1. Quick Facts
Annual loss of rice production in Singur due to land acquisition estimated to be
900 tonnes.
152 lakh tonnes production of rice in 2004 from West Bengal, which is about one
fifth of the country’s production.
State Government has issued notices for acquiring some 44,000 acres, including
997 acres in Singur.
For the Singur land, government has paid a total sum of Rs. 100 crores.
5000 policemen and paramilitary forces sent to Singur to take possession of the
land
‘Robbery of the Soil’
Agriculture has always been called the backbone of the Indian economy. For decades
the country has followed the slogan of ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’. So at the time when the
country is on the edge of food security problem a gold laying hen has been slained in lieu
of golden eggs.
The Singur issue is a bag full of contradictions. First, the leftists had been all along
talking about land reforms but are now giving away a multi-crop, fertile agricultural land
to Tata for a small car project of Rs.1000 crore. Secondly, the Left Government has
always preached about welfare of farmers and fenced their state with barbed wires from
the ‘barbaric’ capitalists so called capitalists as per Marxist Manifesto. At present the
government is acting like a bunch of hypocrites under the influence of corporate ‘spirit’.
Why set up a small car factory in Hooghly district, which has less than 5 per cent
wasteland, when districts like Bankura and Purulia have 10-15 per cent barren soil? The
local population in the latter regions might welcome industry, with its economic and
social spin-offs. If infrastructure in agriculturally backward regions is inadequate, the
government should focus its Bharat Nirman programme precisely in these areas and enter
into public-private partnerships.
Why target prosperous rural regions, where people are not interested in leaving their land
for other occupations, when 21 per cent of India, or 68 million hectares, is wasteland? A

2. conflict situation can derail the momentum of an industrial venture and dent the image of
industry and government.
Singur, a small town in Hooghly district with a population of 20,000, came into the
limelight early this year when Tata Motors chose it as the location for the manufacturing
facility of its budget car that will be priced at Rs 1 lakh.
Singur’s land, coated with silt from the Hooghly and Damodar rivers and their tributaries,
is extremely fertile. To say that it is single-crop is to blatantly distort the truth. What
doesn’t grow here – paddy, jute, potato, cauliflower, pumpkin, brinjal, cucumber, so
many types of greens and vegetables! About six to 12 crops grow on Singur’s highly
productive fields. Paddy and potatoes grown here are the finest. There are five cold
storages, five deep and 27 mini tube wells in the locality, a clear indication that the land
is well irrigated.
It is around land that Singur’s economy revolves. Not only the landowners, a sizeable
population of bargadars, wage-labourers and sharecroppers – mostly belonging to the
lower castes or the adivasi community – depend on the land for their livelihood.
Land is so vital for Singur’s residents that if it goes their survival will be at stake. So,
when the government is taking over their land, they are putting up a stiff resistance. They
will give their lives but will not give up land. No matter what the government claims and
the media propagates, records show that less than 27 percent of the 11,000-odd
landowners have till date voluntarily given up their land. Those who have acquiesced are
either absentees or have done so out of fear or coercion.
Meanwhile, the Land and Land Revenue Department, invoking the colonial Land
Acquisition Act of 1894 (suitably amended in 1984), have taken over 997 acres required
for the Tata factory. This land has been declared as khas (vested) and is being sold to the
West Bengal Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation for handing over to the
newly formed company, Tata Motors. It is the clear violation of law; State can acquire
land only if it is in the public interest, which is certainly not true in Singur’s case.
Under pressure, because of a massive public outcry, the government agreed to raise the
compensation amount to 52 percent of the market price of land and, to persuade
landowners to sell their land, announced special incentives to those who would do so on
their own. Yet, the government continued, and is still continuing, to extend the deadline
for voluntary handing over and receiving the compensation cheques, the latest being
October 31.
