[Reader-list] Citizens' Initiative's report on Singur (part 2)

[Citizens' Initiative]

EXTRACTS FROM OUR SINGUR NOTEBOOKS

Disclaimer:


The following pages (10 -14) are a brief attempt to give you an overview of
our experiences in Singur. This document makes no claims towards
quantitative or statistical truth; it is an affective record of what we have
seen and heard. It simply tries to give you snippets of our interactions
with the villagers in Singur, our thoughts on their lives after Tata and our
primary understanding/ analyses of the situation.

We would sincerely request you not to quote or make citations from these 5
pages.

However, the idea is to share and disseminate what we have experienced
within the terms in which that experience can (at the moment) be framed –
informal, largely unprocessed, affective, and based on personal interactions
with the villagers.

We do, of course, have the audio files and video clippings (that the
following conversations have been transcribed from) to support this document
in our recorded archives.

>From February to August, the Citizens' Initiative has made nine visits to
Singur: on 17 February, on 23-24 February, 30 March, 19th April, 18th May,
14th June, 22nd June, 27th July, and 29th August.

The purposes of these visits have been diverse – from photo-documenting to
taking relief collected for the people of Dobandi. But on each of these
visits we have spoken to the men and women of Dobandi, Khaserbheri,
Purbopara and Joymollah. This document is a brief attempt to record these
interactions.

Several of us had made notes regarding our observations during the
visit/visits. Following are some of our write-ups from our first visit in
February, complete in the moods and preoccupations particular to each author
(which is to say, these little reports have not been subjected to any
serious textual screening, and that they do not carry any editorial
intervention yet). The write-ups inevitably overlap on certain grounds, but
perhaps that overlapping serves to underline those areas that stood out with
particular force to us.




















1.    By Trina Banerjee: 18th February, 2008.


We went to Singur on the 17th with Aseem Shrivastava, spent the day there,
walked over a few kilometers and spoke to people in about five villages. We
have photographs and some audio recordings.

Briefly, people in Dobandi (a village full of landless labourers just
outside the factory walls) are all but starving. They are unlikely to
survive without our urgent attention and relief. They have no money to buy
milk for their babies, and they are fast running out of resources and food.
If we want to keep these people from migrating to the city as destitutes in
a few months, we have to reach out to them urgently with some relief.

Some of the local men and boys from this village have been employed as
guards at the Tata factory. But they say they have not been paid their
salary for four months.

Villagers in Beraberi Purbopara say that eight sacks (400 kgs) of harvested
potatoes were stolen from the fields near Khaserbheri day before yesterday.
This, according to the angry villagers, has hardly ever happened before. In
their parlance, "before" always means before the Tata factory came up.

An 80-year-old woman in Purbopara said to me:  "This is the first time in my
life I am being forced to buy rationed rice. We always ate out of our own
fields. We were self-sufficient"

Women in Beraberi Purbopara are making festoons with ribbons (12 festoons
cost Rs 2 and are taken by vendors from the city) to try and make some
money. They are also embroidering bed covers for measly returns.

Most women in Dobandi have to leave their children and infants behind all
day to work in fields that are 6 to 7 km away. They leave home at 3 am
everyday and walk for 3 to 4 hrs and back again at the end of the day,
sometimes quite late in the evening. They are paid anything from Rs. 30 Rs.
50 per day. And this amount, the women say, is likely to go down as summer
arrives. The landowners who employ the labourers know that they have no
other option. Most of this money is spent on buying rice for the large
families, there is little left over for anything else – even basic medicine
for the sick.

The people who have been given alternative houses near Dobandi live in the
middle of the field right next to a high factory wall. 8 to 10 people live
in each room with no trees and no shade, and with little access to water. To
me, they look like ghettos, not villages or settlements. They were flooded
waist-high when it rained because the natural drainage system of the area
has been damaged for good by the factory constructions. Marks of the flood
waters can be seen on the walls.

Finally, the factory is built like a fortress. There are walls inside walls.
It is surrounded by a moat (probably meant to carry out waste water but
something that also acts as an effective deterrent to intruders) and wire
fences in places. The floodlights point outwards to the fields not inwards.
There are watchtowers (machas) at regular intervals; every entrance is
guarded by police or local young men employed as guards.

The people are very angry. They said: "They are taking away our land, our
country, our earth. They are sending a thousand policemen to uproot a few
villagers."







