[Reader-list] Citizens' Initiative's report on Singur (part 1)

[Citizens' Initiative]

OUR EXPERIENCES IN SINGUR

(FEBRUARY – SEPTEMBER 2008)

BY

THE CITIZENS' INITIATIVE, KOLKATA.




CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
1. Citizens' Initiative                        3
2. Political background of Singur since 2006        5
3. Profile of some villages                7
4. Special Economic Zone (SEZ)                8
EXTRACTS FROM OUR SINGUR NOTEBOOKS            9
TESTIMONIES OF THE PEOPLE OF SINGUR            15
ENDEMIC PROBLEMS

1. Health                        27
2. Education                        28
3. Employment                        28
ANALYSIS
1. The TMC's role                    29
2. The Tata Motors plant                31

RECOMMENDATIONS                        32
CONCLUSION                        34
APPENDIX

Singur timeline                        39










OUR EXPERIENCES IN SINGUR (FEBRUARY – SEPTEMBER 2008) BY THE CITIZENS'
INITIATIVE, KOLKATA.

The Citizens' Initiative

About Us:

We at the Citizens' Initiative are trying to organise a continuing open
discussion on the paradigms of development and the relationship, in this
context, between politics and ethics. These issues, we feel, are extremely
important given the kind of state-sponsored violence that people are facing
all over India and particularly in West Bengal.

The group of students, researchers, and teachers that comprise the CI
started out in February 2007 to debate and question the cost of development
and the growing schism between ethics and contemporary political culture.
Questions have also begun to arise on the naive equation of the 'partisan'
with the 'political', and the brushing aside of any non-partisan civil
political action as not just irrelevant, but, as in some circles it is
fashionable to say, 'anti-political.' The role of civil society in a
democracy is a subject of critical re-examination now, and it is this
disregard for non-partisan opinion and the consequences of it that have led
us to discuss and take more concrete actions.

We launched this initiative with a one-day seminar on 16th February 2008 on
'Development and Ethics', where the speakers were Dr. Dilip Simeon and Dr.
Aseem Shrivastava. Dr Simeon spoke on 'Ethics and Contemporary Political
Culture', and Dr Shrivastava's talk was titled 'SEZ and the Cost of
Development'.

Our next event was a workshop on 5th April 2008 on the legal possibilities
available to a common citizen for redress of wrongs. Mr Sabir Ahamed of the
Calcutta Samaritans spoke on the Right to Information Act and Mr Sujato
Bhadra of Association for Protection of Democratic Rights spoke on Public
Interest Litigations.

We visited Singur nine times between February 2008 and September 2008. In
this period, we have carried relief – in the form of clothes, rice and
pulses – to Dobandi in Singur (in March 2008), and organised a medical camp
there (on 18th May 2008 and 27th July 2008) with the help of the Centre for
Care of Torture Victims. But neither of these efforts reflects our primary
objectives. Our most ardent wish is to induce long-term reflection on models
– and ethics – of development, and to contribute to reconstructive thought
and efforts in the areas already adversely affected by the present political
take on development. To this end, we have photographed, extensively, life in
Singur and how it has been affected by the fencing-off of the land for the
Tata Motors factory. Very few people in Kolkata have any idea of what Singur
looks like, and press photographs can perhaps tell only a minuscule portion
of the story. Our photographs are aimed at covering this invisible distance
between the affected village and the urban centre – to put it simply, to
show what development looks like in reality. We organised the event Under
Development: Singur at Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre from 27th June
to 2nd July 2008. The event comprised a photo exhibition of our photos from
Singur, a film festival on development and a panel discussion 'on
representation of development and displacement' where the speakers were
Samik Bandyopadhyay, Kavita Punjabi and Rajarshi Dasgupta. The discussion
was moderated by Paromita Chakravarti.

In July, we succeeded in taking a slideshow of our photographs to Singur.
Our aim, well-fulfilled, was to enable the people of Singur to see how they
were being represented by us.

