I got the impression that Mamata Banerjee’s entire battlecry was concentrated on the fact that the land was forcibly taken from some 15% of the total affected farmers pool and it should not have been. She did not complain about inadequate compensation but disrespect for the desires of these unwilling farmers. That’s why she never accepted the compensation packages the government began to ante up.

Doesn’t this stand on her part or for that matter on the part of the unwilling farmers throw the entire Eminent Domain principles out of the window. If the acquision of a tract of land remains dependent on unanimus consent from all affected parties, like a jury verdict, how will any government ever acquire any land and how anything can be built as it is most unlikely that anyone would be willing to give up their land to build an industry or their house for a road. No society can function that way unless it chooses not to make any progress.

I asked this question to some of my government law experts here in the New York tristate area, and each one of them unequivocally confirmed that the execution and operation of the Eminent Domain principles do not depend on the volition of the affected parties. Again, compensation must be just and equitable. Is this law different in India or dysfunctional like many other laws. I recall when Dr. Bidhan Roy took over vast tracts of land to build cities like Durgapur and Kalyani and Haringhata and even recently when Mamata Banerjee as the erstwhile Railway Minister took over land to build railroad tracks to Digha, no such unwilling voices from the farmers were heard. I cannot believe there were none.

Can you please specifically opine on this? Your analysis of the increasingly diminishing income from the land contemporaneous with the generational growth in families is so true. To make farming a productive and lucretive one on a sustained basis, to replace the lengti and toka with a hat and an overall, you need industry to provide efficiency, make tractors and earthmovers and fertilizer-sprayers. They are not mutually exclusive, cannot be in a country like ours. Agriculture and industry must live together and in order for industry to flourish, agriculture has to make some sacrifices, especially in Bengal, where unlike Rajasthan or Gujarat, most of the land is fertile.

Finally how does one crack the mystery of Bengali psyche to piss in its own milk bottle, this inextinguishable desire to self-destruct?

Ciao

Singur is a shining example of how we are experts at making a good thing look bad. Up front, I am all for the Tata Nano factory being built there, though I am opposed to the manner in which land for the project has been acquired from the farmers. Forget for a moment the big talk about reviving industry in West Bengal. Forget even the solid argument about preserving agriculture, the mainstay of rural livelihood in West Bengal, which has nearly all its land under cultivation. Think about the mistrust that exists among village communities in West Bengal. Families are divided down the middle over their support for either Trinamool or the CPI(M). No wonder then that a good thing, the Nano project, is viewed with deep suspicion by those opposed to the CPI(M) politically. Lack of trust is the real problem in Singur. The people do not trust the government, and by association they do not trust the Tatas.
Go anywhere in the world where you have sensible rural communities with a modicum of education, find a community leader, and somewhat nonchalantly suggest that a big automobile company (from India if you like) wants to set up a 500 million dollar project in the area. You will have the red carpet roll out even before you can get into the details. Such projects make or break communities. When outsourcing leads to the closure of a factory in rural America, the town council has to get busy to try and dampen the impact by providing alternative sources of wellbeing for the townspeople. Economic opportunity overrides all other considerations in politics, especially local politics. What we’re seeing in Singur however is counterintuitive.
Land is a limited resource. Three generations down, a 10 acre plot gets divided by about ten. A one acre plot of land is insufficient for anything more than subsistence for one family. The other brothers at this point have to seek alternative employment. Since there is no opportunity within the vicinity of the village community, they are forced to migrate and become the faceless urban poor who toil hard for a meagre life. They are relegated to the anonymous margins of urban existence, holed up in the squalor of slums, unprotected from inflation (since they are so far from their farmyard produce, which, however little, is at least a little food for the taking), and disoriented by the display of conspicuous consumption all around them. The Nano factory in Singur (and hundreds more like it, all over India) can stop this dehumanising exodus. But the transformation of village communities requires careful calibration.
If people are to give up land that will help a big corporation make a lot of money, the transaction has to be on market terms. The government must regulate the process and ensure adherence to the terms of the contract, besides helping the landowners draw up the best possible terms. It must be on the side of the people, not the big companies. The landowners must be made stakeholders, sharing a percentage of profits (albeit small) for not less than at least the next 50 years. The corporations must build schools, educate the community, and ensure that a sizeable section of the management is drawn from the community in, say, the next 25 years. That’s the sort of Singur India desperately needs.
(557 words)
Debraj Mookerjee