Uncultivable or low-lying marshlands – such as the one available in Singur itself, on the
other side of the highway – are not liked by one of India’s largest capitalist enterprises
because filling up such land will incur a huge expense. Having a sharp business sense, the
industrial house is not willing to spend even a single paisa on developing land for
industrial use. They are happy as long as mountains of profit accrue. If it means disaster
for the farming community, so be it.

3. Whatever the trade-off between the Tatas and the Left Front government in West Bengal,
it is shrouded in secrecy, in spite of the RTI. A local television channel has revealed that
a considerable Rs 140 crores will go out of the state exchequer to buy the land and pay
compensations while the Tatas will be gifted that land in lieu of a cheque for Rs 20
crores, that too five years later. The industry house will be spared the ignominy of
purchasing the stamp duty; and when the factory is under construction or in operation, it
will be provided water free from the burden of taxation even as the power rates will be
slashed to what the domestic consumer pays with great difficulty.
The Tatas are coming here to do business, not for the well being of the people of West
Bengal. Orissa and Jharkhand, where the Tatas have invested in steel plants, mines,
aquaculture and an assortment of projects in the past seven decades, are the poorest states
in the country. Industrial and other ventures by the Tatas have not changed the lives of
the ordinary folk in these places. On the contrary, a terrible curse had befallen on the
forest-dwelling and pastoral communities wherever the Tatas went. It may be recalled
that the Kalingnagar incident earlier this year, in which 12 adivasi men, women and
children lost their lives in police firing, took place when the farmers displaced by the Tata
steel-plant project were agitating against the non-payment of compensation.
The West Bengal government, through its agency, the West Bengal Industrial
Development Corporation, has already begun acquisition of approximately 1,000 acres in
the face of much opposition. In July, the state cabinet cleared a land-acquisition proposal
of 43,180 acres - concentrated in districts of North and South 24 Parganas, East
Midnapore, Howrah, Hooghly and Burdwan, all within a radius of 100-150 km around
Kolkata - for building SEZs, townships and industrial parks.
The argument put forward by the minister of industries that the Tata motorcar factory will
create vast employment opportunities is unadulterated nonsense. The market targeted for
the small car to be produced here is the two-wheeler owners who dream of a car and, to
make it easy on their pocket, the car’s market price has been fixed at Rs one lakh. To
produce a car at such a discounted price, and keep a good enough margin for the
company, a large workforce cannot be employed. In keeping with the globalising times,
the technology, too, will be state-of-the-art, surely not labour-intensive. At most, a few
hundred jobs will result and those recruited will be from the hallowed precincts of the
IITs and the IIMs.
The honourable minister has argued that even if there is no direct employment in Tata
Motors, the ancillaries will open up the floodgates. He, of course, is not suggesting how
many such ancillaries will come up and how much employment generated by these. It is
only a speculative presumption not based on any rigorous calculation. Whether the
hundreds of small, supporting units will also be technology-dependent and how much
agricultural land these occupy is yet a guessing game.
The Tatas’ demand for 1000 acres for their car factory puts a question mark on their
intentions. To set the doubts at rest, the minister of industries recently cited the example

4. of the Honda automobile production unit in Gurgaon. He told the press that the Gurgaon
plant has come up on 1250 acres of land and produces three-lakh cars per year. A visit to
the Honda website discloses another set of facts – the unit has come up on 250 acres and
produces six-lakh cars annually.
In the dead of night on 25-26 September, in a pre-planned move, it let loose a reign of
terror on thousands of unarmed demonstrators at the BDO office in Singur town. It was
the first day cheques were being handed over to those who had agreed to part with their
lands and the demonstration against this had begun in the morning. By the afternoon,
several cases were detected in which those who had already sold off their land to others,
but the mutation process was not complete, were being given cheques, denying the
present legal owner. Protesting such illegal deeds by government officials, the
demonstrators sat on a dharna at the BDO office, even gheraoing the District Magistrate
for a brief period. The firebrand leader of the only opposition party in the state arrive
d with her troupe and she, too, joined the dharna. Soon after midnight, power was cut off
and a huge police force, reportedly under the influence of alcohol, mercilessly thrashed
men, women and children with lathis. The leader of the opposition party, also a Member
of Parliament, was manhandled and, with her sari torn to shreds, packed off in a police
car to Kolkata.
Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee argues that more than 550 farmers have not
consented to the government's land acquisition move.
The outcome: prices of land in all these locations have gone up by leaps and bounds.
Brokers and real estate agents, who are by no means very reliable sources for such
information, say the increase has been 100 per cent and for advantageously located
places, 200 per cent. This surge in prices are inducing farmers to sell their lands but what
will ultimately happen to them after selling their only source of livelihood is an open
question to be seriously debated.
‘Eminent domain’ is when Government can take away private property without getting
the consent of the owner. Say the government wants to build a road or a railroad or
suchlike, and they need to get a certain amount of land for this purpose, but the owners
don't want to sell. Well, the government can just seize the land, at a compensation that it
decides. Eminent domain is often justified on the grounds that it is necessary for the
"common good," a suspicious phrase.
Now, what is happening in Singur is even more of a scandal because the poor farmers
who are being forced to give up their land are having to do so not for a public project,
like a road or a dam or suchlike, but for a private one. The government is effectively
taking away land from poor farmers, and handing it over to a private company -- in this
case, Tata Motors.
The Tata project is now more of a prestige issue with the state government, which is
going all out to woo big industry and investments.

5. From Leftists to Nationalists
It is now, no more a question of leftist or rightist, it has given birth to nationalist.
Normally, the likes of Patkar, Mahashweta Devi and Roy would have been behind the
Bhattacharya government. But the latter is now pursuing a path diametrically opposed to
what the Left upholds. Medha Patkar, she has had to take on an anti-leftist position
because the Tatas have the full backing of the Marxist West Bengal Chief Minister
Buddhadev Bhattacharya. It is the same with the Akademi award winning Bengali writer
Mahashweta Devi, who is known for her Naxalite (Maoist) sympathies. And if these two
icons come together, can Booker prize winner Arundhati Roy be far behind? So, she too
has led a demonstration in front of the CPI-M office in New Delhi over the Singur issue.
"NOT RIGHT": Social activist Arundhati Roy (left) staging a protest outside the CPI (M)
headquarters in New Delhi on Thursday against the West Bengal Government's decision to hand
over farmland in Singur to Tata Motors.
But what is curious is that these aggressive votaries of Left find themselves today on the
same platform as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh and convenor of
the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) George Fernandes, both of whom are
usually branded as 'fascists' by Left activists.
Rarely has there been a more variegated collection of personalities battling for a single
cause. Politicians in search of relevance, perennial do-gooders, Marxist and Maoist
revolutionaries, writers on the far left of the political spectrum, rightwing leaders - all
have assembled together to oppose the West Bengal government-sponsored automobile
project of the Tatas in Singur.
If the 'fascists' are looking for a cause that will bring them into the political limelight, so
are the Marxist and Maoist revolutionaries. Hence, the 24-hour shutdown called by the
minuscule Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) in West Bengal and the attack by a
handful of young men claiming to be Maoists on a Tata automobile showroom in
Kolkata.
A Case of Hypocrites

6. Singur is not the first case in the history of leftists that illustrates the tale of their
hypocrisy, when the leftists were not in power in West Bengal; they used to favour the
settlement of the refugees in the Sunderbans. But their views changed after assuming
office; just as it has now on industrialization. The Marichjhanpi incident in the
Sunderbans in the 70s (mentioned in Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide) is a case in
point. The hard-hearted manner in which the Left Front government evicted the East
Bengali refugees from there and sent them back to Dandakaranya in what is now
Chhattisgarh. The Left slogan today is not 'land to the tiller', but land to the Tatas.