2.    From the Notebook of Dibyajyoti Ghosh, Citizens' Initiative: February,
2008.

•    The villagers welcome any kind of support but they want immediate
results.
•    The landowners in Khaserbheri were better off compared to villagers in
Dobandi. Some of them also work in Kolkata. Many are into carpentry.
•    According to most of the villagers, only 5 out of the 200 families in
Beraberi Purbopara gave up their land readily and continue to be CPI (M)
supporters.
•    The rest of the villagers say that they have not received their
compensation cheques. They add that they are also not interested in
compensation.
•    The uncompensated villagers say that even if they had the money they
would not know how to spend it. Previously, they would buy more land with
what they earned. Now they wouldn't know what to do.
•    Some people from Dobandi said they refused jobs offered by the Tata
factory. Others said that they weren't offered any jobs at all.



3.    General Observations from Kenneth Bo Nielsen, Faculty of Social
Anthropology, University of Oslo, Resident Researcher at Singur for Several
Months from 2007to 2008: From the Notebooks of Insiya Poonawala. February,
2008.


1.    At any point farmers would grow at least 3 regular crops on the land
like paddy, jute, and potato. In addition to they would plant more in
between, growing up to about 7 crops a year.
2.    There has been a steady stream of researchers, journalists and fact
finding teams coming to Singur from different parts of Bengal and other
states.  Individual researchers have come from other countries like Spain.
3.    Attention is well-received by the villagers. They are not tired of
talking to outsiders. They think that these people would perhaps do
something for them.
4.    This was a prosperous area on the whole. The villagers had a steady
income from farms as well as from jobs as teachers and carpenters. This was
the ideal combination for any family – a mix of farming and non-farming
activity.
5.    5 out of 200 families gave up their lands.
6.    People who have received compensation don't know what they would do
with such a huge one-time amount.
7.    The political affiliations are quite evenly balanced between the CPI
(M) and TMC. There is some intimidation, but it is not very intense.
8.    Some police presence is there in the villages and a good number is
present inside the factory.
9.    Villagers have no milk for themselves and their babies because they
were forced to sell their cows to make ends meet. The children are highly
malnourished now.
10.    The highway has not actually helped the Singur farmers because, even
when they did have crops to transport, they used the train, and not the
road.
11.    Most of the tube wells have fallen inside the Tata premises. So the
neighbouring land cannot be adequately irrigated.
12.    Inside the factory there is extra land for vendors (manufacturers of
spare parts for the car).
13.    During the monsoon this year, the factory pumped all the water that
had collected in their enclosure into the neighbouring land outside. And
this flooded the area beyond the factory walls.



>From the notebook of Insiya Poonawala, The Citizens' Initiative:  February,
2008.
>From a conversation with Tea-Shop Owner at Beraberi Bazaar:

1.    Singur used to be a peaceful place and people were not very used to
violence and clashes with police.
2.    Two major sets of clashes took place in 2006, on 25th September and on
2nd December.
3.    The villages of Dobandi and Ujjwal Sangha are worst hit. The villagers
here belong to the Scheduled Castes.  They were mostly land labourers who
have now lost their jobs.


>From a Conversation with a Dobandi Inhabitant:

1.    He said he had been protesting with some other villagers against land
acquisition even before the TMC came in.
2.    Those left jobless after land acquisition now have to find work
elsewhere outside the village. On an average they have to travel for 30
minutes to work.
3.    Earlier the villagers had enough to eat.
4.    Now, even the women have to work to support their families.
5.    Villagers were told that these lands were not fertile. The police and
the CPI (M) cadres don't let villagers re-build the tube wells that were
forcefully broken.




(More of what this interviewee said is on audio.)
>From a Conversation with a Dobandi Resident Now Working in a Factory in
Liluah:

1.    The most fertile bit of land has been taken up by the factory
premises.
2.    The villagers cannot differentiate between the police and CPI (M)
cadres.
3.    Only those who gave up their land voluntarily got compensation
cheques.
4.    The interviewee said that he did not ask for any compensation.
5.    He said he is yet to decide if he wants compensation. He wants his
land back.
6.    Their tube wells were broken by force. The villagers were not allowed
to repair them.


>From a Conversation with a Relocated Resident:

1.    The interviewee said her family had two rooms in the house that fell
inside the factory premises.
2.    Now five of them have been given one small room in the housing
provided by the state government.
3.    Her husband has been given a guard's job in the factory.
4.    They have not paid him his salary for several months.
5.    Tata had promised work and housing. But no compensation was discussed.