In accordance with out current plans, we wish to visit schools in and around
Kolkata and sensitize students about development in West Bengal and India
and about the fall-out of such modes of development in places like Singur.
Importantly, we intend to take the Photo Exhibition (even as it grows over
time, or changes over our further visits to Singur) to other places in
India, and to initiate dialogue there about Singur, development, land,
political violence, etc.

However, we should stress that we have not been to Singur as unaffected
photographers who are there to snatch images and leave. We plan to introduce
alternative means of livelihood for people who have for generations been
based in agriculture. Unhappily, the government's promises that alternative
training and employment shall be the norm rather than the exception among
all peoples displaced from land and/or livelihood have been resoundingly
empty. Even in our limited ways, we hope that we shall, in a few months, be
able to organise training workshops in Singur on certain alternative means
of livelihood.

We have two blogs:  http://development-dialogues.blogspot.com and
http://citizensinitiativecal.blogspot.com.

We can be contacted at citizensinitiativecal at gmail.com




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Political background of Singur since 2006

As soon as the seventh CPI (M)-led Left Front government was sworn in on
18th May 2006, CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee lost no time in announcing an
ambitious initiative as part of the larger drive to 'industrialise' the
state. Accompanied by Ratan Tata and a team of top executives, he announced
a small-car factory to be set up by Tata Motors in Singur, Hooghly. While
Ratan Tata complimented the state on its investor-friendliness, reactions on
the ground at Singur were hostile – with repeated protests by villagers when
different concerned people, such as a team from Tata Motors, visited the
area.

While traditionally the area had been a CPI (M)-dominated one, villagers
gathered under a newly formed platform 'Krishi Jomi Rokkha Committee' ('Save
Farmland Committee'). On 30th May, they protested in front of the state
commerce and industries minister Nirupam Sen. On 1st June, they assembled in
the thousands for another protest in front of the Singur Block Development
Officer. However, on 20th July the state went ahead with a notice for land
acquisition under the colonial-era Land Acquisition Act, for a total of
997.11 acres of land.

Massive protests followed in August and September, with about 5000 people
turning up for protests outside the Gopalnagar Gram Panchayat and the Singur
Block Development Office. The move to acquire land was also challenged in
the Kolkata High Court (this was to be later dismissed in 2008). Yet
compensation cheques for land-losers began to be handed out on 25th
September, with a simultaneous protest by about 10,000 villagers in which
chief of the opposition party, the Trinamul Congress (henceforth TMC),
Mamata Banerjee, also took part.

Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code was imposed, banning the assembly
of more than 5 persons, and soon on 26th September the protests saw the
first death, that of a 24-year old man. Around this time, the issue saw
greater mainstream political mobilisation with the TMC and some supporting
parties calling a 12-hour Bengal strike on 9th October; well-known social
activist Medha Patkar also joined the fray and addressed a rally on 27th
October at Bajemelia, Singur. Meanwhile, there were ground reports of CPI
(M) cadres allegedly destroying water pumps to render arable lands
unsuitable for farming. This was to set the tone for future acts of
repression.

While November 2006 saw two major rallies – one on the 17th when Mamata
Banerjee of TMC commenced a three-day march to Singur, the other on 19th at
Bajemelia, Singur where more than 7000 villagers gathered and about 800
police personnel were deployed – the month ended with the police and CPI (M)
cadres preventing Mamata from going to Singur, sparking violence across the
state. Close on the heels of a statewide TMC bandh on 1st December, police
and CPI (M) cadres terrorised villagers, burning houses and beating up those
opposed to land acquisition. Even as Mamata went on a 25-day fast and
fourteen village women from Beraberi Purbopara, Singur, started a hunger
strike to protest police repression, an eighteen year-old girl who had taken
part in the protests, Tapasi Malik, was found raped and burnt in the Tata
factory premises. This resulted in more mainstream political mobilisation
and allegations of corruption in the state police's investigation of the
case, following which the Government handed over the investigation to the
Central Bureau of Investigation in mid-January.