Nobody, not even the affected farmers and the opposition parties, deny the need of
industrial regeneration in West Bengal. What they emphasise is that arable land must be
spared, as in China and Britain. Nobody could imagine that a playwright and culturally
inclined Marxist like Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee would, as Chief Minister, be so callous to
human values. Leading the charge to protest against the handover of fertile agricultural
land for industrial purposes is the Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, who has
always been known to oppose whatever the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)
does. But it is the motley crowd around her that provides an insight into the political and
social ramifications of the protest campaign.
Brief on Industrialisation
According to a rough estimate, 65,000 units fell sick or were closed in these three
decades owing mainly to labour unrest under leftist rule since 1977. West Bengal which
was second in industries among the states till the 1960s, slipped to the eighth position in
industrialisation.
As chief minister, first five years of Mr. Bhattachrjee were virtually barren. Mr.
Chatterjee signed a plethora of MoUs, earning the nickname, ‘MOU Dada’ but nothing
happened beyond reaching an ‘understanding’. The industrial scene did not improve in
the first tenure (2001-2006) of Mr. Bhattacharjee either. Although 172 new units came
up in 2004, with investment of some Rs 2004 crore, an estimated 276 lakh man days
in close to 6,000 working units were lost because of industrial disputes, strikes, ‘go-
slow’ and gheraos.
One can't help but wonder which infinite-optimism-inducing drug is responsible for the
almost-finalised decision of Tata Motors to set up a car plant in West Bengal. Yes,
Buddha-Bhatta has worked hard to create a business-friendly image for the state and
single-handedly injected a sense of optimism into the proceedings. But that optimism is
driven by the IT industry which has set up offices in Kolkatta because of cheaper land,
and most importantly, and this can not be emphasised enough - no unionisation. In a
cruelly funny twist of irony, Buddha-Bhatta put IT under "essential services" to ward off
fears of the unionisation which was responsible for turning West Bengal into industrial
ruins over the last half century.
In Singur, the process of brutal acquisition by the police began on 2 December.
Villagers were beaten up and tear gassed. The patriarch Jyoti Basu and the Chief Minister

7. frequently iterate the government’s determination to acquire and give the land to the
Tatas by 31 December, failing which they may withdraw their offer. Experts have
warned that the gains would be less than the almost certain losses. The government is
in fact inflicting collateral damage. But the Chief Minister is defiant and determined
to have the Tata factories in Singur... ‘at any cost’.
Food Shortage
The President and the Prime Minister are harping on the need for a second Green
Revolution, to which the Left parties expressed support but cannot answer, how in West
Bengal, with some 1.5 lakh acres set for industries, will this revolution be possible.
If the annual rice yield falls by nearly two lakh tonnes, there is bound to be a food
shortage even in a normal year.
The state government’s wrong policies and programmes in education and health
care are well recorded and have even been admitted by the leaders of the CPI (M)
and other constituent parties. Agriculture, happily, was not tampered with. Agriculture
in West Bengal is almost wholly in the private sector; the government subsidises only 5
per cent of the production costs. Although a steady increase in fuel prices has, of late,
affected mechanisation, agriculture still remains a golden goose in West Bengal. In
2004-05, the state produced over 152 lakh tonnes of rice, about one-fifth of the
country’s production.
Out of West Bengal’s total area of 219.13 lakh acres, some 60% land (132.74 lakh
acres) comes under seasonal cultivation. Only 7.76 lakh acres remain fallow for nine
months in a year. On the rest, two or more crops are grown every year.
The government has received demands for at least 125,000 acres of land from no
fewer than 20 Indian and two foreign companies as well as from three Central
public undertakings for setting up various industrial units and projects. It has
issued notices for acquiring some 44,000 acres, including 997 acres in Singur.
