[Reader-list] Singur Update

[hpp at vsnl.com]

SINGUR UPDATE

No.1: November 12, 2006

Sumit Chowdhury
sumit_chowdhury at yahoo.com
Mobile: 98302 49430


Singur under siege

Nov. 9, 2006: Singur has turned into a battlefront since November 7. Battalion after armed police battalion and the Rapid Action Force are pouring in from the districts and setting up camp at the Bajemelia Hospital ground. Two other camps are being set up at Bajemelia and Khaser Bheri. Plainclothes police informers are openly moving around in the villages gathering information about resistance plans. Policepersons, rifles in hand, are posted in the village squares and the markets to keep watch on the villagers’ movements. Village life has been disrupted as women are unable to bathe in the ponds, children frightened of playing in the open and men fearing to venture out alone or after dark. The presence of such a huge police force in the otherwise peaceful villages have raised the heat in Singur. An atmosphere of terror prevails.
CPI(M) ‘cadres’ are also being mobilised from across Hooghly district for the ‘final’ assault. Ordinary villagers, unwilling to part with their land and activists are being harassed, beaten up and threatened with dire consequences. All this when their learned leaders at the Indian Social Forum in New Delhi are renting the air with fiery speeches against the countrywide acquisition of agricultural land for SEZs and industrial projects. 

The government is clearly heading for a showdown with the farmers. There is widespread apprehension that section 144 or an undeclared curfew will be imposed any day now, restricting free movement. It is also feared that police will be posted at each and every door to prevent the villagers from coming out, all the camps set up by the agitating farmers and political groups to keep vigil will be demolished and all roads and railway stations will be sealed to stop the activists and sympathisers from entering the villages. ‘Industrial resurgence’ is being ushered in in the so-called ‘red bastion’ with brute force.

It is presumed that the imminent visit of the Tata officials is why such a massive police contingent has been deployed. On their first visit on May 25, they had to face a demonstration by a huge crowd of farmers. Men, women and children blocked their convoy and the officials had to be rescued by the police. So, to show the Tatas how welcoming the farmers are, the roads through the villages to the project site will be encircled with rifle-wielding forces and the villagers stopped from venturing out in their own villages. The government, pathologically obsessed over ‘industrialisation’, is indulging in provocative action and will have to bear the onus of any untoward incident.

The police deployment, it is understood, will be intensified even more in the coming days. The farmers will be allowed to harvest their last paddy under strict police watch but not the laying of potato seeds which the farmers have already stocked in their homes. The entire project site will then be sealed with barbed wire. The land-losing farmers will obviously resist such a move and bloodletting will be inevitable. An intransigent government is pushing West Bengal towards a violent civil strife.

Nov. 11: Village women in Bajemelia and Khaser Bheri got together, protested and foiled the setting up of police posts in their backyards. The villagers of all the six moujas then, under the banner of Krishijibi Raksha Committee, gathered in Chuchura, the district headquarters, and submitted a memorandum to the District Magistrate demanding immediate withdrawal of police from the villages. The District Magistrate assured the demonstrators that the deployment of police forces at the Bajemelia hospital ground would be put off for now. The Singur farmers consider this to be a moral victory. The massive structure for accommodating the forces, however, remain and a new camp is coming up on the bund running through the land acquired for the Tatas. Police sources have also revealed that the deployment of forces will intensify in the coming weeks. 

The struggle intensifies

Nov. 10: The Singur farmers have remained strong and united in spite of the deployment of armed police force in the villages. The thrashing they received on the night of September 25-26 has steeled their fighting spirit. No amount of intimidation or provocation can make them waver from their determination to resist the forcible and illegal taking over of their farmland by the state government. Each and every member of the households is now getting ready for the battle. 

Oct. 27: A ‘People’s Hearing,’ organised jointly by Krishijami Raksha Committee and Sanhati Udyog, a conglomeration of several mass organisations formed to extend support to the Singur movement, at Madhyapara, Gopalnagar. Medha Patkar of Narmada Bachao Andolan, writer Mahasweta Devi, Malay Sengupta, former Chief Justice of Sikkim High Court and Dipankar Chakrabarty, editor of Aneek, were in the panel of judges. Hundreds of farmers’ families, representatives of political parties, mass organisations and activists of all shades attended. Ministers and government officials were invited but none turned up. Farmers – men women, children and the aged – testified before the panel on the horror of police atrocities on Sept.25-26 and the misery befalling on them on account of the acquisition of their multi-crop farmland. Later, a mass gathering was held at the Bajemelia hospital ground where the panellists and other speakers slammed the government for forcibly taking over land for the
 Tatas and perpetrating a gigantic fraud on the people in the name of industrialisation. Mahasweta Devi declared that the state government is indulging in ‘white lies’. 

Oct. 31, on behalf of Sanhati Udyog, a People’s Survey was launched in the Singur villages to determine the estimated number of landholders and acreage that have been acquired by the government for the Tata project. The survey had become essential in view of the Chief Minister and his government’s repeated claims that 80-90percent of the land have been voluntarily given up in lieu of compensatory cheques.