January 2007 saw the ceremonial commencement of the construction of the
factory - even as activists cited discrepancies in official figures of the
number of farmers who had allegedly given up their land voluntarily, and
farmers protested the withholding of irrigation water from pumps inside the
fenced-off factory area. Incidents of farmers attacking the factory fences
were reported January onward, while some urban civil activism became visible
with non-partisan citizens holding protests in late January in Kolkata.
Incidents of police action on protesting farmers continued in February, and
while the Kolkata High Court overruled the latest imposition of Section 144
by the State, it upheld the acquisition procedure as lawful. In response to
this, attempts by villagers to reclaim land only increased, as did the
number of suicides by those who had lost their land throughout the months
leading up to the by-elections for two seats in Singur in May. Farmers
repeatedly attacked the factory walls but met with violent police reactions.
In June, Living and Livelihood with Human Dignity (LALHUD), a voluntary
organisation found that over 90% of the villagers whose land had been
forcibly acquired were severely traumatised. The CBI, in the meantime, made
its first arrests for the murder of Tapasi Malik, including CPI (M) Hooghly
district committee member Suhrid Dutta. Apparently unmoved by the persistent
protests by farmers, in November, the state government sanctioned Rs 7.78
crore to improve drainage within the Tata factory site at the cost of
possibly flooding neighbouring villages – in prompt response to this over
1,500 villagers held a rally in Singur but the troubling number of farmers'
suicides did not abate as the long year drew to a close.

On 7th January, 2008, the CPI(M) was voted out of the management of a Singur
school, while almost at the same time on 10th January, Ratan Tata launched
the Tata Nano in New Delhi amidst much fanfare. In addition to this, on 19th
January the Calcutta High Court dismissed allegations of improper and
illegal acquisition of 997 acres at Singur, causing doctors to fear that
this would only aggravate the rate of suicides by affected farmers.
Aggrieved by the verdict, farmers of Singur blocked the Durgapur expressway
to register their protest. The panchayat elections of 2008 saw the Left
Front losing all the seats in Singur in May 2008.

Buoyed by the election victory, Mamata Banerjee announced on 26th May 2008
that the 400 acres of land which belongs to unwilling farm owners who have
not even collected their compensation cheques, must be returned to the farm
owners. On 20th July crude bombs were hurled by farmers protesting against
the factory in Singur railway station and at Mainak Lodge, a guest house
where workers of the Tata Motors plant were staying. Workers coming to the
Tata Motors factory were stopped and beaten up by SKJRC members. The next
day, Manish Khatua, an employee of Shapoorji Pallonji working at the Tata
Motors factory was beaten up by SKJRC members. On 1st August, a group of
farmers forced their way into the small car project site from the
Khasherbheri side and allegedly beat up several workers and seven security
guards. In another incident, some construction workers and two policemen
were allegedly beaten up by some supporters of SKJRC on Durgapur Expressway
near the project site. The attack took place when some policemen were
escorting the workers to Singur railway station. On 3rd August the TMC
announced that they would set up camps for an indefinite period from 24
August all along the 4 km-long stretch on the highway in front of the Tata
plant to press its demand for return of 400 acres of land acquired forcibly
from farmers. Protest marches in Singur by both the Left Front and the SKJRC
and the Congress preceded the commencement of the sit-in on the highway in
front of the factory. The TMC carried out a sit-in from 24th August and this
siege was withdrawn only on 7th September after a meeting moderated by the
governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, the state government agreed to allot as much
land as possible from inside or near the Tata factory to some unwilling farm
owners.

















Profiles of some of the villages we visited:

Dobandi: Dobandi is a village of about 95 families (with, on an average, 5
members in each family), all of whom are members of the Scheduled Castes.
Caste is one of the reasons for the continuing poverty of the people of
Dobandi. The residents are landless farm labourers. This village is the
worst hit as the land they used to work on has been taken over for the Tata
Motors factory. Now, the people have to walk a long way and find work
elsewhere. Even this work is at reduced wages. Previously, being farm
labourers, they did not have to buy food grains as they used to take their
share from the land they used to work on. Now, they have to buy food grains.

