Taking a Gandhian Approach to Avenging the Horrors of Singur and Nandigram

This is a slightly modified version of what I had written about Nandigram in UP. I have also put this in my ilog. I am now adding it to FP interacts because I think that this point has to be repeated given that, the media, and now chowk articles, is not reporting on the core issue. I apologise for multiple postings. I put the following facts, along with certain beliefs (which I clearly state when I take recourse to them), for your consideration.

1. The CPM's claim to fame is land reforms. In West Bengal, it meant that, use rights but not property rights were handed over to those who were actually cultivating the land AT THAT TIME. Use rights do not allow the 'owner' of the land to sell the land. However, it allows the cultivator to cultivate the land without any threat of eviction. The land can also pass on to children but it cannot be sold. So, for example, it cannot be used as a collateral to secure a loan. However, since monitoring who actually cultivates the land is difficult, the person who had the land 'registered' in his name did not have to continue cultivating it. For at least a generation this problem did not arise as cultivators remained cultivators.

2. Most cultivators who benifited from land reforms were CPM members (or converted into CPM members).

3. The land around Calcutta has a huge proportion of Muslims (at places above 50%). Most Muslims were traditionally Congress supporters. Hence, they did not benifit from the reforms as the Hindus did. Plus a sizeable proportion of the Muslims was (is) into small time trade and worked in the handicraft and leather sectors.

4. In Nandigram, the land 'owners' are both Hindus and Muslims. They have done well for themselves given the success of commercial cropping. The second generation is largely out of cultivation. So most of the land is no longer owner cultivated, but is cultivated through hired labor and share cropping! But share cropping and working the fields require that the ‘owner’ monitor the workers or the actual amount of harvest. This, I believe, was getting to be difficult with the younger family members of the “owner� migrating to urban areas for ‘babu’ type jobs. I believe that, given such problems of monitoring, most 'land-owners' were happy to ‘sell’ for the SEZ. (Note, the present problem would not have arisen had the “owners� refused to sell. This point will become clearer as we proceed).
5. In point 4, above, "selling" is simply a compensation by the govt. (who always owned the land) to those under whom the land was registered. "Selling", otherwise has no meaning when the owners only have use rights but no property rights.

6. Almost 60 to 70 percent of the hired labor, share-croppers and traders who sell to the workers (like petty shop-keepers) are Muslims. These guys are the ones who lost out when the land was sold. Do note that the Congess was becomming weaker and weaker politically. A political void was created. The people who lost needed political representation for them to be properly compensated. We shall come to who filled this void after a small deviation in 7.
7. With the influx of hardworking but poor illegal, and hence exploited, Bangladeshi immigrants into the North East region as well as the area near Calcutta, a constituency, unaffiliated with any political party, was developing. In the North East they are now, hopefully, being effectively represented by the Jamaat. I believe that, they are also present as share croppers and hired workers in the Nandigram area (I have no idea about the actual proportion). In any case the informal Muslim network was not getting the political support it required. The CPM drunk with power had become lax.

8. The Jamaat stepped in. According to my political understanding it communalized the situation. Others may argue that this is not communalization, but politics according to Islamic ideals. The CPM was caught napping and a sizeable section of the local leadership went over to the Jamaat folds. Mamta and the Naxals also moved in. CPM cadres were driven out of their houses. The CPM woke up, and as usual its cadre of thugs (both Hindus and Muslims) retaliated. And they did retaliate with violence.

7. Idiots ranging from two time jounalists to Romilla Thapar cannot distinguish heads from tails. The issue is that of "use rights" vs. "property rights". The Marxists did not understand it then and do not do so today.
8. The CPM stronghold is extremely strong in the rural areas and relatively weak in Calcutta. So the Jamaat used Nandigram, and that stupid Bangladeshi writer, to mobilize those Muslims in Calcutta who were previously under the protection of the Congress and the Chatra Parishad. The BJP was waiting just for this to happen. It can now dig into the Hindu vote bank of the Congress.
9. Plain and simple, no rocket science. The CPM, being one of the sanest political parties in India, have immediately brought in the army. I predict that it will resort to massive violence over the comming months through its cadre. To allow for this violence it will give the Congess some slack over the nuclear issue. If Pakistanis are a bit confused over the cadre base of the CPM, think MQM.
(P.S. I am not a Bengali and for that matter I am hardly an Indian)

ANGER AND AFTER
- Disenchantment with the status quo in Bengal is out in the open
Ashis Chakrabarti


I was a young student in Calcutta at the height of the Naxalite movement. When I became a reporter, Indira Gandhi had already declared her Emergency. Fortunately, those were the final months of a national misfortune. For me, there were two telling images from the intellectuals’ mahamichhil last week, which dramatically captured the contrasts between then and now. One was the poster that had Narendra Modi’s face super-imposed on that of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. The other was the banner that said, “Tomar naam amar naam Nandigram Nandigram�, with its echoes of the leftist slogan on Vietnam in the Seventies. If the first showed the anger against the chief minister of the Left Front government, the other reflected a dilemma, especially for the Naxalites of those years.