>From a Conversation with another Relocated Resident:

1.     Seven members of her family have been given one small room.
2.    Her husband has been employed as a guard at the factory and has not
been paid for 4 months. His salary was fixed at Rs. 2100 per month.
3.    Only one male member from each family has been employed as a guard.
They work 5 days a week in eight-hour long shifts.
4.    They had a house inside the factory. They refused to give it up, but
police came and broke it down.


General Observations:

-         The Tata Motors shed is only perhaps about 10% of the entire land
acquired. This emerged from discussions with locals, resident students and
experts on SEZ.
-         The factory's strategic location is just off the national highway
part of the Golden Quadrangle.
-  The entire population can be divided into 3 sets of people:
1.    Those who have lost their lands but retain their houses: we met these
people mainly in the village of Dobandi. They are willing to talk openly and
voice their discontent. No jobs or compensation have been offered to them as
they did not give up their land willingly. Both the men and the women have
to travel long distances outside the village to find employment, often
leaving their children with older members of the family. Earlier, the men
worked full time on fields. The women assisted them as well as looked after
the children. The older children went to school and also helped with the
farming.
2.    Those who have lost both their lands and their houses: this is a more
bitter lot, slightly reluctant to talk, and mistrustful of outsiders. The
two women I spoke to were of the opinion that we would not be able to do
much for them. We were there to make notes, write reports in the city, and
not really do anything to change their lot.
3.    Those who voluntarily gave up their land: they comprise just 5 out of
the 200 families in Beraberi Purbopara. They were very reluctant to talk.
They did not say much except that they have been paid their compensation.
They also said that they are being paid their salaries on time. They seem to
be treated like outcasts by other villagers. There is a great deal of
resentment against them because they have given up their land.

>From the Notebook of Amrita Dhar, Citizens' Initiative: February, 2008.

Observations on Dobandi:

1.    The village of Dobandi is situated to the north of the Beraberi
Bazaar. It is a small one-road village, consisting of approximately 95
families, with (on an average) 5 members to each family.
2.    It is 1 of 2 villages consisting entirely of Scheduled Caste people.
(The other is Ujjwal Sangha.)
3.    Dobandi consists entirely of landless farm labourers. The people here
used to earn their living from the land, but by working on land belonging to
other people. Now that the land has been taken away, they have neither land
to work on, nor hope for any compensation. (In fact, landless labourers are
probably entitled to 25% of the price of the land they used to work on. But
they do not seem to either know or care.) For the most part, the men travel
long distances every day now in order to find work. The women join them too,
and this leaves the children in the care of the very old and feeble. This is
no safe arrangement for either the very young or the very old, but this
seems to be the only option now.
4.    Most families who earlier on owned cows have now sold them for want of
fields to graze the animals on. One major result is the lack of milk for the
children. Most children in the village are thin and have an unhealthy
pot-belly. Clearly, these are signs of malnutrition.
5.    For the first time, the villagers are not self-sufficient in terms of
food. They have to buy their food. It was land that used to provide them
with food. Now, they have to buy food grains. Since they cannot afford to do
so all the time, they have to supplement rice with 'muri, 'ruti', etc.

Here are the chief areas of physical distress or discomfort at Dobandi:

1.    Most villagers complained of cough and cold. However, this was
probably the follow-through of the winter. This was perhaps also because the
children did not have enough warm clothing.
2.    Dysentery and other stomach-problems were common complaints.
3.    Psychological and mental unease – amounting even to trauma – is
apparent in most men and women; the continued uncertainty about where their
next meal will come from along with the inability to provide for their
children and the aged have been added to the anxiety about finding work the
next day.
4.    Women seem to have certain problems that they do not wish to express
to a group consisting of both men and women.

Indications of administrative laxness include:

1.    Several villagers in Dobandi complained of a dysfunctional dispensary
and clinic at Singur (Dobandi has no clinic or dispensary). Even if and when
the doctor is there for consultation, no more than prescriptions are
forthcoming. Most villagers complained that the free distribution of
medicines except painkillers almost never happens. Villagers also admit that
they are lax about taking care of themselves, besides the fact that they
often cannot afford the prescribed medicines.






