in the villages). The people of Nandigram had committed the cardinal mistake of defying the state government and the party machinery. They had to pay. A pocket of resistance could not be allowed to survive.

It is incidental that the Trinamul Congress or other political parties are leading this Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee; as soon as the CPI(M) authority in the area collapsed, there was a vacuum which was occupied naturally by the next available political party. The important fact is that CPI(M) hegemony in the area collapsed due to genuine progressive issues and the violent protests of masses of common people. The same masses of people have vehemently denied the ruling party the luxury of resuming control over their lives - a control that they have no reason to have faith towards. Conciliatory damage-control promises of compensations made at opportune moments cannot change the basic fact that the party-police machinery intends to regain economic control over peoples’ lives and mete out its perverted justice once it does so. People have protested - the leaders of this protest have emerged from existing political vacua - but it is the people who have protested.

The CPI(M) is trying to cover up the entire issue by telling us that it’s their homeless supporters who are returning to their homes in the process, but what they’re not saying is these people constituted the party machinery in the area and were naturally targetted when people realized that the CPI(M) was out to acquire their land for the SEZ. Its important for the CPI(M) that these people return in order to reinstate the party machinery. It is also important to discard the party’s attempts to distance itself from the police by promises of punishment towards offending officers- in reality, the police is the party and the party is the police, with minor reshuffling when the heat gets turned on.

The No-spin Zone - Nandigram, facts and myths (ongoing commentary)

2007-11-12T10:37:00.000-08:00

The No-spin Zone - Nandigram, facts and myths (ongoing commentary)

November 11, 2007 - Are Maoists the new WMDs?

By Debarshi Das, Sanhati

To put things back into perspective, and to abstract from the histrionics of Mamata Banerjee, why did the Communist Party of India (Marxist) send its ground troops to Nandigram? Aided by a paralysed, obliging, administration? And Police looking the other way (even getting wounded in the process by CPM bullets!?

Let’s see what the Politbureau says. In a statement titled Nandigram: Check Maoist Violence it proclaims, “..they [BUPC] have ganged up with the Maoists who have brought in armed squads from outside West Bengal. For the past few months the administration and the police have been out of the area which has been utilised by the armed elements led by the Maoists to entrench themselves. Bunkers have been built and landmines laid. One of the squads is led by Ranjit Pal who was involved in the killing of JMM MP, Sunil Mahato in Jharkhand. The Maoists’ role has been exposed by the landmine blasts which took place on November 6. Of the five landmines that were planted, three exploded, killing two persons… ”.

Pretty impressive details of the enemy one must admit. But do the Police and the administration know all this? 7th November (the day after the said blast) Anandabazar Patrika reports, “..a part of the CPM claims two of their supporters have been killed by the mines laid by the Maoists who are members of the Resistance Committee [BUPC]. There was no satisfactory answer, however, as to how the Maoists could lay mines in the Mansingber area, beside the Bhangabera bridge in the CPM stronghold of Khejuri, evading the strong Police vigil. The district Police super says, ‘Two people have died in the explosion. Whether this is due to bombs or mines is not possible to assert at this moment.’ On land mines the state home secretary states, ‘Cannot be ascertained at present. We are investigating.’ Are the Maoists behind the blasts? Prasadbabu [the secretary] is of the opinion, so far it’s not clear. But he comments, ‘If it is a handiwork of the Maoists then it’s a matter of concern.’” (our translation)

Is the Politbureau in possession of information which is not available even to the Police? Or is it simply indulging in blatant lies? Has W. Bush become its partner in the hunt for WMD?

Nandigram has stood up

2007-06-17T12:59:00.000-07:00

Nandigram has stood up

March 30, 2007

By Saroj Giri

Everytime in India, large numbers of people, as in Kalingangar, Singur and Nandigram today, stood in a direct and antagonistic relation to capital and the state, a middle class ideology of alternative plans and people’s plans has not just acted to limit the initiative and political character of the movement to the ‘enlightened interests’ of the urban radical intelligentsia but, as a consequence, capital has instead ultimately gone ahead with its own original plans without even any kind of green restructuring. And this happened since the problem is always identified at the level of a particular technology or system of production (industrial modernisation) and not in terms of social relations, not in terms of class and power relations.

The suggested way out is then not the overthrowing of the existing class, social relations, relations of power, but a new mode of technology, a new way of, as they say, ‘relating to nature’. The question of who will control this new way of relating to nature, who and which class will be in power, the fact that the proposed new, alternative people’s plan will also be part of the regime of capital is not raised. Hence the middle class debate on displacement and rehabilitation, and people’s plans ultimately ends up justifying, providing the rationale for a possible restructuring of capital: worse, when such middle class initiatives take the form of a social movement it ends up rallying huge masses of people in the interests of capital. However we have not seen anything like this really take place in our country and this is not due to the radical character of such a social movement but since capital in India is so arrogant and powerful today that, given the extremely favourable class and political balance of forces, it does not, on this account, feel the need to restructure itself. This means that post-Narmada Bachao Andolan, the radical urban middle class is redundant, no longer needed and retrenched by capital.

This, however, has opened the space for a direct and antagonistic fight between capital and the state on one side and the people on the other. Nandigram and before this Kalinganagar represent this new juncture in the relationship between capital and the different social sections and classes. Reports from Nandigram seem to suggest that people are not just fighting to keep their land and their present means of livelihoodbut they are also destroying the relations of power that tied them to capital and the state: the CPIM after all is not exaggerating when it says Nandigram was beyond the reach of the law. Now the problem for the state is not just the setting up of the industrial plant there but of first establishing this relationship, of ending the ‘liberated’ status of Nandigram.

In the absence of any middle class radicals ‘from outside’ in the movement (for example, Medha Patkar also seems to be no more than a concerned visitor there) and the isolation of the local MP who happens to belong to the CPM, Nandigram is today unrepresentable. Different political forces willing to represent Nandigram are making their rounds to end its unrepresentability and put it in some relationship with one or the other sector of capital and the state so that while the land acquisition would not take place and the proposed plant would not come up there, it should not become another Maoist ‘hotbed’. It has therefore triggered off a clear polarisation in the Indian polity today between capital and broad masses of the people. And this polarisation is clear and the contradiction sharp since except for the CPM the rest of the left and social movements who are broadly siding with affected people are however not in there among the masses fighting the brutal might of capital and the state in both Nandigram and Kalinganagar: they are outside lamenting at the violence and ‘loss of life’ and busy dissociating themselves from the CPIM. The Maoists are of course a different story.

History

In perhaps the most obscene instance of the internalisation of dissent, a West Bengal minister recently claimed that the ongoing industrialisation of the state through SEZs seeks to undermine Fukuyama’s thesis of the end of history. While this claim is ridiculously bogus, its obverse is strikingly true for some voices opposing the SEZs: don’t large sections of social movements believe that there is no possibility of large systemic transformation and most such attempts at revolutionary transformation end up in one or the other form of totalitarianism. History has ended and we need to work towards bettering conditions under some form of a benign, reformed capitalism. In the CPIM and the social movements we therefore have two forces: one speaking in the name of the onward march of History and the other opposing precisely the rationality of such a History which only tramples peoples’ lives and autonomous ways of life. If one is speaking in the name of History, a History which is objectively given from before, the other is opposing what happens in the name of History, History as a ruse to justify power.

Both positions are, however, complicit in exonerating itself from History as such, from the making of History. In treating History as identical to the depredations of capital or as merely an ideological construct used to legitimise certain regimes of power, both positions exclude the possibility of people as the makers of history. This is the possibility opened up by Nandigram which refused to submit to the dictates of capital nor to any kind of ‘pro-people’ representation or bargaining for the right kind of technology or rehabilitation package. Nandigram did not just reject the setting up of the plant but also freed itself, at least temporarily, from the relations of dominance and subjugation that tied it up with various sectors of capital and its representatives. Thus they have actually displayed the energy and creativity of making history and have actually disproved the thesis of the end of history. Again here Nandigram’s convergence with the Maoists cannot be underestimated.

The convergence of the positions of the CPIM and of the urban intelligentsia-led social movements, therefore, cannot be underestimated. Their refusal to view people as the makers of their own history comes out very clearly also in the debate on the question of the impact of industrial plants in the concerned areas. In its broad essentials the CPIM argues that industrialisation will create much needed employment in the state while the social movement position is that it will lead to displacement and the destruction of the means of livelihood. Now this is in many senses a sterile debate since there is no basic difference between them. Both the positions view the problem in terms of what impact the new technology or plant has on the people in the region so that each tells only half the story: for isn’t it true that both displacement and the creation of jobs would take place once the plants come up so that, within this framework, what position one takes now depends on a kind of cost-benefit analysis of whether the given employment generation justifies the displacement of people. Add to this the entire issue of rehabilitation package and other economic benefits to thedisplaced and then the entire issue turns on narrow economic benefits, compensation and relief packages. What is overlooked in this framework, is that regardless of whether people, in narrow economic terms, get a good or a bad deal, they are already in a relationship of dependence with capital and hence are regarded as merely victims of modernity.

The problem is that formulating the problem in terms of the impact of the industrial plant on the people or the region completely overlooks the fact that the setting up of these plants and industrial units are the expression of the relationship in which the people and the area stands to those who wield power both within that area and outside. The proposed plant or the technology to be used and the fact of displacement are an expression of the social relations that exist both in Nandigram and in society as a whole. Capitalist or feudal social relations existed in Nandigram before the present attempts at land acquisition and it is precisely since it was already enmeshed in such relations that capital and the state attempted to set up an industry there.

Now in most cases of the movement against displacement from industrial projects, social movements have failed to challenge these oppressive social relations since they do not view displacement/rehabilitation as a reflection/symptom of these relations, of the particular form of society. The coming up of the industrial plant is viewed as something coming from outside, which will, for social movements, lead to displacement and loss of livelihood and, for the CPIM, lead to much need employment generation in the state. It is true that the technology, the capital equipment etc come from outside the village or perhaps from even outside the country but that itself is not the problem. The problem is that it usually comes as a further intensification of the oppressive social relations that exist in Nandigram or in the country as a whole: that Nandigram is in the chain of capitalist and feudal exchange and production, whose political form is provided by its representation in Parliament.

Nandigram today has rebelled against these oppressive relations and have refused to be represented in the political processes of Indian democracy. The events there so far testify that they are not just against the industrial plant or for a better rehabilitation package but against the very power relations that seek to represent them in any form, including any mediation by social movement or NGOs. Further, it also forecloses radical middle class debates on big dam versus small dam, nature-friendly technology versus nature-destructive technology that are largely forgetful that capital, particularly late capitalism, can operate as much through small dams, wind-mills or through solar energy. The essential question is who controls, who has the power to decide, what are the social relations within which the technology, the industry, the dams operate. In rejecting not just the plant or the fact of displacement but all channels of representation and rehabilitation by all factions of capital and the state, Kalinganagar and Nandigram stand in an immediate and antagonistic relationship with capital today. No wonder various leaders of the CPIM are stressing on the role of Naxalites in fomenting trouble in Nandigram.

Conclusions

Kalinganagar and now Nandigram stand out since instead of making the cost-benefit calculations through the displacement/rehabilitation, livelihood-loss/job-creation, big industry/small industry ledger, they have refused any kind of quid pro quo, any truck with any faction of capital and the state. As the state ministers bitterly complained, Nandigram has been out of the reach of the law and the state since the last two months: like the banned Maoists it has outlawed itself. It has de facto seceded providing no chance to capital and the state to show their human faces, to provide jobs, to bring in perhaps a more eco-friendly technology which will not lead to displacement, or to put in place a more robust, inclusive democratic process.

This only means that the people of Nandigram have stood up and are defending themselves. In exiting from all relations with capital and the state their lives had no value and were killed. Various concerned citizens, human rights groups, and social movement initiatives are trying to side with the victims of the massacre and have called for a judicial inquiry and have upheld their right to dissent and protest. The way however to save them is not by bringing Nandigram back into the relations of capital and the state, by revalorising them as partakers in the system, but by reversing the flow of traffic: joining the people in Nandigram in seceding from the existing social relations. Marx once said, the educators need to be educated. One can today say, the saviours need to be saved. There is a real danger today that civil society initiatives might be used by capital and the state to bring Nandigram back to the ‘democratic process’ and stop it from slipping into the hands of the Maoists. Nandigram, unmediated and unrepresented, is what needs to be defended and replicated elsewhere in the country today. This will be the first step in refuting the thesis of the end of history.

2 Responses to “Nandigram has stood up”

Anonymous Says:
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:16 am
Saroj’s writeup, though coherent and to the point, defocuses his own correct logic by utilising borrowed notions from ideological populism (”people” etc) and post-modernism. Statements like the following, which are abundant in the note, are in fact his own non-inclination to put things in a class perspective, of which he accuses others:

“Reports from Nandigram seem to suggest that people are not just fighting to keep their land and their present means of livelihood but they are also destroying the relations of power that tied them to capital and the state”.

Who are these people? Are all of them seeking to destroy “the relations of power that tied them to capital and the state”? If we understand the West Bengal situation in a political economic and historical perspective, we will have to disaggregate this “people”, since there isn’t any homogeneous connection of “the people” to “capital and the state” today (at least not in the societies like West Bengal, which are well integrated with the mainstream Indian political economy). There must be an attempt to understand and ‘deconstruct’ the present agitations in terms of class differentiation that has perpetuated in rural Bengal under the CPIM rule. Various class interests might have integrated temporarily in the present agitations, but this is not sustainable, any Marxist intervention should start with disaggregating them and strategising on this basis. Any “people” vs capital type logic is bound to lead to the deadend of the status quoist power politics which nurtures itself by such homogenised dichotomisations, “civil society” vs the state etc.

In my view, Saroj is correct when he criticises “rights groups” “social movement” for their legalist and ‘right’-ist discourses, but he utilised similar reified notions of people, outside, secession etc. Like the former, he too thinks in terms of “middle class” “joining the people”. The only difference is that the former suffers from the middle class impotency, while Saroj seems to represent his energy from the middle class self-hatred which integrates him with the Maoists.
rama Says:
May 31st, 2007 at 7:12 am
Here’s an article by Sunanda Sanyal published in The Statesman (Kolkata) of 31 May 2007.

The pus focus of a deep festering abscess

by Sunanda Sanyal

What’s absolutely the limit to violence on their women that males in Bengal can bear with? What future do those living in Bengal intend for their children? These are two of the many questions that confront us today, following the state terrorism at Singur and Nandigram.

On 18 December, 2006, Tapasi Malik went out, before it got light, to defecate in a field close to her house at Singur. Girls her age have to because the state government has failed to cash in on the centrally-sponsored Nirmal Gram (Clean Village) Project which funds toilets in poor homes. Tapasi was seized by the hands and legs, gagged, and repeatedly raped. She was lifted to a fireplace and thrust into it – headfirst. Well, my description of her death by fire is imaginary but, you can see, the reality must have been as grim, if not grimmer. However, contemporary Bengal failed to sense the searing pain Tapasi had been through – till she died. We in Bengal failed to burst into the kind of rage that the CPI-M takes seriously. And Nandigram happened, as a result!

Dr Sarmistha Roy, who has worked with medical teams at Nandigram, says the women in particular had been shot at the genitalia. A cadre, reported Medha Patkar to the Governor, pressed a rod into a woman’s vagina. Her uterus ruptured. Another woman, Kabita Das (35), was pinned between two sticks, and gang raped. Her husband tried to rescue her, but forced to watch on instead, since the cadres had threatened to dash their six-month-old baby to the ground and stamp it underfoot. The Statesman reported (21 March) that Sahadeb Pramanick (30), a CPI-M cadre from Gangra, was caught on 20 March while sneaking into Sonachura. He admitted to having raped two women, including a 13-year-old, on 14 March. It is also widely reported that police had opened fire near a bridge on March 14, virtually helping the CPI-M cadres to shepherd 17 girls into a deserted house owned by Shankar Samanta, a CPI-M leader. The CBI officials later found bits and pieces of women’s undergarments there, stained with blood. “Villagers had heard women’s shrieks from that house, which the cadres guarded.”

Led by Ganamukti Parishad, this writer visited Tamluk Hospital where he met a farmer’s wife in her twenties. Seeing a man in his mid-seventies, she confided that she was gang raped in the presence of policemen, the cadres tore off her blouse, and bit off her nipples. One of the women she knew had a part of her cheek bitten off. I urged the camera crew of a Bengali TV news channel, shooting around, to record her experience. But she didn’t breathe a word of what she had unburdened to me. I later heard Dola Sen reporting, at the instance of Mamata Banerjee, to Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi that the number of women thus maimed ran into hundreds.

The whole truth, though, will never be out with the CPI-M government, headed by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, in place. And Biman Bose expects people to “forget about Nandigram very soon”. Our insensitivity to Tapasi’s death shows that he might well be right.

Reportedly again, when cadres and police together acting in tandem went on the rampage at Nandigram, a child was seen falling to a cadre’s bullet. A woman rushed to him. They beat her with truncheons. She fled. The cadres beheaded the child, dead or half dead, for the ease of transportation – or for the fun of it. Some they buried and covered with slabs of concrete. They disembowelled the rest, so that the corpses wouldn’t float, stuffed the severed heads and torsos into sacks, drove off in truckloads, and flung them into the canals. Those who ended up in the hospitals had bullets in their heads, stomachs, chests and so on, which proves that the cadres had shot to kill them. The Dainik Statesman has since published photographs of a cadre in police uniform thrashing a villager. A local shop, called Sunny Tailors, sewed the uniforms.

The whole operation was a blitzkrieg – masterminded by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Nirupam Sen – with Laksman Seth, Benoy Konar, Biman Bose and the rest of the party providing logistic support at various levels. Much as Buddhadeb owns up his “constitutional responsibility”, he pleads innocence. Kshiti Goswami, RSP leader, said on TV Buddha had two faces – one of them was a mask. Prasad Ranjan Ray, state home secretary, commented: “We had mobilised forces on the basis of Intelligence reports… of course in the full knowledge of the chief minister.” Unsurprisingly, the most preferred charge against Buddha is that he is a “habitual liar”, a “confirmed liar”.

The Dainik Statesman reports (10 March) that at a meeting of 14 political leaders and police, the District Magistrate of East Midnapore announced that “any resistance to the repair of the bridges and roads at Nandigram would be dealt with according to the law of the land”. On 13 March in another meeting held at the house of Sambhu Maiti (CPI-M), police and cadres together decided on the plan of action for the capture of Sonachura and Nandigram. They fabricated fake number plates for the cars in which to carry off dead bodies, the caps the cadres and their leaders would put on – down to the last detail.

Another report says the CBI found at the Jononi Brickfield, where the cadres had encamped, buntings, bulletins and leaflets of various CPI-M outfits, six police helmets, a Chinese revolver, 500 bullets, 14 country-made firearms, nine modern rifles and two binoculars.

Now given the size of the village, and the time (two to three hours) taken to complete the operation, the whole village, including children, must have witnessed the arson, rape and murder in action. What is to become of them – particularly the children? Small wonder, Bengal’s society today teems with arsonists, rapists and supari killers.

Dr Tapash Bhattacharjee, who frequently visits Nandigram with medical help, says living as they do under the depressing prospect of a perpetual threat of CPI-M attacks, the young men there demand “weapons rather than medicines”. The fear is not baseless, if you keep in mind Benoy Konar’s warning that only the first two of the “five-act play” are over.

Actually the CPI(M)-run state government is the pus focus of a deep social abscess that has festered over the past 30 years. Its brand of politics is an unremitting evil. It splits the entire society into us and them: those who take dictates of Alimuddin Street are us – the rest them. When the farmers of Nandigram, including their cadres, disobeyed the party, Benoy Konar threatened to knock hell out of them (life hell kore debo). Konar, of Sainbari notoriety, in which a young Sain was hacked to death before his mother, had earlier warned that, should Mahasveta Devi, Medha Patkar or Mamata Banerjee dare to visit Nandigram, the women of his party would show their bottoms (pachha). And he was as good as his word. He wouldn’t care if what he said had demeaned Indian womanhood, not to speak of that of his own party. So the villagers of Singur and Nandigram had to pay the price with arson, rape and murder. If the CPI-M has its way, the rest of India will have to in the not too distant future.

(The author is former member, West Bengal Education Commission)
from sanhati.com

Nandigram and the Unravelling of Social Democracy

2007-06-17T12:57:00.000-07:00

Nandigram and the Unravelling of Social Democracy - Blog article (open for comments)

June 12, 2007

By Saroj Giri, Sanhati

Movements against displacement have for a long time been understood in India largely in pre-political terms of an almost natural opposition between an undifferentiated modernity of global capitalism and equally undifferentiated local communities of traditional societies. Kalinganagar and Nandigram, in putting up a tenacious resistance to capital and the state, have however made such viewpoints untenable and call for a political understanding of movements against displacement. Events in Nandigram therefore will be here presented in the light of the decomposition of social democracy represented by the CPIM. The jolt of Nandigram comes at a time when, after long years of social democratic containment of working class movements, the party was just settling down to actively spearhead the march of capital in the state.

Nandigram, like Narmada or Kalinganagar, marks a specific conjuncture in the balance of political forces, of class and power relations and hence cannot be understood as yet another ‘movement against displacement’ whose contours are given from before. Nandigram represents an implosion against the specific conjunction between social democracy and neo-liberalism. It has dealt an early blow to the CPIM’s vanguardist role as enforcer of capital’s interests in the state. Further, in both their methods of resistance as also their success in forcing capital to retreat, Kalinganagar and Nandigram stand out as marking a break from neo-Gandhian social movements like the Narmada Bachao Andolan.

Indian democracy

In Indian democracy till recently, while the parties like the Congress and the BJP were directly in the interests of capital, those like the CPIM and the Socialists, that is the social democratic left, played the role of controlling and limiting working class struggles against capital [1]. It was as though the Congress and the BJP actually planted and run the capitalist machine; the CPIM and others protected it from assaults by the working class. But in the division of powers and shares, the latter were always of secondary importance: after all, they only guarded the machine, the system from outside, never themselves taking the burden of owning, running, managing it.

Around the early 1990s however as the international and national balance of forces between capital and labour went in capital’s favour, and capital emerged stronger and more confident, capital’s need for social democratic protection became negligible. From the viewpoint of the system as a whole, social democracy lost its rationale. It has to now find ways to save itself or be ready to accept the end of its own history. While it might have lost its systemic use to capital, the CPIM however holds political power in West Bengal. So it need not go into oblivion. It will use what it has at its disposal to prove itself useful to capital. It crosses over to the other side.

In a situation where capital does not need social democracy to rein in the working class, where capital is strong and labour weak, but where as in West Bengal today social democracy still holds political power, capital can march without much problems since social democracy’s political power and clout can work to neutralise any working class opposition to capital. However given that capital perceives hardly any threat from working class movements, when the social democratic party in order to save itself from oblivion, deserts the working class and jumps completely to the side of capital, things can go in either of two directions. It might lead to complete domination and hegemony of capital so that class contradictions go extinct – a post-Marxist assumption. Or, with what the working class thought to be its own party now leading the drive of capital, with no disguises among the working class, class polarisation sharpens and the resistance to capital gets radicalised. Kalinganagar, Singur and Nandigram point to this latter possibility.

Movements against displacement

Industrialisation projects have not, however, always faced the kind of sustained opposition not to speak of antagonism that we saw earlier in Kalinganagar and now in Nandigram. This cannot be explained only in terms of a general opposition of an undifferentiated ‘people’ or community to any attempt to displace them from their age-old habitat, and their refusal to loose their autonomy, self-sufficiency and freedom at the altars of again an undifferentiated modernity. Most accounts, particularly among proponents of local communities and indigenous ways of life as a bulwark against neo-liberalism, treat opposition to industrialisation and displacement in frustratingly pre-political terms, as though it is not itself a function of the particular balance of political forces, class and power relations that exist.

Even as presenting this opposition to displacement as primordial, spontaneous or natural (hence pre-political) might paint it as uncompromising or radical, with neatly given dichotomies of human/nature, science/tradition, community/state etc, it often works as no more than an ideological cover to the actual conflict of interests and class positions that constitute the movement. Among other things, treating movements against displacement in pre-political terms and hence as homogenous does not enable us to explain the differences between them, or the reasons for their failures and successes. More importantly, it does not give us politically relevant answers to why for example the Narmada Bachao Andolan failed. Frustration with such a way of thinking is what seems to be expressed by Arundhati Roy when she states: “The NBA had a lot going for it — high-profile leadership, media coverage, more resources than any other mass movement. What went wrong? People are bound to want to rethink strategy” [2].

If we are then not to portray Nandigram as another spontaneous, natural, primordial opposition by local communities to industrialisation then we need to examine the balance of political forces and the related class and power relations that constitute the socio-political terrain there. This is a task which cannot be done in a neutral, objective manner but in the spirit of partisanship against capital and the state. Nor is it an appeal for an objective social science understanding but as something which cannot be detached from the movement and its interests. In spite of the huge amount written on movements against displacement, hardly anything serious has been written on it from a political perspective, examining the class basis of the movement and its relationship to the various detachments of capital. I here provide an initial broad outline of one possible aspect of such a political understanding which can be described in terms of the decomposition of social democracy in India, with the CPIM a key component of this trend in the country.

Everytime in India, large numbers of people, as in Kalinganagar, Singur and Nandigram today, stood in a direct and antagonistic relation to capital and the state, a middle class ideology of alternative plans and people’s plans has not just acted to limit the initiative and political character of the movement to the ‘enlightened interests’ of the urban radical intelligentsia but, as a consequence, capital has instead ultimately gone ahead with its own original plans without even any kind of (green) restructuring. Kalinganagar earlier and now Nandigram however mark a new turning point, in this long tiring history of co-option and failures of movements against displacements.

Nandigram so far has stood up in its militancy and antagonism towards capital and the state without giving way to negotiations and appeals, dharnas and hunger strikes, and knocking at the doors of the powers that be. Reports from Nandigram seem to suggest that people are not just fighting to keep their land and their present means of livelihood but they are also destroying the relations of power that tied them to capital and the state: the CPIM after all is not exaggerating when it says Nandigram was beyond the reach of the law. The agitators blew off bridges, and cut off contact with state authorities or any representative of capital and the state [3]. While one has to examine the role played by dubious factions of capital and the state like the Trinamool Congress, Nandigram stands out for its refusal to engage in any dialogue or compromise with state authorities, for its refusal to bargain for its interests, better rehabilitation package etc with the state and agents of capital. Now the problem for the state is not just the setting up of the industrial plant there but of first bringing Nandigram back into channels of mediation and communication. As we shall see, the balance of political forces in terms of the specific trajectory of social democracy in the state is what explains the character of the movement against displacement in Nandigram.

Balance of political forces

Like all social democratic streams the CPIM’s long political history of course suited its present bid to don the interests of capital and usher in development of the state. Having successfully ‘run’ the working class movement for decades, with sound, time-tested knowledge of the ‘toiling masses’, the CPIM was, among the political forces, in fact best placed to push through the agenda of primitive accumulation of capital in the most unapologetic form of SEZs. Its misplaced confidence in pushing through this agenda in Nandigram and Singur was based on years of experience in containing working class movements at the service of capital.
However now that it closed all distance with capital and fully identified itself with it, there was no ‘neutral’ force or party left to do what the CPIM earlier did: negotiating between capital and labour in order to contain labour. This was partly the result of its dictatorial clout over political power in the state so that the state lacks any developed social movement, NGOs or citizen groups with some following in society that could have now carried out the CPIM’s earlier function of mediation and class compromise in favour of capital. Maybe it thought now that it is spearheading capital, how can the oppressed raise a voice against it. Maybe it hallucinated that it is now a party which cuts across classes, that it simultaneously represents the interests of both the capitalists and the oppressed masses: a classless party in a class-ridden society. Here, it fell victim to its own promise of bringing about the development of the state as a whole, as though this development represented the interests of all classes in the state.

By putting up an immediate and antagonistic opposition to capital and the state, Nandigram drove home the point that the CPIM and the development it promises are not just not above class interests but they are directly in the interests of capital. Further in refusing to be a party in the dialogues and discussions with the state Nandigram has steered clear of the alluring fictions of finding a middle path, of protecting the interests of all, in the interests, for example, of the development of the state as a whole. Forget the CPIM and the social democratic left. There is here a strange paradox for capital itself. As soon as capital in its confidence forsakes those who looked after its interests and guarded it from working class assaults, precisely in this moment of self-congratulatory celebration of its inevitable and uninterrupted march, the dispossessed and the oppressed offers the strongest and unyielding resistance. Maybe it was a bit too premature for capital to invite those guarding the outer frontiers to come and join in managing the system from the inside.

Thus, the situation in Nandigram going out of hand was not just a result of the CPIM’s dictatorial use of state power or of its utter disrespect of human rights. For it was true that the people in Nandigram had indeed refused any kind of negotiation or rehabilitation package: it was a radical situation and with no social movement representative or party or citizen’s group to negotiate and mediate on behalf of capital or of the people, the ground was indeed laid for a violent confrontation. Even as it spearheaded the onslaught of capital, the CPIM’s political dictatorship presented itself as the sole voice of the workers and peasants and the marginalised who are subjected to this onslaught. This meant that other social movements, NGOs etc could not work among the affected people as the negotiators/mediators to silence/infiltrate the movement in Nandigram. Nandigram, unrepresented and unmediated, stood on its own, without giving in to the machinations and sops of the representatives of any sector of capital and the state.

Such a situation led to a radicalisation of the movement, quite clear from the presence of Maoists in the movement. This is what explains the fighting spirit and radical position of the people in Nandigram and their unwillingness to buckle under pressure from the CPIM and the administration. This is what explains the fact that the people in Nandigram did not stand in awe at the upcoming industrial plant and desiringly watch the impressive equipments and machinery of capitalist industrialisation, ready to be part of it any moment. Nor is their self-understanding based on any kind of blanket rejection of modernity or of pitting the local versus the global [4].

With no middle class radicals able to put up base there, agitators in Nandigram, unlike in many other anti-displacement movements, have not fallen victim to the pre-political, class-effacing conceptualisations in terms of a blanket opposition to modernity. Thus the present movement can be understood only as an antagonistic opposition to the state and capital without taking an anti-modern stand to science and industry. It comes as a challenge to the post-modern, neo-Gandhian left represented by social movements and many NGOs. Foreshadowed by the unprecedented 431-day road blockade in Kalinganagar, in its tactics as well Nandigram has gone in for active resistance and antagonism in place of disobedience and satyagraha. The covert and not so covert presence of Maoists in the movement further proves this point.