The once-radical Left felt betrayed by the fact that a “leftist� party and its government had perpetrated the violence at Nandigram. Many of them had been victims of the terror let loose on campuses, in neighbourhoods and elsewhere in Bengal, by the stormtroopers of the Chhatra Parishad, the Youth Congress and of course, the police in the Seventies. And, they knew that many who had masterminded and even taken part in those atrocities are leaders of the Congress and the Trinamul Congress today.

For the former Naxalites who joined the rally, Bhattacharjee has killed the idea of the Left by running after big money and emphasizing production and not distribution. Nandigram was the last straw for those who had been appalled that the police under a leftist government shot farmers in order to pave the way for a Tata factory.

But Bengal’s memory of Naxalite violence and the consequent economic collapse in the Seventies is still fresh. Almost all Naxalite groups that had taken part in the violence in those days have subsequently realized that their adventurism did not serve the cause of any revolution, leftist or otherwise, but made Bengal a byword for violence and despair.

The interesting thing about these ex-Naxalites joining the rally in such large numbers is that it was they who now joined Aparna Sen and Sankha Ghosh and not vice versa. The College Square, where the intellectuals’ rally began, was once the showpiece of their liberation movement. It was the battleground where the walls of the buildings around would proclaim “China’s chairman [to be] Our chairman� and where a great revolutionary offensive would be launched in order to “behead� the bust of Vidyasagar.

Their successors are still out there, killing policemen and innocent people in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and in their very own Andhra Pradesh. If the presence of the former Naxalites at the rally was a fact, its real import was that they now walked Calcutta’s streets, silently, against the politics of violence. A long walk indeed away from the elimination of the class enemy.

Bengalis, not a martial race by any standard, have always had a romantic view of violence. The Naxalism of the Seventies continued, in a sense, the tradition that produced terrorist violence against the British and the romantic call for “blood� by Subhas Chandra Bose. This preference for violence is one of the reasons why Mahatma Gandhi has not been idolized by Bengalis the way he has been hailed in many other states in India. Even poets, musicians and writers who endorsed political violence in their work found a ready response in Bengal. In Ghare Baire, Rabindranath Tagore asked Bengalis to give up violence, but the idea was not popular.

The rally would suggest that the relevance of Tagore’s message is becoming clear only now. In the Seventies, the alternative to the Left was ultra-Left. We all know what the consequence was. Even the former Naxalites would have to be extraordinarily gullible to nurture any such illusion. Today, the alternative seems to be a greater consolidation of the apolitical protests. The rally and the public campaign in the Rizawnur Rahman case bear this out. But, if politics has failed us, there is no solution in sight, except a vague idea of returning power to the people. But the realization that the politics of the status quo is not acceptable any more seems to be striking root in a state that has been used to giving politics and politicians a dangerously exaggerated importance.

This disenchantment with the status quo underscores the rejection of the politics of violence, be it by the CPI(M), the Congress types, including Mamata Banerjee, or by the Naxalites of yesteryear or the Maoists of today. What the Marxists did at Nandigram is now seen to be the ultimate in violence because the ruling party and the government were partners in the crime. When Sankha Ghosh and Aparna Sen refused to join the rally if Mamata Banerjee planned to take part in it, they sent out this very message in no uncertain terms. Violence, they meant, was as unacceptable from the CPI(M) as from the Trinamul or any other political group.

It would be absurd to suggest that the rally marked the beginning of the end of politics as we know it in Bengal now or that an alternative was at hand. It would be naïve to expect the CPI(M) or its opponents to change their methods dramatically overnight. But they cannot afford to ignore the writing on the wall. For Bhattacharjee, the ultimate irony is that he won the partisan battle at Nandigram with force, but had his victory rejected by not only the villagers of Nandigram but also the people of Bengal. Even the supporters of his party would privately admit that the dubious success would cost them much more politically than the failures of the past eleven months.