The average production of mainly three varieties of rice ~ aman, aus and boro ~
being 905.3 kg per acre, the total yield in a year from 125,175 acres will be 192,363
tonnes. Adding the yield from land whose sizes are not reported, the total quantity of rice
of all varieties, to be lost to industries, will be at least two lakh tonnes. A huge quantity
of potato and other vegetables, grown in many areas under acquisition; will also not
be available. West Bengal is deficient in wheat, edible oil and pulses; up to one
million tonnes of each are imported from other States or countries (like palm oil
from Malaysia). West Bengal has borders with Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and
Orissa, none of which grow surplus rice or vegetables. These commodities flow from
West Bengal to these states but seldom vice versa. Drought, floods, cyclone and
earthquakes must also be taken into account. So if the annual rice yield falls by
nearly two lakh tonnes, there is bound to be a food shortage even in a normal year.
The state’s population will increase, but arable land may get reduced further. The
per capita availability of rice, which was 419 grams in 1977, increased to 454 grams
in 2006. But with the rice yield decreasing by two lakh tonnes, it will go down
further, accentuating hunger, malnutrition and starvation, particularly in tribal

8. regions. The average size of land-holdings, particularly in south Bengal districts, is
also decreasing. According to a ‘Status Report’, prepared by the Land Reforms
department, West Bengal is becoming a ‘Land Critical State’ and loss of some 1.25
lakh acres to new industries and projects will aggravate this crisis. Already some
41.35 lakh acres, nearly 19 per cent of the total land area, have been occupied by
infrastructure, industries and urbanisation. The department has warned that unless
appropriate utilisation is made of the land resources, there will soon be a land
crunch in West Bengal.
The government has not issued any comprehensive document on acquisitions,
despite demands for a White Paper by the opposition. As per Kolkata-based media
reports, at least 125,176 acres of arable land in nine districts have been demanded by
investors and entrepreneurs and for much of it, acquisition notices have already been
served. This excludes demands for some 2034 acres by a dozen Indian companies,
namely, (i) by M/s Videocon in Taratala (South 24-Parganas) for manufacture of LCD
monitors for computers and in Kalyanbeel in North 24-Parganas for SEZ, (ii) by M/s
Patton Group in Uluberia (Howrah) and 60 acres in Falta (South 24-Parganas, (iii) by M/s
Dabur near Siliguri for a food-processing plant, (iv) by SPS Group in Mejia (Bankura)
and Durgapur (Burdwan) for the manufacture of a transmission tower and transmitter,
respectively, (v) by the Indian Jute Mills Association (IJMA) for a Jute Park in
Haringhata (Nadia), (vi) by M/s Amrit Group in the Sundarbans (South 24-Parganas) for
setting up three non-conventional energy plants, (vii)14 acres by Tek Mahindra for
setting up an IT Centre, (viii) 500 acres by M/s Hind Industries, (ix) 130 acres by India
Tourism Corporation (ITC) for setting up a new, and extension of its existing, hotel, (x)
50 acres by a German company, M/s Metro Cash & Carry for doing wholesale trade in
vegetables, and (xi) by M/s River Bank for setting up an IT Park and township in
Batanagar (South 24-Parganas).
Plight of Farmers
Only about one-third of the farmers’ annual income comes from agriculture and two-
thirds from non-agricultural pursuits. More than half of West Bengal’s farmers are in
debt, the average yearly debt per family being Rs 5,237. Most of them have land-holdings
less than one acre. Increasing debt compels them to give up land or become landless
labour.
Sixty-five per cent of the state’s population is engaged in agriculture that contributes 25
per cent of the GDP, while 35 per cent of the population working outside the farm sector
brings in 75 per cent of the GDP. This, according to the industries department, shows that
a sizeable portion of the rural population has taken up agriculture because they have
nothing else to do.
Whether all the aspects of a farmer’s life that are affected by the forcible takeover of his
land have been taken into account. And if the state government has the vision to look

9. beyond the immediately economic, it will realise that agriculture has many functions in a
farming community. West Bengal is not the first state government to ignore this
multifunctionality — to use a term the French used in the WTO. But as one that has
relied on the rural population to keep it in power for decades it may well have the most to
lose. The Left may not share the instinctive distrust many others have for forcible
takeover of land.