TESTIMONIES OF THE PEOPLE OF SINGUR

Transcriptions from Our Audio Files: 17th February 2008

The following are a few of the transcriptions we made from audio recordings
from the 17th February visit. They may serve only as indication of the kind
of responses we received. Nevertheless, a fairly wide range of issues
demanding urgent attention came up during these conversations. Again, the
transcriptions given here have not been screened textually, but we hope the
import is readily accessible in each case. The headings in bold are names of
the audio files as we acquired them. Taken together, the files cover almost
all the places, or all the five villages, that we visited on 17th February.

Dobandi 1

Female villager 1: Now, we do not have any land to work on. Previously, we
used to make a living off the farms. But now that the land has been taken
away, there is nothing we can do.

CI: What do you do now?
Female villager 1: Now we wake up at 3 am and walk for miles to find work.

CI: How many of you go to work elsewhere?
Female villager 1: Everyone in the village.

CI: When do you return?
Female villager 1: At 5 in the evening.

CI: What about the children?
Female villager 1: They have a lot of problems.

CI: Were you better off previously?
Female villager 1: Yes.

CI: What about those who have babies?
Female villager 1: They have to leave their babies behind and go to work
elsewhere. They have no option.

CI: Do you work 7 days a week?
Female villager 1: Yes.

CI: Has your earning come down?
Female villager 1: Yes, a lot.

CI: How many members are there in your family?
Female villager 1: 6, including one bed-ridden person.

CI: Do the women having any specific problems?
Female villager 1: Yes, we have to wake up at 3 am, do all the household
chores, work till 5pm, return home, and then again do all the household
work.

CI: Do you get paid daily?
Female villager 1: Yes, I get paid Rs. 50 a day

CI: Are the men paid more?
Female villager 1: Men do not carry hay, they work in potato fields. They
are paid more. They get about Rs. 70 as they work more in the fields.


Dobandi 2

CI: How would you describe life before the Tata factory?
Female villager 2: Previously, we were much better. We did not own land, but
we worked as farm labourers on land that falls within the factory premises.
Now, we have to wake up at about 2.30 am and walk for about 2 or 2 1/2
hours.

CI: Do you get paid daily?
Female villager 2: Yes, I get paid Rs. 40 for working in the paddy field.
Now, it is the harvest season. But with less work in summer, we will get
paid Rs 30 or Rs 35.

CI: Are you being paid much less now?
Female villager 2: Yes, much less. Now we get almost half of what we used
to.

CI: Did they ask you when they took away the land?
Female villager 2: We do not own land. They did not ask us. Now, we find it
very difficult to find food for everyone.

CI: How old are you?
Female villager 2: About 30

CI: How many children do you have?
Female villager 2: I have a 17-year-old daughter who is now married She has
two sons and a daughter. They live with me.

CI: Are you having problems getting hold of food?
Female villager 2: Yes, I have mortgaged my utensils and jewellery to get
hold of money. Now, my son-in-law is always drinking and refuses to work.

CI: Why did you marry off your daughter to someone like him?
Female villager 2: I did not realise that he was a drunkard. Shall I provide
food for him or for the children? I have not allowed him to enter the house
for four days. He is lying there, drunk.The health facility is very
expensive. Last Thursday, we had to buy medicines worth Rs. 60. The doctor
said that we should take the patient (a member of the family) to a better
clinic. The doctor is going to come here on Monday.

CI: Was this at a hospital?
Female villager 2: No, the hospital is at Bajemelia. This was at the local
medicine shop where there is also a doctor. The doctor charges Rs. 50. The
patient is emitting blood along with stool.



Outraged Men 1 (in Khaserbheri)

CI: What crops do you grow?
Male Villager1: Sesame seeds, potatoes, aubergines, cabbages, onions,
pumpkin, lady's finger, rice and gourd.

CI: How many crops do you grow every year?
Male Villager1: Four main crops and the rest are grown along with these main
crops. We grow about twelve crops in total.

Male Villager2: Now, every year, the area outside the factory walls will be
flooded.

CI: Why?
Male Villager2: Because they will drive out the water from the 997 acres.
Previously, water which used to be distributed over a larger expanse of land
will now be distributed over a smaller area. So the areas outside the
factory walls will be flooded much more than they used to be.
Male Villager3: Also, they have broken down our natural drainage system. So
there is no way for the water to drain out. The government is telling
everyone that Singur is not an extremely fertile land, that we grow one main
crop a year.