Moribund social democracy, weakened working class movement and an aggressive, confident capital, therefore, constitutively define the present socio-political conjuncture wherein the events of Nandigram can be placed. While, given its political power in West Bengal, even this moribund social democracy, the CPIM, secures its function as the vanguardist henchman of capital, it has also narrowed down the space for middle-class led social movements, NGOs and citizens groups to act as mediators in order to disactivate through dialogue and the search for ‘common solutions’, any immediate and antagonistic struggle against capital. It is in such a specific conjuncture of socio-political forces and tendencies that the specificity of Nandigram (partly foreshadowed by Kalinganagar) needs to be understood, instead of understanding it in terms of a pre-given generalised, supposedly primordial opposition to modernity by self-sufficient local communities. This of course calls for the need to have a fresh critical look at the nature and political character of the movements against displacement in the country so far.

Commodity fetishism and social democracy

Marx had long ago pointed out the mystical powers of the commodity. One key mystification is that the relations between persons appear as the relations between things expressed in the term commodity fetishism [5]. Capital no longer appears as accumulated dead labour (capital-labour relation), as the result of its exploitative relationship with labour but only as the ‘things’ owned by the capitalist as the reward for entrepreneurship etc. In this mystification, the worker is a worker, poor and exploited, not because of the specific social relations in which he exists but because he does not own those things. It appears as though those things are not the result of the surplus extracted from his own labour but as something to be earned by competing, working hard etc. Capitalism therefore spontaneously generates tendencies among the working class to overlook the underlying social relations and instead join in the run after things, to make a fast buck in what looks like a neutral, competitive space (the economy, market).

Capitalism is therefore unique in presenting itself as an immense accumulation of commodities, obfuscating the underlying social relations. In the face of a revolutionary working class movement however, when these underlying social relations are challenged and the mystifications torn down, it is social democracy which steps in to stunt working class consciousness with the mystificatory powers of the commodity. The major form which social democracy took in this context has been welfare state capitalism in most countries and of course in India too (but in the form of ‘socialist pattern of development’). It was however the Congress which earlier carried out this function but after its rightward shift it is the CPIM which occupies that ideological space. But now the CPIM seeks to combine that role with its present neoliberal turn.

The historical role of social democracy has been to keep the working class enchained onto the run after things, in treating itself and its politics as partakers in this competition to acquire things [6]. It gives away the revolutionary potential of the working class to overthrow capitalist relations in exchange for welfare benefits, increased wages etc. Under a welfare state framework, in the short run, as in India under Nehruvian socialism, social democracy as a form of capitalism does ensure that some sections of the working class get a greater share of social wealth. In the long run, however, the series of compromises and defeats so weaken the working class movement as a whole that capital realises that it can now do without the social democratic deal with labour [7]. Once capital feels no threat from the working class, social democracy itself, so far parasitic on a strong organised working class movement, is no longer needed by capital.

As we see with the CPIM today, the earlier service it provided capital in containing working class movements is now no longer needed. But since it still wields political power in the state, capital still needs its service. Singur and Nandigram are the new services it is providing capital and ‘development of the state’ is the new mantra through which it is redefining and strengthening its time-tested relation with capital. The CPIM might have been useless for capital, would have died as a fading social democratic force, retrenched by capital through a golden handshake but with the political power it commands in the state it is vitally needed by capital: as the regional henchman of neo-liberalism.

Capital’s vanguard

In West Bengal today, the older form of the working class movement has not just been weakened but systematically decimated. The point is that now that social democracy through its own acts of commission and omission have so badly impaired the working class movement which was earlier its own basis for bargaining with capital, it cannot but cringe before neo-liberal capital and carry out its dirty job. The party’s organisational tactics built in the name of proletarian vanguardism is now used to force people out of capital’s way. The fact that CPIM’s present drive to develop and industrialise the state has come not in the form of, for example, reviving the locked-up industries and restarting numerous such industries that are lying sick with lakhs of workers unemployed, but in the form of setting up neo-liberal capital, only goes to show that, in the name of development and industrialisation, it is presiding over capital’s consolidation of its present victory over the working class and the start of capital’s neo-liberal aggressive, arrogant drive.
With the option of being at the forefront of containing a strong organised working class no longer available, the CPIM cannot continue with fostering the older kind of capital, the old industries that lie sick and moribund; on pain of being retrenched by capital, it can continue its relationship with ever-dynamic capital only if it identifies itself with the most advanced detachment of capital which is what the SEZs represent today. In order to publicly prove capital that it is not communist, it has to go that extra bit which even parties like the Congress might not need to: it has to assume the vanguard role.

It is this aggressive, vanguardism in favour of capital which explains the ruthless violence in Nandigram. It was actually not a question of the Left Front government’s violation of human rights or its violent tactics when dealing with any opposition to it which is what explains the violence and brutality in Nandigram. The rot is deeper than that. Apart from the violations of human rights these events mark an important phase in capital further tilting the balance of political forces and power relations in its favour. It is important to keep this point in mind since in trying to pull up the CPIM for what it is doing, we should not let capital off the hook for this latter is the larger enemy: the CPIM, the Left Front or social democracy are no more than its different moments.

1. I think it is standard practice now to consider the CPIM as social democratic party (perhaps the debate henceforth being whether it is neo-liberal). One recent such application in a respected journal is in R. Sandbrook, M. Edelman, P. Heller and J. Teichman, ‘Can Social Democracies Survive in the Global South?’, Dissent, Spring 2006, pp. 76- 83. Incidentally, the article is in deep appreciation of the CPIM.

2. See her interview with Shoma Choudhury in Tehelka, March 31, 2007.

3. The character of the resistance put up by the movement in Nandigram against any kind of dialogue with representatives of capital and the state or intervention by mediators or ‘civil society actors’, is clear from its actions destroying bridges and roads and putting up dug-pits and trenches, seceding from the social relations of power and domination. See Medha Patkar’s report posted at http://www.kafila.org/2007/03/15/medha-patkar-on-civil-war-in-nandigram/

4. One main argument given by those opposing displacement is that panchayats and other local bodies were not involved in the decision making process for the industrial plants. However, as Nandigram for one showed the local panchayat itself is a divided house, not just between different sections of the local but also between the local and the global so much so that the local pro-displacement panchayat leader, Shankar Samanta was killed by agitators. Presenting the local (communities, panchayats, gram sabhas) as forever benign weakens the fight against capital by overlooking its local basis, thereby often ending up on the side of global capital’s local detachments. The National Alliance for People’s Movements report on Nandigram for one suffers from such a valorisation of the local. See NAPM Report: To Nandigram via Singur posted at http://www.kafila.org/2007/02/27/napm-report-to-nandigram-via-singur/.

5. K. Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1986.

6. Based on class compromise through the presence of a political party which can keep the working class organized into a movement under its thumb, the benefits the working classes get under a welfare state are those that the elite, the ruling classes agree to in order to buy peace and stability in society so that business as usual does not come unstuck. For a pro-social democracy exposition of this point see R. Sandbrook, M. Edelman, P. Heller and J. Teichman, op.cit., pp. 76- 83.

7. Proponents of social democracy however advise the capitalist classes to maintain the ‘social pact’ with labour and wisely “accept a smaller share of the surplus in exchange for legitimacy, political and social peace, and high productivity” (ibid., p.79).

One Response to “Nandigram and the Unravelling of Social Democracy - Blog article (open for comments)”

Sukla Sen Says:
June 13th, 2007 at 11:51 am
The author, if I correctly remember, had written quite a lot on last year’s popular upsurge in Nepal. He was apparently more sympathetic towards Baburam Bhattarai as opposed to Prachanda. Gradually grew somewhat apathetic with the Maoist movement as the things unfolded the way it did since April 24 last year.

Quite an informed analysis. Only problem is its reluctance to come to grips with the reality of the TMC providing the leadership at the ground level in West Bengal. The TMC is of course nowhere near Kalinganagar.

The other point is that all these are essentially open mass resistances, with varying degrees of very controlled and calibrated violence, falling in a category very different from Dantewara.
And while Dantewara has evoked only negative responses from the state, Nandigram has to a very large extent slowed down, though far from halted, the onward march of SEZ with the state taking due note of the agitation after its initial disastrous failure in crushing it.

And equally significantly all these struggles - Kalinganagar, Singur, Nandigram and scores others all across the country, are by all means for protecting lands and livelihoods, not for state power, even if Nandigram became, and still remains, a “liberated zone” in the model of Tamluk in 1942.

Then brutal violation of human rights is of course a very important issue though not for the votaries of Pol Pot and the likes.
And in case of Nandigram, we come across the merger of the State and the Party. An dit is precisely in this respect it differs significantly from Kalinganagar.

Then as regards the shifting balance of political power is concerned, the scenario is pretty complex.
The people displaced by Bhakra-Nangal, Hirakud and such other huge dams and other state-owned steel plants and such were completely invisibilised. One is hardly aware of the fact that human beings were affected on a massive scale. Those who knew they considered these are necessary sacrifices to be made, as long as of course the victims belong to the lowest rungs of the socio-political order, at the alter of “development”.
Baliapal, in Orissa, was one of the rare instances where the local farmers could effectively resist the state’s move to evict them in spite of the fact that the issue of “national security” was involved.
The Narmada Bachao Andolan, in spite of its apparent failure, changed all that. It could successfully register, the first time on a significant scale, with the national psyche that the victims of “development” are also human beings - citizens of the country, even if children of a lesser god.

So on the one hand, we find a state driven by neoliberal economic doctrine coming out openly and aggressively on the side of the corporate capital and out to destroy the lives of thousands and thousands of common citizenry.
At one level, there is grand convergence of political forces, and on the other the democratic consciousness percolating down to grassroots levels people are actively resisting such aggressive moves by the state with commensurate ferocity, but broadly from within the perimeters of the given political order and trying to make fullest use of it, and thereby causing a degree of disarray amongst the “political” class and rupture in the consensus leading to partial reversal of the state policy.

The common people have, to a very significant extent, become adept over the decades in making use of the system to fight the system - whether, media, courts, mass protests or whatever, without shying away from breaching the red line in a very calibrated manner.

This had been totally undreamt of in the days of Bhakra-Nangal.
And this is how not only Singur and Nandigram, even Kalinganagar, fall in a category so very different from Dantewara.
The contrary impression given in the article notwithstanding.
courtesy : http://sanhati.com

Medical Team Report from Nandigram with names, locations, and injuries

2007-04-25T13:13:00.002-07:00

Medical Team Report from Nandigram with names, locations, and injuries - April 5

REPORT OF THE MEDICAL TEAM ON NANDIGRAM INCIDENT OF 14.03.2007

After the incident of firing by the police at Nandigram on 14.3.2007, report of large-scale injuries and ailments arising out of and as a consequence of the said incident had reached the media. Some doctors and health workers decided to visit the affected area to render the very urgent medical help to the people affected by the incident.

A team of doctors (Medical Service Centre, Kolkata) visited several affected areas of Nandigram on 17.3.2007 and came out with a report, which was reported in the press.

OUR FIRST VISIT (18.03.2007)

On 18.3.2007, a team comprising of six physicians (including 2 female physicians), three junior doctors, sisters, medical students and health-workers, organised by public-spirited organizations working on health, i.e., SRAMAJIBI SWASTHA UDYOG, PEOPLES’ HEALTH and JANASWASTHA SWADIKAR MANCHA, visited some of the affected areas of Nandigram to render medical help to the affected people.

The Medical Team found that more severely injured patients had mostly been taken to the hospital and persons who were critically injured had been transferred to Tomluk Hospital (District Hospital) and SSKM Hospital / RGKar MCH of Kolkata. But they found that a very large population, predominantly women, were suffering from blunt trauma injuries, very often multiple, and had not received any medical help. The same is true also for a very large number of people, suffering from eye-problems ( headache, watering, photophobia, burning sensation, dimness of vision etc.) even 4 days after the tear-gas exposure on 14.3.2007. People were also suffering from mental trauma, though unfortunately the medical team did not have a psychiatrist or a psychologist who could have professionally assessed the actual extent of the trauma. The medical team treated 129 patients and had the opportunity to talk to about 300 victims, who described the unprovoked and brutal attack on unarmed assembly of villagers, including a large number of women and children, which continued even after people had dispersed and was trying to flee from the scene. The women also described with horrid details of sexual assaults on them. Attackers, they said, included a large number of persons in police uniform but with chappals on.

The Medical Team had also found that many could not return to their home and resume their normal activities. Camps were organized by the local people to provide food for these affected people. These camps were found to be suffering from an acute shortage of provisions required to run the kitchen (the medical team bought a day’s provision to one camp).

2ND VISIT (21.03.2007)

The next visit took place on 21.3.2007. It was a general relief cum medical relief team, consisting of two physicians and four health workers. There was plan for documenting the trauma of the victims, though due to shortage of time, addition burden of general relief work, the number of patients treated and documented was limited to only 30 in three different places. General relief and provisions worth Rs 15, 790 were provided to four different relief camps in the affected areas.

3RD VISIT (24-24 March, 2007)

The third visit was on 24-25th March, 2007. From the experience of two previous visits by the medical team, it was decided that the team should stay overnight in the affected area to render more intensive and extensive medical assistance, and that it would concentrate on medical relief only.
This time the team comprised of eight doctors, including two female doctors and one orthopaedic surgeon, one sister and seven health workers. They organized 4 medical camps, in Southkhali (24.3.2007), Sonachura High School (25.3.2007), Kalicharanpur Primary School ( 25.3.2007) and
Dakshin Jalpai, Bhangabera (25.3.2007). It may be mentioned here that one eye relief camp was organized concurrently in Sonachura High School on 25.3.2007 by ARGUS COMMUNITY EYE SERVICES.

A brief description of various patients on 18.3.2007. The documentation quality was not upto the mark on this day as the medical team was overwhelmed by the extent and the magnitude of the problem.

Camp: Sonachura

Date: 18.3.2007

Total cases seen: 129
Female : more than 80% .

Eye problems 40%
Direct hit by the police 45%
Other Musculo-skeletal injury 5%
Wound 5%

A brief description of various types of patients seen on 21.3.2007 is as follows:

Camp: Sonachura and Garchakraberia

Date: 21.3.2007

Total cases seen: 30
Cases directly related to the incident of 14.3.2007 25
Male 18 (72%)
Female 7 (28%)
Child 3

Eye problems 16 (64%)
Direct hit by the police 6 (24%)
Other Musculo-skeletal injury 4 (16%)
Mental problem 3 (12%)
Thigh Injury 1
Headache 1
Back pain 1
Blunt Injury 4 (16%)
Ear problem 2 (8%)
Wound 3 (12%)
Haematoma 1

A brief description of various types of patients seen on 24/25.3.2007 is as follows (details in Annexure 1):

Camps: Soudkhali, Kalicharanpur, Dakshin Jalpai, Sonachura

Date: 24.3.2007 and 25.3.2007

Total cases seen: 261
Cases directly related to the incident of 14.3.2007 230
Male 83 (36%)
Female 147 (64%)
Child 9 (4%)
Hindu (mostly SC) 222
Muslim 8

Eye problems 135 (58.6%)
Direct hit by the police 54 (23.4%)
Other musculo-skeletal injury 41 (17.8%)
Multiple Injury 27 (11.7%)
Bullet Injury 4
Ear injury 2 (children)
Fracture 1
Spinal Injury 1
Mental trauma 28 (12.1%)

· 70% to 80% of the patients of all camps had eye problems since 14.3.2007, but in Sonachura camp these patients attended cocurrently running eye camp, hence the average shows a lower figure
· The details of different camps has been shown in Annexure I.
· The doctors in the team (except those at Sonachura camp) had no training in properly assessing post traumatic stress, hence this condition may be found to be under reported particularly in the three other camps.

Eye Camp: Sonachura

Date: 25.3.2007
Organised by: ARGUS COMMUNITY EYE SERVICES

Total cases seen: 155
Cases directly related to the incident of 14.3.2007 114
Male 55 (48.2%)
Female 55 (48.2%)
Child 4
Hindu (mostly SC) ALL
Muslim Nil

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS:

1. It was seen from the TV clips that many persons were shot at the chest, abdomen and even in their heads, though when dispersing a mob, the police is to “use as little force and do as little injury to person and property as may be consistent with dispersing the assembly, arresting and detaining such persons”. ( Section 130, CrPc).

2. The medical team also saw other cases of bullet injuries at face level in the village.

3. The number of victims was found to be very large and included a large number of women and children also.

4. The lathi charge was extensive, it was inflicted even on women who had already fled from the place of assembly and was hiding in nearby houses and bushes in and around the place. This lathi charge was severe, producing multiple blunt injuries with bruises which was evident on medical examination even on 4/7/11/12 days after the event. These injuries included fracture, spine injury, chest injury etc. Injury marks were mostly found on the upper part of the boby upwards. It may be mentioned here that when the medical team had reached the scene, the people with major injuries had already been taken to various hospitals.

5. Many people suffered from the musculo-skeletal injuries including fall etc., as they were trying to escape the scene and police was persistently chasing them.

6. Many persons were injured due to beating by the police while they were trying to rescue the injured persons and the children.

7. Many women complained of sexual assault. They were also found to bear injury marks on their breasts, abdomen and private part. However, lack of privacy and other infrastructure prevented the medical team from proper physical examination and even thorough history taking.

8. A very large number of affected people, predominantly women, were found to be suffering from eye problems (burning sensation, watering, phototophobia, headache, dimness of vision etc), persisting even 11 days after exposure to tear gas. So much so that every camp attended to 70-80 percent of patient suffering from eye problems related to tear gas exposure. It may be noted that the people were aware that there may be tear gas attack, they knew that in case of tear gas attack they were to wash the eyes with copious amount of water, and they followed this instruction. Some persons also had injury in eye and other parts of the body from tear gas shell explosion, burn injury from contact of tear gas shell, history of breathlessness from close exposure to tear gas.

9. Thus it appears to the medical team that the gas used against the people may not be the usual tear gas ordinarily used to disperse the mob, but something unusual having more permanent and serious effects. The medical team urges a serious investigation into this matter.

10. It was found that although most of the severely wounded people were transferred to hospitals, a few seriously wounded persons, including a nine year old boy suffering from supracondylar fracture of arm, a spinal injury patient etc., practically received no medical attention. Also, many people, who attended Nandigram Hospital, did not receive medicines due to shortage of required medicine and many patients could not be examined and investigated properly due to lack of infrastructure there. Patients suffering from eye problems received almost no medical treatment. It may be noted here that Nadigram Hospital (BPHC) may be called a glorified primary health center and is not equipped to deal with so many serious injury and other cases. It was learnt that this Hospital did not receive much additional support even after the incident.

11. Many patients were found to be suffering from mental trauma with symptoms of sleeplessness, anorexia, anxiety and fear. Many women saw people, even children being killed, wounded people snatched. They were in fear of repeat of attack, anxiety for the safety of near and dear ones, and particularly about sexual assault of young daughters. But unfortunately the medical team did have trained human resource to properly assess situation, so the number of patients suffering from mental trauma mentioned here would be an understatement of the actual state of affairs. However, a team of psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health workers has already organized a camp in Sonachura on 31.3.2007. Their reports will be published soon.

12. An interesting observation was that very few patients came to the medical camp for ailments unrelated to the incidence of 14.3.2007 and those who came for injuries etc also mainly reported the injuries only and generally had no other medical complain.

13. The team of doctors also conducted a training camp for local volunteers so that if any untoward incident takes place again, these volunteers would be in a position to render rudimentary patient care (containment of bleeding, removing the patients observing proper protocol, wound dressing and things like that). 22 volunteers from different parts of the area covering almost the entire affected area were trained and 10 emergency kit with a couple of manuals in Bengali language were distributed among them.

14. On the two previous visits the Team attended to 169 patients. Though those two visits were not very well documented, it can be said that the general observation was basically the same.

15. Members of the Team also visited Nandigram Hospital, Tamluk Hospital

(Annexure II) and SSKM Hospital (Annexure III).

Dated 3.4.2007

ANNEXURE –I

Camp: Southkhali

Date: 24.3.2007

Total cases seen: 80
Cases directly related to the incident of 14.3.2007 72
Male 16 (22%)
Female 56 (78%)
Child 1
Hindu (mostly SC) 64
Muslim 8

Eye problems 55 (76.4%)
Direct hit by the police 13 (18%)
Other Musculo-skeletal injury 7
Multiple Injury 10 (13.9%)
Fracture 1
Bleeding P/V since 14.3.2007 1
Injury to private parts (female) 1
Mental Trauma 6 (8.3%)

Camp: Dakshin Jalpai, bhangabera

Date: 25.3.2007

Total cases seen: 54
Cases directly related to the incident of 14.3.2007 46
Male 24 (52.2%)
Female 22 (47.8%)
Child 1
Hindu (mostly SC) ALL
Muslim Nil

Eye problems 33 (71.7%)
Direct hit by the police 8 (17.4%)
Other musculo-skeletal injury 17 (37%)
Multiple Injury 1
Spinal Injury 1
Sexual assault on 14.3.2007 1
Mental Trauma 6 (8.3%)

Camp: Kalicharanpur

Date: 25.3.2007

Total cases seen: 56
Cases directly related to the incident of 14.3.2007 53
Male 8 (15%)
Female 45 (85%)
Hindu (mostly SC) ALL
Muslim Nil

Eye problems 43 (81.7%)
Direct hit by the police 13 (24%)
Other musculo-skeletal injury 7 (13%)
Multiple Injury 4
Bullet Injury 2
Sexual assault on 14.3.2007 3
Mental Trauma 4 (7.5%)

Camp: Sonachura

Date: 25.3.2007

Total cases seen: 82
Cases directly related to the incident of 14.3.2007 59
Male 35 (59.3%)
Female 24 (40.7%)
Child 7 (11.8%)
Hindu (mostly SC) ALL
Muslim Nil

Eye problems 5*
Direct hit by the police 19 (34%)
Other musculo-skeletal injury 29 (17%)
Multiple Injury 13 (20.3%)
Bullet & Splinter Injury 2
Ear injury 2 (children)
Mental Trauma 13 (20.3%)
Others 2

· A concurrent eye clinic was running at the same place

ANNEXURE- II

Patients In Tamluk Hospital

Some of the members of the team paid a visit to the Tamluk State Hospital on 1.4.2007, where a large number of injured patients of the said incident
(on 14.3.2007) were admitted. Most of the patients were admitted in this Hospital on or after 16.3.2007; some of them had been referred to by the
Nandigram Hospital, either due to lack of infrastructure, or because of the seriousness of injury. The team talked with the patients, had discussion with the attending physicians. Some of the salient features that the members of the medical team came to know may be summarised as follows:

1. The patients admitted in Tamluk Hospital Hospital had major trauma. They has bullet injury, fracture, multiple fractures, Head Injury, amputation, eye injury, chest injury, breathing problems, history of sexual assault etc. Some are immobilised in POP casing and castings, many had operations, one was on Intravenous drip even 17 days after the incidence.

2. Almost all of those who had been admitted to this Hospital (Tamluk State Hospital) on or after 16.3.2007, complained of various degrees of eye problems ranging from watering, burning sensation, headache, photophobia and dimness of vision. As on 31.3.2007, only about half of the patients have more or less recovered from the problems on treatment with antibiotic and steroid eye drops along with lubricating and analgesic eye drops, but in the other half the problem is still persisting.

3. On 16th March 37 patients were admitted from various parts of the affected area, who had major injuries and injuries inflicted by bullets, tear gas shells, police lathi charge, rubber bullets etc. These patients were initially treated for these grave conditions, but when they recovered a little, they also complained of similar eye problems.

4. 18 patients were transferred from Tamluk Hospital to SSKM Hospital, Kolkata between 17th and 31st March, 2007. 15 of them had bullet injury
and one had Head injury from lathi charge. 7 of bullet injury patient were female and 8 male.

5. Between 16.03.2007 to 1.04 2007 seventy-four patients have been treated for severe injury and conditions in Tamluk Hospital. Of them, 28 were
male and 46 female.

Patients admitted in ‘Nandigram Ward’ of Tamluk Hospital (Female)

1. Satyabala Mondal w/o Anadi Vill.Soudkhali Headache

2. Arati Maity w/o Tapan Vill. Kalicharanpur Headache, Eye complains

3. Kabita Das Adhikari w/o Subal Vill.Gokulnagar # Rt patella, Lt wrist

4. Renuka Kar w/o Shyamapada Vill. Kalicharanpur pain all over due to lathi charge

5. Bidyut Basanta 48/F w/o Mahadev # Lt forearm, Rt finger, eye complaints

6. Radharani Pakhira 45/Fw/o Kishan Vill 7 no Jalpai eye complains

7. Salma Bibi w/o Fakrul Vill.Garchakraberi Bleeding p/v

8. Anima Jana 32/F w/o Prasanta Vill.Soudkhali Eye pain, dimness of vision

9. Sovarani Singh w/o Gorachand Vill.Soudkhali Blunt Injury waist, thigh

10. Paribala dhapar w/o Ranjit Vill.Soudkhali Eye pain, Headache

11. Sandhyarani Sinha 25/Fw/o Ramkrishna Vill.Soudkhali Eye complains, Headache

12. Chhabirani Dhapar w/o Badal Vill.Soudkhali Eye complains, Headache

13. Angurbala Dolui w/o (late) Makhan Vill.Soudkhali Eye complains, dimness of vision

14. Sandhya Dhapar w/o Paresh Vill.Soudkhali Eye complains, Headache

15. Sulekha Das w/o Pravanjan Vill. Kalicharanpur # Lt leg

16. Sailabala Das 48/F w/o Nandalal Vill.Gokulnagar Chest pain, Breathlessness, eye complains

17. Shyamali Mahato45/F w/o (late)Gobinda Vill. Sonachura Head Injury, Bullet injury

18. Radharani Ari 45/F w/o Pratap Vill.Gokulnagar Headache, Eye complains

19. Anubha Khanda 48/F w/o Rasbehari Vill. Sonachura Bullet Injury knee, Eye Complains

20. Kalpana Jana 40/F w/o Nandalal Vill. Kalicharanpur Eye complains

21. Sankari Gol 47/F w/o Manoranjan Vill. Sonachura # tibia, multiple injury head, eye complains

22. Shyamali Mahato w/o (late) Gobinda Vill. Sonachura Bullet injury head

II. Patients admitted in ‘Nandigram Ward’ of Tamluk Hospital (male)

1 Gopal Das s/o Mrityunjoy Vill. Sonachura bullet injury, shoulder

2 Niranjan Das 38/M s/o (late) Radhakrishna Vill. Sonachura Chest Pain

3 Lakshmikanta Gayen s/o Ramhari Vill. Sonachura subconj Hmge, # finger, loss of teeth

4 Subodh Das 45/M s/o Gangadhar vill.Gangra Bullet injury finger

5 Asok Mondal s/o Jagadish Vill. Sonachura Bullet injury, finger amputed,

6 Srimanta Mondal s/o Joydev vill. Gokulnagar Bullet injury, thigh

7 Gopal Majhi s/o Santosh vill. Gokulnagar Bullet injury, arm

8 Sk.Fasi Alam s/o Abdul Vill 7 no Jalpai Bullet injury, finger

9 Abinash Mondal s/o Gorachand vill.Gangra Pain Back, eye problems

10.Madan Mondal s/o Ramhari Vill.Soudkhali Headache, Eye complains

11. Ramkrishna Maiti 33/Ms/o Chintamani Vill 7 no Jalpai Shoulder Dislocation, Head injury

III. Cases transferred to SSKM Hospital,Kolkata (female)

1. Haimabati Halder Vill. Gangra Bullet injury

2. Kanchan Mal w/o Sripati Vill. Gokulnagar Bullet injury

3. Tapasi Das w/o Sambhu Vill. Gokulnagar Bullet injury

4. Banasri Acharya w/o Chandan vill. Badkeshabpur Bullet injury

5. Swarnamoyee Das w/o Gopal Vill. Berachak Bullet injury

6. Bhabani Giri w/o Hitendralal Vill. Kalicharanpur Bullet injury

7. Anjali Das w/o Mrityunjoy Vill. Sonachura Bullet injury

8. Gourirani Das w/o Chittaranjan Vill. Kalicharanpur Bullet injury

9. Purnima Mondal w/o Gobardhan Vill. Gokulnagar blunt Injury

IV. Cases transferred to SSKM Hospital,Kolkata (male)

1. Rasbehari Khanda s/o (late) Kumar Vill. Sonachura Bullet injury

2. Abhijit Samanta Vill. Sonachura Bullet injury

3. Swapan Giri Vill. Sonachura Bullet injury

4. Salil Das Adhikari s/o Bhupati Vill. Gokulnagar Bullet injury

5. Prithwish Das s/o Purnachandra Vill. Gangra Bullet injury

6. Abhijit Giri s/o Pratap Vill. Kalicharanpur Bullet injury

7. Parikshit Maiti s/o Abinash Vill. Kalicharanpur Bullet injury

8. Mani Rana Vill. Gokulnagar Bullet injury

9. Saddam Hossain Vill 7 no Jalpai Bullet injury

Some Highlights

1. Radharani Ari. Found unconscious (and without clothes) in a bush 2 days after the incidence. Complained of pain in whole body and particularly in
private parts after regaining consciousness. According to her, 3 male police took her to a bush and were beating her, when she lost consciousness.

2. Kabita Adhikari. Fracture Rt patella and Lt wrist. According to her, she was in Anadi Mal’s home on 14th March, when male police dragged her out and beaten her severly.

3. Sankari Gol. Severely beaten by male police, admitted with Rt leg fracture and multiple injury with stitches on head.

4. Sovarani Sinha. According to her, a child was snatched away and killed before her eyes.

5..Anubha Khanda. Admitted with bubber bullet in knee, admitted and operated on 14th March. Her husband Rasbehari Khanda has been transferred
to SSKM Hospital, Kolkata in very serious condition, now in intensive care unit.