Joymollah: Joymollah is primarily a Muslim village. Whereas some families
are as poor as the people of Dobandi, some are better off. As a result there
are both mud houses and concrete houses. Most of the women are into hand
embroidery. Some of the men are also into carpentry outside Singur. As a
result, they have some sort of an alternate livelihood. The women who are
into embroidery however are paid very little for their efforts. For
embroidering a double-bed-sheet, they are paid Rs.40

Khaserbheri: Mostly comprising people who owned land. As a result, they have
been badly affected as their only source of income has been taken away from
them. They made a living somehow from their reserve stocks but now that it
has run out, and they are in a very bad state. The village is better off
than villages like Dobandi and Joymollah. About 30 women in this village are
also into hand embroidery.

Beraberi Purbopara: Situated next to Beraberi market, this village comprises
mostly families who were landowners. After the first batch of 5 families
which voluntarily gave up their land, the other 195 families in this village
have not agreed to give up any land at all though most of them have lost
some or all of their land. Most families have some source of income other
than farming, usually a job outside Singur. As a result, they have been able
to continue with their lives in Singur.

Bajemelia: One of the largest villages in Singur. Tapasi Malik, an eighteen
year old girl from this village, was raped and murdered within the Tata
Motors premises in December 2006. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)
later arrested CPI (M) Hooghly district committee member Suhrid Dutta for
planning and carrying out this murder. The village has been at the forefront
of the protests against the factory ever since this gruesome incident.

Ujjwal Sangha: Another village which comprises residents who are mostly
members of the Scheduled Castes. This village is more prosperous than
Dobandi. Ujjwal Sangha is the first village in Singur where the protests
against the then proposed Tata Motors factory started.
















Special Economic Zones (SEZ)

Though Singur has not officially been notified as an SEZ by the government,
the Tata Motors area has been functioning as an SEZ. An SEZ as defined by
the SEZ Act, 2005 is an area of land which is owned and operated by private
companies and is outside the purview of several laws of the land like the
Minimum Wages Act, panchayat system (SEZs have their own governing bodies),
revenue duties like sales tax, income tax, service tax, etc. The Indian
government plans to create about 500 SEZs across the country, more than what
exists across the entire world. China, India's model for economic growth had
less than 10 SEZs and out of these all have proved unsuccessful except for
the largest one – Shenzen. Whereas in China, the SEZs were built on
wastelands, in India and especially in West Bengal, rich farmland like those
in Singur and Nandigram have been targeted. Owing to the vast areas of land
on which these SEZs are being built (997 acres in Singur and 10,000 acres
had been planned in Nandigram), building SEZs will create displacement of
unprecedented proportions. It is not as if these SEZs will provide local
jobs for only skilled engineers will be permanently given employment at such
sites. The vast areas of land in which some Indian laws will not be
applicable but in their place, laws laid down by the private company owning
the SEZ will prevail will make these SEZs corporate city-states. Also, the
SEZ act makes it valid to allocate up to 75% of the SEZ for non-industrial
purposes. As a result, the land under the SEZ can be used for real estate.

The SEZ economic policy of the Indian government is also feared to trigger
mass scale food crisis in India as agricultural land is converted into
industrial land.

Whereas, the CPI (M)-led government of West Bengal has been campaigning for
SEZs in the state, they have been protesting against SEZs in other states.
Brinda Karat of the CPI (M) has organized anti-SEZ rallies in Maharashtra.
The CPI (M) is using the same points to argue against SEZs in other states
which critics in West Bengal have levelled against the CPI (M) in West
Bengal.

Almost all the notified SEZs in India have been protested against by the
local residents as they will be displaced and be paid either miniscule
compensation or none at all. State terror is being used to forcibly evict
the residents on these lands and acquire such land for SEZs.

More information on SEZs can be found at
http://development-dialogues.blogspot.com/search/label/SEZ