CI: We heard in Dobandi that they are breaking down even the tube wells that
are outside their premises so that the farmers are unable to farm.
Male Villager1: Yes, that is true.
Male Villager2: The guards of the Tata factory are stealing potatoes from
our fields. They stole six sacks of potatoes (each weighing 50 kg) last
night.


Male Villagers (outside Dobandi)

CI: Did the people of Dobandi previously eke out a proper living from what
they earned from the fields?
Male Villager 4: Some farmers used to take lands from big landowners and
take half of the profit from the land and used to give the other half to the
landowner. Then there are farm labourers who work on those farmlands. The
farm labourers used to get Rs. 60 or 70 daily. But now, all this has
stopped. The government never thinks about the daily labourers. Now the farm
labourers have to work for Rs. 30 or 40 elsewhere.
Male Villager 5: Shankar Patra committed suicide.

CI (to Male Villager 4): What work do you do?
Male Villager 4: I work in a small private company.

CI: Where do you work?
Male Villager 4: I work in Liluah.

CI: How many people are there in your family?
Male Villager 4: We are a family of four and I am the only earning member.

Kenneth: Kalipada Majhi, who died recently, didn't die solely of starvation
but also of other problems related to malnutrition.
Dobandi 3

CI: What problems do you think you will face because of the factory?
Villager: We think it will be very difficult for us. We will not be able to
eat. We are out of work since the land is gone.

CI: Is there no other work?
Villager: There is work on temporary basis for 2-4 days at a time.

CI: Are you thinking of going to the city in search for work?
Villager: Not at all, how do you think we would be able to manage to live
and work there? Now we worry only about what we will eat for the next meal.

CI: Has any compensation offer been made yet?
Villager: No, no one has told us anything in that regard. Only those who had
land are getting compensation.

CI: How many members are there in your family?
Villager: About 12 of us.

CI: And many of them have to go far away for work, is it so?
Villager: Yes, to Kamarkundu, Singur.

CI: Earlier would you (the lady in question) too work on the land?
Villager: Yes.

CI: There is some infertile land. The Tatas didn't buy that?
Villager: No only the land on which farming was done has been bought by
them… Dada fell ill. There was no money to buy medicines.

CI: Is there any hospital here?
Villager: Yes, there is a Health Center here, but they don't treat well
there. They only write prescriptions. One has to buy medicines themselves.
There is a hospital at Singur, in the same state.

CI: What kind of assistance is most wanted? Clothes? Food? Money?
Villager: Rice and clothes would be very useful.

[Some talk of an eye injury that one boy suffered]

Female Villager: When we visited the Health Center, we had to pay Rs. 110 as
fees, plus Rs. 50 as 'current' charge. The boy, 26, had gone to a michhil,
about a year ago, where he fell asleep. Not realizing that tear gas was
being shot at them, he remained there while the others fled. He cannot do
any heavy or straining work anymore.






Dobandi 4

Female Villager: It is a great problem finding work around here. We have to
go about 300 m away from here. We wake up at 2 in the night to set out for
work, leaving our children fast asleep. Many a times if there is no work, we
have to go that far and return empty handed.


Women Embroidering, Khaserbheri

CI: How long to you take to make one of these? [Embroidery on, roughly, a 2
metre cloth]
Female Villager: It takes 2 days for something like this.

CI: So people give you the cloth for this?
Female Villager: Yes, they give cloth and the money.

CI: You have begun this work only recently, or would you do this earlier as
well?
Female Villager: We have been doing this only recently.

CI: For those of you who worked on the land, how are you surviving now?
Female Villager: We are managing somehow. The girls are doing this
embroidery work. It has become very difficult for us to survive. The land is
gone. It was our source of food – potato, cabbage, parwals etc. We did not
want to give up the land. We were coerced into it by the Police. They hit us
and broke our houses as well.

CI: Our newspapers tell us that people of Singur do not want to farm any
more. It isn't correct, is it?
Female Villager: We live off our land, of course it is incorrect!


Potato farmer, Purbopara:

CI: What did they tell you first when they came asking for the land? City
newspapers are wrong in saying that people here don't want to farm anymore,
isn't it?
Male Villager: Of course. We love working on the land.

[Some joke is shared]

Male Villager: Children are learning to read and write. One of my sons is
studying and the other works in Kolkata. Even those who are young wish to
work on the land itself, rather than going far away to work. As long as our
soil yields crops, we would want to continue working on it.

CI: How was the land taken away?
Male Villager: Countless number of policemen came with guns and tear gas,
and destroyed a lot of our property.