ANNEXURE III

List of Patients Injured in Nandigram, now Admitted in SSKM Hospital :

Sl no. Name Age/sex Village Injury Remarks
1 Parikshit MaityS/o (Late) Abinash 55/M Kalicharanpur Bullet Injury abdomen

2 Avijit SamsntaS/o Subimal 33/M Sonachura Bullet Injury Chest, Opeation done on 28.03.2007

3 Avijit GiriS/o Pratap Chandra 22/M Kalicharanpur Bullet Injury Rt hand, Charra Injury Abdomen

4 Pritish DasS/o (Late) Purnachandra 29/M Gangra Bullet Injury Head, Back

5 Swapan GiriS/o Gobinda 21/M Sonachura Bullet Injury Rt Hand

6 Mani RanaS/o (Late) Beni 18/M Gokulnagar Bullet Injury Rt Thigh, Operation done on 27.03.2007

7 Salil Das AdhikariS/o (Late) Bhupaticharan 35/M Gokulnagar Bullet Injury between Lt eye and nose

8 Anjali DasW/o Mrityunjoy 50/F Sonachura Injury, beaten by police and CPI(M) cadres

9 Swarnamoyee DasW/o Gopal Das 32/F Gokulnagar Bullet Injury Lt Elbow

10 Kanchan MalW/o Swapan 45/F Gokulnagar 4 Bullet injuries in Breasts and 3 in Lt Hand, Operated twice.Injured while trying to rescue an injured person

11 Purnima MondalW/o Pipu /F Gokulnagar Heavily beaten up by CPI(M) cadres on 24.3.07 at Tekhali. Admitted on 25.3.07 via Tamluk Sadar Hospital

12 Gouri Rani DasW/o Chittaranjan 40/F Kalicharanpur Injury from Tear Gas Shell, Transferred to ICU

13 Bhawani GiriW/o Jiten 40/F Kalicharanpur Bullet Injury Lt Chest

14 Rasbehari KharaS/o(Late) Kumar 45/M Sonachura Bullet Injury Abdomen

15 Saddam HossainS/o Serajul Islam 18/M Barjamtala7 no Jalpai Bullet Injury Rt Eyebrow. A student of class IX. Now almost blind

16 Tapasi DasW/o Sambhu 32/F Gokulnagar Bullet Injury Hip

17 Manju Mal Discharged on 29.3.07

18 Banashree Acharya Discharged on 26.3.07

19 Haimabati Halder

ANNEXURE- IV

Photographic evidences of some of the persons injured in the incidence of 14.3.2007

1. Minhazur s/o Noorjahan Age 8 years, Villege Soudhkhali. Was with his mother in the Namaz ceremony that was held at Bhangabera. When police
resorted to lathicharge, he received 4 blows in left elbow, resulting in a supracondylar fracture. These two photographs show the extent and seriousness of the injury before (1A) the team had rendered medical care and after (1B).

2. Saraswati Das, w/o late Kalipada Das, Villege Gangra F 40. Was in the puja ceremony at Bhangabera. When the tear gas shelling started, she
started running for shelter. A shell exploded close to her. She had a burning sensation. The police chased her out and she received two mighty blows in her right leg. The police had beaten her up when she fell down in the ground. The photograph ( 2) shows the wound because of the blows that she received from the police. It may be mentioned here that even after a week of the said incident, she did not receive any medical attention.

3. Tapasi Das, w/o of Late Ratan Das, who was killed during the firing on 14.3.2007, Villege Gangra, Sonachura, F 24. Widowed with two small kids.
Lost all tranquility, stopped speaking. Accute Stress-induced trauma.

4. Sonali Das, W/o Pabitra Das, F 26, Villege Sonachura. Was near to the puja ceremony site. When firing started she started running and was
engulfed by the tear gas fumes. She lost direction and was beaten up by the police at the left elbow. Did not receive any medical help even after a week.

Previous Report

On 18th March 2007, 4 days after the massacre at Nandigram a medical team comprising of six doctors ( including two female doctors ),three junior doctors ( house staff of Medical College, Kolkata ),3 sisters and two health workers went to the affected areas to provide medical service to the victims of police atrocities. Three voluntary organizations (working in the field of health), namely Shramajibi Swasthya Udyog, Peoples’ Health & Janaswasthya Swadhikar Manch organized the medical camp.

The members first went to Nandigram Hospital (actually a glorified health center, with minimum infrastructural facilities), talked to four women (one of them accompanied by a very young child), who were admitted in the wards. Then the team went to Sonachura and Adhikaripara (Gokulnagar Area) and gave treatment to 129 affected persons. They also talked to above 300 villagers. Locals like Sri Prodyot Maity, Sri Buddhadeb Mondal, Sri Subhendu Karan; Sri Nishikanto Mondal (a leader of the committee for prevention of land acquisition) helped the team much and guided it to the worst affected areas.

From the dialogue with the villagers that included many eye- witnesses of the ghastly incident, a horrifying story of torture, murder, molestation, rape and killing of children gradually unfolded—which in our view is a planned genocide and barbaric large scale sexual crimes committed upon innocent people. The description, appear to us nightmarish and in spite of our long standing association with medical profession ranging from some years to few decades—some of us felt mentally sick.

Ours was not a fact finding team. These are collateral information that we have gathered. But we feel that it is our duty to communicate this monstrous and sinister incidence that stands singular and in isolation (the comment made by Winston Churchill in the British Parliament after Jalianwala Bag massacre) to the world outside Nandigram. Rest is up to the readers to believe or to reject.

We took some photographs also, which are in our custody and may be circulated in future. With the prelude, let us divulge what the locals said on that day to us.

The local people irrespective of their villages, ages and sex told us the incidences as summarized below—

A lot of people (ranging up to few hundreds) are still missing. It is not that all of them are killed. Some have fled away but the number of casualties are many fold of the officially declared number of 14.In Sonachura alone 50-60 people are untraceable.

No comprehensive list of the missing person is available till date. Firstly, because they are still shell socked and dumb in horror and pain. There is no one to take such initiative for door to door survey (like a census) in the vast stretch of area. Secondly, due to absolute lack of faith in administration/ police and to avoid harassment (including arrest), no one has formally lodged a missing diary either.

The locals say that many families have been torn apart as occurred after Tsunami. One house has got only two children with the father battling for life at hospital and in the other missing. Many have lost their parents, children or beloved who are not included in the lists stain and hospitalized persons. The villagers say that some of them, who ran away, may come back after some time and a proper account of the loss can be taken only after that.

Many small children of the K.G. school are missing in Bhangabera (another badly hit village). The villagers say that during the commotion they were released from the school. Many of them had been butchered by the attackers. Their throats were slit or heads chopped off, put in gunny bags, loaded in trucks and transported to unknown destinations. The locals feel that either the bodies had been burnt in brick-kilns, thrown to Haldi River / Bay of Bengal (not very far off) by tying with stones in fishing nets or dumped in marshy land or jungles. It may so happen that the bodies to the ditches and the overlying roads repaired. Some people said that they have either witnessed themselves or heard from other that the legs of a small child were torn apart. A breast-fed baby was reportedly thrown to a pond.

It is the general perception that the trucks carrying the materials for road repair were extensively used to transport dead bodies during 48 hours subsequent to the attack, when neither the media nor the ‘opponents’ from outside the ‘action area’ were allowed to infiltrate.

It may be mentioned here that news was published in the Bengali Daily Statesman on March 19 that a truck loaded with bullet-ridden bodies covered with tarpaulin was taken to the Haldia State General Hospital at Durgachak past midnight. The hospital superintendent was asked to keep the bodies of the victims of a so called road traffic accident in the hospital morgue ‘temporarily’. The superintendent refused to oblige and was threatened with dire consequences. By refusing to oblige he drew the wrath of almighty Sri Laxman Seth, the M.P. of Haldia.

Many persons were chased and hacked or smashed to death by sharp or blunt weapons. Their bodies were carried away to abolish evidence as it occurred in Chhoto Angaria of West Midnapur, where bodies of eleven murdered persons could never be traced. The local wanted to show us a portion of a road at Bhangabera which was still thickly smeared with blood and even with soft brain matter. They said that the CPI (M) goons tried to wash away the blood stains throughout the night by lighting halogen lamps with generators but failed. The site has been visited by the CBI officials.

Stories of rape and molestation are widespread. The locals say in the aftermath of the attack, the hard core criminals hired by the CPI (M) took advantage of the situation in a full swing. The male members of the families ran away. The criminals attacked, molested and even gang raped the hapless farmers’ wives and daughters even in the broad daylight. They did not spare the aged also. One lady in her fifteen bears deep cut marks on chest by sharp weapons and other marks of molestation. Villagers tell that a number of teenage girls or young unmarried women have been abducted without trace. The locals believe that were taken to the house of Naba Samanta ( a CPI(M) party member cum muscleman and brother of the local tyrant Sankar Samanta who was burnt to death after the fired on the mob from his house ),gang raped and slaughtered. Villagers insisted us to visit the place to see blood stained female undergarments, sarees,broken bangles etc.still lying there. But we could not go, partly due to the shortage of time and partly due to the fear. We saw a young girl (14 to 16 years) is moving all along the team with a small packet in her hand. On enquiry, it was known that many young girls are afraid of staying back home alone lest they are attacked and tortured by police or cadres of CPI(M).They were loitering in public places in the village. At night, many women are hiding in the bushes and not staying at the thatched houses which can be attacked any time. Men are also sitting or lying sleeplessly on the paddy field for last 3-4days (since the attack).The apprehension of quick and organized removal of dead bodies is overwhelming. At Sonachur, an eyewitness lady told that after the firing a number of persons (including children) were jolting in pain and screaming for help on the bank of the pond of Naba Samanta .They were wanting water. The pond turned red. The assistance could reach them on the face of attack. The attackers killed some by them by stones or by bamboo sticks. After two hours, when the villagers could approach the spot, no one was left out. This is a big puzzle. The villagers believe that the bodies and half dead are carried away.

Who fired on them?

Men in uniform, but some of them with ‘chappals’ on their feet. It was revealed subsequently that the CPI (M) procured some 250-300 sets of police uniform from the local ‘Sunny Tailors’ a month back. The villagers concluded that the uniform clad goons accompanied the police force on that day.

The injury marks:

There were all sorts of injuries e.g.

1. Bullet injuries—most of the injured either died or were transferred to hospitals.
2. Injuries on heads caused by blunt weapons.
3. Injury on the forehead of a woman in her seventies caused by some sharp weapon.
4. Extensive and barbaric lathi-charge marks on the whole bodies of women and men. Even after 4 days the parts were red, hot, swollen and very painful. Some of them may have fractures but x-rays could not be done. Some of them were still unable to move from beds.

About three-fourth of the victims are children and women. Interestingly the preferred part of the woman body for such attack was below the umbilicus and above the knees. A rod was forcefully driven to the private part of a lady.

When some persons attacked a lady, her husband resisted. The attackers threatened to kill their small child. The husband ran away with the small child and the lady was molested.

We met two victims who requested to remain anonymous lest they were not accepted by the society. One of them came to her father’s house and was molested on the black day. Villagers said that there were more victims who were too shy to depose before us.

5. Many patients (including children) complained of eye problems—blurring of vision, eye pain and burning sensation in eyes following exposure to tear gas. A number of elderly patients complained of loss of vision.

Name of the attackers

Police and CPI (M) henchmen like Naba Samanta, Jaidev Paik, Anup Mondal, Badal Mondal etc. allegedly led the attack.

Current situation

Still there is tension in the locality and enough provocation by the CPI (M) men from the other side of the canal (Khejuri side), they bring out armed processions with slogans like ‘Those who want to destabilize industrialization will not be spared’. We saw such a long procession ourselves.
There are spates of bombing across the canal throughout the night. People spend sleepless nights. The assurance of peace appears hollow to them and they believe that CPI (M) is taking a breathing time only to bounce back with more force after a month or two.

There is no faith in police as the criminals are hiding in the police camps at times. The police camps are the source of constant fear to the villagers and they want removal of the camps. They are not even ready to allow any government medical team to enter the villages. A fear psychosis looms large in the whole area.

Since agriculture and other economic activities are at stake, there is crisis of food in many houses. Moreover the villagers can not go freely to the market places as police and CPI (M) musclemen often abduct persons moving alone or in small groups.

What we felt
The loss of life is huge, the physical injuries widespread, the psychological trauma unthinkable. The women and the children are the worst affected. In the days to come, many of them are likely to suffer from various psychiatric disorders.

But the morale is still high. Still they are not ready to part with even an inch of their ancestral land, which they consider like their mother. They declare that even further blood shed will not be able crush their movement.

Many people spontaneously came out and spoke to us. They said repeatedly that since they were almost living in ghettos, they were unaware of the impact of their movement on the outer society. There are needs of medicines, food and clothes. But most badly needed is the healing touch of the civil society.

Another team visited Nandigram on March 24-25. They have examined 240 vicitms, treated them and documented their injuries. They also trained activists in First Aid. Their report will be sent to you soon.

West Bengal killings denounced

2007-04-25T13:13:00.001-07:00

West Bengal killings denounced

Eva Cheng

30 March 2007

On March 23, hundreds of thousands of people from all over India converged in Delhi to express their anger at the killing of peasant protesters on March 14 by police and thugs aligned with the West Bengal Left Front (LF) government. Those killed were resisting eviction from their land in Nandigram. Similar killings also happened on January 7. The mass rally was preceded by two days of cultural protests.

1 April 2007

CPI(ML) Liberation

Dipankar Bhattacharya addresses the 'Inquilab rally'.

Organised by the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, the rally fell on the 76th anniversary of the martyring of independence heroes Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru. With the executioner’s rope over his neck, Singh shouted “Inquilab Zindabad” (“Long live the revolution”). The CPI(ML) rally was called “Inquilab rally” in memory of these heroes. Bhagat Singh’s nephew Jagmohan was a speaker at the rally.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) dominates the LF government, which has held power for 30 years in West Bengal. The CPI(ML) was the result of a 1968 split from the CPI(M), after the newly elected LF government crushed a 1967 uprising of the rural poor in Naxalbari, in the state’s north.

More details of the March 14 massacre have come to light. According to a fact-finding report conducted by the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights and Paschim Banga Khet Majdoor Samity (an agricultural labourer organisation), authorised by the Kolkata High Court, at Bhangabera on the outskirt of Nandigram a group of mostly women and children were praying on March 14 when, without warning, police started indiscriminately firing on them. Those who tried to escape were hunted down by CPI(M) thugs disguised as police.

According to the report, “Children were murdered indiscriminately; bodies have been thrown to nearby Chuniburi river. The children of primary schools at least eight in numbers have been killed by the murderers and then all those children were buried in a particular place near Bhangabera area.”

The report revealed that the cops and hooligans then went on to ransack and indiscriminately fire upon the villagers’ huts, killing and injuring more. No less than 100 people were injured. Some victims were too scared to go to the hospital.

“A good number of women have complained that they have been raped, sexually abused and molested by police personnel and the murderers of the political party [the CPI(M)]”, says the report.

The report accused local CPI(M) MP Lakhman Seth of having engaged “professional murderers” to finish up the atrocities initiated by the police.

In an interview published by the Hindustan Times on March 20, CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, who has led a fact-finding team to Nandigram, claimed while a precise death toll isn’t yet established, bodies are being discovered every day. He added: “Many bodies were dumped, many were buried overnight and roads built on them. Our team has come back with horrifying tales and reports.”

Bhattacharya said that many victims had “chopper” wounds. “From when did policemen started carrying choppers? It means that CPI (M) goons must have accompanied the police. They were wearing police uniforms but their slippers gave them away. There were cases of women being gang raped as well. There were many cases where the women were mutilated. It was a cold-blooded, pre-planned carnage.”

The Train Stops At Nandigram

2007-04-25T13:11:00.000-07:00

The Train Stops At Nandigram

By Amit Sengupta

After 30 years of being big bully, big brother in Orwellian West Bengal, with ‘Buddha’ being equated with Narendra Modi as ‘the role model of development’ , Nandigram might mark the epitaph of the CPI(M) in ‘India Shining’.

Those days, in the early 1970s, the slogan used to be in a fiery rhythm, almost a melody: Aamar Naam, Tomar Naam, Shobaar Naam: Vietnam… Vietnam…Aamar Bari, Tomar Bari, Shobaar Bari: Naxalbari… Naxalbari… Literally, it means, my name, your name, everyone’s name: Vietnam, Vietnam; my home, your home, everyone’s home: Naxalbari, Naxalbari. So it is not unpredictable or jarring, when the slogan, in 10 per cent growth rate,
‘Manmohanics India of March’, 2007, turns out to be as rhythmic and beautiful, almost Gandhian in its rooted simplicity: Aamar Gram, Tomar Gram, Shobar Gram: Nandigram, Nandigram.

My village, your village, everyone’s village: Nandigram, Nandigram.

Like a flash of memory, and an inverted image of camera obscura, the slogan resurrects vicious cycle of epic tragedies: thousands of farmers in village after village committing suicides, every day, non-stop, in Vidharbha, Sangrur, Ananthapur; and thousands of farmers, dalits, tribals, being forcibly displaced to benefit big business and big projects, in Kashipur, Kalinganagar, Bastar, Punjab, Dadri, the Narmada valley, Tehri Garhwal.

Those days, in the early 1970s, the eclectic post-freedom idealism had failed. The dream of a young democracy after protracted sacrifices by revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru, Batukeshwar Dutt, Khudiram Bose, Jatin Sen, Chandrashekhar Azad, Ashfaqullah Khan, Ramprasad Bismil, among thousands of others, had been subverted and sucked into a black hole of greed, injustice and inequality by the new feudal and economic elite. Those days the story was that the train never stopped at Naxalbari. And why should the train stop in that obscure village silence in West Bengal, near Siliguri and Darjeeling?………

No one would then know that this silence would one day become a spring thunder, heard across the world, become etched as a landmark of history, a rupture within and outside the ‘official Left’. Four decades after this sudden, stunning, spontaneous uprising rocked West Bengal and other flash-points in ‘unfree India’, followed by cold-blooded State repression whereby an entire generation was wiped out by the Congress and CPI(M) establishments, will Nandigram become another Naxalbari?

“Yes,” says Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary, CPI-ML (Liberation) . “Nandigram will mark a turning point in history. It will reassert the struggle of village India, the poorest farmers, versus the corporate sharks who are backed by the State. In West Bengal, the CPI(M) has become an agent of the
capitalists. Look at the irony, between ‘Siddharth’ Shankar Ray, who led the elimination brigades after Naxalbari along with the CPI(M), and Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee, the current icon of capitalism, the similarity is not only of politics, but also of name: both mean ‘Buddha’ but both are a shame on Buddha. If the CPI(M) continues this repressive and brazenly pro-business, anti-farmer politics, it will create space for the Right-wing in Bengal. And we will not allow that to happen.”

So it is significant that March 23 marked the 100th birth anniversary of Bhagat Singh. This year also marks the 150th anniversary of the great anti-British rebellion of 1857, which Marx called the first war of Indian Independence. And since history takes you by surprise, you become blind when it stares you at point-blank range. Because here, in the heart of Delhi, in memory of the martyrs of 1857 and Bhagat Singh, and in protest against the Nandigram massacre and SEZs, almost 2,50,000 people, the poorest of the poor from all parts of rural India, waving tens of thousands of red flags, shouted in one voice: SEZs murdabad, Nandigram lal salaam, Inquilab zindabad.

They came in disciplined, non-violent, totally committed and organised groups led by the CPI-ML (Liberation) : from Giridih in Jharkhand and Arwal in
Jehanabad, to Singur in Bengal, Sonebhadra in UP, Karbi Anglong in Assam, Mansa in Punjab and interiors of South India. They came in waves of red, the people of India, the invisible majority; there were no traffic jams, no violence, not a moment of metropolitan disruption. This was perhaps the biggest
rally in years in the capital and the topical backdrop was the Nandigram massacre.

Next day, not a word was reported in any of the big papers in Delhi. Not one word. As if, this India, this massive protest, does not exist.

But this India exists, in affirmation and hope, in sacrifice and struggle, in dissent and resistance. Because revolutions don’t happen in Lakme fashion shows or in the big bucks of schizophrenic cricket, when the entire media lost it. People learn from history, from mistakes of the past. Revolutions move relentlessly in invisible spirals, of quiet, volcanic, unseen social unrest, in the daily struggles of survival and despair, when the radical turning point is waiting in the next bylane of an unknown village. Like Naxalbari, Nandigram and Kalinganagar. And when it happens, even the ‘official Left’, riding the bourgeois bandwagon, goes berserk, as the CPI(M) cadre and police did in the massacre of Nandigram. To protect the interests of a notorious MNC Salem, which aligned with dictator Suharto, when 2 million communists, dissenters and human rights activists were killed in Indonesia. No wonder Buddha says that capital has no ideology or colour.

Almost the entire country is witness to this revulsion, this brazen sell out of the Left to the Right. “If you want to behave like a capitalist party, declare it openly and go ahead. But don’t kill people,” said Prabhu Mahapatra, professor of history at Delhi University, in the protest in Delhi one day after the massacre. “The genocide is not over. The genocide is going on. Now. And why have the Left allies lost their speech?” asked an anguished Sumit
Chakravarty, editor, Mainstream, joining the protestors. “The CPI(M) cadre and the police have become agents of the corporates. They have unleashed a reign of terror. They want to teach a lesson to all those who are protesting against forcible land acquisition, ” said Medha Patkar, who has repeatedly
fought her way through police barricades into the prohibited zones of Nandigram and Singur. Even as I write this, she is in jail, as the ‘Sangharsh 2007′
campaign of hundreds of people’s movements, take on the UPA government, backed by the Left Front. While seeking a ban on privatisation of water outside Montek Singh’s Planning Commission, she and other activists were smashed by the police, and packed off to jail.

Across the spectrum eminent intellectuals have protested against the CPI(M) policies in Bengal: historians Romilla Thapar, Tanika Sarkar, Sumit Sarkar, novelist Arundhati Roy, journalist Praful Bidwai – and they are not right-wingers, so even the CPI(M)’s propaganda machinery can’t brand them and get away. What is also significant is the eerie silence of the ‘CPI(M)’ intellectuals, including economists Jayati Ghosh, Prabhat Patnaik, Utsa Patnaik, CP Chandrashekhar and CPI(M)’s cultural front, Sahmat, even while an unrepentant Sitaram Yechuri and Brinda Karat blamed the people of
Nandigram for the massacre. It took two weeks for these intellectuals to issue a muted statement.

Not surprising, because the CPI(M) also supported the Tiananmen Square massacre, and branded the fasting pro-democracy students as ‘CIA agents and juvenile delinquents’ . And doesn’t Nandigram remind of the Gujarat genocide: murderous, rapist VHP/Bajrang Dal mobs unleashed, backed by the police and the BJP regime?

A poster said it all in Delhi: Capitalist Party of India (Murderers) – CPI(M). After 30 years of being big bully, big brother in Orwellian West Bengal, with
‘Buddha’ being equated with Narendra Modi as ‘the role model of development’ by Right-wing journos, this poster might mark the epitaph of the CPI(M) in this neo-liberal epoch of ‘India Shining’. Because these days the train stops at Naxalbari. As it will, in Nandigram.

Because, your village, my village, everyone’s village is Nandigram, Nandigram

Source: Countercurrents.org

Development and Displacement in West Bengal: An Excerpt from a Forthcoming Paper

2007-04-25T13:10:00.000-07:00

Development and Displacement in West Bengal: An Excerpt from a Forthcoming Paper

By Abhijit Guha, Reader, Dept. of Anthropology, V.U.

General Scenario

The first striking thing one observes in this field is the virtual absence of any empirical and theoretical work on development induced displacement in West Bengal. This of course does not mean that displacement and rehabilitation are non-existent in West Bengal, which in the pre-Independence period, was the leading state in terms of industrialisation, and where, after Independence, large industries and thermal power plants have been built up displacing many families (including tribals) from their agricultural land and homes. West Bengal has also experienced large-scale mining on the western part of the state bordering Jharkhand.

In an article published in 1989, Walter Fernandes and his co-workers, quoting from Government sources, have shown that for the Durgapur Steel Plant
in Bardhaman district of West Bengal 6,633.44 hectares of land was acquired, which displaced 11,300 persons, 3.39 percent of whom were tribals (Fernandes et al. 1989). In the same article, Fernandes quoted another Government source which showed that up to 1983 there were 114 mines (all are coal mines) in West Bengal although he did not give any concrete figure about the total number of displaced persons owing to the acquisition of land for the establishment of mines. Through extrapolation, Fernandes, however, arrived at an estimate of 1,380 displaced persons per mine in India which brings out a figure of 1,57,320 persons in case of West Bengal.

In more recent period, particularly since the adoption of a liberalised economic policy by the Central Government, quite a good number of development projects have been launched by the West Bengal Government and many more will be coming up in near future. The building up of a new township near Kolkata and the establishment of industries in the rural areas of West Bengal including a port centered industrial complex at Haldia in the Purba Medinipur district constitute the recent development package of the Government of West Bengal. For the successful implementation of this development policy large scale acquisition of land has already been taken place in West Bengal, which displaced quite a good number of small and marginal farmers.

No published statistics on displaced (DP) and project affected persons (PAP), let alone their caste/tribe affiliation, are available from any official source of Government of West Bengal. Displacement and rehabilitation have not yet entered into the official agenda of the Government of West Bengal like the routinised recording of bargadars (sharecroppers) and the number of landless labourers who have been given land by the Government.

On the other hand, the West Bengal scenario is yet to figure in any substantial manner in the academic literature with respect to land acquisition,
development induced displacement and rehabilitation. There exist at least four special volumes of important Indian journals devoted exclusively to displacement and rehabilitation, but none of them contain any case study or policy-oriented paper on West Bengal. These journals are Social Action (Vol. 45, No. 3, 1995, July – Sept.), Lokayan Bulletin (Vol. 11, No. 5, 1995), Economic and Political Weekly (Vol. XXXI, No. 24, June 1996) and Eastern Anthropologist (Vol. 53, Nos. 1-2, January-June 2000).

The same is true about recently published monographs viz., Development Displacement and Rehabilitation edited by Walter Fernandes and Enakshi
Ganguly Thukral (1989), The Uprooted (1990) edited by V. Sudarsen and M.A. Kalam and Development Projects and Impoverishment Risks edited by Hari Mohan Mathur and David Marsden (2000).

Very recently, Partha Chatterjee, a renowned political scientist, has undertaken a study on resettlement and rehabilitation in West Bengal. His paper, which is still unpublished was presented in a workshop on “Social Development Research” in West Bengal held during 6-7 July 2000 at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata.

In this significant paper, Chatterjee has pointed out that participatory rehabilitation through NGOs has become a “mantra” which is being repeated by the Governments, funding agencies, experts and activists but “little attention has been given to the specific forms of practice through which appropriate and adequate ‘participation’ can be ensured” (Chatterjee 2000). Chatterjee used three cases of displacement and consequent rehabilitation in West Bengal to assess the role of the political parties’ vis-à-vis Government bureaucracy in providing rehabilitation to PAP in West Bengal. His findings on the political processes that centered around the rehabilitation mechanisms of the recent industrialisation in Haldia (1988-91) and the
establishment of new township in Rajarhat clearly demonstrated the dominance of the local political society over the Government administration. Quite interestingly, in both the cases, the distribution of rehabilitation benefits was based on a ground-level agreement between the representatives of the ruling and the opposition political parties of West Bengal. The net result of this process was the distribution of a better and quicker rehabilitation package to the project affected families than it would have been made by the usual land acquisition procedure carried out by the bureaucratic machinery alone. In West Bengal, it was the political society (represented by the political parties) rather than the civil society (represented by the NGOs), which took the role of a mediator between the state and the PAP. Field based empirical accounts of development caused displacement in West Bengal was published for the first time by the author of this article in journals based on a case study in erstwhile Medinipur district (Guha 2004a). Land Acquisition in West Bengal : Legal Developmental and Policy Dimensions

Land acquisition in West Bengal has a special significance in the context of the pro-peasant land reform policies adopted and implemented by the Left
Front Government in West Bengal since it came to power in 1977. Almost all the studies conducted by the researchers on displacement in other states of India did not take into consideration the dampening effects of land acquisition on small peasants and sharecroppers who are the real beneficiaries of land reforms.

Agricultural land is not only a socio-cultural and economic category for the peasants in a rural setting but the rights of the people over such land
depend on the functioning of a specific set of legal, administrative and policy apparatus with which a particular state power is endowed in a given period of time. The functioning of the legal, administrative and policy apparatus of the state power do not again operate in a cultural vacuum. The differing and sometimes quite opposing perspectives on issues around development form the cultural context within which the state apparatus functions.

According to the Land Acquisition Act, the state can exercise its right of eminent domain wherein it is the ultimate owner of all land, which it can acquire for public purposes after paying full compensation calculated on the basis of market value. Despite several amendments of the Act after Independence, the two basic principles of land acquisition, viz. (i) public purpose and (ii) compensation on market value, remain unchanged. The various criticisms of Land Acquisition Act in India have also centered around these two cardinal principles. One of the major criticisms of the Land Acquisition Act is that the expression “public purpose” is nowhere defined in the Act and in India the courts do not have the power to decide whether the purpose behind a particular acquisition was a public purpose. The court can only direct the Collector to hear the objections of a person whose land hand been acquired, but the Collector may not always listen to the objections raised by the legal owner of the land.

The second criticism of the Land Acquisition is anthropological in nature. It says that the calculation of compensation on the basis of market value not only deprives the landowner, but it also hides the various socio-cultural dimensions of land ownership in an agrarian society. Land does not only
have a market price at the time of acquisition, but it also serves various social, political and psychological functions to its owner. The ownership of
a small piece of land can empower a landless family and increase the status and prestige of that family in the local milieu. A piece of land supports a family for a number of generations, not simply its present members at the time of acquisition. But these important dimensions of land and its ownership in an agricultural society are not considered for calculation of its value while giving compensation to a landloser.

Beside these two criticisms, there are others which grew out of the lengthy discourse and debate carried out by activists, scholars, legal experts and
non-governmental organisations on the various shortcomings of this Act. The criticisms are as follows:

1. The Land Acquisition Act only deals with compensation and not rehabilitation of project affected persons whose lands have been acquired. The
responsibility of the state towards the affected persons ends with the payment of compensation.

2. The Act considers the payment of compensation to individuals who have legal ownership rights over land. This means that under this Act no compensation is payable to landless labourers, forest land users and forest produce collectors, artisans and shifting hill cultivators because they do not have any legal right over land, although these groups of people are also affected when agricultural and forest lands are acquired for development projects. In West Bengal, the state Government had to make an amendment in the LA Act (it was done in the 1960s) in order to provide compensation to sharecroppers (bargadars), who also suffered loss of livelihood because of acquisition of agricultural land.

