[DEBATE] : Rebirth of Left in West Bengal

[peter waterman]

[Labour Notes South Asia
Year 7, Dispatch No. 806, October 10, 2007 ]

o o o

Hard News
October 2007

Celebrate the resistance

The Left tradition is alive. In the amazing resistance of peasants, 
among poor people who cling to their urban dwellings and livelihood, 
in the unprecedented, tumultuous expressions of solidarity with the 
people of Nandigram that now rock cities and towns

by Tanika Sarkar (Delhi)

The true history of the terror at Nandigram between 14 and 16 March 
will probably never be disclosed in its fullness. Snippets of 
information that broke through the police cover, and visual fragments 
that could be shown on television channels have, nonetheless, brought 
forth an unprecedented upsurge of popular outrage all over the state, 
from all ranks of people. It is time to open up some old histories 
and structural characteristics of CPI(M) conduct in the state.

What happened in Nandigram had been rehearsed there already in early 
January, and at Singur, in September and December, 2006: imposition 
of unilateral party and corporate decisions on villagers without even 
informing them that their land had been acquired for corporate 
profit, private profit now designated as public purpose. 
Intimidation, especially by party cadres, violent attacks on 
villagers by the police and by cadres, violence that did not spare 
women and children. Branding of all criticism as of Trinamool, the 
BJP or Naxal inspiration, and hence not fit to be met with serious 
discussion. Slander campaigns against the Left sympathisers and 
against renowned social activists who balked at party-led violence. 
Keeping Front partners out of every crucial decision making, whether 
it related to land acquisition, or to organisation of violence. 
Singur and Nadigram, thus, raise questions about a neo liberal 
economics that the state party seems to have definitively embraced 
and which the central committee has endorsed, and about the failure 
of democratic processes which such policies have produced. We need to 
think about whether the embrace of corporate interests and surrender 
to corporate will can ever be managed democratically. It has not 
happened anywhere else in India. West Bengal proved no exception.

Land reforms in the state that the early Left Front governments 
initiated proved to be remarkable in their effects on peasant economy 
and morale, stimulating thriving small peasant agriculture and an 
amazing measure of peasant self-confidence and self-esteem that we 
saw at Singur and at Nandigram. At the same time, however, industries 
were allowed to die away, leaving about 50,000 dead factories and the 
virtual collapse of the jute industry. Beyond registration of 
sharecroppers and some land redistribution, no other forms of 
agrarian restructuring were imagined. The successful panchayat bodies 
were equipped with powers and functions but these very gains led to 
bitter conflicts and rural violence among different parties that 
contested the elections. While all parties were more or less 
implicated, especially the Trinamool, it was the CPI(M) alone which 
controlled the police and dominated state power.

>From the mid 1990s, with the adoption of structural adjustment 
policies on a national scale, some new changes occurred, just as the 
party, battening on repeated victories, became increasingly tolerant 
of criticism and opposition. In the name of urban beautification, 
hawkers were sought to be removed from Kolkata streets, massive 
tracts of highly cultivated land, rich in bio-diverse resources, were 
taken over at New Rajarhat near the capital and handed over to 
corporate groups to be made over into Vedic villages, aquatic sports 
complexes and magnificent residential resorts for the super rich. It 
was the same story on both sides of the bypass that connects the 
capital with the airport: huge land tracts snatched from peasants and 
fishermen, earmarked for pleasure grounds of the rich: private 
hospitals, gated communities, expensive parks and entertainment 
centres, huge shopping malls. Government schools languished and 
public health was in a dismal condition at the same time: one new 
primary health care centre all over the state in the last ten years. 
While factories remained closed, half the annual funds sent under the 
Rural Employment Guarantee schemes were sent back untouched. We may 
say that the history shows no concern for promoting real 
industrialisation, or for public concerns, nor for employment 
generation. What flourished with tender government nurture had been 
upper middle class luxuries and corporate profits.

Another disturbing development was the cycle of misinformation. It is 
clear now that massive land transfers were planned without land use 
maps or land surveys since the early 1970s, against advice of the 
Geological Survey of India about the ecological damage such 
acquisition would lead to. Singur's visibly multi-cropped land was 
designated as single cropped, misinformation abounded about the 
extent and purposes of land transfer and queries under the right to 
information were not answered. The party circulated fact sheets that 
were immediately disproved. Even though there was no violent movement 
in Singur, peaceful resistance by farmers was met with the police and 
cadre brutalities. It was as if the party expected that villagers 
would have to obey the diktat taken without any discussion with 
people whose land, livelihood, village, environment and culture were 
at stake. Singur - a village whose land was taken without information 
reaching the peasants prior to the event, and whose peaceful movement 
brought forth horrible reprisals, formed the determination of 
Nandigram peasants to defend their livelihood and space at any cost: 
in late January, some of us who visited that area, warned about an 
impending rural civil war.

The resistance at Nandigram has led to a few promises of concessions, 
only because it was fierce to the point of violence, determined, to 
pay any price that was needed to protect their land. At the same 
time, party leaders at all levels proudly declare that SEZs would 
happen in West Bengal. The revisions in the structure of SEZs that 
they suggest, however, do not involve any real protection of labour 
rights, no provisions for unionisation or any curbs on extra 
territorial powers of the companies.

What is the Left, then, in West Bengal? I would suggest that the very 
long and rich tradition of the Left politics and culture has 
survived. We need to look for them in the amazing resistance of 
peasants, among poor people who cling to their urban dwellings and 
livelihood, in the unprecedented, tumultuous expressions of 
solidarity with the people of Nandigram that now rock cities and 
towns in the state and that strengthen resistance to arbitrary state 
power in many other rural pockets in the state.

_________________________________

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