Another Man: apart from Janashakti and Anandabazar, we do not trust any
other newspaper.

[Another joke about the potato farmer's  age]


Government Housing 2

Male Villager: He that is the Minister, it's all his, and he is the
be-all-and-the-end-all of all things. When we protest against anything [the
evacuation being refereed to, here], well, they kicked us in the stomach.
With their boots on, they kicked us in the stomach. What can we say?

CI: He says that there are 2 parties now… and this year … CM…

Woman: If there is a flood, won't the water stand?

[There is some discussion on the flooding and the kinds of rice that are
grown. There is a very mixed jumble, too many voices]

If we have to die, we shall die, but we won't work for them. We also
belonged to the CPM party, but we don't any longer. Now when they come to
us, we too shall kick them in the chest like they did to us. We don't
believe anything they tell us any more. They shall certainly not receive any
votes from us any more.

Man: Salary? What salary? When the Government pays us, I shall have my
salary. Which Government? Our Buddhadeb government.  Is this a Government?
Is this a democracy? Indeed, the British never ruled us this much, or like
this. Is this a Government, or the son of a dog? It favours only the rich
and the powerful. It only says, 'Give up your lands, and move out'.

CI: Are you still affiliated to the CPM?
Man: No, no, never. I have never voted for the CPM. Then as now. I am
fighting against oppression now, and that is what I have always done.
Whether you give us compensation or not, what difference does it make
anymore? For the poor, what difference will it make, where we live, whether
on the road or the footpath? For the blind, what difference does it make
whether it is night, or day? This government is not of the poor, it is of
the rich and mighty. We were serving rice. Lunch, for the kids – they would
come in after their bath and have lunch. They started kicking us out then.
Some one and a half thousand police came to evacuate us, to make us leave.
The pots of water theta were standing on the floor, they kicked and
overturned those. And these, here, are my children. This is my younger
daughter. They cry for food.

CI: Do you go to work everyday?
Man No, as they never paid me, I didn't go to work. I don't want that work.
I am not going to do that work. I am not interested.

CI: But you have enrolled for the work…?
Man: Name? O, but so what? Does that mean I have sold my head and soul to
them? I am willing to work…

CI: Are there many like you, who have enrolled this way?
Man: Yes. Some of them go, some don't…

CI: Did you go for all four months? You haven't been going for the last
fifteen days…?
Man: I haven't been going for the last fifteen days. Two months passed, with
no salary. I have six in my family who depend entirely on me. I have to find
some other way to feed my family.

CI: Did you go everyday at the outset?
Man: Yes. I have been going for a year.

CI: Are they teaching any skills/work to any of the people here?
Man: No. Yes, sometimes, maybe. We hear of training centers in Belur Math.
Those that they do take for such training are the people with contacts. The
ones who are taken are sons of the leaders, the local CPI (M) leaders, for
instance, or their relations. The poor are not taken. Neither are those
without such contacts. And when there is unrest and fighting, then they call
us. They tell us, 'Go forward, onward!' They then give the poor 5 kilos of
rice, 5 kilos of dal, a shirt, a blanket, and then they say, 'Come on, take
up your staffs, your sticks, onward!' And then, fed, we go with them. For
those few meals, however little that is. And those who have to take
advantage of the situation, well, they go ahead and do just that from the
side. If anyone wants to go out and speak the truth, they remove them right
from the face of the earth. Then they think that now the dumb can speak, and
the blind can see. They want to remove them right from the face of the
earth, then.

Another man [who has been hearing all of this so far, in encouragement to
the first man]: Long live. Well said!

Dobandi 7

[Confused sounds. General complains, more in mood than in actual words.]

CI: Has your income decreased greatly, since the work on the land has
stopped?
Woman: Yes, enormously. Now we work from day to day, and at reduced wages.
How can we buy two and a half kilos of rice? We never had to this before.
Now we have to buy, at great prices, and yet have to supplement the rice
with muri, ruti…

Khaserbheri

CI: So they [people who belong to the CPM] only make a show of resistance
now, do they?
Man: Yes. If they really resist, won't they have to give up their cushions
there with the Tatas?

