A suspicious death is the catalyst behind Indian village’s opposition to auto plant
SONYA FATAH
The Globe and Mail, February 1, 2007
Photo credit: James Kole
Manoranjan Malik and his wife lost their 18-year old daughter, Tapusi Malik, in mid-December.
SINGUR, INDIA — Tapusi Malik left home just before dawn in mid-December to collect firewood. It was her daily chore, but that morning, she didn’t return. Two hours later, a relative saw spirals of smoke from a field in the distance. A small group of villagers went to investigate and found her burning body. She had been raped and strangled, her body set alight.
No one seems to know who killed Ms. Malik, 18. Her mother lies in a state of shock, on a straw bed outside their modest home. But most people in Ms. Malik’s village have their suspicions.
Ms. Malik’s family lives in Singur, 40 kilometres north of Calcutta — the capital of West Bengal. Her father, Manoranjan Malik, who tills a small plot of land that he rents, was vocal in his opposition to a huge auto plant planned for the area, and supports an opposition party, Trinamool Congress, which also opposed the plant.
Villagers here suspect that supporters of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee — the major force behind the plant — were responsible for Ms. Malik’s slaying.
“We think they did it to scare us, to stop us from protesting against the car plant,” one villager said. “We are farmers. We are self-sufficient. This is why we are striking. We don’t want to have to resort to beggary.”
All across India, major conglomerates are on a land-acquisition spree for large infrastructure projects and manufacturing plants. Provincial governments, too, are on the prowl for large plots of land to set up special economic zones.
In the eastern Indian state, Mr. Bhattacharjee, despite his strong Communist Party background, has made it his personal mission to boost his state’s economic profile. But his most sought after partnership with Tata Motors, a division of Tata Group, one of India’s largest industrial corporations, has run into a snag. It’s in Singur, where one of the region’s most effective rebellions is under way.
The conflict is over 400 hectares of land. Mr. Bhattacharjee’s government says it has turned over the land to Tata Motors after gaining the consent of local farmers. But many farmers and the opposition say they were coerced into the deal or simply not told about it.
Over the past few months, Mr. Bhattacharjee has had to confront a series of demonstrations, sit-ins and various forms of protest, including a 21-day hunger strike by Mamata Banerjee, the leader of Trinamool Congress.
Resistance from Singur has placed West Bengal’s chief minister in a precarious position. He is courting a long list of high-profile corporate executives and presenting West Bengal as an ideal location for long-term investment. But a series of agrarian revolts is giving Bhattacharjee party cadres an opportunity to raise their doubts.
Singur is not the only hitch in Mr. Bhattacharjee’s economic plan. Three other places — Nandigram, Sonachura and Tekhali — that have been designated special economic zones have shown that the protesters in Singur are not alone.
Demonstrations in Nandigram led to the death of six people last month and there have been more than 20 strikes across West Bengal since Singur, a heretofore-unknown place, made headlines across the country.
Even in Singur, however, there are two sides to the story. There are those who are against the plant and others who have happily sold their land for handsome amounts.
Lucki Kanta Das sold his family’s 1.2 hectaresfor a handsome three million rupees (about $80,000).
“Industry is a must,” he said. “How many years can we be agriculturalists? Industrialization will make our lives better.”
For Bhalai Ghosh, however, it is the end of life as he knows it. His nephew sold their family land and gave Mr. Ghosh his share of the proceeds: 75,000 rupees ($2,000).
“I didn’t want to do it,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to do now.”
Some say their land has simply been absorbed by Tata Motors. “My father has half an acre of land,” said Mihir Malik. “It’s now part of the Tata plant and no one from Tata has come to speak with us.”
The West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation, a government agency, has handled negotiations for land purchase.
The agency is paying landowners 45 per cent more than the value of both fallow and fertile land. WBIDC also offered compensation to farmers who work rented land. The Singur issue has ballooned into an unexpected maelstrom, but Tata Motors still sees it as an opportunity to bring development to rural India.
They built a plant in Jamshedpur in 1945 and one in Pune in 1964.
“The basic objective is that the plant and operation of the plant should be such that the local community . . . is integrated,” said Debasis Ray, a spokesman for Tata Motors. “In Singur also we will follow same practices.”
About 180 people from Singur are already undergoing training courses through WBIDC, and a selective group of 11 are being trained in Tata institutes across India for higher-level positions at the Tata plant.
The Singur plant, which is already under construction, will employ about 2,000 people; Tata executives estimate that service providers will crop up in the area over time, employing 10,000 in all.
“The whole initiative to enhance employability is, in a way, to look at the future of people who are dependent on agricultural plots,” he said.
Not everyone in Singur believes that. But as India’s land grab gets under way the clash between industrialization and agrarian life seems well under way as well.
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