Such
is the power of the media, that in recent months, the
very names of Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal have
become synonymous with forcible land acquisition by
the state all over India. This is truly remarkable,
because in fact no land was ever actually acquired for
industrialisation in Nandigram after the violent protests
against it. And it is widely acknowledged that the terms
of acquisition of the 1000 acres required for the Tata
automobile factory in Singur were the most favourable
for the peasantry, of any such acquisition across India.
Indeed, the Singur model ought to be viewed far more
favourably, if only because it is the first time that
not just owners of land but also tenant farmers were
sought to be given some compensation.
In a more rational socio-political environment, the
response of the state government would have been appreciated
in both these cases. In Nandigram, the government of
West Bengal actually changed its plans for creating
an industrial hub in that area, and declared that it
would not go ahead with any attempt at land acquisition.
This is unlike any other state government, and is surely
noteworthy in a country in which more than 200,000 hectares
of cultivable land has been compulsorily acquired by
the state for non-agricultural uses just in the past
three years, without heeding local or other protests.
(The subsequent year-long turmoil in Nandigram had nothing
to do with land acquisition but was the result of forcible
eviction of one set of peasants by another, and unlawful
blockade of the area.) In Singur the state government
provided three times the market price of the land to
holders of land titles and extended compensation to
recorded tenants – both of which occurred for the first
time in any state.
Despite this, violent protests have continued in both
areas, fuelled not only by the opposition within the
state but by interested outside parties that would like
to undermine the Left Front government for various reasons,
and by a hysterical media that has blatantly misrepresented
facts even while ignoring far more serious violations
of human rights in many other states where land acquisition
has been proceeding apace.
The smear campaign of the media has had its effect.
It is a major irony of our times that the state government
that has done – and continues to do – more than any
other to enforce land ceilings and redistribute land
to the poor, is the one that faced the most vilification
for land acquisition, even when that land has not even
been acquired.
And in the process, the genuine achievements of the
Left Front government in the area of land relations,
even in the very recent past and up to the present,
have been completely ignored. But in fact, the record
of the Government of West Bengal in terms of land distribution
remains not only laudable, but also far more impressive
than that of any other state government in India. The
only states that come close are those that have been
or are ruled by other Left Front governments, that is
Kerala and Tripura.
What should be particularly noted, especially by those
elements in the media who now regularly berate the Government
of West Bengal for its recent attempts to acquire land
for industrialisation, is that its efforts at land distribution
continue even today. This has become very clear from
data recently collected from the Land and Land Reforms
Department of the Government of West Bengal (cited by
V. K. Ramachandran, “Land reforms continues in West
Bengal”, The Hindu 23 August 2008).
Remember that since 1977, West Bengal has distributed
more land than any other state and accounts for 22 per
cent of all the land distributed in India. And it has
provided this to by far the largest number of beneficiaries.
In fact, the 29.7 lakh beneficiaries of land reform
in West Bengal account for 55 per cent of all the beneficiaries
in India!
This process of land distribution continued even in
the very recent past, precisely the period when the
state government was being accused of seeking to deprive
peasants of their land because of its industrialisation
drive. In the three years between 2005-06 and 2007-08,
nearly 30,000 acres was distributed to landless peasant
cultivators. This was three times the amount that was
acquired by the state government for all purposes, including
road building and other development. In 2007-08, the
same year when the violent agitation in Nandigram was
grabbing national headlines, no one bothered to report
that the same state government had distributed nearly
11,000 acres, to more than 25,000 peasants.
This experience must be contrasted with most of the
rest of India. Not only has hardly any land been distributed
in the past three years in most other states, but land
has been compulsorily acquired at breakneck speed not
only for SEZs, but also for urban expansion and other
infrastructure development. Maharashtra, Karnataka,
Haryana and Andhra Pradesh stand out in this list.
But there is no noise at all in the media about either
the terms or the conditions of the land acquisition
in these states, which in all cases has been significantly
worse for the local peasantry than the compensation
received in Singur. Nor have the same activists who
regularly still congregate in Singur and Nandigram to
spew venom on the Left Front government engage in remotely
similar activities in these states. The entire opposition
and fury of protestors seems to be reserved for one
of the few state governments that is still trying to
redistribute land to the peasants.
So it is clear that these protests – and the media attention
that they receive – are not completely innocent or principled,
since they are not directed at other state governments
that have been guilty of much worse. The question that
lingers, then, is what the real motive behind such continuing
and focussed protests against this one particular state
government could be.
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