Decline in the share of agriculture to the GDP, nearly 58% of India's population is still
dependant on agriculture for livelihood. More than half of this percentage (nearly 63%),
however, owns smallholdings of less than 1 hectare while the large parcels of 10 hectares
of land or more are in the hands of less than 2%. The absolute landless and the near
landless (those owning up to .2 ha of land) account for as much as 43% of the total
peasant households.
Accomplished rabble-rousers, as many in politics including in the Left Front are, ought to
know that a party having 10 per cent of seats in the Assembly will not necessarily evoke
a 10 per cent response to a bandh call; the former is a reflection of free will, the latter is a
reaction to fear.
The problem with the CPI-M is that it has never sought to engage political opponents and
civil society in discussions on the way forward for the state. Mr. Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee may well be a focused individual, but he bristles at even well intentioned
criticism. The CPI-M believes that because it won so many seats in the last election,
people will accept everything it does and that no one has the right to criticize it. Mr.
Bhattacharjee compounds his problems by dubbing all critics as reactionaries and
enemies of the people. He is surrounded by sycophants, who privately and in print tell
him what a great job he is doing, and then quietly ask him for parcels of land at
throwaway prices.
Bengal needs sage minds to resolve the many issues that are linked to Singur; to attempt
to wish them away with a lament that Bengalis have a death wish when it comes to
matters linked with industrial progress, as at least one apologist for the establishment has
done, is farcical.
It is not perhaps too late yet for Singur, or indeed to address questions relating to land-use
in a mature, sensible fashion. This issue is not about individuals ~ not even bull-headed
ones like Mr. Bhattacharjee and Miss Banerjee. It is about prescriptions for growth and
progress that must be palatable to the people of the state.
PS. Also notice the irony that it is illegal in India to sell agricultural land for non-
agricultural purposes, another example of how the state dictates what citizens can do with
their property. (This is one reason, in fact, why 60% of our population remains dependent
on agriculture.) So while the farmer can't sell his own land to someone who wants to
build a factory, the government can take it away from him and give it to someone for that
purpose. Makes any sense to you?

10. All this but still the issue is not buzzing in the ears of our parliamentarians, perhaps they
are deafened by the loud noises of cricket stadium.
Why Tatas are up to Singur
Reasons that why Tatas are up to Singur can be cited as –
Lower cost of land than offered by Orissa and Himachal Pradesh.
Proximity to Kolkata
Adjacent to expressway in terms of connectivity and communicability
But there are several reasons why Tatas should not take up the project in Singur –
More skilled labour available in other states, which are in race
History of labour unrest in West Bengal
Higher percentage of wasteland available in states like Jharkhand, Orissa, Bihar,
Himachal Pradesh
Taking up the project in Singur may dent the public image of Tatas
Violating right to property
Series of Events at Singur
12.05.06 – TATA Motors select West Bengal for car
project.
02.12.06 – Beginning of acquisition of land, farmers clash
with police, Medha arrested
31.12.06 – Deadline for the acquisition of land, failing
which Tatas may withdraw their offer
24.09.06 – Police baton charge on farmers, women and
Trinamool Congress leaders at Singur, about 45 km from
here, and the forcible removal of and assault on party chief
Mamata Banerjee and her companions
19.12.06 – Medha Patkar slips into Singur, meets slain
girl's family
18.12.06 – Teenager raped and burnt alive for daring to
protest against forcible land acquisition
30.11.06 – Left Front Government clamped Section 144 on the entire Singur block and
all roads leading to Singur. It thus weakened the freedom of people to protest and at the
same time prevented the entry of any outside help for the people there. In this ghettoised
situation it began the process of fencing land.

11. 04.12.06 – Moists smash Tata car showroom