3. The Land Acquisition Act only recognises individual property rights, but not community rights over land. As a consequence, the usefructory rights of the tribal and non-tribal communities over common land do not find any place in this law. So when village common lands are acquired, no compensation in any form is provided to the village communities who derive various types of benefits (e.g. cattle grazing, fuelwood collection etc.) from these lands. The Land Acquisition Act does not have any scope for this kind of compensation for loss of common pool resources (CPR). Interestingly, in the vast rural areas of India, privately owned agricultural lands are also used as common grazing lands by the villagers in the post-harvest season. The Land Acquisition Act has no provision to compensate the villagers who may not be the owners of a particular piece of agricultural land but enjoyed usefructory rights of cattle grazing on this land after the harvest of the crops (Guha 2004b). It has already been discussed in the preceding section that no systematic and comprehensive study on land acquisition in West Bengal exist till today. There is no baseline empirical survey on the nature and extent of land acquired in West Bengal for various development projects, nor is there any research on the
specific problems of application of the Central and State Acts on land acquisition in West Bengal. Recently, Walter Fernandes and his team have
undertaken a comprehensive macro-level empirical survey (sponsored by the Ministry of Rural Areas and Employment Govt. of India and North-Eastern Social Research Council, a research oriented NGO) on the nature and extent of development induced displacement and rehabilitation in the 16 districts of West Bengal for the period 1951 – 1995. Being one of the research supervisors in the aforesaid research project for the South Bengal districts (Medinipur, Bankura, Purulia and Hughly), it is within the knowledge of the present author that the results of this survey may be published in future (personal communication Walter Fernandes, 2000).

Since Independence, besides the colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1894, there existed another State Act entitled West Bengal Land (Requisition and
Acquisition) Act, 1948. The latter Act is no more applicable in West Bengal since 31 March 1993 by a decision of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly. In fact, when this particular piece of legislation was first enacted in the State Assembly it was stipulated that the Act has to be renewed in the Assembly by a majority decision every five years since this is a very powerful and coercive law. The Government opinion was that the State of West Bengal, which had to receive millions of refugees from erstwhile East Pakistan just after Independence, needed huge amount of land for various developmental purposes. For this reason, the Government was in need of an Act, which was more powerful than the colonial Act in acquiring land from the private owners. By West Bengal Land (Requisition and Acquisition) Act the Government could first requisition a particular piece of land for which the payment of compensation may not be made before the land take-over while in the earlier LA Act of 1894 the Government could not take possession of any land without payment of compensation. In the absence of any district by district published records on the amount of land acquired by West Bengal Government by the two Land Acquisition Acts it is not possible to make any assessment of the policy directions of the state Government in acquiring land by these two Acts which vary in their basic approach towards the payment of compensation to the project affected people. But the long period (1948 – 1993), that is nearly 45 years, during which the West Bengal Government has kept this powerful Act alive is itself an evidence of its frequent application. In terms of political composition, it should be noted that during this long period both Congress and Left ruled Governments, who were in power, continuously renewed the Requisition and Acquisition Act of 1948 in the State assembly.

The debates and discussions that took place in the West Bengal Assembly around West Bengal Land (Requisition and Acquisition) Act 1948 revealed certain interesting points which are enumerated below:

1. Without any exception, the political party in power (Congress or Left) invariably justified the extension of Act-II for quicker acquisition of land for various development works.

2. Both the Congress and the Left Parties criticised the oppressive character of the West Bengal Land (Requisition and Acquisition) Act, 1948 whenever they were in opposition although representatives of the parties in the Legislative Assembly went for vote on the bill twice only. It seems that whether the parties would go for vote depended on factors other than the immediate issue at hand.

3. The delay in the payment of compensation seemed to be the most commonly accepted issue which was raised in the Assembly and no substantial improvement seemed to have taken place with regard to the time taken for the payment of compensation.

4. No member ever raised the point that the Government has a moral responsibility for rehabilitation of the displaced persons due to the acquisition of land. It may be noted in this connection that the Report of the Expert Group on Land Acquisition formed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India, which was published in 1967, categorically mentioned rehabilitation of displaced persons as a “moral responsibility” of the Government.
Since 1967, no member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, irrespective of political affiliation, was found to have made use of the aforesaid report of the Expert Committee to demand rehabilitation of displaced persons during debate sessions on Act-II. Incidentally, the report is still available in the Library of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly.

5. It is only the Left Members who have suggested that the rates of compensation for the rich and the poor should also be different but they did not make any move towards the differential payment of compensation through amendments in either Act-I or Act-II since they are in power from 1977.

6. The speech delivered by the Land and Land Reforms Minister of the Left Front in the 103rd session of the Assembly on 23 February 1994 revealed the pace at which the land acquisition process was in operation in West Bengal (15,000 pending cases under Act II). One could easily infer from this the kind of harassment caused to the displaced persons in the districts of West Bengal although no member (belonging to Left or Congress party) spoke on this issue in the Assembly. Every political party seemed to have taken the stand that this harassment of the people of West Bengal caused by land acquisition was an inevitable outcome which has to be shouldered by the poor farmers for the sake of development of the state (W.B.
Legislative Assembly Proceedings 1956, 1963, 1967, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1978, 1983, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1994).

http://sanhati.com

Moral Betrayal of a Leftist Dream

2007-04-25T13:09:00.001-07:00

Economic and Political Weekly April 7, 2007
SUMANTA BANERJEE

Once a political movement becomes
an object of public hatred and
derision, it presages the erosion of
its base and forecasts the eclipse of its
credibility. Sad to say, the Left movement
in West Bengal is hanging under such a
threat. We should not in the least undermine
the serious challenge faced by the
Left Front government there which stands
on the threshold of a new direction of
growth and faces choices of models to be
adopted. But whatever choice it makes has
to be embedded in probity and integrity.
And it is in this respect that the Left has
failed us. Nandigram is an example of one
more betrayal on the top of the already high
pile of disappointments.
The debate over the popular agitation
and the state response in Nandigram has
till now been confined mainly to three
issues: (i) the conflict between the economic
priorities of agricultural production
and industrial growth; (ii) the way the state
should handle it; and (iii) its human rights
dimension. Notwithstanding the importance
of debating these questions, it is
urgent to foreground the more basic
concern – the decline in moral standards
in Left politics over the last two to three
decades which has eaten into the marrows
of the Left movement and dragged it into
the present quagmire.
When in 1977 the West Bengal electorate
voted the Left Front to power with a
thumping majority, they did not bargain
for a communist revolution, but expected
a clean and efficient administration that
would carry out long awaited land reforms
and meet the basic needs of the urban
populace. Endowed with a legacy of
struggle against exploitation and an image
of sacrifice and honesty, the communists
of West Bengal were supposed to set their
government as a role model for other states.
Today, after 30 years of continuous rule, the
Left leaders of the state face the problem
of re-establishing their credibility not only
among their own constituency, but also in
the entire country. The initial euphoria over
the success of land reforms, the panchayati
system and adult literacy programmes, soon
gave way to scepticism when skeletons
started tumbling out of the cupboard.
At the turn of the 21st century, it was
revealed that only15 per cent of the net
arable land had been distributed in the
state. Even among those who received
land, on an average 13 per cent had lost
it by 2001, and the number of landless rural
households increased from 39.6 per cent
in 1987-88 to 49.8 per cent in 2000 (according
to the West Bengal government’s
first Human Development Report). The
Human Development Report of the Planning
Commission brought to light far more
devastating facts – in rural West Bengal
85 per cent of the population did not have
pucca houses; women and children were
more underfed and anaemic than in other
states; 35.66 per cent of its population still
remained below the poverty line – all these
figures reducing the state to the 20th
position in the list of 32 states and union
territories in terms of the human development
index. The government’s tall claim
of improving the lot of dalits and tribal
people was also punctured soon when the
Pratichi Trust, headed by no less a person
than Amartya Sen, came out in 2002 with
shocking revelations about the discrimination
against students of scheduled castes
and tribes in the primary schools of the
state. As for the other Left proclamation of
enhancing the status of the Muslim minority
(which constitutes almost a quarter of
the population of the state), the Sachar
Committee found that its share in state jobs
was only 4.2 per cent. We must add to this
the dismal record of the government’s
failure to prevent closure of factory after
factory, leading to unemployment and
suicide among industrial workers.
One can, of course, endlessly go on
arguing over the causes – whether it was
the centre’s “step-motherly” treatment in
allocating financial resources, whether it
was the Left leadership’s failure to plan a
long-term strategy of follow-up measures
to bring about sustainable development, or
whether it was the built-in structural hurdle
in the capitalist system within which the
Left had to operate. But curiously enough,
despite all these failures, the overwhelming
presence of the Left is all-pervasive
in West Bengal, as evident from its ability
to emerge victorious with the same thumping
majority in every consecutive election
over the last three decades.
Expanding Base,
Shrinking Ideological Roots
Paradoxical as it might sound, it is this
victory at the polls – “the never ending
audacity of elected persons”, as once
described by Walt Whitman – that pulled
the Left down to the depths of abominable
Moral Betrayal of a
Leftist Dream
A sense of public anger in West Bengal over Singur and Nandigram
has not added up yet to a statewide agitation against the Left Front.
The electorate is wise enough to recognise that there is no viable
alternative as yet. But if the CPI(M) continues to be obdurate,
public outrage may take desperate forms. Reactionary forces like
the Trinamool and BJP are waiting in the wings – the first such
ominous signs were evident in Singur and Nandigram.
Economic and Political Weekly April 7, 2007 1241
deceit and criminality that were witnessed
in Singur and Nandigram. At face value,
the Left – primarily the CPI(M) – had
expanded its base in West Bengal. But it
had been at the expense of ideological
principles. The fibre of morality in the Left
muscle has withered, and politics in West
Bengal has been reduced to an arena for
partisan manipulation.
The rot started with the CPI(M)’s using
the administration to spread and consolidate
its party base by selectively distributing
largesse, and forcibly doling out
plots of land to sections of the farmers and
peasantry, who ultimately became their
apparatchiki and retainers. This privileged
segment of the rural population has emerged
as a tyrannical force in the West Bengal
countryside – bullying the villagers into
accepting their party dictates, persecuting
those who refuse to toe their line, extorting
money in the name of collecting party
funds, and assuming the role of the sole
arbiter in any village dispute. In several
cases, the landless followers of the party
were settled on plots without any legal
sanction, as a result of which the beneficiaries
did not have any valid papers of
ownership. Sharecroppers working on the
lands of the CPI(M) farmers, instead of
being registered, were promised fringe
benefits in lieu of their due share of crops.
Today, the disastrous consequences of such
short-sighted and irresponsible measures
are evident in Singur and Nandigram, where
these villagers, without any legal documents
to claim compensation for their plots,
which are about to be taken away for industrial
purposes, are refusing to part with
their land and rebelling against the same
party which had once helped them. Their
limits of patience broken, the long intimidated
villagers – both the deprived and the
erstwhile beneficiaries – have come together
to retaliate against the CPI(M). They
are paying back the party in the same coin
by driving out its cadres, burning their
houses, and bludgeoning those who refuse
to join them. Reports of atrocities suffered
by CPI(M) cadres and of those by its
opponents are being believed or disbelieved
solely on the grounds of political predilection.
But while our hearts go out to the poor
CPI(M) followers who have been killed or
driven out from their villages by their
opponents, we must ruefully admit that the
CPI(M) has to blame itself for meeting this
sticky end. By its intimidating method of
establishing party hegemony in the past,
it created the insurmountable dissensions
that are splitting the rural masses today.
It is the same unscrupulous method of
establishing party hegemony that has
corrupted to the marrow the entire administration
and every institution of West
Bengal today. Subservience to the local
party apparatchiki (which includes regular
payment of a fixed amount, described under
the euphemism of “contribution”) is the
criterion for the appointment of teachers
in schools, obtaining a bed in hospital for
treatment, or gaining access to facilities
that should be available to every citizen
in the normal course. The Left Front government
has thus racked up a record of corruption
and official lies in day-to-day governance,
arrant duplicity and muscle power
in politics, and crass partisanship in the
distribution of benefits – a register which
is only second after the score achieved by
Congress, BJP, Samajwadi Party or other
ruling parties. It is increasingly being felt
in public perception that the Left is no
different from these parties, when it comes
to running the administration.
Loss of Moral Philosophy
While shelving the ultimate goal of building
a socialist society, in its bid for immediate
political gains in the competitive electoral
race, the CPI(M) in West Bengal has
abandoned the moral principles that once
underpinned the philosophy of communism.
Establishment of party paramountcy
through rapid aggressive expansionism has
become the substitute for patient ideological
training of its cadres and followers.
The present malaise can be traced to two
predispositions in the Left movement. In
general, the building of the Communist
organisation has been traditionally based
on the Leninist concept of vanguardism –
the discontented and exploited class supplying
the energy and manpower, and the
intellectual vanguard providing the leadership
for the revolution. In West Bengal,
because of the low ideological level of the
present generation of its leaders and ministers,
its vanguardism took an uncouth
form. They simplified Marxism into a
militarist drill of sorts, riding roughshod
over political opposition and cultural dissent.
It gave them the gratifying sense of
superiority and fanatical self-confidence,
without making them realise that a time
would come when the classes that they led
could become organised and autonomous
enough to resist the dictates of the vanguard
(which has happened in Singur and
Nandigram). The second proclivity is
rooted in the birth of the CPI(M) in 1964.
It was born as a rather belligerent child
with a persecution complex – its leaders
being put behind bars soon after its formation,
its cadres hounded by the state,
and forced to operate in secrecy for a long
time. As a result, after coming to power
in the 1967 and again in the1969 state
assembly elections, the party began to put
all its might in spreading its base and
devising self-protective mechanisms,
which often led to turf-wars with smaller
Left parties (e g, the Communist Party of
India, Forward Bloc, and the Revolutionary
Socialist Party). Further, the Naxalbari
uprising posed not only an ideological
challenge, but drew away from it a large
number of its younger cadres and followers.
Incapable of self-introspection and
self-correction – given their inferior intellectual
calibre – the party leaders resorted
to physical violence to eliminate the
Naxalite threat. The most shameful incident
took place on August 12, 1971 in
Baranagar, near Calcutta, when CPI(M)
cadres joined the police in hunting out and
slaughtering more than 100 young Naxalite
workers and sympathisers.
Although stained by such violent acts of
muscle power and overbearing arrogance,
that past record of the CPI(M) had paled
into insignificance by 1977, in comparison
with the more brutal atrocities that the
people of West Bengal had to suffer under
the Congress during the 1975-76 Emergency.
So, when in the 1977 assembly
elections, the people voted back the CPI(M)
to power, they expected it to be more
chastened and develop into a more responsible
party. Alas, after the initial period of
success and sobriety, the party relapsed
into its old mental groove and mode of
functioning! The germs of intolerance,
insecurity and pugnacity with which it was
contaminated at its birth, turned into a fullblown
aneurysm.
Need for an Alternative Left
A few words of caution need to be
added. All this sense of public revulsion
does not add up yet to a statewide agitation
against the Left Front government in West
Bengal. Most of the incidents that have
outraged us are violent examples of local
zealotry – both of the CPI(M) and
Trinamool variety. There is no general
reversal of support against the Left government,
and no wind of a change in favour
of the Congress, Trinamool – and least of
all, the Bharatiya Janata Party – which are
trying to fish in the troubled waters. The
1242 Economic and Political Weekly April 7, 2007
electorate is wise enough to recognise that
in the absence of any viable alternative that
is committed to affirmative action in favour
of the poor, the Left Front still remains the
best bet. But if things are allowed to drift
and the CPI(M) continues to be obdurate
in its overlordship and pigheadedness,
public outrage may explode and take
desperate forms. Right reactionary forces
like the Trinamool and BJP are waiting in
the wings to take over the leadership of
such agitations. The first such ominous
signs were evident in Singur and
Nandigram.
Strangely enough, instead of striking an
independent path and giving an alternative
Leftist orientation to the movements in
Singur and Nandigram, the ragbag of
various Naxalite groups in West Bengal
have joined the Trinamool-BJP cabal – in
a bid to extend their political base in the
state. The disgusting sight of Naxalite
leaders cuddling up to Rajnath Singh of
the BJP in the same dais during the recent
anti-CPI(M) agitations, suggests that they
have adopted the same blinkers of political
opportunism that blur ideological vision,
as had happened in the case of the CPI(M).
Both the CPI(M) and the Naxalites have
debauched the dream of the Left.
West Bengal is in need of an opposition
to challenge the hegemony of a partisan
and oppressive CPI(M) governance. But
it cannot be left in the hands of the
Trinamool-BJP combine – which is more
dangerous given its potentialities of creating
total anarchy and communal mayhem
in West Bengal. The Congress Party
in the state is in a shambles. The alternative
therefore has to emerge from within a new
democratic Left, with constituents that are
seriously committed to the ideology of
socialism and courageous enough to restore
the moral integrity and high principles
of the movement. The time has come
for all Leftist intellectuals in West Bengal
to listen to the still small voice within
them, the inner voice of the ethical self,
and address the question that was raised
many years ago by Langston Hughes, the
famous black poet of the US:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore –
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
…… …..
May be it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Email: sumbiz@sancharnet.in
EPW

