SINGUR Anti-Eviction Movement: First 6 Months: Note from an Activist
[We asked a grassroot activist to present his experience from the fighting fields of singur. In return, he sent this following hurriedly written note. We have not edited this piece to present the readers his uncooked and 'not dressed up' feelings — though authors of a theoretical-political journal perhaps would have liked to change some wordings, expressions, etc in this 'note'. We hope the readers will consider, and will not take this as a regular article. — Editorial Board, FAPP.]
The SINGUR anti — eviction movement started on May 25, '06 when villagers there suddenly found a car carrying TATA personnel arriving there to visit the land for their anticipated land grab to set up a small-car factory. When the villagers smelt their intention, they turned furious, they blocked the car and TATA personnel had to return. We heard the news that night and went to visit those alarmed and agitated villages on 27 May. By the way, we do not reside close to those villages, neither our organisation, the krishak committee, has any operational area nearby. When we first went there we were 'outsiders', but our very frequent visits, activities and programmes made us close enough to acquire experiences and lessons from the simmering fields there. We want to present here only succinctly a few interesting points and that also in haste, as the situation is tense now.
The Problem of the Organisation for Struggle: Within a day or two, the krishi jomi raksha Committee (save agricultural land committee, henceforth mentioned as KJRC) was formed by the spontaneous initiative of the villagers. Several leading members including the convenor of that committee happened to be activists of TMC (Trinamul Congress, led by Ms Mamata Banerjee), but at the initial period, the KJRC was more or less carrying on independently. And it is a well-known that a section of the TMC 'mass base' consists of disgruntled and erstwhile CPIM supporters, even activists.
Within a short time, we had somewhat closeness with the KJRC and they requested us, informally, to join the committee. They requested the same to all other organisations going there in support of their movement. We declined the offer on certain grounds and gave our reasons in writing, so that the committee can discuss the issue. The chief reasons of our refusal were: As more and more parties, organisations, etc will crowd in the KJRC, more and more it will be a top-heavy organisation, less able to be an executive body, the 'outsider leaders' will overshadow the grassroot activists, and what is more important, it will throttle the independent development of activists coming up from ground level, will make them dependent on 'outsider' leaders. According to our reasoning, the KJRC need not and should not incorporate in them any external 'leaders' — they themselves should be the leaders. Anyway, that didn't happen, all parties and/or 'frontal organisations' had their way inside that, including those of the CR organisations (probably including the Maoists too), all except us. In our agitation-propaganda too, we stressed on the independent development of the grassroot activists coming up from below; of course, CRs should help them develop. Is that at all possible? Well, we shall come to that point a bit later.
After some time, (2 months or so) the sign of invisible hand, some sort of 'control' from above on the spontaneous unrest at below, started to become evident: as for example, the spontaneous agitation of the villagers protesting and registering their protest against their land being acquisitioned at the D.M. office gate on a Saturday with their raw wrath and anger, changed into a well-orchestrated deputation programme, where the village poor had to assemble many yards before reaching that gate, in front of a dais, to hear lectures, on next Monday. District level TMC leadership arranged the programme; leaders of TMC, SUCI, different CR organisations etc were on the stage and spoke on the occasion. We joined the rally and the KJRC certainly accommodated us with their declaration that no party/org etc banner will be there except that of the KJRC. But we didn't opted going to the stage, full of leaders of TMC and etc. Then, some days later, there was a TMC styled road blockade too. TMC had a clever stand. They always allowed and their leaders repeatedly said that programmes would be organised under the banner of KJRC, knowing that their overwhelming presence and their media-illuminated top leadership will overshadow, and the whole thing will be actually a TMC-led affair. The CRs present inside, contributed to this game plan by not protesting strongly and openly, as we did, the class nature and class role of TMC like parties, what the NDA allies of the TMC did in Orissa, MP, and above all, the need of development of leadership and organisation from below, the need to combat this 'development-industrialisation' hoax.
