IN the month of May 2008 I have some specific questions to them.

1.Everyone is saying when Budhdha Babu announced that there would be no chemical Hub then why is this problem.Well,this is the same BUdhdha Babu who announced that 95% owners in Singur have given their lands willingly(which is a crude lie) and that figure changed to less than 60% when it was challenged at court.So when he can lie in a public meeting earlier and mislead people,who would believe this lier again?

2.Why Nandigram and Khejuri has been barred from reporters and other reminnet personalities like Aparna,Shaoli etc?why they were not allowed to enter?

3.Why the Govt couldn’t deploy militery from the very first day(as they did in Kolkata) and comb and find out all weapons?(which ever party may have that).Militery was deployed in hours in kolkata.Why couldn’t it be done there?

4.Why Laxman seth has to threat Mr Alokraj?

5.Why in Basanti RSP members are being attacked?

Actually after saying so many lies,these people have themselves got confused what they are saying and what they are now.People trying to justify this killers and liers are digging their grave only.

The Story behind Nandigram By Nilotpal Basu

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’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwins_law

by Amit Varma

This is the 40th installment of my weekly column for Mint, Thinking it Through.

Reading the newspaper has been a depressing experience over the last few days. The headlines are dominated by events at Nandigram, where bombs are going off, land mines are exploding, the police is powerless and lawlessness reigns. West Bengal’s governor, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, has described it as a war zone. To many of us far from there, it must seem like a remote insurgency that does not affect us all. But it does—and we cannot truly be a free society if we turn our back upon it.

The problem at Nandigram began with eminent domain. Eminent domain is an instrument used by governments to take land from private citizens for public use. For example, if a road needs to be built, and the proposed route goes through private property, the government acquires the land at whatever price it determines. It does not need the buyer’s consent for this, which many would say is surely wrong—but when it involves public infrastructure, most people shrug it away as a necessary evil.

In the American constitution, eminent domain is allowed only for projects of “public use”. When the Indian Constitution was written, this was changed to “public purpose”, which is more open to interpretation. But the right to property was a fundamental right, which meant that owners of private property had legal recourse if they were being gypped. Our early governments and legislatures, socialist and fond of redistribution, chipped away at it, but the courts defended it. Then, with the 44th Amendment in 1978, it was changed from a fundamental right to a mere legal right. That’s a euphemism—effectively, it had been abolished.

The West Bengal government then carried out a programme of land reforms known as Operation Barga. But instead of transferring property rights from landowners to tillers, itself a dubious act, it left the property title with the landowner, and gave the tillers permanent tenancy rights and a revenue share of the proceeds from the land, as well as first right of refusal if the landowner wished to sell. Some did deals with landowners, getting ownership over a portion of the land in return for their tenancy rights over the rest. Others remained bargadars, as they are called.

Cut to the 21st century. The government decided to set up special economic zones (SEZs) across India, where companies would get benefits that would attract investment, such as exemption from some of the foolish restrictions on business that exist in the rest of the country. That sounds worthy, but the governments involved set about acquiring this land through eminent domain laws. Obviously the farmers whose land was acquired were upset. Firstly, many of them did not want to sell. Secondly, it was not even for a project of public use, like a road or a power project, which at least have a weak rationalization. It was for rich private corporations.

Eminent domain was not the only issue here. Many of the affected farmers in Nandigram and Singur, the sites of two such proposed SEZs, were bargadars, who were facing a breach of contract by the government on the promises made to them. All in all, there was enough justified fury in Nandigram for opportunistic political forces to move in and stoke the fires, on which the CPM threw kerosene with its barbarism.

It is shocking that defenders of such theft try to justify it by invoking free markets and capitalism. True free markets depend on the sanctity of property rights. What Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s government has been up to is cronyism of the worst kind, colluding with big companies at the expense of the common man. Ignorant journalists describe him as free-market-friendly, which is ludicrous. His disregard for property rights makes him as totalitarian as the orthodox Communists who criticize him for moving away from their faith.

India’s politicians down the years have been no better. The farmers thrust into the fire now have been in the frying pan for 60 years. They are not allowed to sell their land for non-agricultural purposes, which has prevented industrial development in rural areas. (The companies operating in these SEZs could then have negotiated for the land on their own.) The restrictions placed on private enterprise have prevented the manufacturing boom that would have given our farmers more choices. They are trapped in their profession—60% of India lives off the agriculture sector, compared with around 5% for developed countries. This is unsustainable, as farmer suicides across India demonstrate.

With Nandigram, things have gone too far. For 60 years we have denied our farmers alternative sources of employment. Now, we have tried to take their farms away. When they have protested, we have reacted with brutality. The British, when they ruled us, were accused of nothing worse. What is the value of our independence then?

* * *

http://indiauncut.com/iublog/article/the-horror-of-nandigram/

Due to imprudent, aggressive and immature trade unionism, the industrial progress that was achieved after independence had come to a halt, then started being demolished since 1977 in WB. Now WB has been toppled in the rank of industrialization. Steps towards industrialization are most welcome. But, SEZ can’t be the solution and getting the cultivators stripped of their lands by force. It’s inhuman and barbarism that has been reflected through the functioning of the present Government in Nadigram, West Bengal. The present Government in WB dream that it has got some sort of Aladin’s Lamp. In one dark night it will go to bed and it will wake up in the next fine morning with the sunrise and industries it likes to have. During the thirty years of their rule in WB they have destroyed the industrial base that was developed after independence. Are they so fool that they hope for some magic and that magic at the cost of human life and livelihood? This world belongs to human beings, neither to CPM nor to Congress nor to BJP nor to Hindus nor to Muslims etc. etc. How does our Chief Minister forgets that to boastfully declare ‘our men, their men’? Has he not lost credentials to hold the post of Chief Minister?