The Story behind Nandigram | Nilotpal Basu

Published on 16-11-2007 In National

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The Story behind Nandigram

After a stony silence for past several weeks, Nandigram has again shot back to newspaper headlines and television primetime. What is the inspiration for that matter - provocation for this renewed interest in Nandigram?

Wide sections of the mainstream media provide a readymade answer - `Murder of democracy' by `armed thugs' of the CPI(M) `in connivance with the state government', `Buddhadeb Bhattacharya has become a Hitler' or at least a `Narendra Modi'. SMS polls in television channels are reporting an overwhelming affirmative verdict on the question `has Nandigram become a blot on the Left?'

When the mainstream media takes such an interest on a subject which involves something so intensely political as compared to, say, the Aishwarya-Abhishek marriage, one needs to raise one's eyebrows.

Though Nandigram has shot back to prominence after a long interregnum, this is now a name familiar to the people across the nation. Therefore, a quick recapitulation will be in order to understand the current phase of renewed interest.

The government of West Bengal had contemplated a chemical hub at Nandigram. But as and when rumours about land acquisition led to violent protests and expression of refusal to handover land for the industrial project, the government publicly abandoned the idea by the second week of February. The violent incidents had resulted in killings, digging up of roads, blowing up of bridges and bringing the entire activities of the area to a standstill. Nandigram was sought to be made a `state within a state' wrenching it away violently from the mainstream. The isolation of Nandigram was of such a magnitude that on March 14, this year, it reached a flashpoint. When the State police tried to enter the area to restore law and order and to facilitate normalcy and development activities, it led to a confrontation. 14 people died in police firing and otherwise. It was a tragic situation which was regretted by the top leadership of the government and the ruling CPI(M).

The police firing was an issue which emboldened the opposition. One had hoped earlier that once government announces that there will be no chemical hub in Nandigram, neither a SEZ obviously, there would be any need for land acquisition. But despite that, when the situation continued resulting in March 14 incident, the state government also understood that there is more to it than meets the eye. Therefore, patience was needed and political initiative to ensure that Nandigram once again comes back to the mainstream. Almost two dozen meetings were convened by the administration at the local level. Even all-party meetings at the state level were held without yielding any result. The main umbrella organisation BUPC (Committee against eviction from land) inexplicably continued to spearhead the `isolation' and `occupation' of Nandigram, even though without any possibility of land acquisition the very rationale for its existence had become irrelevant.

The BUPC ruled Nandigram till Nov.10. Beginning with January 7, when the first killing was there of a panchayat member belonging to the CPI (M), 27 more have been killed during this last ten and a half months. Some murders were gruesome. One 16-year old girl was gang-raped and hung up from a tree. More than 3,000 people were forced to become homeless of which 1,500 were in makeshift relief camps.

The sum and substance of this long interregnum, which the mainstream media has not reported, is the fact that Nandigram was occupied. Nandigram was out of bonds for whosoever not agreeable to this occupation and its enforcer BUPC, which is an umbrella for all opposition forces with BJP from the right to the naxalites on extreme left. Nandigram was particularly out of bonds for the CPI(M) and the elected representatives of the people belonging to that party. This needs to be noted, because the present interest is to highlight the `armed re-occupation'. Not a single leader of the opposition nor the conscience of the state, the Governor Gopal Gandhi or self-professed liberal democrats like Medha Patkar, did not find it appropriate to put in a word of sympathy for these people who have been uprooted from their home and hearth, let alone protesting this.

The mainstream media has also failed to report another grim development. With the land question gone and the state government meeting other demands of the opposition like giving compensation to the families of those who have died on March 14 in police firing and otherwise, transferring out police officials who were involved in the firing, withdrawing of cases except for heinous ones like murder and rape against opposition activists, the continuation of `occupation' was becoming untenable. But if people do not support a political force in the election, how can they continue to physically dominate an area – the size of one-third of an assembly constituency?

The answer was a new nexus between Trinamul Congress, the leading light of the opposition in Bengal and the Maoists. Both the state and the central intelligence agencies had got information that a group of Maoist operatives have entered Nandigram from Jharkhand. It was being led by one who was wanted for the murder of a JMM MP. Maoist literature announcing they have established a liberated zone in Nandigram was reported in a national daily. The presence of landmines and even an ammunition factory now have vindicated this development. This has also been confirmed by the National Security Advisor. The entry of Maoists in the occupied zone meant a spurt in the killings and other nefarious activities and expansion of the occupied territory.

In a situation where political solution was unavailable, the atmosphere to immobilise the police received full-throated support of the entire political opposition, the government had no other alternative but to request for the central paramilitary forces for Nandigram. This was also opposed by the same political bandwagon and surprisingly by a Central Minister Priyaranjan Das Munshi. The Chief Minister made the request on Oct. 25, but it eventually reached the state only on Nov.10.

It is an irony that those who had stopped the police from going in to enforce the `occupation' of Nandigram are now crying hoarse over its `re-occupation' in the absence of police and CRPF. It is ironic that the desperation which the people who had been evicted from their life and livelihood have displayed to return back to their homes will be construed as armed re-occupation.

Nandigram is returning back to the normal. Normal life is resumed, roads and bridges have started getting repaired, bridges are being re-joined, panchayats have started functioning – all these on the basis of decisions in the all-party meetings which eluded in the past. Those who were homeless for the last eleven months have returned, those who were fleeing for the fear of reprisal are also returning back. Nandigram is breathing free.

Meanwhile, CRPF continues to march on the village roads in those areas of Nandigram, which wore a haunted look in the past. And, they keep on uncovering the trail of the armed occupation and the Maoist presence – landmines detonators and so on and so forth. Three Maoists have already been arrested from the vicinity, who were holed up in Nandigram.

But this peace and sense of relief of the people of Nandigram regardless of political affiliation is not universally shared. Lal Krishna Advani is not happy. Mamta Banerjee is not happy. Medha Patkar is not happy. Even Governor Gandhi's Diwali spirits have dampened. There is a search for dead bodies on a scale that can justify calling the return of the homeless - a carnage. And, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya can be brought down to the gutter level. Obviously, for the mainstream media this is news, not the interregnum that only hurt those who were killed, and raped and thrown out of their forefathers land because they are not news for the `civil society'.

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