Singur marks

The issue of whether agricultural land should be earmarked for industrial projects is a contentious one for reasons other than providing fodder for Mamata-style agit-prop.

There used to be the adage: what Bengal thinks today, the rest of India thinks tomorrow. That, alas, under decades of Left Front-rule changed to: what India thinks today, Bengal may think about day after tomorrow. It is to the credit of West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee that he spotted the truth in the parody of the old slogan. But with his state far from out of the economic quagmire, Mr Bhattacharjee has to act and deliver Bengal out of the mess. This is hardly an easy task. For an ideologically-driven party that is supposed to focus on the well-being and uplift of workers, the CPI(M) has had little to show in terms of making West Bengal a workers’ haven. In fact, as data from the Ministry of Labour and Employment show, West Bengal still tops the list of states with the most number of lost man-days due to strikes and worker-management unrest. In this context, the whirligig around the Tata Motors project in Singur takes on a larger-than-business aspect.

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It is difficult to make violent and pigheaded trade-unionism disappear overnight in a state like West Bengal. What the present Left Front government sees as an opportunity for economic growth and a test case watched by future investors, the Opposition sees as the goings-on of a capitalist wolf in proletarian clothing. While the BJP and the Congress have joined Mamata Banerjee in her bid to oppose “Left Front autocracy” to remind people that they exist in the state, the Trinamool Congress leader bases her self-described “struggle against the authorities” on the assumption that there are people genuinely opposed to the Tata Motors deal in Singur.

The issue of whether agricultural land should be earmarked for industrial projects is a contentious one for reasons other than providing fodder for Mamata-style agit-prop. The record of Indian governments has been quite dodgy when it comes to providing rehabilitation and compensation packages for the displaced. So we cannot be completely blasé about the paranoia that accompanies any government land acquisition deal. This is why Mr Bhattacharjee is talking to the Opposition about Singur, especially about rehabilitation being part and parcel of the acquisition deal. It would be best for Ms Banerjee and her fair-weather friends to restrain their histrionics and instead do their ‘oppositional job’ of ensuring that the government gives the displaced the best possible deal, as well as keeps its word. Who knows? Perhaps a resolution of the Singur issue could provide a template for acquisition-rehabilitation for the rest of India, resurrecting that old, defunct adage we started with.