Nandigram is returning to normal—But we have lessons to learn | Nilotpal Basu

Published on 30-11-2007 In National

Viewed 1490 times

Nandigram is returning to normal—But we have lessons to learn

Nandigram is limping back to normalcy. Schools have reopened, mid-day meals have started being cooked – ICDS centres have also restarted. Perhaps, children have been the worst victims of the unusual situation that had gripped Nandigram for the last eleven months. These are positive developments.

The panchayats have started functioning again. Meetings that are attended by elected members of all political parties are deciding jointly to restore the roads dug up earlier, bridges blown up are being rebuilt.

And, most importantly, the people who had fled their homes as and when the people for whom Nandigram's affected villages had remained out of bounds have also returned. The CRPF is present and unearth almost daily cache of arms - several of them distinct for their unmistakable Maoist vintage.

The mainstream media, however, is not interested to report all these normal human activity. The violence in the closing days of eleven months of occupation, when the thousands who had been physically ousted from Nandigram were returning home was being `reported'. Complaints of `violent recapture' were doing the rounds. Nobody can afford to be critical of the mainstream media. But the minimum that was expected from the standpoint of objective reporting was the number of casualties; and, of course, the facts of the `capture', which is implicit, if the `recapture' is `real'.

But these answers are not forthcoming and why should they be. Apart from the most bizarre rainbow coalition with the Ananda Margis on the extreme right and the Maoists on the extreme left formed against the CPI (M), which the developments in Nandigram galvanised – the Governor himself had refused to `accept', recapture. Asking accountability from the media would be sinister!

But the difficulty in trying to find out the number of casualties lies elsewhere. Even if the claims of the opposition in West Bengal is accepted, the death toll in the last eleven months in Nandigram including the regrettable deaths during police firing on March 14 does not cross 50. Not that even a single death of an innocent irrespective of their affiliation is acceptable; but the fact that 27 of these belong to the CPI (M) and their sympathisers make the `Buddhadeb = Modi' hypothesis completely untenable. And, that is the point. Political clashes are not rare in India. But a Nandigram had to be invented to trivialise the Gujarat pogrom.

But that does not sufficiently explain the discourse on Nandigram. The basic political explanation lies elsewhere. The independent assertion of the Left on policy issues that faces the nation in the last three and a half years has been as vigorous as it has never been in the past. And, the most striking of these articulations have been on basic issues of globalisation and against imperialist drive towards securing India. Where else but in West Bengal can the retaliation take place?

Though many self-proclaimed democrats, liberals and even Left intellectuals have failed to grasp this basic linkage – Noam Chomsky and others who have reflected on the Nandigram developments have underlined this.

Was Nandigram really about land and displacement? May be for the first few days in January. But after the Chief Minister had categorically abandoned the idea of setting up a chemical hub in Nandigram – thereby obviating the need for land acquisition – the issue of displacement became redundant. And, that is the background of the continued `capture' and `occupation'.

Why then a section of the wider Left is upset? Now that questions are coming up a justification is sought by questioning the very paradigm adopted by the West Bengal government. Their argument equates private investment for industry as symptomatic of globalisation. More so, if the resultant industry comes up on agricultural land. It seems as if private investment for industry has not taken place before globalisation. Or, as if the first industry, which would be coming up on agricultural land was in Singur or Nandigram. These critics also overlook that, today, when even the cosmetic land reforms which were earlier taking place in the country have come to a grinding halt, the West Bengal government has redistributed 30,000 acres of land to the landless in the last year.

The West Bengal government has attempted to attract investment from all sources – the private, the public and in the small and medium scale. And, the results are apparent. In the last few months, in the steel sector alone, Rs. 90,000 crores have been invested. In a recent Assocham – Ecopulse study in the two months of August and September, West Bengal attracted Rs. 31,200 crores of investment – the state to attract the second highest. And, these were the months when the Nandigram difficulties had been at their highest.

All these will become much more apparent in the coming days. The debate in the parliament has been the beginning of such unfolding of truth. Advani found it at his own cost. The demand for invoking Article 356 in an area, which measures the third of an assembly constituency, was something, which became apparent. Perhaps, even to himself. On the other hand, despite Priyaranjan Das Munshi, the government had to accept the arguments put forth by the state government.

But the CPI (M) also has to draw lessons. The Chief Minister of West Bengal has put on record the mistake of having inadequate consultation with the people of Nandigram before conceptualising the project. The process of correction is evident in other projects, which is translating the investment proposals elsewhere in the state. The struggle for industrialisation in West Bengal has to succeed. Otherwise, the poor and the beneficiaries of the agrarian reforms cannot hold on to their gains. Hopefully, those who do not as yet realise this – especially in the Left will eventually agree.

0 Comments

Blog

Print