But then, anger at the CPI(M) and its betrayal is one thing. Building up a credible alternative that will have answers to the problems of governance and of Bengal’s economic revival, is a very different matter. The Naxalites or their many avatars in the radical Left have been Bengal’s worst problems and cannot therefore offer any solutions. The attempt to form the alternative to the CPI(M) can best be sought along apolitical lines. The political parties would be there, of course, but the agenda for them needs to be increasingly set by the apolitical conscience and action of the people. It looks like a tall order in a state — and a country — where politics has long become the last resort for people who are far worse than scoundrels.

That, at least, was the new will of the people of Bengal that the rally — and the candlelight campaigns for Rizwanur Rahman before it — expressed and celebrated.

I had confirmation of this mood and the message as I was walking back to work from the rally. Returning from it, a former Naxalite activist, who retired from his college lecturer’s job last year, struck up a conversation. He was hopeful that the rally had inspired a different kind of fight against the CPI(M). “But the only way for the fight is through the ballot, not with bullets,� he said, almost to himself.

I returned home that evening with two simple messages from the rally. One, Bengal at last perhaps wants an alternative to the CPI(M). Two, the search for it cannot end in a return to the Seventies.

Enough of the Gandhian approach.

How about the Jinnah-bhai approach? You know, Direct Action Day, and "Today we have unsheathed the pistol" and the like?

Then we can ask Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, "Do you feel lucky, punk?"

Article Interact Taking a Gandhian Approach to Avenging the Horrors of Singur and Nandigram
mehul kamdar November 18, 2007
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#4 Posted by Mystic on November 21, 2007 5:55:09 am
#1 Whatever the problem is and one can read about it in hundreds of news items over months.The question the author answers is whether we deal it with violence or nonviolently

#2

Problem has now esclated into two sides murdering each others .Britsh is mentioned only in context of gandhigiri or Gandhis nonviolent approach

#3 I agree these CPM walla were oppertunistic from day one.
It took 20 yrs as usual with poor mental capacity to only grasp at the stage of "what Happenned' And not 'What is going to Happen' or 'What Is happening '

If you fel like reading opinion


ANGER AND AFTER
- Disenchantment with the status quo in Bengal is out in the open
Ashis Chakrabarti

#1 Whatever the problem is and one can read about it in hundreds of news items over months.The question the author answers is whether we deal it with violence or nonviolently

#2

Problem has now esclated into two sides murdering each others .Britsh is mentioned only in context of gandhigiri or Gandhis nonviolent approach

#3 I agree these CPM walla were oppertunistic from day one.
It took 20 yrs as usual with poor mental capacity to only grasp at the stage of "what Happenned' And not 'What is going to Happen' or 'What Is happening '

If you fel like reading opinion


ANGER AND AFTER
- Disenchantment with the status quo in Bengal is out in the open
Ashis Chakrabarti


I was a young student in Calcutta at the height of the Naxalite movement. When I became a reporter, Indira Gandhi had already declared her Emergency. Fortunately, those were the final months of a national misfortune. For me, there were two telling images from the intellectuals’ mahamichhil last week, which dramatically captured the contrasts between then and now. One was the poster that had Narendra Modi’s face super-imposed on that of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. The other was the banner that said, “Tomar naam amar naam Nandigram Nandigram�, with its echoes of the leftist slogan on Vietnam in the Seventies. If the first showed the anger against the chief minister of the Left Front government, the other reflected a dilemma, especially for the Naxalites of those years.

The once-radical Left felt betrayed by the fact that a “leftist� party and its government had perpetrated the violence at Nandigram. Many of them had been victims of the terror let loose on campuses, in neighbourhoods and elsewhere in Bengal, by the stormtroopers of the Chhatra Parishad, the Youth Congress and of course, the police in the Seventies. And, they knew that many who had masterminded and even taken part in those atrocities are leaders of the Congress and the Trinamul Congress today.

For the former Naxalites who joined the rally, Bhattacharjee has killed the idea of the Left by running after big money and emphasizing production and not distribution. Nandigram was the last straw for those who had been appalled that the police under a leftist government shot farmers in order to pave the way for a Tata factory.

But Bengal’s memory of Naxalite violence and the consequent economic collapse in the Seventies is still fresh. Almost all Naxalite groups that had taken part in the violence in those days have subsequently realized that their adventurism did not serve the cause of any revolution, leftist or otherwise, but made Bengal a byword for violence and despair.

The interesting thing about these ex-Naxalites joining the rally in such large numbers is that it was they who now joined Aparna Sen and Sankha Ghosh and not vice versa. The College Square, where the intellectuals’ rally began, was once the showpiece of their liberation movement. It was the battleground where the walls of the buildings around would proclaim “China’s chairman [to be] Our chairman� and where a great revolutionary offensive would be launched in order to “behead� the bust of Vidyasagar.