Political Economy of Land Grab

2007-04-25T13:07:00.002-07:00

Economic and Political Weekly April 7, 2007 1281

A new phase of capitalist expansion led by “global capital”
is driving governments, including those of the left, to dispossess
and displace peasants from agricultural land, even using
force to break up peasant resistance. The article offers an
understanding of this new phase, with a focus on the role and
compulsions of governments. The analysis is in the tradition
of radical political economy, and is based on a revaluation
and expansion of Marx’s conceptualisation of rent and the
primitive accumulation of capital.
The peasants are resisting such virtual
eviction in many places, but the state
governments are using or threatening to
use a colonial Land Acquisition Act, which
allows the government to acquire “for
public purpose”2 any land, on payment of
“compensation”, even though the owner
may not be willing to part with the plot.
The acquired land is then handed over to
the enterprise at a subsidised rate. That is,
global capital has to pay just a fraction of
even the meagre compensation that is given
to the peasants.
This is just the beginning of this new
phase of capitalist expansion. Critics of
this policy argue that the compensation
being offered is not “adequate”; that those
who are not landowners but depend on
agriculture for their livelihood are not
compensated; that agricultural production
will go down as the proposed SEZs or
industrial estates are largely located on
prime agricultural land; that the tax
exemptions offered to enterprises located
in SEZs together with the loss of water
cess and other payments, which the displaced
farmers used to make, cause heavy
revenue losses to the state governments;
that severe ecological damage will occur
where the SEZ is located on what was
originally forest land. The governments of
the states are impervious to such arguments,
whatever the colour of the party
in power in the state. They are also equally
ready to use force to break up farmers’
resistance. This raises the obvious question:
why are the state governments bent
on pursuing a policy that is bound to cost
them a lot of rural votes?
The pithy answer is that they have no
option. Once the path of development
called globalisation has been chosen, such
eviction was always on the cards. Of course,
they hardly had a choice. Without a grassroot
level movement with a different ethics
and morality based on the local3 (as
opposed to the effortless surrender to that,
which is globally mobile) this course of
development was inevitable, no matter
what be the public posture of the party or
coalition in power.
To understand the compulsions of the
Left Front government one must try to
understand the phenomenon of globalisation,
how the meaning of imperialism
has changed in the context of globalisation
and how the role of the state has undergone
a drastic transformation in the age of
globalisation. These questions can be properly
addressed only if one revalues and
expands the concepts of rent4 and primitive
capital accumulation.
It is often said, and quite validly, that
there is a great gulf between the imperialism
of today and that of Lenin’s time.
But this statement often implies that the
significance of the state has diminished
greatly in this new era of globalisation. It
is true that the flexibility of the state,
particularly in economic matters, is being
gradually eroded, especially in the poor
countries, through the process of liberalisation.
But this does not mean that the need
for state power has been exhausted.
One of the characteristics that differentiate
this age of imperialism from its
immediate predecessor (that is the period
extending right up to the 1960s and 1970s
of the last century) is its immense dependence
on state power for rewriting economic
laws and for their harsh implementation.
In the previous period – which used
to be called the period of neo-imperialism
– imperialist capital’s open and observable
reliance on the state was not the order
of the day. While in the present era laws,
regulations, and even principles of jurisprudence
are being grossly altered with
impunity to facilitate imperialist plunder.
In this overt fight the international economic
organisations play a stellar and
crucial role, but it is only through state
power, acting at the behest of global
PRANAB KANTI BASU
The question of displacement of
farming communities to acquire
land for industrialisation has
assumed great political significance,
primarily because of the strong resistance
offered by these communities at Singur in
West Bengal and Ghaziabad in UP. Land
acquisition has become a prime objective
of the state governments, as they clamber
over each other to seek the graces of global
capital.1 Following in the true tradition of
the distributors of grace, global capital
doles out the goodies to those who offer
the best tributes in terms of tax exemptions,
subsidised provision of natural resources
like land and water, and the like.
The idea of special economic zones (SEZs)
suits this particular need of governments
and of global capital. The SEZs are territories
demarcated by the state governments
with the concurrence of the central
government. Enterprises located in these
territories are exempted from customs
duties, income and excise taxes. They are
also enticed with other privileges like free
or subsidised water supply, subsidised electricity
supply and, most importantly, with
the promise that the right of the labourers
to associate in trade unions will be suspended.
The areas where the SEZs are
located are usually chosen by some global
enterprise or a fraction of global capital.
The concerned state government then
acquires the land from the farmers against
payment of some meagre compensation.
1282 Economic and Political Weekly April 7, 2007
capital, that the necessary changes can be
implemented.
Capitalist Rent
The principle endeavour of imperialism
in the current age is to extract rent, taking
advantage of natural or imposed immobility
and non-replicability. The reason can be
found in the history of evolution of capitalism.
Grossly put, since the 1970s, technology
and the organisational structure of
capitalist enterprise have evolved in such
a way that income distribution is becoming
acutely skewed. Technological innovation
is directed towards reducing manpower
requirement. At the same time the need for
technicians with some degree of mechanical
competence in the operation of computeraided
production processes is increasing
disproportionately. This technical labour
force has to be compensated for the investment
in acquisition of such training. Though
they can hardly be differentiated from their
older traditional counterpart in the labour
force, in terms of their mechanical deference
to the orders of the management, they
earn higher wages. For this small segment
of the workforce, as well as for the expanding
segment of managerial staff, salaries
and wages are rising. For the large masses
of the population, who cannot afford to
acquire such skills, unemployment is on
the rise. To maintain the demand-supply
balance, the sectoral division of investment
is adapted to the increasingly unequal
distribution of purchasing power. An increasing
proportion of the workforce is
employed in the production of luxury goods
and services. Demand has to be generated
for such commodities. Esoteric needs have
to be created in the minds of the small
fraction of the workforce that can buy. So
there is an expansion in the workforce
employed in sales and advertisement. But
this is insufficient for compensating for the
sluggishness of demand caused by the
phenomenal decrease in the rate of growth
of the demand for mass consumption goods.
The culture of the market-oriented society
has mutated to the aid of sustaining/seducing
the exponentially expanding desires of
the rich. An elementary aspect of this new
culture is that it breeds a perception of a
fast rate of obsolescence of consumer
durables. This also causes a fast rate of
obsolescence of technology – both of that
employed in producing such commodities,
as well as that embodied in the durables
themselves. The cost of increasing R&D to
support this fundamental systemic
requirement is balanced by the accompanying
reduction in labour required for production.
This further adds to the trend
towards decrease in the demand for mass
consumer goods. Credit financing of consumer
purchases is a commonly used
instrument for boosting sluggish demand
under the circumstances. This leads to the
expansion of the financial sector dedicated
to financing consumer purchases. The small
workforce employed in this segment also
belongs to the developed enclave. Globalisation
expands the scope of earning profit
in another area – speculation. New instruments
of global speculation emerge. Faced
with this current phase of systemic crisis,
global capital is also expanding the scope
of other routes of surplus extortion, which
have always been available within the
system. It is increasingly falling back on
the tried and tested method of investment
for colonisation of resources to extract rent.
This may be a trifle baffling and so calls
for some elaboration. Capital, having
acquired proprietary rights over the
resources that were previously under the
control of the feudal classes used them for
rent earning which supplements its profit
earning.5 Put very succinctly, rent is earned
on the basis of immobility of resources and
of produced goods. It may be extracted
through the establishment of proprietary
rights over immobile resources. Or it may
be extracted by curbing the mobility of
produced goods across the boundary of a
designated market. This latter is what is
usually called monopoly profit. Within
Marxist political economy this is best
treated as a species of rent.6 This is theoretically
reasonable because rent is extracted
on the basis of immobility and
monopoly over the rarity that cannot be
devalued or diluted because of immobility.
The additional price that is extracted by
the monopolist firm originates in just this.
The immobility of a resource may be a
natural characteristic of the resource (as
in the case of land, minerals, etc) or the
immobility may be created by devising
suitable laws and regulations (like in the
case of knowledge, genetically engineered
varieties of plants, etc). Patent laws render
knowledge and technology immobile and
non-replicable. The right to such resources
vests with the capitalist enterprises that
fund research or are able to use bourgeois
legal processes to sanctify the theft of
knowledge which belonged traditionally
to some community. Thefts of rights over
traditional plant varieties and over traditional
herbal medicines are some examples
of the latter process. If some other economic
agent wishes to use such monopolised
science and technology, it has to pay a
subject to royalty. Technology (for example,
genetic engineering) too is used to
generate such monopoly. Seeds are being
so engineered that plants that are born of
such seeds are incapable of reproduction.
Monopoly over immobile resources generates
rent for the owner.
The immobility of resources may be
used in either of two ways to generate rent.
The immobility may be used to depress the
payment to some input purchased by capital,
or the right to the immobile resource
may be appropriated by global capital itself
to extract a rent from the user of this
resource. The immobility of labour is the
most striking example of the former, while
the appropriation of land by global capital
for realty business is a common example
of the latter kind of rent extraction.
Rent generated by the immobility of
labour and appropriated by global capital
raises some thorny theoretical issues and
therefore calls for some elaboration. Since
its inception, trade in services had been
excluded from the purview of the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
The reason that was generally advanced
was that in the case of services, unlike in
the case of goods, production and sale are
simultaneous events. As a result, insistence
on free trade in services would amount to
the insistence that every country should
allow every other country to set up service
providers. This would not require just free
access for foreign capital, but also the
indisputable right of foreign enterprises to
set up shop with their own personnel. It
was argued that this would infringe on the
right of sovereign nations to allow or
disallow foreign nationals the right to enter
the country. However, at the Uruguay round
of negotiations it was decided to include
trade in services within the purview of
GATT under an agreement called GATS
– the General Agreement on Trade in
Services. Subsequently, it was also included
within the scope of the World Trade
Organisation (WTO). Trade in labour
services was however kept out of the scope
of GATS. One of the reasons offered for
this exclusion was the same as that
advanced at the initial stage of formation
of GATT for exclusion of trade in services
in their entirety.
The real reason was that the exclusion
of labour services from the purview of
WTO implies that the unemployed in India,
for example, cannot migrate to the US in
Economic and Political Weekly April 7, 2007 1283
search of jobs, though the provisions of
GATS ensure that an American insurance
company can set up an establishment in
India as a service provider. The company
cannot be barred from employing personnel
from the US either. Because labour is
immobile the wages in high unemployment
areas like India are less than the
wages in say, the US. This is also compounded
by the difference in the socially
conditioned needs of labour. This culturally
determined difference, in turn, is sustained
partially by the immobility of labour. The
wage difference allows global capital to
earn super-normal profit by fragmenting
the production processes controlled by
them, outsourcing parts of the process to
the low wage areas. If we designate any
earning above the normal that originates
in the immobility of resources as rent then
the additional profit that is earned by a
publishing house in an advanced country
by outsourcing editing, proof reading, etc,
to some concern in the low wage areas can
be called rent. Such rent earning is not
restricted to parent concerns located in the
advanced countries alone. Enterprises
owned by global capital and located in
poor countries like ours can also earn rent
from the immobility of labour by putting
out parts of its production process to smaller
enterprises which are exempt from statutory
regulations relating to minimum wages
and other benefits for labour, environmental
standards, etc, which are applicable for
larger concerns to which laws like the
Factories Act apply. This has a significant
implication, which we have mentioned in
passing.7 The “first world” is not geographically
specific any longer. This is one
instance of the impact of globalisation of
capital. There is little point in distinguishing
big capital in terms of origin, even if
this were actually possible. Their objectives
are the same and therefore their
operations would cause the same kind of
impoverishment.
Rent extraction by global capital originating
in the immobility of labour has
another important theoretical implication.
Immobility of resources generates rent.
The so-called scientific laws of demand
and supply do not decide the distribution
of the rent originating in the immobility
of a resource. This shows up the claim of
the scientific logic of the marketplace to
be part of the ideological apparatus that
is generated in the course of capitalist
growth and which is essential for persuading
the doubters, of the efficiency of the
system. The business process outsourcing
(BPO) enterprises located in the low wage
regions enjoy a cost advantage on account
of the low labour cost. This generates rent
that is attributable to the immobility of
labour. But this rent does not accrue to the
BPO enterprise. It is appropriated mostly
by the enterprise owned by global capital
that puts out work to the BPO unit. The
distribution of rent is determined by the
distribution of economic power. In the
present age this is entirely the preserve of
global capital.
The question of power, with all its
“unscientific” connotations, is something,
that the discourses of both neoclassical and
traditional Marxist political economy treat
as an aberration in the age of capitalism.
A revaluation of rent in the age of capital
however shows power, which cannot be
reduced to any economic index, as an
inseparable aspect of the capitalist economy.
This is global capital’s “feudal
plunder”.8
Primitive Capital Accumulation
In order to facilitate rent earning of global
capital the state must actively ensure both
the proprietary rights of capital over resources
and also the immobility of these
resources. The process of acquisition of
these rights is what constitutes primitive
capital accumulation (PCA). So rent extraction
and PCA are fundamental aspects of
the economy in this era of globalised capital.
A concept, that is central to our analysis
of the international economic organisations
is PCA. Let us elaborate this concept and
its centrality in the current phase of capitalist
development. Since the demise of the
primitive tribal communities,9 society has
been divided into the surplus producing
working classes and the surplus appropriating
classes. In each society, surplus is
appropriated in a specific way. For a particular
mode of appropriation to be viable,
a particular state structure, containing a
specific legal apparatus is necessary. The
modern capitalist state and its legal system
may appear to be non-discriminatory
because, in a formal sense, they are impersonal.
10 But this blase indifference can
be sustained only by a very crude and
fundamental discrimination below the
surface. A process that is both prior and
simultaneous to the working of the “nondiscriminating”
capitalist market constitutes
this discrimination. The capitalist is
able to earn profit through the process of
buying and selling in the market, which
just requires this neutral state apparatus,
only because the working classes have
been dispossessed of all means of production
other than the ability to labour. Without
this the component that is common to all
production processes – labour power –
would not become a purchasable commodity.
This process of dispossession, which
simultaneously creates capitalist property
relations, together with the laws and regulations
for contract and exchange, is called
the process of primitive capital accumulation.
This is, of course, a commonplace
of Marxism, but one whose deep significance
has conveniently been forgotten by
many Marxists, particularly those running
states, which are trying to curry favour with
global capital. How else can one explain
the eagerness, verging on greed, with which
a state government run by Marxists is
displacing farmers to provide land for
setting up industrial ventures, up market
housing complexes, and so on.
The Tatas have reached an agreement
with the Leftist government in West Bengal
to set up a car-manufacturing unit at a place
called Singur. The land earmarked for the
project is very fertile and produces multiple
crops. Conversion of multiple-crop land to
non-agricultural land has violated the state
government’s own announced policy, but
that is a separate issue. The farmers were,
by and large, vehemently opposed to the
government’s plan to acquire their lands
for handing over to the Tatas. A major
opinion, which comes through in the interviews
given by the farmers is that all the
talk of compensation – even if one were
to ignore the failure to keep the promises
made previously by the state government
in similar cases – was quite meaningless
to these peasants. What was the correct
quantum of compensation? They led a life
that quite satisfied their material and
cultural demands. For this they were totally
dependent on their plots of land. It was as
much a part of their culture and life, as it
was a means of livelihood. The peasants
had a holistic culture that directly opposed
the commodity culture of globalisation.
The concept of land as a commodity was
thoroughly alien to their culture. From our
cultural perspective, which refuses any
holistic or ecological position, we can
invent a justification of their stand: loss
of land will deprive the peasants of the
opportunity to work (which is the realisation
of human existence), even if they can
earn sufficient interest income from the
monetary compensation without doing
any work! The state government was definitely
using violence to intimidate the
1284 Economic and Political Weekly April 7, 2007
organisation formed by the peasants to
resist the attempts of the government to
evict them from their land. But also “leftist”
mass organisations had been asked to
“explain” to the peasants that the money
being offered was more than sufficient
compensation. In other words, these
organisations were being deployed to carry
out the task of cultural transformation –
from a holistic culture to the commodity
culture that is consistent with the needs of
global capital. This experience also teaches
another important lesson – the significance
of an overdeterministic or interdependent
approach. It is not just a question of economic
transformation that was involved,
but changes at all levels of social existence
and perception.
The recent spate of state violence against
farmers to force them off their land in order
to hand it over to global capital for real
estate business or for setting up industrial
enterprises11 reminds one vividly of the
passages on primitive capital accumulation
in Marx’s Capital. The passages on
the transformation of arable land into
pastures in Capital read eerily like a description
of the eviction of farmers for the
creation of SEZs.
Marx quotes Bacon on an Act of Henry
VII, promulgated in 1533 and comments
on it:
The device…was profound and admirable,
in making farms and houses of husbandry
of a standard; that is maintained with such
a proportion of land unto them as may
breed a subject to live in convenient plenty,
and no servile condition, and to keep the
plough in the hands of the owners and not
mere hirelings’ what the capitalist system
demanded was on the other hand, a degraded
and almost servile condition of the
mass of people, and the transformation of
them into mercenaries and of their means
of labour into capital [Marx 1954, p 674].
This Act was a sort of act, which we
nowadays call a “Land Reform Act”. This
Act even contained a clause that limited
the number of sheep that could be owned
to 2,000, where it was reported that some
even owned as many as 24,000. If a cottage
was built for an agricultural labourer it had
to have an attached plot of arable land of
at least four acres in size.
the cry of the people and the legislation
directed, for 150 years after Henry VII,
against the expropriation of the small
farmers and peasants, were alike fruitless
(ibid, p 673).
…The rapid rise of the Flemish wool
manufactures and the corresponding rise
in the price of wool in England gave the
direct impulse to these evictions…The new
nobility was the child of its times, for
which money was the power of all powers.
Transformation of arable land into sheepwalks
was, therefore, its cry (ibid, p 672).
In place of wool one has to just substitute
“cars”. True, there is no produce of the soil
that the car manufacturer, Tata, directly
needs. None the less, every materially
productive activity requires land. From
this point of view, it is immaterial whether
agricultural land is transformed into pastures
or is converted into the site of a
factory shed or is traded off as real estate.
Further on Marx quotes Bacon:
Inclosures (sic) at that time (1489) began
to be more frequent, whereby arable land
(which could not be manured (sic) without
people and families) was turned into pasture,
which was easily rid by a few herdsmen;
and tenancies for years, lives and at
will (whereupon most of the yeomanry
lived) were turned into demesnes (ibid,
p 673).
So we see a re-enactment of the same
sequence of events that occurred in Britain
in the 16th and 17th centuries. The attempt
to prevent the expropriation of the peasantry
that was attempted by Henry VII,
could not withstand the onslaught of PCA
in the late 17th and the 18th centuries. By
the time of Elizabeth I, it was officially
recognised that these laws had fallen into
disuse and that pauperism was rampant.
This was implied in the passage of the poor
rates. Of course, the poor laws were to be
used to wring out the maximum hours of
work from those who had been dispossessed
as a result of the enclosure movement
and the general tendency of land
concentration in that period (ibid, p 667).
We even find parallels to the privileges
that are being offered to the capital
invested in the SEZs.
After the restoration of the Stuarts, the
landed proprietors carried, by legal means,
an act of usurpation, affected everywhere
on the continent without any legal formality.
They abolished the feudal tenure on
land, i e, they got rid of all its obligations
to the state, “indemnified” the state by
taxes in the peasantry and the rest of the
mass of the people, vindicated for themselves
the rights of modern private
property…(ibid, p 676).
The owners of the enclosed lands, therefore,
were exempted from the normal
financial obligations to the state, much in
the same way that the enterprises within
the SEZs are exempted today.
There is a widely held view that PCA
occurs prior to the establishment of capitalism.
The seeds of this idea are there in
Marx’s Capital.12 In reality this process is
endlessly entwined with capital’s expansion.
Marx discussed the process of dispossession
in the context of right to land,
but the process of dispossession/occupation,
which is essential to the survival, and
expansion of capital can be treated as a
theoretical concept. For its expansion
capital does not appropriate just land. It
acquires rights over knowledge, culture,
nature and even the games that people
play. In fact the process of acquiring control
over markets can also be seen, theoretically,
as a part of PCA.
Importance of Rent
One is aware that this is a somewhat
different way of looking at PCA than was
proposed by Marx. Never the less, one
feels that expropriation of the right of a
community to any resource and the simultaneous
conversion of that resource to
employable physical capital can be termed
PCA without violence to the essential meaning
of the term. One is also conscious that
the concept of PCA is being deployed here
to understand a process that has not been
analysed through PCA. To us what is
important is that on the basis of exclusive
rights acquired by global capital, it appropriates
rent, which is concealed as profit.
The laws of the state and economic rules
and regulations are changed, even drastically,
whenever necessary to facilitate this
war of occupation. Marx did not discuss
this significance of PCA. But, as we have
discussed, rent earning is perhaps the most
significant aspect of global capital today.
So we find the repetition of history
somewhat as a farce. The grotesque aspect
is that the “leftists” who had once demanded
land reforms that were expected
to give some security of tenure to the actual
cultivators (though understandably there
was never any legal measure adopted to
give land to the tiller) are now championing
the expropriation of peasant rights.
There is a significant difference between
the course of economic history that is
unfolding in India today and the course
narrated by Marx. PCA was supposed to
constitute the prehistory of capital, but we
find that it is also a simultaneous event.
This is not much of a surprise. In these
postmodern times we have long ceased to
believe in purity. The idea of society moving
through fated stages, where each stage is
born through the dialectical supersession
of one stage by another, is no longer
generally accepted as a valid proposition.
Economic and Political Weekly April 7, 2007 1285
What were previously the dominant positions
in society are distorted and appropriated
by the dominant positions in the
succeeding order. The new dominant
position also mutates in the process. There
is no purity in the positions of the dominant
and the subordinate positions within a
society, either. Both mutate in the interest
of systemic stability to generate a modified
kind of hegemony of the dominant. This
has been called “synthetic hegemony”
[Chaudhury, Das and Chakrabarty 2000].
Capital does not, therefore, abrogate precapital.
It distorts and appropriates it. In
the process it too is modified. (This of
course begs the question whether one can,
even theoretically, conceive something
called “pure capitalism”. Quite obviously
our position would be that this is not
possible.) Our discussion of the importance
of rent to global capital is rooted in
such a conception of transition.
Imagining an Alternative
In conclusion we will talk about imagining
an alternative. We have remarked
that the ruling left does not really have an
option. It has to expropriate the rights of
the peasants. There is no point, other than
that it has some rhetorical worth, to blame
this party and that leader. If one goes
through the large number of leaflets published
by the various left-of-left-front
groups criticising the ruling left front, one
can sense their theoretical discomfort. They
criticise the government for lying, for suppressing
truth, for police repression, and
such other violations of what are broadly
liberal bourgeois ethics. It is important to
criticise the violations of bourgeois human
values. The barbarity of the government,
its violation of the constitution must be
highlighted. Such critiques can serve the
rhetorical purpose of showing up the heartlessness
of the system. But if there is no
possible alternative path of development
then in the current age of global capital
what is happening is inevitable. Unfortunately,
the left has also abdicated its responsibility
of imagining an alternative.
And this goes for almost all shades of left.
One proposes that the search for an
alternative should start from this clash
of ethics involved in the process of primitive
capital accumulation – the ethics of
the peasantry versus the ethics of the
market, of global capital; the ethics of the
forest dependent people versus the ethics
of the market which proves with its “costbenefit”
analysis that it is efficient policy
to displace these traditional right holders
and construct dams. In general terms the
alternative must emerge out of the clash
between the ethics of the local and the
ethics of the globalised. We do not think
that the beginnings of an alternative lie in
ensuring global mobility for one who is
locally confined. The entirety of what is
rooted in a local space can never be globally
mobile. If that were possible then this
essentialism would be correct – nature,
culture all have but one essence, which is
expressed in market price. Culture cannot
be globalised. It either dominates or is
dominated. The manifestations of so-called
fusion cultures involve a hierarchy between
the fused cultures. I think even appreciation
of a culture by one who belongs
to another culture involves a relation of
domination or fragmentary appropriation.
Nature, too, cannot be globalised. The local
community had rights over what was part of
the natural balance of the locality. Actually
“right” is a misnomer in this context.
Perhaps one can say that the relation of
nature with the local people was one of
mutual dependence. Wood becomes the
property of one who uproots the tree. This
property owner appropriates rent. Trees
become wood. And the one who initiates
this metamorphosis after death becomes
the rent-appropriating owner.
The project of constructing an alternative
path of development must stop rent
extraction by the global while respecting
local differences. The locally rooted
working people are the bearers of these
differences. Cooperative-based production
must emerge from the initiative of the
labouring people. And some kind of machinery
for direct interaction will have to be
created to prevent rent extraction. The
alternate globalisation that we are talking
about is the globalisation of the relations
between these cooperatives.
The proposal perhaps begs more questions
than it answers. A basic question –
why should the labouring people be the
bearers of local specificity? Consider one
who is employed in a factory. The person
can no longer be identified as a worker if
this factory shuts down. So if the particular
region or locality, the factory, loses its
specific characteristic – that of producing a
particular good – the worker ceases to exist
qua worker. On the other hand, the owner
of the factory is not the bearer of this
regional specificity. The capitalist’s calculations
are based on the generality of market
existence, on the expression of this universal
– the market price. It is with profits
calculated at market prices that the capitalist
is concerned. The capitalist has no
qualms about shutting down a factory to
construct luxury apartments on the land if
this business promises greater profit. One’s
identity as capitalist, what we can after a
fashion call capitalist class position, remains
unscathed but the working class position
ceases to exist if the factory shuts down.
The characteristic of a factory is to
produce manufactures. The bearer of this
characteristic is the labourer engaged in the
factory. The characteristic of agricultural
land is to produce agricultural crops. That is
why when the government takes over agricultural
land for construction of industry
or amusement parks the peasants oppose
such moves. Does it mean that one is
opposed to all change, to the production
of new goods and services, to all relocation
of labour? No. But we do insist on the nee
for working out a participatory change.
Even the development of science and technology
is responsive to the power structure.
So a cooperative relation must grow between
science and technology and an alternative
development. It is now almost a
cliché that education and the pursuit of
knowledge and science must be adapted to
the needs of production. I would not disagree.
But I would be specific: the relation
must be cooperative. In the present situation
this slogan simply amounts to the demand
that education, knowledge and science
must all be subservient to the needs of
global capital.
This proposal for exploring alternatives
is rather inchoate and, therefore, likely to
be confused with various kinds of civil
society movements. A possibility that is
rather unpalatable is to be equated with
radical environmentalists. So let us mark
at least some of our distance from them.
They have a tendency to forget history and
present some position in time as if it was
the original, unsullied, natural situation.
So when one talks of “locality” one must
remember that it is also the result of some
complex historical process through which
some communities had been displaced.
The current natural and demographic structure
has a history, which includes displacement
of adivasis and spoliation of a past
natural balance. The attempt to disown
history or the complex process that has
brought the present into being may work
in favour of some self-seeking interests.
Just as we should not disown history, so
also we cannot reject the present. Modern
development creates refugees of development
by constructing industry or housing
1286 Economic and Political Weekly April 7, 2007
resorts for the rich on agricultural land; by
the loss of fertility caused by modern
farming that cannot be replenished; by the
loss of occupation of the fishermen caused
by the discharge of chemical effluents into
water bodies; by the displacement of forest
dwellers and agriculturists on account of
construction of large dams. The displaced
crowd cities in search of livelihood. They
construct marginal communities in the
“illegal” shanties lining railroads, leaving
behind old settlements, old community
identities. They find odd jobs in the
unorganised sector, remain unemployed or
engage themselves in “anti-social” activities
to eke out a living. They form new
communities. Their desires and demands
change. We cannot turn back the wheels
of this inhuman progress by rejecting the
present. To which past shall we return?
Which historical situation shall we designate
as original? We have to start from the
present – from the current demands of the
labouring communities. This must be the
starting point of the movement to construct
a cooperative human psyche so that one day
the worker in the armaments factory will
also march for peace. The alternative does
not lie in the imposition of some leadership’s
dreams and schemes, ignoring the
present demands of the community of
working people, which are expressed
mainly in their economic struggles. Rather,
one can attempt to limit the scope of market
centrism by joining in the economic struggles
of such communities. If one can mobilise
public pressure to compel the government
to increase its social welfare spending,
for example, the orientation of health
and education towards the demands of
market worthy individuals may be partly
balanced.
The little that we have been able to
articulate by way of an alternative to the
devastating course of globalisation simply
constitutes a preliminary proposal based
on a theoretical understanding. It has no
pretension to constituting a plan of action,
however sketchy. Indeed such cannot be
the product of an intellectual exercise,
individual or collective.
We will end on a self-critical note. The
proposal is for the construction of a different
economy and society based on an
alternative set of ethics. Ethics is born of
morality, which is constituted in the process
of living, of dreaming, of dreaming
of a different living. But we have based
our proposals on our theoretical analysis.
Analysis is inevitably limited by the categories
it uses, by its structure of logic.
Categories spring traps which analysis
cannot avoid. But an alternative ethics can
be established only by transcending the
categories of the dominant culture, which
cloud our thoughts. Transcendence occurs
through the daily conflicts of our life.
Transcendence is a process, which the
dominant categories cannot capture, analysis
cannot pin down. It occurs in our desires,
which build, and are built, into our dreams.
If it were an analytical process then intellectuals
could competently draw up blueprints
of social change. Certain terms that
we have deployed in this paragraph indicate
our inability to theorise transcendence
in the same way as we theorise materiality.
Terms like “cloud”, dreams’, “desires”,
“cooperative relation”, etc, are terms that
we do not use as economists.
Our proposal for an alternative rests
largely on a binary – general/specific.
Unfortunately, in spite of trying to evade
the issue through various linguistic
juggleries, one is forced to admit, at the
end of the day, that ultimately, a major
lacuna of all analytical exercises dealing
with the nature of society and change is
the inability to transcend binary thought
categories. The particular binary that we
have deployed has its own limitations. We
have said that the labouring people are the
bearers of their local specificity. We have
advanced some arguments in support of
this proposal. But even an exploitative
class with a localised power base is a
bearer of local specificity in some sense.
The landed aristocrats, say the zamindars,
extracted/extract feudal rent on the basis
of feudal landed property rights over a
defined territory. So this lord was/is the
bearer of local values. It follows that we
are not proposing an alternative based on
the dreams and desires of the labouring
people simply because they are the agency
of the local. Faith in the working people
is an autonomous, fundamental characteristic
of our position. Opposing the concrete,
which has a specific character that
cannot be dissolved in any generality or
essence, against a faceless entity that dissolves
into a particular manifestation of an
essence, may lure the analysis into some
snares. We often tend to ignore the existence
of a power structure at the level of
the local community. Our hope is that the
local working people’s cooperatives will
be able to transcend local sectarianism
also. One must, of course, be constantly
alive to the other possibility.
We should be watchful about the limitations
of using the “general/concrete”
binary or the related “global/local” binary.
But we should be conscious that in the age
of globalisation the greater danger lies in
being blinded by the seduction of the global,
which includes, among other devices, the
glorification of universality against the
tyranny of the locality. Globalised production
and consumption are not conditioned
by any societal norms. The market can
only register “demand”, i e, need backed
by purchasing power. It has no way of
taking cognisance of the need to live of
the poor who do not have the wherewithal
to buy what they need to survive. The
harsh individualistic culture that sustains
support for the market, would find
this refusal to judge the need to survive
as intrinsically superior to the desire to
satisfy a whim to be ethically correct. If
the survival of the poor family had been
desired by the society, the family would
have been able to earn sufficient income
by selling the resources at its command in
the market.
Building the alternative will entail,
among other things, recovering humanism,
a concern for others in society, which
has been buried deep under decades of
market hedonism. The alternative does not
consist of just changing the policies of the
government. We will all have to participate
in the construction of a new humanity
and a society. It is but inevitable that global
capital and the state will resist the construction
of the alternative – cooperative
construction, that is. Counter resistance
in self-defence will follow. The details of
the alternative will ultimately be worked
out in the course of this construction
and struggle.
Email: pranabkbasu@gmail.com
Notes
[I have benefited greatly from my conversations
with Dipankar Das and Sumit Chowdhury while
this piece was evolving. I am also grateful to
Dipankar for meticulously going through the
initial draft.]
1 By the term “global capital” we are referring
to capital that has crossed a certain threshold,
in terms of size, to acquire the passport to
global mobility. The significance of this
categorical separation will become obvious as
we go along. For the time being it is sufficient
to note that this type of capital is not geocentric
in either source or area of investment. It has
therefore little or no national allegiance.
2 “Public purpose” is a vague term, which can
be suitably interpreted to suit the needs of
global capital. For example the government of
West Bengal has used this Act to acquire land
that will be handed over to the Tatas for
EPW
Economic and Political Weekly April 7, 2007 1287
construction of a small car factory. This has
been interpreted as a public purpose because it
is claimed that it will provide employment to
the people of the state. Even if one does not
contest the veracity of this highly improbable
claim, one can still ask how the employment
of workers by a profitable enterprise in order
to enhance its profits can be termed as a deed
with a public or social purpose.
3 We will elaborate this alternative later.
4 Rent is earned on the basis of monopoly of
rights over resources that are not replicable.
Marx discusses this in volume III of capital
[Marx 1959]. Primitive capital accumulation
(PCA) is discussed in volume I of capital [Marx
1954]. There are now three classes of economic
functionaries. There are the landlords who have
dispossessed the traditional right holders of
their rights and established sole proprietary
rights over land. There are the capitalists who
take this land on lease against payment of rent
to the landlord to use the land for profit. And
there are of course the labourers who work on
payment of wages.
Discussing the basis of the ability to extract
rent, Marx says, “…the monopoly of the socalled
landed proprietor of a portion of our
planet, enables him to levy such a tribute”[Marx
1959, p 625]. Marx then goes on to divide rent
into two analytical parts: differential rent (that
is generated by the extra productivity of some
plots, which causes the product to fetch more
revenue than is sufficient to cover normal wage
charge, material cost, other charges and profit
at the normal rate); and absolute rent (that is
generated by diminishing wage and/or rate of
profit on capital invested on such plots). This
latter is rendered possible because such capital
or labour has no alternate field of employment.
Marx cites the case of the small farmers who
cannot hire in large plots of land. Because of
the large numbers of such farmers in comparison
to the number of such plots available, the owners
of such plots were able to depress the profit
on capital of the small farmer and so extract
absolute rent.
To my mind the key factors that allow rent
extraction are barriers to the ability to replicate
– this aspect Marx mentions explicitly [Marx
1959: 633] – and monopoly. The planet earth
is not replicable and so monopoly over fractions
of this earth allow the owners of these titles
to extract a payment, called rent from the
capitalist who would employ this resource. But
if these attributes exist or are created in other
fields then rent could be extracted from these
fields too. The discussion that follows may be
simpler to follow if we introduce another aspect:
the aspect of immobility at this point. Let us
elaborate. Suppose all the landowners in India
get together and decide to charge at least a
minimum rent, irrespective of productivity of
land. The capitalists who are land dependent
have to foot the bill because land being immobile
across market boundaries cannot be obtained
within the geographic area of India without
payment of such absolute rent. If land could
be imported competition among rentiers would
reduce this component of rent ultimately to
zero. Like in the case of what is called quasirent
in neoclassical economics – free entry of
firms into the competitive markets force down
rent to zero in the long run by wiping out what
is a virtual monopoly in the short run. Marx
discusses the converse case [Marx 1959, p 629].
The owners of worst grade small plots were
able to extract absolute ground rent because
of the competition among a large number of
small capitalist farmers for such plots. This
was not out of their pockets but squeezed out
of the labourers, who could be paid low wages
because of the unavailability of alternate
employment. In the long run, however, such
rent could not be paid because the emigration
of labourers led to wage increase.
If these attributes are present in other fields
the right owners can extract rent. We discuss
just one example. The free flow of knowledge
(i e, its mobility) is cut off through the
imposition of suitable patent laws. This renders
knowledge, science and technology nonreplicable.
The owners of patents then have
monopoly of rights in these fields that can be
used to extract rent.
Another direction in which we have expanded
Marx’s idea of rent is that though the functions
of the owner of rights that entitles one to rent
and the function of the capitalist are separated,
in our discussion they vest in the same entity.
Marx treats this as an exceptional case,
rather than as the rule [Marx 1959, p 751].
This is simply caused by the changed
historical circumstance, which also explains
the simultaneity of global capital’s expansion
and PCA.
5 There is some difference between this and the
discussion in Capital. See fn 4.
6 Marx calls this surplus-profit and treats it as
a kind of absolute ground rent [Marx 1959,
p 775].
7 See footnote 1.
8 The term “feudo-capital” has been used to
designate this symbiosis [Chaudhury and
Raychaudhury 2003].
9 Such societies, which are arguably the earliest
form in which humans organised themselves,
have been characterised as classless. Class
division, that is the division into surplus
producers and surplus appropriators, can occur
only when society produces a surplus over and
above its subsistence requirements. In other
words, surplus production is a necessary
condition for the existence of class divisions.
Since science and technology were (are) very
rudimentary in these societies, such societies
did not (or do not) produce any surplus. Hence
class divisions do not exist.
10 The capitalist has the necessary finances to
purchase the inputs (including labour power)
that are required for production. The laws of
private property ensure that the inputs belong to
the capitalist because he/she has purchased it
in the market. So the output produced from
these inputs also belong to the capitalist. The
money earned by selling this final product in
the market constitutes the revenue of the
capitalist. The excess of the revenue over the
cost of purchase of the inputs is the surplus,
which, naturally belongs to the capitalist. So
for appropriating the surplus as profit, all that
seems to be necessary is that the market should
function.
The market is the place where exchange of
goods and services occurs. In an act of exchange
two parties simultaneously give and take two
properties that are of equal worth. For example,
I give ten rupees to the shopkeeper and the
shopkeeper gives me a ball-pen. They are of
equal worth, in the sense that we have both
agreed to this. Otherwise the transaction would
not have taken place. This exchange is possible
because I was recognised as the legitimate
owner of rupees ten, and the shopkeeper was
recognised as the owner of the ball-pen. Also
once, the shopkeeper and I had agreed to the
price, exchange required that we kept the
contract to exchange the ball-pen and the
money. In plain words, it was necessary that
I did not run away with the ball-pen when it
was handed over to me. Thus, for the market
to function only the laws of private property
and contract are necessary. These laws are
impersonal. Anyone who has the money can
own property (the state does not designate by
name who can own property). Any two persons
who own property can contract to exchange
(the state does not bar any property owner
from exchanging the property).
11 Ultimately it will be impossible to prevent land
handed over to capital for industrial ventures
from being transformed into real estates if it
is more profitable. All indications are in that
direction. According to the projections of Merrill
Lynch, the Indian realty sector will grow from
$12 billion in 2005 to $ 90 billion in 2015. The
fact that Merrill Lynch has invested $ 50 m
in Panchsheel Developers, a regional developer,
Morgan Stanley has invested $ 68 m in
Mantri Developers, a medium-sized Bangalorebased
developer, indicates that this is not all
hype. Real estate funds set up abroad for
investment in India alone totals $ 2.7 billion
currently (‘Land Grab and Development Fraud
in India’, Analytical Monthly Review, editorial,
September 2006).
12 “…but the accumulation of capital
presupposes surplus-value; surplus-value
presupposes capitalist production; capitalist
production presupposes the pre-existence of
considerable masses of capital and of labourpower
in the hands of producers of commodities.
The whole movement, therefore,
seems to turn in a vicious circle, out of which
we can only get by supposing a primitive
accumulation (previous accumulation of Adam
Smith) preceding capitalist accumulation; an
accumulation not the result of the capitalist
mode of production, but its starting point”
[Marx 1954, p 667].
References
AMR (2006): ‘Land Grab and Development Fraud
in India’, Analytical Monthly Review,
September, Kharagpur.
Basu, Pranab Kanti (2001): Asiatic Feudalism,
Capitalism and (non)Transition, PhD dissertation,
Department of Economics, Calcutta
University, Kolkata.
Chaudhury, Ajit Dipankar Das and Anjan
Chakrabarti (2000): Margin of Margin: Profile
of an Unrepentant Postcolonial Collaborator;
Anushtup, Kolkata
Chaudhury, Ajit and Sarthak Raychaudhury (2003):
Feudocapitalism, Other Voice, Kolkata.
Marx (1954): Capital, Vol I, Progress Publishers,
Moscow (reprint 1974).
– (1959): Capital, Vol III, Progress Publishers,
Moscow (reprint 1974).

West Bengal police massacre protesters

2007-04-25T13:07:00.001-07:00

West Bengal police massacre protesters

Eva Cheng
20 April 2007

With 80 million inhabitants, West Bengal is the fourth most populous state in India. It has been ruled by the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front (LF) coalition for three decades. This government, however, has regularly used police repression against workers and peasants to defend big-business interests.

Last month, for example, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddadeb Bhattacharjee, who is a member of the CPI(M) political bureau, sent 4000 heavily armed police to suppress peasant protests against the LF government’s plans to seize 4000 hectares of farmland in the Nandigram area, 150 kilometres southwest of Kolkata (Calcutta), for a Special Economic Zone to be run by the Indonesian-based Salim Group. On March 14, police opened fire on peasant protesters, killing 14 of them and wounding at least 75 others.

Bhattacharjee’s immediate public response to the massacre was to insinuate that the peasant protesters had been stirred up by “outsiders” such as the “Naxalites” and Trinamool Congress, West Bengal’s right-wing opposition party. “Naxalites” is a term used in the Indian corporate media to refer to those originally Maoist-inspired left groups that sprang from a 1967 peasant struggle in the Naxalbari area of northern West Bengal.

The peasant protests in Nandigram have attracted broad support among working people and intellectuals not only in West Bengal, but across the rest of India. Left-wing historians Romilla Thapar, Tanika Sarkar, Sumit Sarkar, novelist Arundhati Roy and journalist Praful Bidwai have all protested against the CPI(M)’s anti-peasant policies. Sumit and Tanika Sarkar, winners of West Bengal’s highest literary honour, returned their awards to the West Bengal government in protest.

In a manifestation of deep popular anger at this massacre, working people across West Bengal staged a general strike on March 16. Protesters blockaded roads and railways throughout the state. In Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, schools and colleges were closed and at government offices only 20-25% of employees reported for work. Police mobilised by the LF government arrested 1400 people across West Bengal.

The CPI(M)’s pro-business leanings are unmistakable. When workers’ strikes were brewing in West Bengal last April, Bhattacharjee lectured that “it’s not only the management’s responsibility alone to run industry, but labourers should also co-operate so that disputes are settled through discussions”.

Defending police repression of striking workers, Bhattacharjee declared: “We have acted firmly by calling in police when the unions turned militant at Bata and a Pepsi factory.”

At a press conference in early April 2006, Bhattacharjee said, “we are not practising socialism”, adding that “since we are practical, we know it is wise to be capitalist at the moment
when the whole world is wooing capitalism”. Even more explicity, he declared, “we are trying to be friendly with the capitalists”.

In an interview printed in the November 16, 2005 Hindu newspaper, Bhattacharjee seemed to regret some of his government’s previous more pro-working people policies, saying: “We did commit wrong things in the past. There were investors really afraid of trade unions here. But things have changed … I am in constant touch with our senior trade union leaders and keep telling them that it is now a different situation … I tell [them] they must behave. If you don’t behave companies will close …”

The CPI(M)’s pro-capitalist, anti-peasant politics are not new. When the peasant uprising in Naxalbari began in 1967 under the revolutionary leadership of some CPI(M) members, it was brutally suppressed by the CPI(M)-led LF government. This sparked a rebellion within the CPI(M)’s ranks and supporters across India, leading to a major split the following year. The dissenters launched the new Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969.

Clues on how the CPI(M) justifies its ordering of police repression against working people was already revealed a month before the May 25, 1967, Naxalbari anti-landlord peasant uprising. In the April 16, 1967 edition of the CPI(M)'s People’s Democracy weekly, the party’s West Bengal state committee declared that the LF “ministry is formed on the basis of a conglomeration of 14 parties with different politics and ideologies and they are united with the aim of serving the people’s interests. It has to function on the basis of a non-class outlook.”

This “non-class outlook” really means not championing the class interests of West Bengal’s working class and poor peasants against their capitalist exploiters.

