Singur and the Small Entrepreneur in India

Sometimes you end up in the right place at the right time, and for no other reason, become part of history. As somebody who has made travel an important part of life, your correspondent has frequently met people who have had reasonably important roles in history as it unfolds, and as is the nature of such meetings - left more questions than answers. For example:-

- the elderly slighty tipsy American lady on the overnight BA flight from JFK to Heathrow almost 21 years ago, who knew so much about post-1947 Indian politics and personalities therein, that it felt like she might have been part of Nirad Chaudhari's inner circle before he wrote Thy Hand Great Anarch - she said she had been Personal Secretary to Vijaylakshmi Pandit.

- the guitar toting middle-aged American man who disembarked from a Virgin flight LHR-LAX, came with me to the Bus Station outside LA International Airport, about 3 years ago, who knew everything there was to know about a now long gone magazine called "Bombay" - he claimed that had drifted into helping out there in the late '70s and just hung around for a bit.

- the mysterious Indian, claiming to be from the political component of one of India's Central Services, who got roaring drunk in 1st Class on Aeroflot on an overnight flight from Moscow to Delhi about 5 years ago, and let slip stuff about Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose which matched what old ex-INA soldiers in Japan and a shippie friend who spent time in a jail in Taiwan had told me - the secrets of the Gulag will come out when the snows melt there with global warming.

But a few days ago, alone in a 4-berth 1AC compartment on the overnight train from Pune to Bangalore, I was joined for part of the journey by people who were very obviously connected somehow to the Tata Nano project. In the nature of things nowadays, one could not make out if they were flamboyant civil servants, new-age politicians, lobbyists-PR practitioners, or from The Company. Wine and paneer tikkas, and a non-participative approach, and one suddenly understands that there are their versions, your versions, and then there is the truth. But hey, a few days later, almost everybody who is connected with the Tata Nano project had landed up at the Naveen Hotel in Hubli. Twin city to Dharwar. Where some interesting truths are unfolding. As they did in Gujarat a few days later.

And the truth is that all sorts of conspiracy or tactical withdrawal theories aside, (the best one is this - Tata Motors always planned to be in half-a-dozen locations in India, including near modern ports on both coasts, and needed that one disposable catalyst to act as a fulcrum for other states to play welcoming bugles and roll out the red carpet - and what better predicatable entitites to push their own self-destruct mode than the political loonies from West Bengal?) what Tata Motors and Mr. Ratan Tata have done as a wonderful benefit for the rest of us, is brought the dignity and viability of choice of re-location to the entrepreneur in India. So important when being fingered with a gun on the head, (again, to quote Mr. Ratan Tata) not just for the large corporates, but also for the smallest organisations. The ones at the bottom of the chain, who despite rigid adherences and statutory compliances, are most often at the frontlines of being harassed by all sorts of elements from Indian and State Government mis-governance.

Thank you, Mr. Tata. 10 years ago, for another magazine and on television, I predicted how the Tata Indica would change the face of the small car scene in India. It did.

Now, in my humble opinion, the Tata Nano, will change the way those in governance will look at entrepreneurs in India. This I learnt after being harassed for weeks by Inspectors from the ESIC in Pune, an organisation which does not even apply to companies like mine, because we don't employ anybody with salaries below 10,000/- rupees. When I got disgusted and finally told them that if they persisted in trying to finger me, then we would re-locate out of Maharashtra, I realised that I had hit the button when I saw their faces. In less than a week, we received what they call a clean "Visit Note", and a personal call asking us not to blame them if we did ever re-locate.

NB: It is a pity that the "mother plant" for the Tata Nano did not find a home in Maharashtra. Apparently, one reason was, the "power" situation. Electrical and political.