Nov. 7: Central camp of the Krishijami Rakhsha Committee inaugurated at Kona Aswathtala tri-junction of Gopalnagar, Bajemelia and Khaser Bheri to keep vigil over land. 12-hour Bhumi-Yagna held and Namaz offered simultaneously by farmers at the campsite the next day. Hundreds of villagers gathering and staying the night at the camp. Two other camps being set up at Sahanapara, Gopalnagar and Khaser Bheri. CPI(ML) Liberation opened a camp at Paschimpara, Gopalnagar manned by student activists. Belur Sramajibi Hospital is planning a health camp opposite the police camp at the hospital ground within a few days. Three other camps opened around the project site by INTUC. 

Nov. 2: Revolutionary Youth Association took out a 1000-strong rally in the Singur villages. Before the rally started, a registered bargadar took possession of the land he worked on by planting the red flag. The land has been sold to the government for the Tata project by the absentee landlord.

Nov. 3: SUCI held a huge rally of 20,000 people at the Bajemelia hospital ground. The party’s supporters vowed to paralyse the whole of West Bengal if the government forcibly takes over the Singur land. On the same day, Nagarik Mancha organised a civil society meet at Paschimbanga Yuva Kendra in Kolkata in which representatives of mass organisations, scientists, academics, journalists, cultural activists and others lambasted the state government for its Singur and development policies. 

Nov. 5: Trinamool Congress leaders told a gathering of 20,000 people at Paschimpara, Gopalnagar that Singur will not be handed over to the Tatas, whatever the cost. The party announced a non-cooperation movement and a Dandi Yatra from Kolkata to Singur starting November 17. 
Nov. 8: CPI(ML) New Democracy asked a gathering of 3000 villagers at Beraberi market to stand up and be prepared for an uprising. The party also pleaded for united resistance.
Nov. 10: Sanhati Udyog, held a street corner demonstration in Kolkata demanding immediate withdrawal of the police force from Singur. On the same day, workers of Kanoria Jute Mill visited the Singur villages extending their support to and solidarity with the farmers’ struggle. 

Pages from the Singur struggle
May 25: Men, women and children blocked the Tata officials’ convoy when they first came to inspect the project site. The officials returned without seeing the site after the police rescued them.
June 1: A huge demonstration of farmers was held at the BDO office in Singur town under the banner of Krishijami Raksha Committee. 
July 1-2: Thousands of farmers rallied at the DM’s office in Chuchura and submitted their objection to the farmland acquisition. 
July 24: Farmers blocked the Durgapur Expressway for several hours.
Aug. 22: Farmer rallied in a daylong sit-in demonstration at the temporary camp set up next to the BDO office and boycotted the land acquisition hearing.
Sept. 1-2: Women of Beraberi village, brooms in hand, drove away the district officials who came to distribute notices for land acquisition. The officials returned without distributing the notices. 
Sept. 16: Farmers staged a black flag demonstration when the Minister for Land and Land Revenue visited the project site to speak at a meeting arranged by the ruling party.
Sept. 25-26: Thousands of farmers demonstrated from early morning to late night at the BDO office on the first day of the doling out of compensatory cheques. After midnight, in a pre-planned move, CPI(M) cadres and the police, under the influence of alcohol, started a merciless assault on the peaceful demonstrators. Hundreds were injured and arrested.
Sept. 27-30: Durga puja was not held in all the six moujas in protest against the land acquisition and the police assault.
Oct. 1: Daylong arnadhan (no cooking) was observed in the farmers’ families.
Oct. 2: Shahid Divas (Martyrs’ Day) was observed in memory of Rajkumar Bhul, killed by police lathicharge on September 25-26. The farmers vowed to carry on with their struggle. 
Oct. 5: Nishpradip (No lights) was observed in the farmers’ homes. 
Oct. 16: Farmers from Singur demonstrated in front of the Tata Centre in Kolkata. It was organised by Trinamool Congress. 

Struggle everywhere

Meanwhile, farmers’ movements are building up wherever the state government is acquiring farmland for the so-called industrial projects:

A Krishijami Raksha Committee has been formed in Kharagpur, West Medinipur district, where vast tracts of multi-crop farmland is being taken over for the Tata’s construction vehicle factory. Interestingly, the movement is being led by the local CPI(M) activists. 

In Nandigram, East Medinipur district, CPI’s Krishak Sabha has launched a strong farmers’ movement against landgrabbing for the proposed 10,000-acre chemical industries hub to be set up by the Salim group. 
Several political parties and groups have come together to launch an extensive movement against farmland acquisition in north Bengal for the proposed Videocon SEZ and other real estate projects. A yatra from Kumargram in Uttar Dinajpur district to Jalpaiguri has been announced. 

The Left Front partners – CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc – are getting increasingly vocal in opposing the government’s land acquisition policy and pandering to the corporate capitalists. They have warned the government of facing the wrath of the people if Singur farmland is forcibly taken away from the farmers. 

Strong sections within the government and the ruling party have also opposed the government on the Singur issue. The Karmachari Samiti of the government’s Land and Land Revenue department has supported the Singur farmers. The mouthpiece of the state government employees union has carried very strong words against forcible land acquisition in Singur and elsewhere. The district conference of CITU’s North 24-Parganas district has passed a resolution opposing forcible occupation of farmland. 

A clear polarisation is taking place between the CPI(M)’s ruling clique and the people of West Bengal, whatever political configuration they are mobilised under.
 
Aj mukhomukhi dariechhe duto dal
Ar majhamajhi nei to kichhui
Hoy Tatar dalal ar noy to
Ek laruku manush hobi tui


Face to face stand two groups
There’s nothing in between
Either Tata’s tout or
A fighting human you will be.