Their successors are still out there, killing policemen and innocent people in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and in their very own Andhra Pradesh. If the presence of the former Naxalites at the rally was a fact, its real import was that they now walked Calcutta’s streets, silently, against the politics of violence. A long walk indeed away from the elimination of the class enemy.

Bengalis, not a martial race by any standard, have always had a romantic view of violence. The Naxalism of the Seventies continued, in a sense, the tradition that produced terrorist violence against the British and the romantic call for “blood� by Subhas Chandra Bose. This preference for violence is one of the reasons why Mahatma Gandhi has not been idolized by Bengalis the way he has been hailed in many other states in India. Even poets, musicians and writers who endorsed political violence in their work found a ready response in Bengal. In Ghare Baire, Rabindranath Tagore asked Bengalis to give up violence, but the idea was not popular.

The rally would suggest that the relevance of Tagore’s message is becoming clear only now. In the Seventies, the alternative to the Left was ultra-Left. We all know what the consequence was. Even the former Naxalites would have to be extraordinarily gullible to nurture any such illusion. Today, the alternative seems to be a greater consolidation of the apolitical protests. The rally and the public campaign in the Rizawnur Rahman case bear this out. But, if politics has failed us, there is no solution in sight, except a vague idea of returning power to the people. But the realization that the politics of the status quo is not acceptable any more seems to be striking root in a state that has been used to giving politics and politicians a dangerously exaggerated importance.

This disenchantment with the status quo underscores the rejection of the politics of violence, be it by the CPI(M), the Congress types, including Mamata Banerjee, or by the Naxalites of yesteryear or the Maoists of today. What the Marxists did at Nandigram is now seen to be the ultimate in violence because the ruling party and the government were partners in the crime. When Sankha Ghosh and Aparna Sen refused to join the rally if Mamata Banerjee planned to take part in it, they sent out this very message in no uncertain terms. Violence, they meant, was as unacceptable from the CPI(M) as from the Trinamul or any other political group.

It would be absurd to suggest that the rally marked the beginning of the end of politics as we know it in Bengal now or that an alternative was at hand. It would be naïve to expect the CPI(M) or its opponents to change their methods dramatically overnight. But they cannot afford to ignore the writing on the wall. For Bhattacharjee, the ultimate irony is that he won the partisan battle at Nandigram with force, but had his victory rejected by not only the villagers of Nandigram but also the people of Bengal. Even the supporters of his party would privately admit that the dubious success would cost them much more politically than the failures of the past eleven months.

But then, anger at the CPI(M) and its betrayal is one thing. Building up a credible alternative that will have answers to the problems of governance and of Bengal’s economic revival, is a very different matter. The Naxalites or their many avatars in the radical Left have been Bengal’s worst problems and cannot therefore offer any solutions. The attempt to form the alternative to the CPI(M) can best be sought along apolitical lines. The political parties would be there, of course, but the agenda for them needs to be increasingly set by the apolitical conscience and action of the people. It looks like a tall order in a state — and a country — where politics has long become the last resort for people who are far worse than scoundrels.

That, at least, was the new will of the people of Bengal that the rally — and the candlelight campaigns for Rizwanur Rahman before it — expressed and celebrated.

I had confirmation of this mood and the message as I was walking back to work from the rally. Returning from it, a former Naxalite activist, who retired from his college lecturer’s job last year, struck up a conversation. He was hopeful that the rally had inspired a different kind of fight against the CPI(M). “But the only way for the fight is through the ballot, not with bullets,� he said, almost to himself.

I returned home that evening with two simple messages from the rally. One, Bengal at last perhaps wants an alternative to the CPI(M). Two, the search for it cannot end in a return to the Seventies.

These bastard antinational Communists must be thrown into the Bay of Bengal, they are the biggest frauds with extra territorial loyalties, earlier they were licking the boots may be asses of their bosses in Russia, now they are trying to fight for China's interests. They loot, murder and rape and the party bosses make heaps of money, see how filthy rich the sons of the leading lights of CPM are.

Dear Mr. Kamdar,

Thank you for your feelings for the poor farmers. I am for freedom, and don't like colonization either. But, two points: Boycotting industries will only add to the misery, for the poor workers would be the first to be thrown out onto the streets. And, I don't see the British rule as black and white. This extensive network of railways that covers all of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, and these institutes of higher learning are also legacy of the British. Things no Mid Eastern country has despite all the petor dollars.

This is the kind of nonsense being written about Nandigram that I had talked about in UP. Note how the author fails to state what exactly is the problem in Nandigram. The title has "nandigram", but loof at the amount actually written about Nandigram. Pathetic.