The Fast
Seldom do events in West Bengal capture national attention. Trinamool chiefMamata Banerjee’s indefinite fast has, however, become the talking point allover the country. And none, save her followers and supporters, are happy aboutthis unwanted and negative attention that West Bengal could have well donewithout. Mamata, known to be adamant and unpredictable (as a simple analysis ofher actions over the past few years would amply prove), is quite enjoying allthe attention and the fuss. A steady stream of visitors calling on her, fromGovernor Gopal Krishna Gandhi to Priya Ranjan Das Munshi (AB Vajpayee lookslikely to join this stream soon), the appeals to call off her fast coming fromall political quarters—all this is what she revels in. From her point of view,the Singur issue has been a godsend. The fact that so soon after receiving ahumiliating drubbing in the polls and her party nearly losing its status as theopposition party in the Assembly she has been able to get such a lot ofattention (and that translates into a lot of political capital) would have beenbeyond even her wildest dreams. To give the lady her due, it must be concededthat she has been able to turn what would have been a very local landacquisition issue (which would, perhaps, have died down soon) into a nationalone with all her antics. But then, her gain could well turn out to be Bengal’sloss. She, of course, doesn’t care.
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The Issue
The issue at stake here is acquisition of farmland for setting up industries.Mamata Banerjee and others say that industrial units, commercial complexes,housing estates and new townships should come up only in wastelands, fallowlands or land that’s not fertile. Fertile farmland should be left out sincethat would involve displacement of farmers and loss of livelihood for them. Onthe face of it, one cannot have any quarrel with this. But then, waste, fallowor semi-fertile land is not always available and even if they are, those areusually situated in the remote interiors away from highways and otherinfrastructure and, thus, won’t attract investors for obvious reasons. There’sthus no way that farmland will not be acquired in Bengal, which is one of mostdensely populated states in India. Investors will have to be allowed to choosethe land they want, or they’ll simply move away to states where there’sadequate land available or states where opposition politicians don’t put theirselfish interests above that of the state and country. Yes, in the process ofacquiring farmland, it must be ensured that the farmers (they include thesharecroppers and landless agricultural workers dependant on that land as well)are adequately compensated and rehabilitated so that they can pursue othervocations. This is what Mamata and others clamouring for withdrawal of the TataMotors project from Singur should have concentrated on. The real issue is this:ensuring adequate compensation and seeing to it that the displaced farmers arecomfortably rehabilitated in some other vocation. As Chief Minister BuddhadebBhattacharjee rightly stated, the transition from an agricultural to industrialeconomy is an irreversible process.
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The Questions
Here are a few queries that I (and, I’m sure, a lot many people) have forMamata Banerjee:
(a) Assuming that her demand for handing back the farmlands at Singur totheir original owners is met, would she accept responsibility for the Tatastaking their project out of Bengal? And the consequent losses that Bengal wouldsuffer due to its projection as an investment-unfriendly state?
(b) Why has she steadfastly refused to sit across the table with Buddhadeb todiscuss the issue? Is it because, as her critics have started saying, she is notcapable with coming up with a well-reasoned argument or participating in aserious debate on the issue?
(c) What is her vision, if any, for Bengal’s development?
(d) Given the fact that land holdings in Bengal are small and shall getsmaller and will, as a result, yield diminishing returns, what plan does shehave to boost agricultural incomes?
(e) Had Mamata been the Chief Minister of Bengal, how would she haveattracted investments given the fact that she wouldn’t have acquired fertilefarmlands and investors wouldn’t be interested in the waste or fallow lands inremote areas?
(f) The Assembly elections a few months ago were fought on the agenda ofindustrialisation and Bengal’s electorate had soundly endorsed Buddhadeb’splans to undertake massive industrialisation as the only way forward for Bengal.Given this, would Mamata agree that she has no right to try to derail theprocess of industrialisation?
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(g) Would she attribute the humiliating defeats she has suffered in the lasttwo assembly polls (from a high of 82 seats of the undivided Congress in 1996 to60 in 2001 and 29 this year) to her whimsical, immature, irresponsible anduntenable actions? If not, what would she attribute the downslide to?
Defying Medical Science
Mamata has been fasting for the past 25 days now (as on Thursday, Dec 28)and, if her aides are to be believed, she hasn’t had even a drop of water. It’sonly over the past three days that she has stopped addressing the gawking crowdsof onlookers. On Day 7, she spat fire for 70 long minutes and on Day 18, shespoke without a pause for 40 minutes. These ‘feats’ have raised eyebrows andmany doctors are now wondering if the lady is really on a total fast. By now,they say, her blood pressure and pulse rate should have dropped to dangerouslevels, she should have been unable to speak or even murmur a word, she shouldhave started hallucinating and her vital organs should have been affected. Theonly sign of weakness that Mamata has displayed (and then, only over the pastthree days) is lying down on her cot and not going ballistic over Singur. Butwhile doctors are skeptical, Mamata ’s supporters are awe-struck at thephysical prowess of ‘Didi’. One of them (an MLA, no less) suggested toreporters that Mamata could even have been bestowed supernatural powers! Justgoes to show the sort of people who flock around Mamata Banerjee.
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Guilty Conscience?
Ratan Tata, during the course of an interview to a news channel, said some ofhis competitors were fuelling the fire over Singur with the intention ofdelaying the small-car project. Almost immediately, the Trinamool went ballisticand started condemning Ratan Tata. They interpreted (very wrongly, as would beobvious to any sane person) the allegation as meaning that the Trinamool hadtaken money from Tata Motors’ rivals to launch the agitation over Singur. Hey,Ratan Tata never made such an allegation. Is this, then, a case of Trinamoolleaders reacting out of a guilty conscience? Or are they just beingover-sensitive? Or perhaps they lack parsing abilities? Or else, why would theyjump at Tata’s comment and say they hadn’t taken any money from any quarterto carry on the agitation? The threat to file a defamation suit against RatanTata is, thus, ludicrous and adds to the absurdity that this whole Singur dramahas been reduced to, thanks to interference by politicians who can’t seebeyond their noses.
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Bengal’s Enemies
There’s a lot of truth in an editorial, preceded by an article in the editpage, that appeared recently in a local English daily. The article and theeditorial said that Bengalis are their worst enemies. I find that very true. Theopposition to acquisition of farmland at Singur is, actually, opposition toBuddhadeb. The reason: Mamata Banerjee simply cannot allow Buddhadeb to walkaway with the credit for effecting an economic turnaround of Bengal. In her, andin many others’ (including some of Buddhadeb’s colleagues in the CPI-M andthe Left Front) scheme of things, Buddhadeb cannot be allowed to succeed. Nevermind that what he’s doing is in Bengal’s interests and will yield short,medium and long-term gains for Bengal. If that happens, Buddhadeb will be lookedupon as Bengal’s saviour and would go down in history as one. And that simplycannot be allowed to happen. How can Bengalis digest the fact that afellow-Bengali has soared over them and seems set to find a place in the annalsof history? So they have to bring him down, quite like crabs in a basket neverletting one of them clamber over to freedom. History shows us that this hasalways been the case: the strongest opponents and fiercest critics of SubhasChandra Bose, Raja Ram Mohun Roy, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Rabindranath Tagore,CR Das and other stalwarts were Bengalis themselves. But they all managed tosoar and acquire fame. As 2006 draws to a close, here’s hoping that despitethe Mamatas of Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, too, will succeed in hismission. It’s imperative that he does, for the sake of Bengal and Bengalis.
