---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sukla Sen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Jan 8, 2007 10:50 PM Subject: [foil] Bloodletting in Nandigram: The Logic of Singur To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
It's a cruel irony that when the CPIM, the leading Left force in the country, is crying hoarse against the Central policy on SEZ, never mind that their chief ministers representing as many as three state governments are singing a very different tune, including in their central organ, People's Democracy, vigilante groups operating under the red banner of the Party has unleashed terror to crush the "enemies of the people" in Nandigram protesting against a proposed SEZ there apprehending loss of their lands and livelihoods. Guns have been fired and blood has flown. This comes as a grim reminder of the spinechilling Stalinist nightmare, which has though faded in memory with the passage of time but has not been erased off altogether. Nandigram is, however, only a logical corollary of Singur. The fight of the real flesh and blood people for their land and livelihood remains entirely legitimate by virtue of its very essence notwithstanding the colour(s) of the banner(s) under which it is being fought. We do strongly protest and condemn the brutal terror tactics adopted by the West Bengal government and its minions. We do also demand immediate institution of a judicial enquiry. We also appeal to the NHRC to commence at once and carry out its own independent investigation without waiting for the next move by the concerned state government. We append five letters from Kolkata below, which are self-explanatory. Sukla Sen EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity) Letter from Kolkata 5 ------------------------------ January 8, 2007 A brave reporter from Kolkata TV (a Bengali channel) managed to get into Nandigram and provide a report of the clash. This is what happened. Nandigram is separated from the rest of Midnapore and Bengal by a canal. There is a single bridge across the canal. After the communist cadre had fled their homes, they gathered in camps on the other side of the canal. That side received many reinforcements courtesy Lakshman Seth, the local CPI(M) leader and an infamous goon. A senior party leader had earlier warned that no opposition would be brooked to the party's plans of land acquisition. "We will make life hell for them," he said, meaning the farmers. On the night of January 6th, the two villages on the east side of the canal, Sonachura and Tekhali, were attacked by CPI(M) supporters from the west side with bombs and guns. The villagers had anticipated such an attack. Whether they had any bombs and guns their own is not clear. The Kolkata TV reporter said unequivocally that they only had farming implements and kitchen knives (yes, women were also among the defenders). Almost all the dead are believed to be farmers from Sonachura, including a 14-year-old boy. According to a piece by Mahasweta Devi in this morning's Dainik Statesman, the attackers cut off two heads and carried them away as trophies. This morning the contortions of the pro-state newspaper, The Telegraph, are amusing to read. On the front page is an allegation that both sides had bombs and guns, which seems to be fiction. On the day after, the homes of one or more CPI(M) supporters were torched, and the paper has a picture of a hapless couple outside the burned home. No pictures of those killed, who belong inconveniently to the other side. The paper is complaining that the state had not sent in policemen to protect the CPI(M) camp and avert a clash! No one else believes that the police are impartial. I just heard from Kumudini Dakua, who served time in British jails because of her role during the Quit India movement. She lives near Mohisadal, but knows the entire area intimately. She says 11 have been killed in Nandigram. The police are now in the area, are firing, and are not allowing in reporters. The Chief Minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, has alleged that an Islamic group is behind the attacks. It is true that one of the farmers' groups opposing the land acquisition has an Islamic name. But Hindus and Muslims in Nandigram are united against land acquisition. The CM is trying to turn a completely noncommunal fight over land into a communal one. Unfortunately the CPI(M) is so used to ruling the state as if it were a party fiefdom that it is not willing to brook any opposition at all. There will be more bloodshed for sure. Letter from Kolkata 4 ------------------------------ January 7, 2007 Seven people have died in the clashes in Nandigram. Today I realized that these issues are getting really close to home. For my Bengal famine book, I had searched for years to find famine victims who had clear memories of what happened. I finally found them, in a picturesque village called Kalikakundu in the Mohisadal subdivision of Midnapore. I became close to a remarkable old man, Chitto Samanta, who lives in a mud hut surrounded by rice fields, with his wife, sons, daughters in law and grandchildren. I felt they had a life of peace, far from the strife that daily rents my urbanized family. It turns out that the Salim group's acquisition plans includes Kalikakundu. I can't reach Chittobabu. He was a freedom fighter, in acknowledgement of which he had gotten a small pension and a phone line. The line is cut off. I know he will be in the forefront of any new fight, even though he is 80. I'm desperate for news. Madhusree Letter from Kolkata 3 January 7th, 2006 -------------------------- Thousands of activists are battling thousands of communist cadre in Nandigram, a remote area of Midnapore. News from the area is coming out only in spurts, for neither side is allowing in reporters. All approach roads have been dug up, just as during the Quit India movement. The issue is land acquisition again. Several villages have been earmarked for a chemical plant and other projects of the Salim group from Indonesia. Some 100,000 people are supposed to be displaced, and they are determined not to go. Someone should tell the State Government that they are not going to win this one. The people of Midnapore are by nature rebellious. During British times, prolonged rebellions rent the area, beginning with the Sanyasi-Fakir rebellion (1770 to around 1800), the Chuar rebellion (early 1800s, until I believe 1830), the Sepoy Mutiny or First War of Independence, as you prefer (1857) and the Quit India movement (1942-44). I believe somewhere in there was also a Santhal rebellion. The region is a border area, between plains and hills and between Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. During the Quit India movement, which tragically merged in this area with the Bengal famine, the region's leaders ran a parallel government quite independently of the British government. Its courts were very popular with the people. The parallel government was disbanded at Gandhi's orders, after he was let out of jail, and it is said that many cried in disappointment. One of the leaders during the Quit India movement, Sushil Dhara, is now 95, an invalid, and spends much of his time in a coma resulting from some illness. This morning's newspaper says he has expressed a wish to go to Nandigram and see the new freedom movement for himself. In