During the first six months of the LF government in 1967, more than 60,000 West Bengal workers were sacked by their employers. What was the CPI(M)’s response to this? According to the October 24, 1967 Indian Statesman newspaper, CPI(M) political bureau member Jyoti Basu publicly declared that the trade unions as responsible as the capitalist employers for creating a situation of industrial “disharmony”.

In 1977, the LF government launched a series of land reform measures that ameliorated the desperate situation of many rural labourers. However, the half-hearted nature of these measures resulted in a 2002 audit revealing that, of the 400,000 hectares of land that the government had acquired for redistribution since 1977, only 100,000 hectares had been transferred to peasants.

The June 2002 issue of Liberation, the monthly produced by the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)-Liberation, reported that while West Bengal’s minimum wage was fixed at about 62 rupees for agricultural labourers, the actual wage was closer to Rs 28-35 plus two kilograms of rice, or less.

Since then the land reform has been undermined by the conversion of farmland to other commercial uses. According to West Bengal land reform minister Abdur Rezzak Molla in 2005, agricultural land in West Bengal was being converted for other uses at the alarming rate of 20,000 hectares a year.

A key source of the CPI(M)’s conversion into a pro-capitalist left-centre party originates from its orientation toward the Indian capitalist class.

The CPI(M) originated in a 1964 split from the Communist Party of India (CPI), a party aligned with the Soviet Communist Party. The split was triggered by the 1960 Sino-Soviet dispute and the 1962 Sino-Indian War, in which those who would later form the CPI(M) took a pro-China position. The CPI(M)’s alignment with the Chinese CP regime came to an end in 1967 when Beijing declared its public support for the Naxalbari rebels.

Like the CPI, the CPI(M) held the view that there was a basis to seek collaboration in government with the “patriotic”, “anti-imperialist” Indian capitalists.

The main difference in political practice between the two parties is that while the CPI has happily participated in governments at the national level with the Indian National Congress party, India’s main big-business party, the CPI(M) has been reluctant to do so.

The CPI(M) regards sections of the rural rich as potential political allies, leading to the party’s alliances with rich peasant-based local parties such as the Rashtriya Janata Dal party in Bihar, Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradash and Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradash. These alliances are a powerful barrier to CPI(M) involvement in organising and mobilising the rural poor.

In the 2004 national elections, the CPI(M) won an average of 42.31% of the votes in the 69 seats it contested, giving it 43 national MPs. Its MPs have played a pivotal role in supporting the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, while not joining it. This is despite the fact that the UPA government is pursuing a full-blown, pro-big business program of neoliberal economic measures — privatisation, cuts to social and public services, the dismantling of agricultural price supports, deregulation, and tariff and corporate tax cuts.

In a February 2005 open letter to Venezuelan revolutionary socialist President Hugo Chavez during his visit to West Bengal as a guest of the CPI(M), social activist Gautam Sen wrote that “only three days earlier… elaborate deployment of the muscle power of the state was on display, ready to forcefully evict thousands of poor, marginalised families from their pathetic slum-dwellings. Although combined resistance to this drive eventually forced the authorities to cancel the operation, we would like you to know that this was no isolated event. For several years now, this government has undertaken ruthless and continuous eviction drives across the State and rendered over a lakh [100,000] people homeless.

“Incredible but true, these evictions have been made without any rehabilitation. Not just that; this is the only state government in the whole of India that has boldly announced in so many words — evictions will continue, no rehabilitation will be done, and that is Left Front policy.”

The record of the CPI(M) in West Bengal demonstrates that, just as you can’t judge the content of a book by its cover, you can’t judge a party by its name.

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #707 25 April 2007.

U-Turn of Industrial Policy Erodes the Very Base of Agriculture

2007-04-25T13:01:00.000-07:00

U-Turn of Industrial Policy Erodes the Very Base of Agriculture

By Abhijit Guha, translated by Debarshi Das (Sanhati)

“Destination West Bengal”: this is the rather pompous sounding slogan which the Left Front government of West Bengal has used since it made a U-turn in the 1990s, and started on a reverse course from its earlier incomplete task of land reform. To investigate the possibilities of industrialisation the state government all of a sudden appointed McKinsey, a multinational consultancy group. The booklet titled “Destination West Bengal” is in fact based on McKinsey report. Curiously, this is the Left Front government, taking out processions, organising meetings protesting entry of multinational corporations all the time – which called in McKinsey. Could not the faculty members of Indian Statistical Institute or Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, who are renowned internationally, perform the same job that was handed over to McKinsey?

If one browses through the book one finds that in the last twenty years there has been wonderful political stability in the state and that the state government in its 1994 industrial policy has welcomed the privately owned industries. Some of the achievements of state government have been described eloquently in the first part of the booklet. In the last five years the growth rate of West Bengal has been satisfactory. High agricultural growth has been the primary reason for this. It has been pointed out that during 1995-96 the growth rate of West Bengal has been higher than the national average. In agriculture, especially in foodgrain production, the success is said to be remarkable. During the period 1982-83 to 1992-93 food grain production growth rate in West Bengal has been the highest among Indian states. As a consequence, there has been substantial rise in the purchasing power of the people of the state. The rest of the booklet “Destination: West Bengal” discusses, in a rather attractive manner, how industrialisation will proceed in a number of areas of the state. These areas are, Siliguri, Dankuni, Salt Lake, Kalyani, Asansole, Durgapur, Kharagpur, Bantala, Haldia, Falta etc. In the final section of the book (“Look, Who All are There”) we find names of a host of Japanese multinational firms. They will invest in West Bengal. After that, spanning three pages there is a list of big multinational corporations from USA, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Australia, Austria, South Korea, UK which have invested in West Bengal. Is the whole world inside the briefcase of WBIDC, or is the entire Bengal within the suitcase of foreign capitalists?

The so called backward regions of Medinipur which were selected for industrialisation (due to the industrial policy) are Haldia and Kharagpur rural regions in the East Medinipur and West Medinipur districts respectively. Large tracts of agricultural lands were acquired for industrialisation purposes in these two areas. During 1991 – 1997 much more land were acquired in these regions compared to what is being grabbed at Singur. However, apart from a few local agitations and reports or writings on local newspapers, not much had happened.

Let us have a look at the land acquisition of the undivided Medinipur district. 14,319.40 acres of land were taken in the undivided Medinipur during 1991 to 1997 – for various reason, chiefly for industries. Immediately after the central government announced its policy of liberalisation, the Left Front government of West Bengal started acquiring vast tracts of land for industrialisation, in a district which is almost completely dependent on agriculture. Data tell us that the concern of the Left government for improvement of agriculture or adequate irrigation facilities or rehabilitation for the displaced was becoming less and less noticeable in the era of liberalisation.

The government started acquiring land on a massive scale for urbanisation, industries, tourism. Village based decentralised development, land reform, rural planning by the villagers were at the receiving end. Haldia Port and Haldia industrialisation, Kolaghat thermoelectric plant and much later pig iron industries in Kharagpur: these issues were raised at the state assembly. An informative and well-organised report on land acquisition of the undivided Medinipur district was prepared by the district administration in 1993. It never got published. What was revealed in this report is truly horrifying. On the contemporary land acquisition in the district it said there have been as many as 293 cases of incomplete land acquisitions. Many of the governmental organisations or the private concerns for which the government had acquired land, were not depositing the money (required to pay the compensation) with the government. Despite repeated notices sent by the land acquisition department, there has been complete silence from their side. Farmers who had lost land were left with no compensation. In case of delays in paying compensation to the government, the concerned organisation is required to pay interest at the rate of 9% per annum for the first year and 15% per annum from the next year onwards. This sum alone adds up to Rs. 260 millions. The government irrigation department is the highest defaulter, the amount is Rs, 14,54,20,607. The public works department comes second in the list. It had got lands acquired for building roads – but no road has come up. It has a pending sum of Rs. 8,19,81,577. After this we have South-eastern Railways, Agricultural Marketing, Agriculture, Public Health and Technology departments. The report also mentions that those organisations which did not pay have already constructed buildings on the land, or have built fragments of a road or have dug an irrigation canal. If these lands are to be returned to their previous owners they will be not in their formal state. Courtesy government propaganda, land acquisition for development may seem to be a quick administrative process. The inside story is pretty terrible.

The new industrial policy of the state government harms the base of agriculture of the state. The main line of the new industrial policy is: due to land reform and growth in agriculture there has been rise in the purchasing power of the rural population. Therefore West Bengal is now a fit case for industrialisation, particularly for heavy and medium scale industries. The Left Front theoreticians have framed the new industrial policy based on this single rationale. The chief minister never gets tired of repeating this. They are forgetting that the land reform has remained incomplete. Taking back land from the pattadars (peasants who have got ownership rights of the redistributed land) and bargadars (tenants who have received proper tenancy rights) will be suicidal. This may result in the economic betterment of a small section of people, but it will also mean rising economic and social inequality. CPI(M), the main political party of the Left Front, and the small allies – CPI, RSP, Forward Bloc, who are after the ministerial berths – have chosen this suicidal course.

The state government had released the West Bengal Human Development Report in 2004. It was edited by Prof. Jayati Ghosh of Jawaharlal Nehru University. The report ends with a chapter which lists 25 suggestions on the future path that West Bengal may follow. It may be noted, in none of these 25 suggestions has it been adviced that since the state of the peasants of West Bengal has improved significantly due to land reform, its future strategy should be that of heavy and medium scale industrialisation. On the contrary, it expresses deep concern that in the recent years bargadars and pattadars are losing their land. The report, which incidentally has got messages from the chief minister and the industry minister printed on it, says in its 9th suggestion, “The government should encourage agricultural and non-agricultural based productive activities in the rural areas and in this connection government may consider forming new cooperatives.” (page 214 - 215) The model of development which the political parties of the Left Front government want to present to the people completely contradicts the research-based data and suggestions of reports of the experts committee appointed by the same government. Our humble request to those who are shouting “Agriculture is our base, industry is our future” is: please read the reports of the government of West Bengal. And think. Hollow shouting does not do any good. History has not forgiven anyone.

The author is Reader, Anthropology Department, Vidyasagar University.

शासक के लिए

2007-04-06T14:04:00.000-07:00

10 नवंबर, 1954 को जन्मे जय गोस्वामी प्रसिद्ध बांग्ला कवि हैं. उनके राजनीतिक पिता ने उन्हें साहित्य के प्रति उत्साहित किया. लघु पत्रिकाऒं में छपने के बाद अंतत: वे बांग्ला की प्रतिष्ठित पत्रिका देश में छपने लगे. उनका पहला कविता संग्रह आय़ा- क्रिसमस ऒ शीतेर सोनेटगुच्छ. उन्होंने 1989 में अपनी किताब घुमियेछो झौपता पर प्रतिष्ठित आनंद पुरस्कार पाया. 2000 में पगली तोमारा संगे पर उन्हें साहित्य अकादेमी सम्मान मिला. जय ने केवल लेखन तक ही अपने को सीमित नहीं किया. वे लगातार जनता के संघर्षों के साथ जुडे़ रहे, उसकी आवाज़ में आवाज़ मिलाते रहे. अभी हाल ही में जब नंदीग्राम में किसानों का निर्मम नरसंहार हुआ तो जय अपनी कविताओं के साथ सड़कों पर आ गये. हम यहां हिंदी के उन लिजलिजे कवियों-लेखकों को, दुर्भाग्य से, याद कर सकते हैं जो अपने लेखेन में तो दुनिया के रोज बदलने की बात कहते हैं, पर जनता के किसी संघर्ष में कभी हिस्सा लेना तो दूर, उसकी आवाज़ में अपनी आवाज़ तक नहीं मिलाते. और जब उनसे कहा जाता है कि आप नंदीग्राम पर क्या कहते हैं तो वे कहते हैं कि वे राजनाथ सिंह का साथ नहीं दे सकते इसलिए नंदीग्राम हत्याकांड की निंदा भी नहीं कर सकते. आप ध्यान दें कि राजनाथ सिंह की आड़ लेकर वे किसके पक्ष में खडे होना चाहते हैं. हिंदी में ऐसे लिजलिजे विद्वान भरे पडे़ हैं. वे जनता की परवाह नहीं करते, यही वज़ह है कि जनता उनकी परवाह नहीं करती.
यहां प्रस्तुत कविताएं जय गोस्वामी ने नंदीग्राम की इस घटना के विरोध में हुई एक सभा में पढी़ थीं. यहां इन मूल बांग्ला कविताओं का हिंदी अनुवाद दिया जा रहा है. अनुवाद किया है बांग्ला कवि, कथाकार और बिहार बांग्ला अकादेमी के निदेशक विश्वजीत सेन ने. जय की और कविताएं (अंगरेज़ी में) पढ़ने के लिए यहां क्लिक करें. ये कविताएं जन विकल्प के अप्रैल अंक में छपी हैं. वहां से साभार. बहुत जल्द नंदीग्राम पर कुछ और बांग्ला कविताओं का हिंदी अनुवाद हम लेकर आयेंगे.

शासक के लिए

जय गोस्वामी
आप जो कहेंगे-मैं वही करूंगा
वही सुनुंगा, वही खाऊंगा
उसी को पहन कर खेत पर जाऊंगा
मैं अपनी ज़मीन छोड़ कर चला जाऊंगा
एक शब्द नहीं बोलूंगा.

आप कहेंगे
गले में रस्सी डाल कर
झूलते रहो सारी रात
वही करूंगा
केवल
अगले दिन
जब आप कहेंगे
अब उतर आओ
तब लोगों की ज़रूरत पड़ेगी
मुझे उतारने के लिए
मैं खुद उतर नहीं पाऊंगा

सिर्फ़ इतना भर मैं नहीं कर पाऊंगा
इसके लिए आप मुझे
दोषी न समझें.

स्वेच्छा से

उन्होंने ज़मीन दी है स्वेच्छा से
उन्होंने घर छोडा़ है स्वेच्छा से
लाठी के नीचे उन्होंने
बिछा दी है अपनी पीठ.

क्यों तुम्हें यह सारा कुछ
दिखायी नहीं देता?

देख रहा हूं, सब कुछ देख रहा हूं
स्वेच्छा से
मैं देखने को बाध्य हूं
स्वेच्छा से
कि मानवाधिकार की लाशें
बाढ़ के पानी में दहती जा रही हैं

राजा के हुक्म से हथकडी़ लग चुकी है
लोकतंत्र को
उसके शरीर से टपक रहा है खून
प्रहरी उसे चला कर ले जा रहे हैं
श्मशान की ओर

हम सब खडे़ हैं मुख्य सड़क पर
देख रहा हूं केवल
देख रहा हूं
स्वेच्छा से.

हाजिरी बही

पहले छीन लो मेरा खेत
फिर मुझसे मज़दूरी कराओ

मेरी जितनी भर आज़ादी थी
उसे तोड़वा दो लठैतों से
फिर उसे
कारखाने की सीमेंट और बालू में
सनवा दो

उसके बाद
सालों साल
मसनद रोशन कर
डंडा संभाले बैठे रहो.

Singur to Nandigram, and the shiny urban resistance

2007-04-06T14:00:00.001-07:00

Singur to Nandigram, and the shiny urban resistance">
Singur to Nandigram, and the shiny urban resistance

This report deals with some of the things that I have seen, and with some of the events that I have taken part in, during the week starting on Monday 12th 2007.

If it seems too long please remember that compelling reasons make it so. The feeling of terror that Nandigram evokes is one reason. That terror is natural. But it is no reason for forgetting that terror exists elsewhere as well. It exists in Singur, for example. The report therefore begins with Singur.

March 13th.

The place is 50-minutes away from Kolkata. It is easily reached by car. One goes along a National Highway that heads north out of the city, towards places beyond Singur. Gopal Nagar is the first mouza in the district that you hit after you get off the highway. It looks prosperous. A main road runs through the middle of the village. Many ponds lie on either side of the road. There are many pukka houses. I would be happy to live in one of them. We stopped for water and tea at one such house. It belongs to the Koley family. Ratan Koley is (or was) a schoolteacher. His wife Mayarani greets us. She led the first protest against the move to locate a modern car plant in Singur. The entire family is involved in the Andolan against giving up land for industry. The women of Singur are at the forefront of the protest against land acquisition.

Medha Patkar has described Singur in a recent Daily South Asian article. I can, with one exception, confirm that description. For Haradan Bag was dead. The events that started in May 2006, events over which he had very little control, had led him to take his own life. We visited the Bag home in Beraberi Purbapara. The para is a relatively poor part of Beraberi, the mouza that lies just beyond Gopalnagar We reached the Bag household between 3 and 4 pm. The widow was prostate with grief, lying on a bed in a darkened room adjoining the veranda on which Haradan babu had consumed the pesticide that killed him. A little girl (may be her grand daughter Payel) lay fast asleep by her side. The widow’s eyes were closed. But
she was not unconscious. She kept on repeating one phrase “Amra kee korbo?” (What shall we do?), over and over. We asked her relatives about her behavior. They had to use force repeatedly to restrain her from going out of the house in the direction of what used to be her husband’s field. She would do so even at night. The relatives did not seem much troubled by her behavior. A local doctor, they said, had told them that the widow’s behavior was not at all uncommon for someone in that situation.

Earlier on, we had been to see the Bhui family. They had lost a young son Raj Kumar (aged 22 I believe) some months ago. Raj had been beaten severely with lathis, and I do not know what else, when he went out to attend a meeting at night. He had returned home to sleep, got up as usual, went to bathe and collapsed. He was dead by the time medical attention arrived. We attended and spoke at several Shok Sabha’s for Haradan Babu. Little white monuments were the centerpieces of all the Sabha’s. They all carried the same message “Haradan Bag, we will not forget you.” The last Sabha was held in an open field just by the side of the wall enclosing the part of Singur that the villagers no longer own.

There were plenty of uniformed, armed guards around, within the enclosure and on a watchtower. There was no communication between them and us. The Sabha, which was conducted as all such rituals usually are, needs no comment from me. But the very impressive women that I met throughout the day certainly do deserve comment. They spoke openly and vigorously about their agitation. They described how the police had assaulted them. When they reached the part where the police tore their blouses off, they mimed what had happened, holding their own hands close together in the middle of their chests, and pulling them apart violently. “What animals they are,” was all that they said then. They pointed out that some of the police wore Hawai Chappals saying “Have you ever seen a policeman on duty with hawai chappals? They were the CPM’s cadre bahini, not police.”

Wednesday March 14.

Kolkata is gripped in a large number of very quickly organized processions. People squatted on the road, in protest against the State. The State had ordered its police to kill people in Nandigram. The killings were incidental to the main objective of the operation, which was to enforce the rule of law; if
the state had been the USA, the killings would have been called “collateral damage.” There had been no rule of law in Nandigram, after the brutal fiasco called “Land acquisition, West Bengal, 2007,” had erupted there in early January. Strangely, the same State did nothing to us when we broke the law, openly, in Kolkata. I squatted along with many others in the middle of Jawaharlal Nehru Road, in the heart of the city, from before 5 pm to
around 6. 45 pm. No policeman prevented us from doing that. They even assisted us. They were very polite: “Sir, please sit a little on this side so that there is some space for cars etc. to move.” I pointed this out to Anuradha Talwar who said “Maybe, they have had enough blood for a day.” I replied, “Not so. They are the pipes for blood to flow, to the people who rule us.” Policemen, In West Bengal, obey every order they get, verbal or written, constitutional or unconstitutional. They complain vociferously - in private while they are in service, and sometimes publicly, after they retire. They are machines at best, mercenaries at worst. Take your choice.

We had marched to J L Nehru Road along two other major city streets. We started from Wellington Square, which is to the East J L Nehru Road, at 4. 30 pm. We marched down the middle of both streets. We were disrupting traffic, in a major metro and doing it during a peak traffic period. The State was silent. The people on the street watched us in silence as we marched in silence. They did not seem to mind the disruption that we caused. We carried a vivid banner showing Buddha Bhattacharya obsequiously shaking hands with a smiling Rattan Tata. Both men were on top of a mountain of human skulls. Try to imagine us doing that in Nandigram, at the same time, far away from urban India, its media and its people. Something else happened on that day. The Governor of West Bengal released an official statement on the happenings in Nandigram. He said, in part, that the happenings “have filled me with a cold horror.” I was very struck by that, and by the whole statement. Over a month ago, the Governor had promised us (meaning Samar Bagchi, Sujato Bhadra, Aditi and Sumit Choudhury and myself), when we went to Raj Bhavan to meet him (Mamata Banerjee was on hunger strike then; Medha Patkar was confined, along with several other people, to a guest house in Chandra Nagar and prevented from going anywhere near Singur) that he would do all he could. He said, very eloquently “I will saturate my constitutional role.” He had lifted both his arms as he said those words. His eyes looked very serious. The Governor had kept his word. What about the electronic media, at the national level? I watched
NDTV before going to bed. They have a “most important events” list, or something like that. The list had 8 things in it, but nothing from West Bengal. One person is killed in Gujarat and that makes the list. Many die here and the event is not recognized. I guess West Bengal has joined the country’s North Eastern states as part of India that the mainstream need not care about.

The Central Govt. certainly does not care about it. It has to rely on the support of the left. It is therefore obliged to let the warlords of the left do what they like in their own territory.

March 15th.

Another day of meetings and processions, including one by the Buddhi Jeevi people. They ask me to attend their Press Conference at the Kolkata Press Club, at 3 pm. I think, however, that Nandigram is the place to be active in, and spend some time convincing people that we need to go there, fast, if possible on March 17th. The 16th is out because there is an all Bengal 12 hour Bandh. A telephone call brings the dreadful news that lots of
people, including children were brutally murdered at the Bhanger Bera Bridge. The bridge separates Sonachura from Khejuri, and also separates the people opposed to the SEZ from the CPM’s cadres in Khejuri. I think of relaying this to the Governor, but decide not to do so till checking further. I arrive late at the Press Club. The atmosphere is extremely tense. Lots of people are there in a very small room; lots of speeches are made, by people from the theater, literary and cinema world; lots of people announce their resignations, from various Government sponsored Academies. The Press
meet is followed by a march towards the Esplanade, and a public meeting. More speeches are made there. More constructively, money is collected for the people of Nandigram. The people of Nandigram need money and medical help in vast amounts. The Presidency General Hospital in Kolkata also needs lots of blood for the wounded of Nandigram who have been shifted from Nandigram to Kolkata.

Once the meeting ends, I go to the College Square office of the National Alliance of People’s Movements hoping that they will agree to go to Nandigram. They have other plans for the 17th. But a team from Dilli consisting of B .D. Sharma, Arun Khote, D. Thankappan, Medha Patkar and other people will be coming on the evening of the 16th and going to Nandigram on a fact finding trip the next day. I am asked to accompany them, and I agree.

March 16th.

There is a 12-hour Bandh. I stay at home, getting ready to go to Nandigram early the next day.

March 17th.

A phone call from Devjit wakes me up at 4. 30 pm. I think, “Good, we are going to start early.” Not that early, alas because it is past sunrise when the van finally picks me up. We reach Nandigram by 9 pm. The drivers are very good; so is the drive. First Stop: Nandigram hospital. It is not a hospital at all but a small cluster of small, one-story buildings located on a compound just off the road into town. The wounded are in a new looking block.
A large crowd is waiting for us. They accompany us into the ward; the two guards by the gate are powerless. The wardroom is clean; there are no people on the floor as one sees in all big public hospitals in Kolkata. I speak a little, and listen a lot, to the wounded, just as all the other team members do. I shall be doing a lot of both things till midnight. The notes that I kept of the day start with A. M. She is 35, and has two girls ages 16 and 18. Her husband was away on work in Burdwan when the attack happened. Their house is in Kalicharanpur. Her husband returned late on the 16th when he heard by telephone that she was hurt. Her head hurts from a lathis blow. She was a part of the Andolan for keeping the SEZ out. The people had decided to perform a Puja to Gauranga dev, in order to avoid trouble, or to worship the Koran, with the same idea. The women and the children were put in front, facing the direction of Khejuri where the Police would come from. But it was no use. They were attacked anyway. Tear gas was used. The shells would sometimes hit people on their bodies, hard. I saw a young Muslim boy, late at night, at the Tamluk Hospital. Ho had been
hit just over his right eye. I asked him if he could see, with that eye. He whispered “No,” and clammed up. Later, we were able to get more out of him: that he was sitting for a school exam, that he was 17 years old, and that he was worried that he would not be able to complete the examination.

Consoling him was relatively easy. That was not true of other people. The old men and old women broke down very easily. They wept loudly. One old crone, bent at the waist, with a rag of a white sari around her bare body told us, when we were all standing in the hot afternoon at Sonachura bajaar,
that she had lost the only relative she had, her natni (grand daughter). When I asked for her natni’s name, she couldn’t remember it.

A recital of most of what the victims said would be a repetition of the same story line; only the details of where, and by what, they were hit would change. The women who were raped or otherwise sexually molested were something quite different. One had had alathi pushed up her uterus. Another, very young looking, said that she was 25. She spoke in whispers; no amount of sympathy from me could induce her to raise her voice, She was, really, like a small child, with a very great pain; the pain was so great that whispering was all that she could do. The brutality of the attack on her was not something that she could even remember faithfully. She said, simply, “I do not know what happened then.”

I should say something about those survivors - young and old, and male and female - who were not wounded. We met them throughout the day and the night, in theirhomes, and on the street. Young men would follow us, or crowd around us when we arrived at a teashop or wherever it was that they gathered. They would surround us in a ring, standing. The women would sit on the road. In the open, most of the talk was male talk; the women, mostly, preferred silence when theywere on the street. But there was no mistaking their determination. It had survived the long two and a half months of tense waiting. It had survived the attack when it happened. It ha survived when they hid in the jungle. It would, they said, survive the presence of the police, who they hated and the cadre who they also hated. Their message for Buddhadeba Babu was “Buddha deba ke phansi dao” (Buddhadeba should be hanged). Their message for those who led the attack that brutalized them and their community, either directly, or, like Lakshman Seth, indirectly, was different. They would kill them the moment they were able to lay hands on them. It really seems pointless to say more. But something still remains to be said, and that is about the distance separating the people of Nandigram from the State. I judge it to be vast. The State has succeeded in alienating itself from the ganasadharan as never before.

The pointedly bitter comparison with Jalianwala Bag and the British was heard over and over. “Even the British didn’t do this.”

PAMANGGAS condemns Nandigram massacre, Italian Metal Unions react to Singur

2007-04-06T13:59:00.001-07:00

PAMANGGAS condemns Nandigram massacre, Italian Metal Unions react to Singur

Philippines - The PAMANGGAS (Panay Guimaras Peasant Solidarity) strongly condems the massacre of 14 farmers in Nandigram, West Bengal, India by the Indian police force.

The farmers, needs land and food. It is a horrible thing that instead of hearing their just demand the governmnent of India answers it with guns and bullets. This barbaric act of indian military police is not suited in this civilized world. It deserve world-wide condemnation.

It has shown that the government protects not the farmers but the multinational corporations who want to invest in the special economic zones of West Bengal. It is disgusting that while the governmnent is claiming that special economic zone will bring prosperity to the people of West Bengal and india in general farmers of india are massacred to stablish that economic zone.

We, peasants of Panay and Guimaras, Philippines are in one with the call of farmers and people of Nandigram, West Bengal’s call for justice! We must be strong in our struggle.

Let the blood of our peasant martyrs be a fire to lighten our way towards liberation.

Onward peasant struggle for genuine agrarian reform!

Fight for our food sovereignty!
Fight government Fascism!
Fight US imperialism.

Nilo Arado
Pamanggas

Italian Metal Unions Condemn Rights Violations in West Bengal, Call on Carmarkers to Move Plant from Singur
Posted to the IUF website 14-Mar-2007

The three Italian unions representing workers at Fiat, the multinational carmarker involved in joint production with the Indian conglomerate Tata - have called on Fiat management to take action to move the site of the planned small car plant in Singur, West Bengal. The plant would employ 2,000 workers, while up to 30,000 people will lose their land and livelihood, including agricultural labourers, marginal peasants, sharecroppers, cottage industry and other rural workers who would receive no compensation under the procedure. Strong resistance to the plant construction has been mounted by thousands of workers and small peasant farmers, supported by the IUF affiliate PBKMS.

Police repression and violence against the villagers has intensified, with 5,000 additional police recently deployed in the area.

The FIAT unions’ joint statement condemns the repressive measures taken against residents resisting the auto project and calls on both FIAT and TATA to press the West Bengal government to find an alternative site for the project which will not threaten local food production. The full text of the statement is available on the website of the International Metalworkers’ Federation here.

MASUM - partial list of injured persons, evolving list of missing persons - Nandigram

2007-04-06T13:58:00.000-07:00

MASUM - partial list of injured persons, evolving list of missing persons - Nandigram

Incomplete List of Injured persons, so far gathered by MASUM -

Mr. Bhabani Giri , aged 45, bullet injury
Mr. Gopal Das, 30, injury right shoulder
Mr. Sk. Mazahar, 40, Injury right leg
Mrs. Bansari Acharya, 35, Injured
Mr. Abhijit Giri, injury in arms
Mrs. Sarnomoyee Das, 40, Injured
Mr. Salil Das Adhikari, 35, Injured
Mrs. Anuvha Kanrar, 30, injured
Mr. Saddam Hussien, 20, Injured
Mr. Parikshit Maity,
Mr. Prithis Das, 35, head injury
Mr. Ratikanta Das, 40, bullet injury
Mr. Sankha Gula, 50, bullet injury
Mrs. Manju Manna, 45, bullet injury in thigh
Mrs. Haimabati Halder, 45, bullet injury in thigh
Mr. Subodh Das, 50, injury
Kanak Das, 40, injured
Tapashi Das, 30, lacerated injury on buttock
Sita Maity, 47,
Gouri Mondal, 45,
Anjali Das, 55, head injury
Sk. Suraras, 30, Injury
Nirmal Mondal, 28, injury skull
Parikshit Dhara, 68,
Kanchan Mal, 50, bullet
Prajapati Hazra, 50,
Asoke Mondal, 50, head injury
Mani Rana, 30, bullet
Sambhu Pal, 25, Sonachura, deceased

List of injured police personnel:-

1.Biswajit Ghosh, Sub-Divisional Police Officer, Egra.
2.Pranab Chatterjee, Circle Inspector, Bhupatinagar
3.Sitangshu Sinha, 30, constable S.A.P. 12 battalion
4. Pijush Munda, constable, S.A.P. 12 battalion

The above named injured persons were all admitted Tamluk Mahakuma (Sub-Divisional) Hospital, East Midnapur. Many of the injured persons have been referred to Seth Sukhlal Karnani Hospital, Kolkata.

