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.