CI: Are all of you in the Trinamul now?
Man: No, not all, no. But the thing is, when someone gets deeply hurt, don't
they even have to forget his parents? When people get hurt after alliance
with one party, they choose the opposition to that party, do they not? The
land is ours by birth and work. If one takes away that land from us, how are
we supposed to feel? They who earlier on assured us of land, who taught us
to fight for it, they are now taking our land away from us…

[They talk of history, of the Tebhaga Andolan very close to here, and how
the CPI (M) came to power in the first place. Trina explains this, probably
to Aseem.]

Look at the Gujarat case. Who knows exactly what happened between the Hindus
and the Muslims there? And they started spreading the news here that they
[the Hindus] were killing off the Muslims. That the BJP Government is
killing off the Muslims. When they have these big processions [michhils], do
they consist of people from our place? They [the CPI (M)] bring in people
from the Bankura and Bardhaman districts against pay. They are paid about Rs
70 per day. These are people who are daily labourers. If one attends these
meetings, one has to pay Rs 100. If one doesn't, one has to pay Rs 200.

Exchange with Aseem Shrivastava and Kenneth Bo Nielsen

CI: Is the extra land for vendors?
Kenneth: Yes. Inside, you will find a much higher wall and inside the real
factory is coming up. I have never tried going inside. They have speeded up
the construction only recently. The whole area was flooded till October
2007. They only started building properly since then.
Aseem: The whole area is so large that I doubt whether the factory will
occupy the entire area. A large area will be leased out to vendors.

CI: So, there will be a self-sufficient city with vendors, the factory and
the residential area.
Aseem: There are provisions within the SEZ Act which make it difficult for
the Indian constitution and the Indian Penal Code to function within the
SEZs.



Tea shop outside Dobandi

Man: I used to previously farm within the factory premises. They even
forcefully took away my harvest. My ancestors were also farmers. They never
made me a 'borga'.

CI: How long have you been protesting?
Man: From the beginning, when the Trinamul Congress hadn't come here. We
went to Ujjwal Sangha with 50-60 people. Then the Trinamul Congress came and
we had a meeting at the school premises.

CI: What's happening now?
Man: It's difficult to sustain ourselves now. The poorest and most
hard-working people live in Dobandi. We go to work far away. We have to walk
for 20-30 minutes to reach our workplace. I am working but not many people
in our village have much work.

CI: Were you offered any compensation?
Man: No

CI: Were you threatened?
Man: The police threatened us. The police said you will get some money,
leave the land. We refused. There was a lot of trouble regarding this.

CI: When was this?
Man: This was before the takeover started. 7-8 months before that.

CI: How much land did you farm on?
Man: 5-6 bighas. Now the village is almost deserted because everyone has
gone to work.

CI: Even the women?
Man: Yes, they have to work now as well. Previously they did not have to.
They have broken down our deep tube wells.

CI: Yes, I read it in the newspapers in September.

Man: They said that this land is not for farming and so they broke them
down.

CI: Who did it, the police?
Man: No, government people. They said it was unfertile land and so they
broke them down. Now we harvested potatoes. We have four main crops and the
rest are sown in between these main crops. These subsidiary crops take about
6 weeks to grow. We have about 12 crops a year in total.

CI: How much do you get for potatoes?
Man: About Rs 200, Rs 225 for 50 kg.

Another Man: (explains the main crop and subsidiary crop method) As is being
reported in the newspapers, the tube wells were broken down 'in the darkness
of the night'.


Tea shop outside Dobandi 2

CI: Did the CPI (M) cadres create any problem?
Villager: How will we know who is a cadre? The cadres wear police uniforms.
All of them are outsiders. How will we know outsiders?

CI: Does the CPI (M) have any stronghold over here in Dobandi like they have
in Bajemelia?
Villager: No, they have it in Bajemelia but not over here.

CI: Have any of you got compensation cheques?
Villager: Those who gave up the land voluntarily, only they will get cheques
but only some of them have got cheques, not all.

CI: Did you have land inside?
Villager: I had one bigha inside.

CI: Have any of you spoken to people from Nandigram?
Villager: We had planned to go to Nandigram but didn't.

CI: If you are offered compensation now, will you take it?
Villager: No. The land was more important to me. Suppose I sold the land to
someone nearby, I could buy the land back again if I had money. Now, I can
never get back this land. Previously, we could buy and sell it for Rs 40,000
per bigha. Now, the price is Rs 4 lakhs.

CI: We, city-dwellers, are told that the farmers do not want to farm any
longer because farming is no longer profitable. Is this true?
Villager: No, only those who have got other jobs do not farm. All other
farmers want to farm.