The information was collected by Mr. Sadhan Roy Chowdhury, Masum on his way to Nandigram in a team from the records of Tamluk Mahakuma (Sub-Divisional) Hospital, East Midnapur.

The injured persons were admitted on 14.3.2007 and 15.3.2007.

Sambhu Pal has been shown dead from the hospital records.

List of some missing persons in Nandigram

Mr. Subrata Patra s/o Lalu Patra of Sonachura
Mrs. Basanti Kar w/o Gora Chand Kar of Sonachura
Mr. Subrata Samanta @ Gura s/o Pranab Samanta of Soanachura
Mr. Musaraf Khan s/o Kaked Khan Nathchirachar
Mr. Badal Mondal s/o Gobardhan Mondal of 7 Jalpai
Mrs. Sabitri Bijoli w/o Sudarshan Bijoli of Sonchura
Mr. Ratikanta Das s/o Surendra Das of 7 Jalpai
Mr. Durga Pada Mondal of Roynagar
Mr. Rabindra Nath Das s/o Bhanu Das of 7 Jalpai
Mr. Subrata Bijoli s/o Late Sudarshan of Sonachura
Mr. Proloy Giri s/o Loba Giri of South khali
Mrs. Kalibala Patra w/o Nishi Patra of Kalicharanpur
Mrs. Swapna Patra w/o Bidhan Patra of Kalicharanpur
Mrs Srimati Das w/o Panchanan Das of Kalicharanpur
Mrs. Kalpana Patra w/o Bibhuti Patra of Kalicharanpur
Mrs. Basanti Bala Kar w/o Gora Chand Kar of Kalicharanpur
Mr. Tapas Kar s/o Gora Chand Kar of Kalicharanpur
Mr. Panchanan Das s/o Gunadhar of Keshabpur
Mr. Imadul @ raja s/o Manirul Islam of Jadubari Chowk

London protest against West Bengal killings calls for scrapping of the SEZ Act

2007-04-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

London protest against West Bengal killings calls for scrapping of the SEZ Act

Nearly 50 people gathered outside the Indian High Commission in London on 2nd April 2007 in an angry protest against the Nandigram killings which took place on 14 and 15 March when a 5,000 strong contingent of police opened fire on local people resisting forcible eviction from their land which was to be turned into a Special Economic Zone (SEZ).

The true scale of the atrocities which occurred in the operation, planned at least a week in advance by the CPI(M) led West Bengal government, is now
emerging. TV footage showed trucks carrying bodies with their legs dangling out. More than 50 people are missing from the terrorised villages of Nandigram, and believed dead. Human rights activists report that women were gang-raped, children brutally attacked, and that there are large numbers of young girls and children among the “disappeared” in the targeted villages.

The demonstrators shouted slogans such as “Nandigram, Never Again! Scrap the SEZs!” and held the West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya responsible for the carnage, chanting “Buddhadeb, Shame, Shame! So many killings in your name”. One of the placards read “West Bengal government murdering for big business”.

The organisers of the protest, the Transnational Institute, South Asia Solidarity Group and Reading Grassroots Action, also handed in a letter to the President of India, urging him to ensure

1) A thorough independent enquiry and the prosecution of all state officials, including police personnel, who are suspected of perpetrating human rights violations

2) Full medical attention for those injured who have yet to receive proper care

3) The immediate suspension of the SEZ Act of 2005.

They also expressed concern about the proposed ‘chemical hub’ SEZ near the port of Haldia. The main transnational corporation showing interest in this new SEZ is Dow Chemicals, manufacturers of ‘Agent Orange’ who were major suppliers of chemical weapons for use in Vietnam. There are major
concerns about pollution: chemical factories need special environmental clearance (Environmental Impact Assessment) which was not sought for Nandigram and is also likely to be bypassed in Haldia.

A spokesperson for South Asia Solidarity Group, Kalpana Wilson, said, “The British government’s policies and aid to the government of West Bengal
and other states in India are promoting SEZs, vast enclaves which are virtually foreign territories controlled by transnational corporations, making thousands of people destitute. We plan to step up the campaign against this.”

But, Is It “Development”? This ‘Development’ & “SHILPAYAN” Drive of The CPI(M) Led Govt In Singur, Bangur etc

2007-04-06T13:52:00.000-07:00

But, Is It “Development”? This ‘Development’ & “SHILPAYAN” Drive of The CPI(M) Led Govt In Singur, Bangur etc

By S. Das , For A Proletarian Party Journal

The day the govt of WB sworn in – the seventh consecutive ‘left front’ govt led by the CPI (M) – it pompously declared its mission of carrying on its ‘industrialisation’, “ shilpayan ” & ‘development’ programme ahead with the goal of making WB the no: 1 state in Industry after becoming ‘no: 1 state in Agriculture’! (In the pages of this journal, in the last issue 1 , we have seen the total falsity of their Goeblesian claim about becoming ‘no: 1 state in Agriculture’ in India ; at the most WB can be termed as no: 5 state in Agriculture in India in terms of productivity of paddy.) They took the “Peoples’ mandate”, that is, securing a bit more than 50% of polled votes, as a weight to run full steam ahead with their pet ‘Development – Industrialisation’ drive. The “TATA”-s sent a letter to them that very day with some ‘proposals’ which was revealed to the public later. They considered setting up a small passenger car factory – the car nick named ‘peoples car’ with a price tag of only a hundred thousand –in the Singur Block in Hooghly district and demanded 1000 acres of land of their choice.

The CPI (M) Chief Minister and bosses of those ‘left’ parties have become so obedient servant of the bourgeoisie that they rush to acquire land the capitalists want, disregarding totally the feelings of the people who own those pieces of land or who live there, work there. And to evict the people they have only two weapons: allure by false promises, and, drive them out by force – overt or covert. Years ago, they evicted forcefully, with bullets and bayonets, thousands from the Chandmoni Tea Garden and neighbourhoods, only to give the land to the ‘promoters’ who wanted to build up a satellite township there. Till date, no common people evicted received any ‘compensation’. The ‘peacefully’ evicted people of Rajarhat met the same fate, while the govt and those promoters are selling Rajarhat land at prices, at times, higher than that of Bangalore , as complained by some barons of IT sector.

But as always, their party machinery, big and wealthy, along with the bourgeois press, howl against any protesting voice and brand protesters as ‘anti-development’. But what ‘development’ they have in store for the people instead?

Here we want to discuss the very question of Development as being proposed by them for WB from revolutionary proletarian perspective. Though ‘development’ in general as propounded by the Indian bourgeoisie, the govt at the centre and those in the states, and parties like the CPI (M), is an important subject to confront, and an urgent one, to save time and space we’ll only probe the issue partially. Next we shall see what is development in proper that the people needs.

The Deceptiveness of Their ‘Development’ Agenda

Singur is, in a sense, moderately ‘developed’ area – if one measures the “green revolution’s contribution” in WB. The land the TATA-s wanted is irrigated land and cropped on an average twice or more a year. Apart from a couple of govt deep tube-wells, that land has nearly 40 mini-deeps and also get water from DVC canals. Singur is one of the most developed blocks in WB, of course in WB standard, with cropping intensity almost 2 (two). Here potato yield is nearly 34.5 tons per hectare, which is perhaps, or nearly, the highest figure in WB. 2 During the last five to ten years, cultivators of this area bought perhaps the largest number of Power-Tillers [commonly called ‘hand-tractors’ in Bengal] among all areas in WB. Of course, these figures does not tell the level of ‘development’ the common toiling people of Singur attained; that is a totally separate issue and we shall see that later.

The CM and his close colleagues are saying: there are too much people in the agricultural sector; they need to be transformed to industrial workforce, without which ‘development’ is impossible. But will it happen? Is that happening? An average 1000 acres of triple-cultivated land here can generate direct agricultural employment of more than 200,000 man-days per annum. If peripheral economic activities are counted, that figure may reach 250,000 – 300,000 man-days, which is arithmetically almost equivalent to 800 – 1000 permanent workers employed in the would be TATA factory.

Probability 1: If all the workforce in agriculture there get transformed into regular industrial workforce – it certainly will mean ‘development’ in monetary terms of those agro-labour force, and also in terms of productive utilisation of their labour; they will be able to give many more hundreds of thousand man-days; since, for a good part of the year the agro-work force remain economically, productively ‘unemployed’ or ‘underemployed’. Unemployment – Underemployment picture of the villages are so horrible that the CPI (M) – Congress etc parties can joyously and pompously declare the “Yearly [ only ] 100 Days’ Job Guarantee Program” running in some districts of India , and also in WB, as an achievement !! [We shall look again into this aspect of unemployment – underemployment picture later.] Probability 2: If 800-1000 of that agro-work force get permanent employment in the proposed TATA factory – well, that will mean: an equivalent conversion of labour from agricultural work to industrial work.

However, local people know it very well from their experience – that those two Probabilities are Improbable, Incredible and Impossible – that nobody from them is going to get a permanent TATA job, not even in any ancillary unit. They will be rendered jobless, homeless, and insecure forever. The owners will get promises of compensation; the sharecroppers and labourers will get nothing. There is a Ceramic Factory nearby, not an old one. A few locals get employment there – for 15-20 days a month, at 25-50 Rs a day! Where the govt declared minimum wages of agricultural workers – though it is a thing that no agricultural worker ever gets in WB – is Rs 67.75 a day! And Singur is now ‘blessed’ with a factory – all others, e.g., Bangur, Chandmoni, Rajarhat, East-Calcutta EM Bypass sides, Dankuni, etc, etc are ‘blessed’ with 5 or 7 Star Hotels, Express ways and Flyovers for speeding cars and bikes [bicycles and pedestrians debarred], High-rise Buildings – Shopping Malls – Entertainment Centres – Golf Courses – etc, and of course IT industrial-parks for the rich people and the aspiring-to-be-rich educated youth of the ‘middle-class’. Then what will happen to those displaced people once attached with agriculture? Most of them will be thrown out from the sphere of productive labour. Many of them will be paupers – not industrial proletarians.

For all of them the CPI (M) leaders like Benoy Konar (peasant-front-leader), Nirupam Sen (Industry Minister) have already written pamphlets, where they have shown that many jobs of doorkeepers, odd-job-boys, maids, mason-helpers, etc will be available! Recently the state secretary of CPI (M) added another job: that of a Hawker. From a working peasant or agro-labourer (albeit poverty-stricken, no doubt) becoming a maid/servant/gatekeeper/hawker/rickshaw-puller… a ‘development’ indeed! Some ‘lucky’ ones may become some makeshift Tea cum Tiffin stall owners or betel-leaves–cigarettes–chewing-tobacco stall owners on the pavements, always in a precarious existence – any time the ‘Cleansing cum Beautification’ drive of the govt can bulldoze them out, and they’ll have to rebuild their shanty stalls again.

Even if the capitalists make factories in undeveloped area, i.e., on lands cultivated only for one season a year – as is demanded by many, even some ‘left’ or ‘revolutionary’ organisations – there also 1000 acre employ labour equivalent to 200-250 permanent workforce of that factory! Some ‘communist revolutionaries’ are saying: we too want development – but we demand setting up industries on barren land or the land of the closed down factories. Do these people know anything about the conditions in industries, particularly in newly built industries? Do they know why factories get started or close down? And do they really want this kind of, this way of development?

What the TATA and its ancillary units will show we do not know, but many new factories have already come up in WB, and all of them share some common characteristics: a very few ‘permanent’ workforce; a vast number of ‘daily waged’ temps with paltry daily wage ($1-$1.5 in general) and extended duty hours (at places even 10 – 12 hours or more); practical absence of any labour-laws and inspections and so on so forth 3 Not much a better prospect is there for the existing factories: Retrenchment in the garb of ‘voluntary-retirement-scheme’, dwindling permanent workforce, increasing temporary labourers, increasing workload, more and more sophisticated machineries that call for less manual labour, shrinking labour ‘rights’ hard won by fights decades ago… etc. What fate awaits TATA ancillary workers? That corporate house, with their corporate business logic, transferred their Truck production from Pune. The number of workers employed in TATA ancillaries in Pune went down from 18,000 to 65. Sudden unemployment of so many – certainly it’s a blessing of capitalism. The TATA people in their electricity company in Mumbai retrenched several contract-workers before 2 years. The workers protested, got organised, fought – and at last got frustrated and infuriated seeing those established trade union bosses betrayed them – two leading workers self-immolated in front of the TATA HQ during their gathering; it was September 2003. Mumbai working people and youth got shocked and furious. Agitations started snowballing. To keep their ‘image’ less stained the TATA quickly gave some ‘compensations’ to those workers. Certainly Capitalism and Capitalists are such inhuman, TATA-s are no exception. But, are we, should we welcome them and this type of ‘development’!

In recent times the CPIM leaders including the CM are repeatedly saying an axiomatic truth: The capitalists are here to do business, to make profit; they have not come for charity. Why they are telling such a thing well known to everybody? There is only one reason, and that’s the inner meaning they want to carry to all: We, our Party, our govt, will not tolerate anything that hampers this capitalist business even by a small degree. That is why the TATA-s congratulates the seventh time win of the CPIM; that is why the AMBANI presents them red roses for victory; that is why the Prime Minister calls the WB CM the ‘model CM’.

In the IT sector ‘strikes’ are virtually ruled out by the CPI (M) bosses; and night-shift duties of girls has again become ‘legal’ – courtesy, the IT-BPO industrialists and their foreign corporate clients. Moreover, the Salem – group people of Indonesia and many Indian Companies [tied up with foreign TNC-s] and Foreign companies are keen in setting up SEZ-s [special economic zones] where they are de facto subsidised by the govt and where no labour laws whatsoever exist! Then why the working people, be they workers or peasants, and the general unemployed youth welcome or demand this kind of development ? If you make factories with devilish working condition – and I am unemployed, hungry, uprooted – I shall go and seek work there. Then we shall try to be organised and revolt against you; we will demand more wages and decent conditions; we shall try to stop any anti-labour anti-peasant stepping of you people. However, we never will ‘welcome’ you sharks: surely, the workingmen or unemployed will think this way. And will those people tell us – in which country parties and masses had to put forward ‘demand’ of industrialisation? Nowhere. Under capitalism [and imperialism – which is the latest stage of capitalism as depicted by Lenin] it is them the capitalists plan when, where to set up industries and to produce what and how much – and they follow capitalist logic in deciding all these. They never invest keeping in mind any public interest or social development. They are now eager to invest in WB for a simple reason – cheap and ‘under control’ labour, and a servile govt and party at power paving ways for furthering profit.

Educated sons and daughters of the so-called ‘middle’ / ‘upper-middle class’ people are upbeat and vying for those few thousands of good-paid jobs that may come up in the IT sector, upper level jobs in the industries and mainly in the ‘service’ sectors serving the well-to-dos. The media, businessmen, and the likes are full of glee. And they will have plenty of ways to earn more money and plenty of things to do with their lots of money. But all of them together constitute only 12-15% of the population, at maximum 20%. Their enrichment, development is not the development of the society. For the remainder, those fellows at power have that old rotten rusted “Trickling Down” theory. Yes, some thousands among tens of millions of unemployed youth will get the rest of the lower end jobs. Some will get consolation of doing own “ business ” that yields perhaps $2, at max $3 a day, Rs 2500 – 4000 per month. But the problem of unemployment will not even fractionally be solved. The evicted people will become paupers. Then why on earth they, those ‘revolutionaries’ should support or demand this development, this industrialisation [and propose alternate sites]: so as not to sound ‘unpleasant’ to those middle class fellows including the ‘intelligentsia’ in general?

India got its ‘independence’ in 1947. Almost 60 years have passed since then. What the ruling classes did in terms of ‘development’ and/or ‘industrialisation’ in this period? In a short article like this one we cannot venture to show in detail the efforts, plans, policies, etc of the Indian ruling classes during many sub-periods of this past 60 years. But generally speaking it can be assertively said that: 1. The Indian bourgeoisie did not [and could not] take the path of radical land reform be it in the American way [Lincoln] or in the French way [post revolution, which the French took even inside Europe when the ‘mainly peasants’ army marched victorious for almost two decades…] or in the Russian / Chinese way [post revolution]. They took the path of Jünker Reform, like the line Tsarist govt of Russia took from 1861 till, say, 1914 or 1917. 2. The Indian bourgeoisie compromised with Imperialism and chose to act subservient to the imperialist interests. The imperialist dictated in the sphere of policies too. 4 3. In the period of ‘Globalisation’ the ruling classes became more submissive to imperialist interests.

In effect all these mean: In such a ‘Dependent’ country industrialisation and ‘capitalist development’ in proper sense, in the sense of what could happen in the pre-imperialist era, is almost impossible. This ‘almost’ is ‘almost total’ — barring a few exceptions happened after the Second World War in a few countries due to exceptional circumstances. India , luckily or unluckily, did not fall in this exceptional category. So it is developing through a painful, bitter, distressing, crushing [for the masses] slow… process; in the ‘most industrialised state’ MR [Maharashtra] the govt had to introduce programs like ‘Employment Guarantee Scheme’ as far back as 1972 – so acute was the joblessness situation and crushing poverty, pauperisation there that the govt had to take steps to placate that potential volcano a little – and which now they spread to some 100 districts in all major states. So acute is the unemployment situation and crushing poverty, that the Congress, CPIM etc UPA parties could proudly proclaim the yearly only ‘100 days job guarantee program’ as an achievement!!! Nothing exceptional, and nothing that will not develop and fortify these features, is going to happen in WB, in spite of all the sweet words of the CM and his friendly foreign/native businessmen.

Development in True Sense: Why, What, How

Certainly the general working people of Singur, as well as the general working people of WB or India , need development in the true sense. Being one of the most agriculturally developed blocks did not and could not bring development to those people of Singur: less than a third of the population are engaged as ‘principal’ workers, which means, they get work for more than 182 days a year (though such govt statistics are hard to believe); there are only 2.2 beds in hospital for every 1000 population; the human development index stood at 0.6 in the year 2001 (less than the average figures of 5 states of India); …etc. 5 In general, according to govt statistics, WB is ranked 8 th or 9 th among Indian states in terms of human development index. And India perhaps stands at least after 100 countries in terms of that index!

Then we know the condition of WB govt hospitals and ‘primary health centres’ – you will have to buy almost every medicines from outside, the govt stopped supplying such common medicines long ago. You will not get much needed anti-venoms for snake-bit villagers; the much necessary ‘dialysis’ to keep such patients living is a very costly affair beyond reach of almost or more than three-quarters of the population; even anti-rabies vaccine is rarely found in govt hospitals. Sending somebody to hospital means getting into debt, even if, as mostly happen, neighbours come out with helping hands. Agricultural workers and poor peasants (that is them who do not have enough land to provide them with minimum necessity and so they have to work outside) get meagre wages and, on an average, always less than the govt declared one, the latter is now nearly Rs 67.75, i.e., nearly $1.5 a day; and they remain unemployed for a good part of the year. An owner working-peasant with an acre [approx 0.4 Ha] of twice cultivated land [and with no other source of income] is not above and beyond poverty – though govt statisticians may put such a peasant above the ‘poverty line’.

According to the census data of 2001 – about 80% of village households in WB (and slightly more than 55% of village households in Hooghly district) are without electricity (!) where having electricity connection for just a single electric bulb in a household takes that household in the count of ‘homes with electricity’ ; more than 45% of rural households of WB (and slightly more than 32% of rural households in Hooghly district) do no posses a bicycle [the all India figure is 57.22%, the worst figure is of Kerala, more than 84%]; less than 28% of rural households had transaction with banks 6 [the all India figure being 30.11%; the all India highest figure is just above 50% in Kerala, and the lowest is less than 15% in Assam], and so on.

Development in such places certainly does not mean setting up a car factory, some IT companies, several star-hotels, shopping malls, expressways… etc, or even several factories by foreign or native entrepreneurs. The development that people need is a thorough going change, a radical social & economic transformation, which in Indian condition means nothing less than a Peoples Democratic Revolution. The toiling peasants and ‘landless peasants’ need land, and land has to be acquired by expropriating the non-peasant landowners. They need the power so that they may design consciously their development programme. This will enhance rapidly production and productivity in agriculture and create the possibility of agricultural development without falling into the trap of imperialists-planned ecologically devastating ‘green revolution’ measures. Imperialists’ properties are to be confiscated and so also the big bourgeoisie’s, to hand those over to the state of workers and peasants. Workers and peasants will really rule the country, the society, the economy, and everything. Only in this way the society as a whole can prosper, only this path will lead to a society without any forms of exploitation. Meeting the peoples basic need – food, clothing, housing, health, education etc in sufficient-for-human quality and quantity will be the first prime task for that revolutionary workers’-peasants’ state and the rulers, workers and peasants, themselves.

Therefore, the propaganda of revolutionary organisations against this type of eviction drive in the garb of ‘development’ must incorporate the need of the real development, the need of establishing a workers’-peasants’ state. A workers’ peasants’ state means: where matters of development will be decided by the workers and peasants themselves, where each measure of development will, instead of enriching a few, in real terms facilitate the development of the people. When ‘society’ will allocate its resources [land, labour, etc] for the development of ‘society’ as a whole, questions of ‘evictions’, pauperisation’, ‘ignoring many and benefiting a few’, etc will not arise.

Notes:

1. Is WB An Agriculturally Developed State? – For A Proletarian Party, May 2006, pp 62-64

2. “Human Development – Block-wise picture of WB” – in Bengali, by – Sachchidanada Dutta Roy [ex Chief of the Bureau Of Applied Economics & Statistics, Govt of WB]; his other published books also portray in-depth study of the author and provide real pictures in abundance

3. Slavery In The Global Factory, For A Proletarian Party, July 2005, pp 7-9

4. See the UPDATE issue of June 2006 for imperialist dictates on land reform measures, and how, even the CPIM led ‘lefts’ followed those

5. Same as the book mentioned in 2, pp115-6

6. Ibid, pp146, 150

Source : For a Proletarian Party Article

Nandigram: Horror Stories Emerge

2007-04-06T13:48:00.000-07:00

Nandigram: Horror Stories Emerge

Fact finding report of the delegation deputed by the Calcutta High Court

23 March, 2007
Countercurrents.org

Report of the team who went to Nandigram in the district of Purba Medinipore in terms of the order of the Hon’ble High Court dated 15.03.2007 passed by the Hon’ble Division Bench comprised of Mr. S.S. Nijjar, Chief Justice and the Hon’ble Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh in a writ petition filed by the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights and Paschim Banga Khet Majdoor Samity.

1. That soon after getting a plain copy of the order of the Hon’ble High Court a team consisting of the following persons proceeded towards Nandigram from the High Court.

i) Sri Amit Dyuti Kumar, representing the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights;

ii) Sri Prasad Roychowdhury, Secretary, Association for Protection of Democratic Rights;

iii) Dr. (Mrs.) Subabrata Bhadra, Association for Protection of Democratic Rights;

iv) Sri Raghu, Association for Protection of Democratic Rights;

v) Smt. Anurada Talwar, representing Paschim Banga Kheth Majdoor Samity;

vi) Sri Jeeban, - do –

vii) Ms. Panchali Roy - do –

viii) Sri Sandeep -do-

ix) Sri Chiro -do-

x) Sri Pramod -do-

xi) Sri Gangyly,

xii) Sri Sadhan Roychowdhury, representing Manabidhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM);

12. Sri Subrata Roy, representing Manabidhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM);

13. Sri Arjun Das , representing MASUM

xv) Bibek Tripathy, Advocate, High Court , Calcutta

2) At about 8 PM on 15.03.2007 a team went to the office of the District Magistrate, Purba Medinipore where Mr. Anup Agarwal, District Magistrate, Purba Medinipore was present. The team expressed their strong will and desire to go to Nandigram and sought for security escort or necessary police protection to enable the team to proceed for Nandigram immediately.

3) The District Magistrate, Purba Medinipore, however, flatly refused to entertain any such request for rendering police protection to the team on various counts or grounds saying that the District Magistrate, Purba Medinipore is not a party in the writ petition and that the said District Magistrate, Purba Medinipore has no legal or moral obligation to entertain any of the requests on the subject. Then the District Magistrate, Purba Medinipore advised the members of the team not to go to Nandigram on the ground that seeing the members of the team the people of Nandigram may be charged thereby there will be apprehension of breach of law and order.

4) All persuasions made by the team for allowing the members of the team to go to Nandigram failed.

5) At about 8.30 PM the team went to the office of the Superintendent of Police, Purba Medinipore but in the said office of the Superintendent of Police, Purba Medinipore no one was present. The night guard also could not provide the team with any information as to where the Superintendent of Police, Purba Medinipore will be available or telephone number either of the office or residence of the Superintendent of Police, Purba Medinipore. Mrs. Anurada Talwar from her own sources after making several calls could get mobile phone number of the Superintendent of Police, Purba Medinipore and tried for several occasions to talk to the said Superintendent of Police, Purba Medinipore but the said Superintendent of Police, Purba Medinipore did not pick up the telephone on any occasion.

6) Then the team proceeded for Tamluk Sub-Divisional Hospital. The team could get the following informations from the hospital -

i) All together 36 persons both male and female were admitted with bullet injuries, head injuries and different types of other severe injuries. Four police personnel were also admitted in the hospital but in the said hospital record there is no mention as to the nature of injury allegedly suffered by such police personnel. From records it could be ascertained that few patients have been referred to the PG hospital and 4 police personnel have been referred to Nilratan Sarkar Medical College and Hospital. The members of the team then were allowed by the hospital authorities to talk to the patients and a few numbers od the tem entered into the ward where the victims of the incident narrated the entire episode as to how and in what manner such persons were subjected to indiscriminate, reckless firing committed by both police personnel and the goons of the rulling political party.

ii) Then the team could ascertain that several bodies have been brought dead in the hospital and such bodies have been kept in the morgue. Some bodies have been claimed by the relatives but there were still some bodies which were not claimed by the members of family of the deceased victims. In the Sub-Divisional hospital the team could find that a CBI team headed by Sri B.B. Misra, Joint Director of CBI, already arrived there to conduct investigation in terms of the order of the Hon’ble High Court. Then the team at about 00.30 AM left the Tamluk Sub-Divisional Hospital and then stayed at Tamluk at night. In the morning on 16.03.2007 the team preceded for Chandipur Police Station.At about 8.00 AM the team could reach the Chandipur Police Station where the team could meet Mr. Kalyan Banerjee, Additional Superintendent of Police in Charge, Purba Medinipore. The said Additional Superintendent of Police in Charge in a diplomatic way told the team that being a police official the said Additional Superintendent of Police in Charge should not say that the team should not go to Nandigram in violation to the Constitutional guarantee but the said Additional Superintendent of Police in Charge advised the team not to go to Nandigram in the same and similar tune and version of the District Magistrate, Purba Medinipore. The said Additional Superintendent of Police did not receive the copy of the order of the Hon”ble High Court on the alleged ground that the said Additional Superintendent of Police is not a party to the writ petition. The team told the Additional Superintendent of Police that the team will convey the decision of the team after sometimes and accordingly after about 45 minutes the team intimated the said Additional Superintendent of Police in Charge that the team has taken a decision to go to Nandigram. After communicating the decision of the team to go for Nandigram at about 10 AM the team started for Nandigram and could reach at Nandigram Hospital at about 10.45 AM.

iii) In the hospital at Nandigram which is a Primary Health Centre the team could ascertain that all together 69 persons (male, female and children) have been admitted in the said hospital. Several cases of bullet injuries and various other injuries due to blasting of tear gas shell and hand made bombs have been recorded in the record. A few cases of rape by the police personnel and other persons have also been reported by the victims to the hospital.

iv) The team could find that the hospital do not have any facility for rendering treatment to the victims. The members of the victim family were waiting outside the hospital are all trauma stricken. A deep sense of frustration was prevailing in the entire hospital compound at Nandigram. The patients have not been provided with food and minimum medicines which they require. There is no ambulance in the hospital and one ambulance provided by some NGO is not functioning properly. The Block Medical Officer of Health admitted that thre is an acute problem for transportation of the victims to Tamluk due to shortage of ambuance and vehicles.

7) At about 2.30 PM the team proceeded for Sonachura which place is situated at about 20 Kms. from Nandigram Hospital. On their way to Sonachura the team could find thousands of persons were sitting on the road or assembling jointly in some areas.Upon seeing the team reaching the area all the villagers started narrating their story as to how and in what manner the poor villagers have been subjected to torture by the police and the murderers of the ruling political party. The nature of allegations made by the villagers is as follows:

i) On 14.03.2007 the villagers assembled near Bhangabera which is a bridge connecting Nandigram and Khejuri. At Bhangabera. the villagers of both the communities were offering prayers to God and the gathering for offering prayers to the God were comprising of women and children mostly. All on a sudden the police personnel without any notice to the villagers proceeded towards the the villagers offering prayers and without any notice started indiscriminate firing of rubber bullets, killing bullets and tear gas. Several persons were killed at the spot by such indiscriminate police firing. Just after opening of the fire of the police upon the gathering the villagers were trying to escape to a secured place and such villagers were surrounded by the murderers of the local political party who were also in uniform but sandle in their feet and fully armed with local made arms and ammunitions. Children were murdered indiscriminately; bodies have been thrown to nearby Chuniburi river. The children of Primary Schools at least 8 in numbers have been killed by the murderers and then all those children were buried in a particular place near Bhangabera area.

The police and hooligans then ransacked the huts of the villagers, indiscriminately fired the residential huts of the villagers and captured upto the village Sonachura and the adjoining villages. The team could find that a good number of persons who have received various kinds of injuries including bullet injuries not less than 100 in numbers, receiving such bullet injuries are in their respective huts in their village. Such persons could not dare to go to hospital because of threats perpetrated by police and the murderers of the political party. A good number of women have complained that they have been raped, sexually abused and molested by police personnel and the murderers of the political party. The team could ascertain a good number of persons not less than 60 in numbers still remain untraced. The exact figure as to the particulars of the untraced persons could not be ascertained because villagers of some villages could not return to their home so as to ascertain as to how many members of persons are remaining untraced. The team could ascertain that the CBI team reached Bangabhera for the purpose of investigation. The team could not ascertain the exact numbers of victims of killing, rape, injured and untraced.

ii) The team returned to Nandigram Hospital at about 8.00 PM to start for Kolkata.
This brief report is supported by the statements made by the victims recorded by the members of the team personally and also the video clippings and footage.

