The 14 farmers lay side by side in the mortuary, their wiry bodies punctured
by police bullets, the floor beneath them sticky with the blood of India’s
industrial revolution.
Until three days ago these men were making a living growing rice, vegetables
and bananas, as their forefathers had, in the fertile soil of the Ganges
delta. But at about 9am on Wednesday their quiet village in West Bengal
became the bloodiest battleground yet in a growing conflict between old and
new India.
Up to 5,000 police stormed in to crush villagers’ protests against a
government plan to buy up their farmland for a huge petrochemical industrial
zone. When the villagers fought back the police opened fire with teargas,
rubber bullets and live rounds, killing the 14 farmers and injuring more
than 50.
Among the injured was Gopal Das, 32 a farmer and father of four, who was shot
through the shoulder from behind.
“We were afraid when we saw the police gathering, but we decided to stay and
fight for our land,” he told The Times from his hospital bed
in Tamluk, the nearest town. “It’s like a God to us. It is our mother. We
would not sell it at any price.”
On the other side of the ward lay his 70-year-old mother, Anjali, the blood
still caked on her head where the police beat her unconscious with batons.
Scenes like this have become commonplace in China, where farmers are routinely
evicted to make way for factories, apartment blocks and golf courses. But
this is India, which prides itself on being the world’s largest democracy,
and the blood-bath in Nandigram has shaken the country to the core.
Yesterday a state-wide protest strike brought Calcutta, the capital of West
Bengal, to a standstill and 800 people were arrested for trying to torch
government offices and buses.
The Nandigram incident has not only undermined West Bengal’s 30-year-old
communist government — the world’s oldest democratically elected communist
administration — it has also cast doubt on the central Government’s entire
strategy to engineer a Chinese-style industrial revolution in India, where
two thirds of the population of 1.1 billion still live off agriculture.
Some say it could be the downfall of the ruling Congress Party, which lost
control of two states in recent local elections, come the next national
polls in 2009.
“If the Government continues with this policy in its current form its very
survival will be at stake,” said K.G. Suresh, a political commentator.
“Development cannot be at the expense of human life. The Chinese model is
there, but the reality of India is different. How long can politicians
antagonise the farmers who make up the bulk of voters?”
Nandigram was just one of 600 places earmarked by the Government for special
economic zones (SEZ), offering tax perks and modern infrastructure for
foreign investors.
The idea was to emulate China’s economic zones, which began to absorb foreign
capital and rural labour in the early 1980s and became the main engines of
economic growth. Indian SEZs — legalised in 2005 — were to form the backbone
of a manufacturing industry that would employ millions left behind by the
recent economic boom.
India’s GDP has grown by an average of more than 8 per cent over the past four
years, making it the world’s second-fastest-growing big economy after China.
That growth has been driven by the service and IT industries, which employ
about 20 million people.
The agricultural sector, meanwhile, has grown by an average 2.3 per cent
annually since 2003, leaving some 300 million people to survive on less than
a dollar a day.
Under the special economic zone scheme, millions of these farmers would be
paid for their land at market rates, and many of them would find employment
in new factories. On paper, at least, it seemed like a foolproof idea and by
the end of last year the Government had approved 237 of the zones and was
considering hundreds more.
“Special economic zones have come to stay,” Manmohan Singh, the Prime
Minister, declared in October. In January, however, his Government was
forced to freeze all but 63 of the zones after a series of protests by
farmers refusing to give up their land. The most violent protests were in
West Bengal — India’s most crowded state, with a population of 80 million.
A Left Front led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has ruled here
since 1977 and has long championed farmers’ interests while opposing
industrialisation. But with West Bengal’s economy lagging behind much of
India, its communist rulers now want to imitate their Chinese counterparts.
So the Government is using an 1894 Land Acquisition Act introduced by the
British to justify buying 36,000 acres (14,600 hectares) of farmland, and
displacing more than 50,000 people, to create two special economic zones.
One zone in Singur, 30 miles (48km) north of Calcutta, is to house a vehicle
factory in which Tata, the Indian conglomerate, will build the world’s
cheapest car. The other in Nandigram, 75 miles south of Calcutta, will
include a shipyard and petrochemical plant built by Salim, an Indonesian
company.
“We are determined to develop industries in our state. We cannot survive only
on agriculture,” said Buddhadeb Bhatta-charjee, West Bengal’s chief
minister. “Living standards will change. The calculations have been done.
The local people stand to gain.”
The problem is that many farmers doubt that the money on offer will compensate
for their lost livelihoods, or that they will qualify for jobs in the new
factories.
Mr Das, the injured farmer, said that he earned 2,000 to 3,000 rupees
(£24-£34) a month from his farm, but also fed his family from it and
bartered much more. “My family has been here for more than 150 years,” he
said. “What do I know about petrochemicals? They want me to live in some
Calcutta slum.”
Chittarunjan Chakraborty, a lawyer acting for the Nandigram farmers, said that
they should bargain directly with investors, instead of being forced to sell
to the Government under the old British law.
Some farmers have agreed to the Government’s plans: construction has started
in Singur after weeks of protests in which dozens of people were injured.
One Singur farmer committed suicide this week.
Nandigram, however, has been holding out ever since plans for the SEZ were
leaked on January 7, triggering clashes with police that left 11 people
dead. The villagers drove out Communist Party members, built barricades and
dug trenches across roads. They armed themselves with sickles, knives,
sticks and homemade guns and bombs.
Mr Battacharjee insists that he sent in police to restore order, not to force
through a land grab, and will not proceed with the special economic zone if
farmers do not want it.
His political opponents, who have been encouraging the protests from the
start, are making hay from the killings. “The chief minister has unleashed
terror in Nandigram to grab land,” said Mamata Banerjee, the leader of the
opposition Trinamool Congress, who visited Nandigram on Thursday. “If any
government resorts to state-sponsored terrorism, it must be sacked.”
Some government critics now want the SEZ plans to be scrapped or reassigned to
fallow land. Others say that they should go ahead, but farmers must be
consulted more and adequately compensated. “
The journey to prosperity must come through stabilisation of agriculture and
industrial growth,” said Gopal Krishnan Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma
Gandhi and Governor of West Bengal — a largely ceremonial role. “But most
importantly, it must be a happy journey that proceeds through social
consultation.”
In Nandigram, farmers say it is too late for talks. Thousands of them are
still manning the barricades, including many grieving relatives and friends
of the 14 dead farmers. They say that dozens, possibly hundreds, more people
are missing after Wednesday’s violence.
Basanti Uttahasani, a 50-year-old woman with tears in her eyes and cuts and
bruises on her face, was still searching for her son, sister-in-law, two
sisters and two grandsons. “We will fight them to the end,” she said,
pointing at the hundreds of riot police lined up a few dozen yards away.
They can take my life, but they will never take my family’s land.”
Wealth disparity
Two-tier nation
– Agriculture employs 60% of India’s workforce but only accounts for 20% of
its GDP
– The rural life expectancy is 59 years, compared to 66 in the towns and
cities
– 59% of urban Indians have access to sanitation, compared to 22% in rural
areas
– Average growth rate 1990-2000 was 4.7% in India’s richest states, 1.7% in
India’s poorest
Source: CIA, UN, Indian Government
Special economic zones
– Since first SEZ in 1965, 0.12% of India’s arable land allocated for their
use
– Incentives include a five-year profit tax holiday, exemption from import and
excise duty
– India’s government is divided over SEZ’s. Finance Ministry argues they will
cost £20.4bn in tax revenues over five years
– Commerce Ministry anticipates £14.4bn foreign investment and two million new
jobs
Source: Economist Intelligence Unit