Some people from the TATAs came and told us once that they will make roads
for us and make permanent houses but they didn't do anything. They didn't
give us anything. Nor did we get anything in writing. Who knows, maybe they
would have broken down our old houses but not given us new permanent ones?

CI: Do you trust the government and the TATAs?
Villager: No.


Widowed Woman, Purbopara (Testimony, Video File: 19th April 2008)

Her husband's shop near the highway was looted completely more than once in
2007. All complaints to the local police were made to no avail. The family
was reduced to severe poverty. Her husband committed suicide in desperation.
She suspects that the repeated looting and destruction of the shop happened
because their family supported the TMC and participated in the protests
against the land acquisition.


Woman: Yes, there are 300 to 400 policemen still here. Yes, they have
reduced in number a little now…but they are still here.

CI: Were the police here when your shop was looted?
Woman: Yes, they said: 'How can we help it if things were stolen? You should
have kept watch. When I came back after having met the police and other
people who are stationed nearby the shop, my son said I shouldn't have gone
and faced so many people alone. I told my son I had just gone to ask what
had happened. I needed to ask them how the theft could have happened when so
many people are present nearby.

CI: So what was their answer?
Woman: They said we can not tell you how it happened. We do not know. My son
told me they are lying. He said it must be them who had organised the
thefts. During the nights, he said, they would break down and steal
everything in the shop. That is what my son said. There are two shops next
to our's. Those were left intact. I asked them how this was so and why those
had not been affected. The thing is that the people who own these shops have
not been part of the protests or the struggles. They vote for CPI (M). It is
because we are TMC supporters and we take part in the protests that our
shops were looted. We didn't have our own land, we were labourers on other
people's lands. But we had the shop and we made enough to last us the whole
year.

CI: What about the other shops next to yours?
Woman: Oh, nothing happened to them. They are still there. Just go and see.
The two adjacent shops are there, only our's is broken down. It's just here,
near the highway.

CI: How long ago was this?
Woman: My husband killed himself three months back.

CI: How old was he?
Woman: He was fifty.

CI: How many children do you have?
Woman: I have one son and two daughters. This is my daughter-in-law. He was
married two years ago.

CI: How do you get by now?
Woman: With whatever my son earns. He makes grills, but only gets about Rs.
50/- a day and that too only when there is work. My daughter in law has
recently had a baby, then there is my daughter. The younger one used to
study before this. But in all this trouble, she has had to leave. It is not
enough.

CI: She is not going to school anymore?
Woman: No, how can she? All these problems.

CI: Which class was she in?
Woman: She was in Class seven. There is no money for tuitions. And if we
cannot afford the extra help, then how will she pass the exams? She said
there was no point in going to school anymore, so she stopped.

CI: So she has left school?
Woman: Yes. My son has not gone to work today. You work all day and get only
Rs. 50/-. He said he will not go. He has to go early in the mornings and
only returns at seven in the evening.

CI: So this is all the earning you have for the whole family?
Woman: Yes. Six of us and fifty rupees a day.

CI: Did you lodge a formal complaint about your shop being broken down?
Woman: Yes, I did. We complained to the police. Then didi (Mamata Banerjee)
came. She came and saw our shop. She said it is very sad it has happened
twice but it probably will not happen again. Right after that, it was
stripped bare again. Everything was stolen. Thrice we rebuilt it, thrice it
was destroyed. Didi had said that it was happening for political reasons.

CI: You haven't been offered any sort of compensation for this repeated
looting?
Woman: No, none at all. Look at our house. It's almost falling down. The
monsoons are coming. I don't know what is going to happen. We will be
flooded soon. What do we do with the little money we get? Do we eat or
repair the house? I don't know. Then the older daughter has to be married
off.

CI: We are students. We don't have very much money. This is the fourth time
we are coming here. We are trying very hard that the news from here reaches
the cities. What kind of work do you think would be helpful for you? Is
there anyone else besides your son who can work in your family?

Woman: Who else is their besides my son? There is no one. My daughter … she
has studied a bit, but not much.

CI: Have you received any information about the central government's NREGA
scheme from the local panchayat or from your leaders?
Woman: No we haven't got any news.

CI: You haven't heard of job cards either?

Woman: No. But we have had applied for the BPL card this time. We haven't
got it yet. But we haven't heard of job cards.

(CI explains the NREGA scheme.)

CI: You should have received news of this. But you haven't.
Woman: No, we have absolutely no news.