8) Observation of the team from the trend of statements made by the victims of the incident and the villagers in general.

i) The people of Nandigram have been subjected to torture by the police and the political hooligans in a concerted way;

ii) The villagers, the police have started operation at the first instance for mass killing and the job has been completed by the murderers of the political parties. The peaceful movement of the people of Nandigram to oppose acquisition of land and/or for establishing Special Economic Zone by the State Government under the approved scheme of the Central Government has been sought to be broken and/or demolished by the ruling political party in aid and abatement of the police and the local administration.

iii) A good number of persons have been killed in the action. The exact number of the dead persons, untraced persons, victims of rape and the persons who have been severely injured could not yet been finalized because the villagers of Adhikari Para, Sonachura and the adjoining villages could not return to their respective huts as yet.

iv) The administration have shown their total callousness in securing minimum force for providing medical assistance and for building up confidence upon the people of Nandigram.

vi) The indefinite attitude of the District Magistrate, Purba Medinipore, Superintendent of Police, Purba Medinipore and the other functionaries of the Purba Medinipore administration clearly suggest that those officials have had their definite knowledge and participation in the whole operation of causing indiscriminate firing upon the people of Nandigram.

vii) There is no presence of administration at Nandigram either through the District Magistrate, Purba Medinipore, Superintendent of Police, Purba Medinipore or the other administrative persons.

viii) The dignatories indicated in the order of the Hon’ble High Court to the best of the information received by the team include Mr. Lakhman Seth, the Member of Parliament who is personally responsible for the incident of this mass killing. Informations have collected by the team to the effect that Lakhman Seth deployed professional murderers to commit murders of the villagers at Nandigram and that police started the operation but the rest of the operation has been conducted by the professional murderers engaged and deputed by Lakhman Seth, M.P. and the functionaries of Haldia Development authority and the local CPIM murderers at Haldia.

ix) CBI team conducting investigation may not be successful in unearthing each and every incident of murder, kidnapping, rape and other various kinds of offences in its meticulous details because that CBI team do not have sufficient and adequate expert officials of the CBI and the team constituted by CBI is a skeleton team and is too inadequate to conduct investigation over the incident at Nandigram occurred on 14.03.2007.

Long Live the People's Resistance against Aggression

2007-04-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

Long Live the People's Resistance against Aggression of
Globalization! Long Live the People's Occupation of
Nandigram!

Download this full report in PDF

[ As observed by Jiten Nandi, Shamik Sarkar, Md. Helaluddin, Subhapratim
Roychowdhury, Anupam Das Adhikari and Amita Nandi on behalf of Manthan Samayiki,
a bi-monthly Bengali little magazine from Kolkata, West Bengal.]
We, associated with a Bengali bi-monthly little magazine, 'Manthan Samayiki', went
Nandigram three times during January to March. Being the residents of Metiabruj in
Kolkata, we are neighbored by the people involved in garment industry, a communitybased
industry of muslim bengalees. Thousands of male villagers (about seventy-five
thousand, according to Morsalin Molla, MLA, Mahestala, South 24 Parganas) from
Nandigram block stay in Metiabruz and around temporarily for working in the
community garment industry. We went Nandigram each time along with these people.
We visited there on 18th January, 17-18 March and 27-29 March 2007. We travelled
within Nandigram by bicycles and van-rickshaw.
Nandigram is almost 160 km away from Kolkata. There are three blocks,
Nandigram I, II, and III in the district of East Medinipore. Nandigram I block is mostly
dominated by muslims and lower caste hindus. People survive by cultivation, fishing, and
engaging themselves in garment industry. Haldia township and industrial belt, being just
opposite to the Haldi river, promised them a huge opportunity of getting employment in
modern industries. But in reality, most of the workers who got jobs there, were driven off
once the construction works were finished. They realized that, in modern industries only
highly educated elites could manage a respectful job. Village people are going to get
nothing from there. Still now, some villagers go Haldia, for purely temporary contractual
jobs with miserably low salary. We heard about the Jellingham Project at Nandigram
Block 1, where about 400 acres of land had been acquired in 1977 for ship repairs. One
hundred and forty two families lost their land. The Project stopped functioning after five
years and the site today lies deserted.
Nandigram fought British colonial rule gloriously, almost occupied itself from British
Raj in 1942. It took part in the tebhaga movement afterwards, under the leadership of
legendary Communist Bhupal Panda. The indomitable spirit of the community ( the
chashi-samaj ) Nandigram was carried positively by the leadership of Communist Party
of India in tebhaga movement. Time and again, Nandigram village-folks dug trenches on
roads to fight the aliens. In 1982, a movement under the leadership of Bhupal Panda
originated in Nandigram with the demand for development (roads, sanitation, water
supply, electrification, etc.). Police fired on the agitation and killed a student, Sudipta
Tewari. Again, village-folks dug trenches in Nandigram to prevent police from entering
into the villages.
Before 29th December 2006
A rumour was there in Nandigram for more than a year that some of the mouzas or
villages and cultivation land might be acquired by the State Government for instituting an
industrial zone, Special Economic Zone (SEZ). A land acquisition row was already there
nearby for increasing the area of Kulpi port which would take lands from coastal area
belonging to mostly fisherfolks and farmers. A committee, dubbed as Krishak Uchchhed
Birodhi O Jonoswartho Roksha Committee (Committee Against Eviction Of Peasants
And To Save People's Interest) was formed during August 2006 by Socialist Unity Centre
of India (SUCI) along with Indian National Congress for propaganda work against forced
land acquisition. Another committee started to function in Nandigram and adjacent
Khejuri block, called Krisi Jami Raksha Committee (KJRC) (Committee To Save
Farmland). It is a state-wide initiative led by main parliamentary opposition party, called
Trinamul Congress, formed in the pretext of land acquisition row in Singur of district
Hooghly for a Tata Motor's manufacturing unit. Another initiative, called Gana Unnoyon
O Jana Odhikar Sangram Samity (GUJOSS) (Association For The Struggle Of Mass
Development And People's Right), comprised of Jamait I Ulema Hind and Communist
Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Santosh Rana faction), established in Bhangar of
district South 24 Parganas in the last quarter of 2006 to fight forcible eviction of peasants
there for setting up of an industrial zone, started working in Nandigram during November
2006. Meanwhile, State Government occupied and fenced ( kanta-bera ) Singur land
imposing section 144 of penal code of India despite protest and refusal to take
compensation for land from a large section of villagers. And Ministers and ruling
Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders started talking publicly of setting up a huge
chemical hub in Nandigram under the Selim group of Indonesia. GUJOSS started setting
up some village committees comprising villagers cutting across the boundary of party
affiliation after conducting a survey in some villages in Nandigram which showed that
almost 99 percent villagers were ready to 'give their lives before leaving their
motherland'.
29th December 2006 to 3rd January 2007
A public meeting was held on behalf of ruling CPI(M) in Nandigram market on 29th
December 2006 where MP from Tamluk and East Medinipore district leader Lakshman
Seth urged farmers to pave the way of development and industrialization in Nandigram
by giving up their lands, both farmland and residential land, against compensation. He
also urged people to take the opposition at gunpoint, alleged the villagers. He gave a list
of the names of the villages ( mouzas ) those would be taken for the proposed chemical
hub, on behalf of Haldia Development Authority of which he is the chairperson. Later
that document was found in District Land
Reforms Office. Male-folk returned to their
villages hearing the news. A large number of
male-folks, predominantly muslims, who
worked in Metiabruz or elsewhere came to
their villages for Idujjoha on 1st January
2007. They also became agitated hearing the
news that their birth-place ( matribhumi ) is
going to be forcibly occupied by the
government. On 3rd January 2007 a
Governmental car entered into Nandigram
and went to Kalicharanpur gram panchayet
office. People gathered and fearing forcible
land acquisition drive, rushed towards that
panchayet office. Panchayet Prodhan Samiran Bibi and her husband CPI(M) leader
Rejjak told them that a UNICEF team had arrived here for a government project for
Nirmal Gram Prokolpo or Fresh Village Project. People marched back, but in their way
to Garchakraberia, they found some four police vans with armed police force arrived
there in Osmanchawk. The procession asked the police why they came. Police replied
with lathicharge and gunfire which left 4 persons wounded. People got furious and
chased the police van. One police van had been torched in Garchakraberia Bhuta More.
All the police personnel left rapidly. Traditionally the peasant community of Nandigram
is hostile to police administration. In 1902, villagers burnt a Daroga, called Raimohan in
Gumgarh village of Nandigram who was backing a mahajon (money lender) called
Gopal, and attacked Nandigram police station. Several villagers were hanged later for
that offence by the British rulers. This memory is still alive among villagers through
folklores and songs. One such song goes like "Ki khela khelili Gopal Nandigramer
bajare/ Khelar tape Gumgarh kanpe/ Raimon daroga pure more/ kharer gadar bhetore.
(Gopal, what a trick you played in Nandigram market./ The trick trembled Gumgarh,/
leading Raimohan daroga to be burnt in a heap of paddy-grass). Till the day, i.e. 3rd
January the agitation was mostly dominated by male-folk of the villages. After this
incident women-folk from both communities, Hindu and Muslim came out of their
homes. Within an hour (in the afternoon) all the village populace started digging the
roads in their villages for preventing police to enter into the villages. Within 12 hours,
people dug more than hundred places, cut small concrete bridges, blocked the roads with
tree-trunks, huge trees, boulders and bricks all through the villages proposed for
acquisition for the chemical hub SEZ. People occupied their own villages. It was a huge
show of people's power and uprising. Sumit Sinha, a member of CPI(ML) (Santosh Rana
faction) was present there at that time. He described the event like one when 'people's
knowledge and initiative surpass leaders' episteme and craft'. He said that he was
reluctant to believe the incidence in North Bengal when over 100 km rail-track was
Torched police van (on 3rd January) carrying a poster,
we will not leave motherland for industry
eliminated within a night by people during Khadya Andolan in 1950s. Now, seeing this
mass initiative he started believing the actuality of that incidence.
Upto 7th January 2007
From 4th January 2007 people urged for unification of three above-stated committees. On
5th January 2007 a meeting was held in Etimkhana (muslim orphan house) in Tarachand
Bar beside Nandigram market
involving all block or district level
leaders of political parties who were
involved in those three committees. A
unified committee, called Bhumi
Uchchhed Protirodh Committee
(BUPC) (Committee for Resistance to
Eviction from Homeland) was
established from the meeting and
resolution was taken that nobody would
hoist their own political flags within
Nandigram excluding the case when a
political party was organizing a meeting or march on
its own. On 6th January noon, a huge public meeting
was held in Bhuta More, Garchakraberia announcing the formation of BUPC.
Meanwhile, the agitation led by KJRC in Khejuri was brutally suppressed by State
administration and CPI(M) cadres there and all the agitating villagers were made silent or
'proponent of industrialization' at gunpoint. Nandigram and Khejuri are separated by a
50ft wide canal called Talpatti Khal. A bridge separates two newly made (2004-2005,
under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Jojona or Prime Minister Village Road Project)
pakka roads or pitched roads, Nandigram's one connects Talpatti Khal to Basulichawk
(16.2 kms.) and Khejuri's one connects Talpatti Khal to Rasulpur. Historically,
Nandigram was attacked time and again by Portuguese armada (Harmad in colloquial
tongue) or Pirates and British invaders through Khejuri. Nandigram people used to resist
them. Nandigram was again attacked on the onset of 7th January 2007, from Khejuri, with
bombs and bullets. It was a foggy morning. Thousands of people from the adjacent
villages (Bhangabera, Sonachura, Gangra, Adhikaripara, Gokulnagar, Tekhali etc) started
thronging at Talpatti Khal bridge, to resist the invaders, the 'army of industrialization', the
'harmad bahini', the 'cadres of Lakshman Seth', carrying sticks, Da (bamboo cutting
knife), Banti (knife used for domestic vegetables cutting). Three persons died of bullets
during resistance, namely, Bharat Mandal, Sekh Selim and Biswajit Maiti (12 year old).
A landlord of Bhangabera, Shankar Samanta (His two storied fort-like residence, gardens
and ponds constitute at least 20 acres of land, leaving aside the farmland he owned.
Almost all of the other houses in Bhangabera are made of mud. This family was
traditionally with Indian National Congress, also his father Sudhangsu Samanta, but
turned into CPI(M) two decades ago) was allegedly showing the invaders the key persons
of the resistance for killing them, villagers alleged to us. People chased him, captured and
burnt alive. His mansion was ransacked and torched also. Invaders stopped shooting after
the sunset. Thousands of people decided to dig the pakka road to cut the link between
Barricades with tree-trunks and boulders
Talpatti Bridge and Nandigram. The 16.2 km long pitched road was ornamented with
several ditches, trenches, tree-trunks, boulders, bricks. The war began.
7th January to 14th March 2007
As the war situation unfolded, formation of village committees, the organization from
below, virtually stopped. Instead political leaders of BUPC started leading the whole
resistance. People already started night-vigil to resist the invaders. When they found any
intrusion in night, they started
chanting Shankha from
households and making call of
alert ( ajan ) from mosques.
Hearing this everybody used to
come out of their households
and marched towards the
Talpatti Khal, which was
started to be termed as border,
colloquially. In a war like
situation, people couldn't resist
the sophistically armed police and cadre
force without weapons. And so weapons
including guns started to come in the hands
of villagers through some heavyweight political leaders of parliamentary opposition.
Villagers reorganized the barricades and trenches on roads in a manner so that one
could move by walking, bicycle or even Ricksaw, but no car or speedy motorbykes could
move in or out. The ferry service connecting Nandigram and Haldia through Haldi River
was cut out by ruling CPI(M) cadres temporarily, Haldia town being a stronghold of
them. The supply of cash crop and labour from Nandigram to Haldia was halted. Haldia
market faced a huge price rise. Fearing unrest in Haldia, ferry service resumed after seven
days. But labourers from Nandigram were systematically manhandled in Haldia by
CPI(M) cadres. Especially Muslims were targeted. It is very special. CPI(M) is known
internationally as the strongest
critique of Gujarat communal
riot and Hindu fundamentalism.
Cadres belonging to that party in
Haldia, started provoking
muslim sentiment by targeting
them specifically. The
Nandigram-Metiabruz buses
were systematically searched by
CPI(M) cadres in Nandakumar,
some 40 km away from
Nandigram, and people
belonging to those villages
proposed for chemical hub SEZ
A trench on Prime Minister Village Road Project road, with
a black flag of BUPC
were got down from buses and were advised to go by walking as 'they were opposing
industrialization, they should not be allowed to go by buses'. These things were done by
CPI(M) cadres after a state level leader of CPI(M), Benoy Konar called for 'making the
villagers' lives a hell encircling them from three directions' before media. The three
directions were Nandakumar, Khejuri and Haldia. Meanwhile Chief Minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharya said before media that the proposed chemical hub would not be set up at
Nandigram, if villagers didn't want it there. He also announced to tear apart the Haldia
Development Authority's notice, before media. But Lakshman Seth, the Tamluk MP and
Haldia's strongman, urged for setting up the SEZ in Nandigram. Nirupam Sen, state
industry minister, also said in that
way. No official notification was
issued any further.
The everyday life of
village-folks hampered in a big
way. Cultivation, schools and
food supply and external
communications were hampered.
People overcame those, just by
solidarity within community.
People even ate raw khesari
leaves and cereals during these two and a half months. Help came
in the form of rices and cereals from adjacent villages. Village
life, in a contrast to the city dwellings, can live on its own resources, crops from fields,
fishes from ponds, quoak doctors etc. People survived by the virtue of their own
resources, despite the barricades and trenches they organized to occupy their own
villages. No festivals or ceremonies had been held in those villages during this period, be
it marriage ceremony, or tajia of Muharram. A handful of strong CPI(M) followers from
those villages left voluntarily fearing atrocities, or been driven away in some cases. The
total number wouldn't cross 120, the villagers urged. All the rest of CPI(M) followers
took up the call of resistance to save their home land and livelihood. Some of them led
the resistance also. The martyr, Bharat Mandal was one of them. These villages were
dominated by CPI-CPI(M) followers traditionally. All the villages became united
showing huge communal amity. BUPC remained the only organization left there.
On the eve of 14th March 2007
After a state wide, two-month long campaign for industrialization, CPI(M) organized a
big mass meeting in Kolkata on 11th March under the banner of Krishak Sabha, the
party's peasant wing. The home secretary of the State Government, Prasad Ranjan Roy
ordered the administration to RE-OCCUPY the Nandigram villages on 14th March 2007.
BUPC organized a mass deputation at Nandigram police station on 13th March. The mass
deputation was thronged by women-folks in thousands. After a meeting in state assembly
between East Midnapore district leader of Trinamul Congress, MLA Subhendu Adhikari
and Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya, Subhendu assured the BUPC leadership
that police would come on 14th March to repair the trenched and barricaded roads only.
A trench by Talpatti bridge
Police would use tear gas or fire blank from guns at most, BUPC leadership perceived.
They urged the villagers to organize a peaceful demonstration of at least 10 thousand by
the side of the Talpatti bridge and send back all their weapons. In a way, one can say that
BUPC leadership disarmed the village-folks on 12th and 13th March, who were indulged
in a war with the invaders for saving their homeland and saving themselves from
eviction. Villagers followed BUPC leaders' advices.
On 14th March 2007
The villages by the Talpatti canal were mostly populated by hindu community. And the
heart of the resistance was Garchakraberia, a muslim dominated village, which is 10 km
away from the Talpatti Khal. The shankhadhwani by hindu women-folk started as early
as at 3 am on 14th March. Children and women gathered beside the Talpatti bridge at 3
am and started puja of Gouranga idol and Singhabahini, the community believes that the
goddess save their land and lives. Muslim women and children came a little late, at 4 am
and started reading from Koran Sharif. Thousands of villagers, mostly children and
women were present there by the dawn. No prominent leaders of BUPC were available at
the spot, but local village level leaders were there.
Police started the operation on 10 am. They fired tear gas and within some
minutes began firing. Armed CPI(M) cadres came along with the police. The cadres wore
police uniform for camouflage. State reoccupied Sonachura, Bhangabera, Adhikaripara,
Tekhali (3 km from the Talpatti bridge) with police, special combat force, sophisticated
weapons, and CPI(M) cadres. Within one hour wounded persons started to come to illprepared
Nandigram Hospital. By the evening, 60 people came with injuries, mostly with
bullet injuries in upper parts of the body. So the firing was intended to KILL the
protestors, not to disperse them. 14 deaths have been reported immediately by
government. Party flag entered into those villages of Nandigram after two and a half
months. The victory of state over the villagers was celebrated there, and the rest part of
the East Medinipore district by hoisting innumerable brand-new hammer-and-sickle
marked red flags. Meanwhile, a district wide 12 hour strike was issued at the afternoon of
14th March by CPI(M) trade union wing CITU, to prevent the miscreants from hampering
the process of reinstallation of administration in Nandigram, according to 'The Hindu', a
media source. Everywhere in the district, CPI(M) cadres took the streets with flags,
blocked roads, and prevented the parliamentary opposition leaders, the Governor and the
media from entering into Nandigram. The ambulances carrying seriously wounded to
Tamluk hospitals were also attacked. Reports of huge death and disappearance of body,
rape started coming from Nandigram. Sonachura, Bhangabera, Adhikaripara, Tekhali
were completely under the control of police and armed CPI(M) cadres by the night of 14th
of March.
After 14th March 2007
Under the direction of Kolkata High Court, CBI team arrived at Nandigram on 15th
March. Police and cadres in Sonachura village organized the villagers there at gunpoint
for leading a procession for re-occupation of Garchakraberia on 16th March. But their
attempt failed, as almost 50
thousand villagers from other
villages, led by BUPC, came to
sonachura on 16th March morning.
Cadres escaped the villages. Police
forces presented their begged for
lives. Red flags had been replaced
with a handful of black ones of
BUPC, and predominantly with tricoloured
Trinamul Congress flags.
After the red ones, entered the tri-coloured party flags. After severe protests in and
outside of West Bengal and condemnation of state sponsored mass killing of unarmed
villagers, facing opposition from ruling coalition partners of decades, Left Front
Government decided to withdraw the police force from Nandigram systematically, issued
a notice on behalf of East Medinipore district magistrate stating that no land acquisition
would be held in Nandigram. It was the second official notice related to Nandigram SEZ.
First one was issued on behalf of Haldia Development Authority at the end of December
2006 providing the list of mouzas to be acquired in Nandigram, as stated above.
The struggle of Nandigram is still continuing. Now the land grab fear is over. But
the anguish and grief of losing a number of their comrades remains. Villagers are asking
for the punishment of the murderers and rapists. We asked the female-folk about what
kind of help they needed. They urged us to join the struggles 'like them'. The CPI(M)
party cadres are still bursting bombs at night, from the side of Khejuri. BUPC asked most
of the 'driven out' or 'left out' of the villages for their CPI(M) affiliation to come back, but
urged for the arrests of a few of them who were involved in the violent attack and
massacre on 14th March.
The residents of 38 villages, mostly a peasant population, predominantly
poor and marginal, in Nandigram fought a severely uneven fight for last 3 months.
It was a genuine people's resistance against globalization in its present aggresive
form. Global capital is installing SEZs, neo-colonies in India. Almost 200 SEZs are
already working in our country. Gujarat, Haryana, Orissa, Maharashtra, Uttar
Pradesh, Jharkhand etc are prominent states in SEZ maps of India. All state
governments, be it Congress led or BJP led or else, are asking for SEZ and
advocating it for industrialization and development. The SEZ Act was planned
during BJP led NDA government, and implemented in 2005 by Congress led UPA
government. It was passed by parliament without even any debate. The countrywide
people's resistance sent the act under review and sanction of fresh SEZs was
stopped, in January, immediately after the people's uprise and occupation in
Nandigram. Village-folks are resisting the land grab and forced eviction almost
everywhere, at Kalinganagar-Jagatsinghapur in Orissa, at Raigarh in Maharashtra,
in Jharkhand, in Uttarpradesh etc. Nandigram was one among them. And it
emerged VICTORIOUS. Chemical hub SEZ in Nandigram died before its birth. It's
a successful local resistance, a people's resistance against globalization with a
broader and immediate implication.

Smaller, kinder SEZs

2007-04-06T13:45:00.001-07:00

Smaller, kinder SEZs

- Bengal projects survive ceiling but land consent must

The telegraph

New Delhi, April 5: The Centre today said land for special economic zones must be acquired with the consent of owners and put a 5,000-hectare cap on their size.

The ceiling will not affect projects in Bengal, where the largest proposed is the Salim Group’s multi-product SEZ to be spread across 5,000 hectares (12,500 acres). Reliance’s 10,000-hectare Maha Mumbai SEZ and another in Haryana will, however, be hit.

“The state governments are free to lower the cap for SEZs below the 5,000-hectare mark if they want to,” commerce minister Kamal Nath said, pre-empting protests from the Left, after the empowered group of ministers lifted the freeze on SEZs imposed in January amid controversy over land acquisition.

The CPM, which had sought a 2,000-hectare cap, was however not complaining about the higher ceiling. “It will help us to go for the proposed chemical hub,’’ Bengal secretary Biman Bose said in Calcutta.

The chemical hub is the 10,000-acre SEZ planned by the Salim Group in Nandigram, which is now expected to come up in Haldia. Had the party’s demand for a 2,000-hectare (5,000 acre) ceiling been met, both the Salim projects would have had to be curtailed. The chemical SEZ might yet be made smaller because Haldia does not have enough land.

“No state can compulsorily acquire land (for an SEZ) from farmers through the Land Acquisition Act,” Nath said, adding that the promoters would have to buy from owners willing to sell, at the market rate.

However, little prevents a government from acquiring land under the act, citing public purpose for which no consent is required but without specifying the use. It can later be handed over for an SEZ.

“It appears that some of our demands have been met,” Bose said, pointing to the decision to raise the minimum processing area to 50 per cent in all SEZs, in line with Bengal.

So far, the 50 per cent cut-off was limited to sector-specific SEZs while in the multi-product projects, only 35 per cent of the area needed to be allocated for processing (the core activity). Even this could be reduced to 25 per cent with special permission.

The low cut-off had come under fire from the Left which alleged promoters were availing themselves of the tax concessions meant to push productive activity but using most of the land for realty projects.

What Bose did not mention was that another demand of the CPM was ignored. The party has been seeking a curb on the tax concessions given to SEZs, but the sops continue.

A rehabilitation policy is being framed which would ensure livelihood from the project to at least one person from each displaced family, Nath said. “The new norms would be applicable to all SEZs, including those already notified.”

But commerce and industry secretary Sabyasachi Sen said a job for each family would be difficult in Bengal, where holdings are “small”.

Eighty-three SEZs that had been approved by the commerce ministry and did not face a land dispute were cleared today by the group of ministers. Among the projects that will be notified now are the Jindal SEZ in Kalinga Nagar and Infosys in Pune.

Smaller, kinder SEZs

2007-04-06T13:45:00.000-07:00

Smaller, kinder SEZs

- Bengal projects survive ceiling but land consent must

OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

New Delhi, April 5: The Centre today said land for special economic zones must be acquired with the consent of owners and put a 5,000-hectare cap on their size.

However, little prevents a government from acquiring land under the act, citing public purpose for which no consent is required but without specifying the use. It can later be handed over for an SEZ.

“It appears that some of our demands have been met,” Bose said, pointing to the decision to raise the minimum processing area to 50 per cent in all SEZs, in line with Bengal.

What Bose did not mention was that another demand of the CPM was ignored. The party has been seeking a curb on the tax concessions given to SEZs, but the sops continue.

But commerce and industry secretary Sabyasachi Sen said a job for each family would be difficult in Bengal, where holdings are “small”.

Fresh violence at Nandigram

2007-04-06T13:41:00.000-07:00

PTI[ FRIDAY, APRIL 06, 2007 07:57:13 PM]
Nandigram: Fresh violence erupted here on Thursday as CPI-M and Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee supporters exchanged fire and hurled bombs at Paharganj, an area between Nandigram Block-I and Khejuri.

East Midnapore Superintendent of Police G A Srinivas told PTI that both sides used country made guns and bombs for an hour since noon at Paharganj.

None was injured.

The police intervened and restored order, he said, but tension was running high.

Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Core Committee member, Abu Taher alleged that the CPI-M suppporters fired 15 rounds and threw a dozen bombs from their stronghold at Khejuri.

He claimed that a number of CPI-M supporters visited the Committee office this morning, saying they wanted to join the committee as their party had yesterday held a meeting at Kunjapur, where it was proposed to collect signatures in favour of land acquisition. This led to the violence, he added.

Yesterday, the Committee had complained to the Nandigram police station that five of its members were assaulted by CPI-M supporters at Tekhali bazar of whom three had to be admitted to the Nandigram primary health centre.

Fourteen people were killed in police firing at Nandigram on March 14, as people resisted the police from entering the villages.

Earlier, seven people were killed on January seven after violence broke out on rumours that land would be acquired for a SEZ. The Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government has formally announced that the SEZ would not be set up in Nandigram and shifted elsewhere in the district.

Medical Team Report from Nandigram with names, locations, and injuries - April 5

2007-04-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

Medical Team Report from Nandigram with names, locations, and injuries - April 5

REPORT OF THE MEDICAL TEAM ON NANDIGRAM INCIDENT OF 14.03.2007

A team of doctors (Medical Service Centre, Kolkata) visited several affected areas of Nandigram on 17.3.2007 and came out with a report, which was reported in the press.

OUR FIRST VISIT (18.03.2007)

2ND VISIT (21.03.2007)

3RD VISIT (24-24 March, 2007)

A brief description of various types of patients seen on 24/25.3.2007 is as follows:

Camps: Soudkhali, Kalicharanpur, Dakshin Jalpai, Sonachura

Date: 24.3.2007 and 25.3.2007

Total cases seen: 261
Cases directly related to the incident of 14.3.2007 230
Male 83 (36%)
Female 147 (64%)
Child 9 (4%)
Hindu (mostly SC) 222
Muslim 8

Eye Camp: Sonachura

Date: 25.3.2007
Organised by: ARGUS COMMUNITY EYE SERVICES

Total cases seen: 155
Cases directly related to the incident of 14.3.2007 114
Male 55 (48.2%)
Female 55 (48.2%)
Child 4
Hindu (mostly SC) ALL
Muslim Nil

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS:

2. The medical team also saw other cases of bullet injuries at face level in the village.

3. The number of victims was found to be very large and included a large number of women and children also.

5. Many people suffered from the musculo-skeletal injuries including fall etc., as they were trying to escape the scene and police was persistently chasing them.

6. Many persons were injured due to beating by the police while they were trying to rescue the injured persons and the children.

14. On the two previous visits the Team attended to 169 patients. Though those two visits were not very well documented, it can be said that the general observation was basically the same.

15. Members of the Team also visited Nandigram Hospital, Tamluk Hospital

(Annexure II) and SSKM Hospital (Annexure III).

Dated 3.4.2007

ANNEXURE –I

Camp: Southkhali

Date: 24.3.2007

Total cases seen: 80
Cases directly related to the incident of 14.3.2007 72
Male 16 (22%)
Female 56 (78%)
Child 1
Hindu (mostly SC) 64
Muslim 8

Camp: Dakshin Jalpai, bhangabera

Date: 25.3.2007

Total cases seen: 54
Cases directly related to the incident of 14.3.2007 46
Male 24 (52.2%)
Female 22 (47.8%)
Child 1
Hindu (mostly SC) ALL
Muslim Nil

Eye problems 33 (71.7%)
Direct hit by the police 8 (17.4%)
Other musculo-skeletal injury 17 (37%)
Multiple Injury 1
Spinal Injury 1
Sexual assault on 14.3.2007 1
Mental Trauma 6 (8.3%)

Camp: Kalicharanpur

Date: 25.3.2007

Total cases seen: 56
Cases directly related to the incident of 14.3.2007 53
Male 8 (15%)
Female 45 (85%)
Hindu (mostly SC) ALL
Muslim Nil

Eye problems 43 (81.7%)
Direct hit by the police 13 (24%)
Other musculo-skeletal injury 7 (13%)
Multiple Injury 4
Bullet Injury 2
Sexual assault on 14.3.2007 3
Mental Trauma 4 (7.5%)

Camp: Sonachura

Date: 25.3.2007

Total cases seen: 82
Cases directly related to the incident of 14.3.2007 59
Male 39 (59.3%)
Female 24 (40.7%)
Child 7 (11.8%)
Hindu (mostly SC) ALL
Muslim Nil

Eye problems 4*
Direct hit by the police 20 (34%)
Other musculo-skeletal injury 10 (17%)
Multiple Injury 12 (20.3%)
Bullet Injury 2
Ear injury 2 (children)
Mental Trauma 12 (20.3%)