the areas of Midnapore where the police are not being permitted to enter, the people are describing the region as Muktanchal, or "Free Zone." The State Government has been describing all opposition to its "industrialization" plans as being politically motivated. An unknown number of people have been arrested in Midnapore. One is a student from Jadavpur University in Kolkata, and another is a student of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. They are being held without bail as Naxals, or Maoists. Are they being held for what they did, or for what they believe in? Its not clear. One hears nothing about Singur any more. Is that a fait accompli? We shall see. Letter from Kolkata 2 --------------------------------- Jan 5, 2007 Somehow all the items in this morning's newspaper are swirling around in my head and settling into a pattern. The killings of children at Noida, the return of IITans to India, the fights of the people of Midnapore with the police over land acquisition for SEZs, the low ranking of West Bengal in education (32nd out of 35).... they seem to me to be bizarrely connected. They're even related to something else that has been on my mind lately, the cosiness of India with the murderous Burmese junta. Let's start with the poor level of education of West Bengal's rural population. What, in practice, does that mean? It means that when mega industries come to the state, the locals will get employment only as sweepers and laborers. Once the construction phase is over, the original inhabitants of the land will be left with the dregs of employment. All the top jobs will go to the better educated, not just the IITans with blue swimmingpools glinting in their eyes, but the slightly educated from the middle class and perhaps even the lower middle class. The ones who will be swept off their land will sweep hither and thither, till they pile up against the edges of the shiny new cities as so many heaps of unsightly trash. And that is where the children of Noida come in. A hundred of them went missing, but the police wouldn't even register a case. In the cities, these people are defenseless, at the mercy of every bully in the neighborhood. Were the children cut up for their organs? Who knows. It wouldn't surprise anyone. No wonder that the people of Midnapore are fighting for their land. They know, perhaps better than all the planners, the reality behind the plans. And do the SEZs really make economic sense, even on paper? Jagdish Bhagwati, I recall, came out against them, as did the Economist magazine, which is generally pro-business. Both said they would cost the government large chunks of tax revenue. But perhaps the SEZs are intended not for shoring up the economy, but for shoring up the respective state governments' finances and futures. In Kolkata, they say, prostitution is a booming industry. It isn't just that social mores are changing. It seems to me that prostitution booms whenever extreme poverty collides with excess wealth. That happened during the famine of 43. Where do the Burmese generals come in? They have oil, and the SUV that is the Indian economy needs it in shiploads. The Tatas, after all, want to build a People's Car. And so India is sidling up beside the Burmese generals, giving them money in return for their oil. And what will the generals buy with all that money? Guns, no doubt, with which to shoot up their own people. It's getting hard these days to tell the difference between democracies and dictatorships. Letter from Kolkata 1 ------------------------------ January 1, 2007 I have been in Kolkata for only two weeks, but what I see around me is sobering. I believe that West Bengal is about to explode into a new era of overt violence. The reason is the stunning pace, scale, and modality of land acquisition. You may have heard about Singur, but that is only around 1000 acres. If the papers are to be believed, the state government has plans to acquire 125,000 acres all over the state, ostensibly for industry and development. (There has been no response to RTI requests on Singur, so no one knows the terms on which Tatas will get its 99-year lease, or any details about the plant.) The colonial-era Land Acquisition Act is being used, which allows no legal challenges, along with a repressive law, Section 144 of which allows no gatherings beyond 5 people, etc., within the acquired areas. I don't know how many people will be displaced overall. The significant point is that the political opposition is in disarray. It does not know how to make a coherent protest. The democratic process has broken down. The English-language newspapers are almost all pro-development, which in this case means pro-state, and the Bengali-language papers are pro-farmer, which means anti-acquisition. I have never before seen press and public opinion so cleaved. A significant section of the Bengali bhadralok is, surprisingly enough, pro-farmer, and resentful of the dislocations being brought about by the influx of mega money and its culture. Mahasweta Devi, now in her 80s, has been waging a lonely battle with her pen. Her writing can be read in Dainik Statesman--which, by the way, can get no advertising revenue from the government. The result of the political process breaking down is that people are taking the law into their own hands. Singur has been infiltrated by Naxals, who may be behind a recent murder of a couple who had willingly sold their plot to the state. (Days earlier, a young activist who protested the land acquisition was raped and murdered, apparently by men guarding the barbed-wire border that has been built around the Singur area. Armed police guard the border by day, and communist cadre by night.) In Contai, where land has been earmarked for a nuclear power plant, village women have built a thick barrier of prickly hedge and are not allowing in any outsiders. They herald the advent of police with conch shells, so that everyone drops what they are doing and gathers to face the outsiders--a trick widely used in this area during the Quit India movement. Spontaneous resistance is breaking out everywhere. I can't help feeling that this is the advent of a new freedom movement. It is a freedom movement in the same sense as the old one, against a government that is colonial (forcibly claiming new land and resources) and oppressive. Those outside Bengal have little idea of the level of violence with which the Left Front has maintained its success at the polls. Displays of violence with the intent of intimidating voters are routine in the villages around election time. The Left Front maintains hundreds of thousands of cadre on the state payroll, and needs a constant influx of money. That, many Kolkatans believe, is the real reason behind its recent camaraderie with industrialists. Villagers are even more cynical, have no confidence at all that the state will look out for them. Where will it end? I don't know. This is only the beginning. Madhusree Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Foil-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://insaf.net/mailman/listinfo/foil-l_insaf.net --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ greenyouth mailinglist is the activist support mailinglist for kerala run by Global Alternate Information Applications (GAIA) To post to this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