This gave the CPIM good chance to pit one section of the people against other dividing them party wise, and this is a weak point of the movement too. In some of our six leaflets we published so far on this movement, we had to deal with this issue categorically where we tried to gather support for this movement from the villages surrounding the affected zone. By the way, it is as if like a curse befallen on WB, divisions within the masses not based on class, but based of parties; historically speaking, the communist movement once in the past tried to unite the toiling and exploited masses under its banner, but now the old party-division obscures and obfuscate the class-position; certainly the people need to overcome this 'false division' between parties and unite based on class. Curiously, only at a late stage of the movement, the KJRC activists thought of taking up the task of gathering support from the outskirts, perhaps with the need arising from the approaching battle day. Most possibly excessive dependence on big parties was also a factor behind neglecting this task of gathering force with local grassroot initiative. By the way, there is the NGO factor too. Internationally famous NGOs coming down in villages, luminaries spending time and preaching their ideas too (of food-insecurity, human rights, and or etc we don't know), even taking villagers to programmes in big cities — all this naturally generate some awe among villagers and attracts their attention elsewhere; also they cultivate some reliance on these 'super-power'. In the past, we have seen that NGOs do contribute to 'spread the message' and media-coverage but we haven't seen anywhere they contributed to strengthen struggles in the long run.
After 4 months the 25 September event happened: Police put off electricity at the dark of the night and made brutal torture on the people cordoning the Block Office, injuring and maltreating many, even Ms Mamata Banerjee. They arrested many villagers including women and did brutal torture in the police station. This event too is mysterious in one sense; the KJRC leadership was handling the agitation aptly and properly till evening, they proved that the govt is falsely registering villagers' acceptance of cheques and the govt officer faltered and stopped cheque distribution; even they had no plan of blocking the office till late at night. But after the arrival of TMC leaders, 'leadership' slipped out of their hand. And 25 Sept is a watershed date in the sense that the control of the movement went to the 'top', the KJRC became almost solely dependent on TMC plans virtually relinquishing its independent role of chalking out programmes. By late October, there was dissention cropping up below for the inactivity of the KJRC, but the level and nature of dissention was not that of 'aiming to take control from below', rather it was an expression of urge for programmes needed to prepare the masses for the battle to come. Finally, there were a few signs of preparations since mid Nov, though the 'dependence on big-party-big-leader' factor is still very much there within an influential section of the KJRC.
We know that this development of grassroot activists to independent organisers, development of organisation from below (of course helps of CRs may very well be needed) run by the organisers coming up from below, etc are difficult, particularly in a too much polarised rural scene of West Bengal. In some cases of spontaneous outbursts in past few years in rural Bengal, we have witnessed independent actions; and we know the same would be difficult for a sustained movement that needs a more or less permanent organisation for some months or more. However, in case of workers' movement we have seen not a few of such efforts independent-from-established-parties/unions-MLA/MP etc. Then, the experiences of the people regarding the established parties are pushing them towards that direction. So, this cannot be ruled out as impossible. Here we would like to present a 'frustrated' comment from a KJRC activist: If we win the battle TMC will profit (in vote), and if we loose, then also the TMC will profit.... This is the concrete expression of the seed, the seed that is trying to sprout.
On the contrary, the logic of the CR groups was, de facto: 'we shall have to go in the joint effort, in the course of development of the struggle the TMC will find it impossible for them to continue the struggle, the movement will nonetheless want to advance, there will be a vacuum in leadership that we shall then fill up', (which means, they will grip the movement from top). They perhaps didn't bother for the development from below not only of peoples' struggles, but also of fighting organisations. This type of 'organisational' consideration has, of course, 'political' counterparts.
The Question of Politics: On June 1st week we published and started distributing our first leaflet, which contained mainly: — * description of the land and people's state of affairs — this was necessary to counter the CPIM and state governments the then mal-propaganda that the land marked by the govt was not much fertile, mainly single cultivated, etc and that the area will be developed if the TATA factory comes up; * the impossibility of real peoples' development by the bourgeois-govt-CPIM blueprint of their so-called shilpayan (industrialisation) and unnayan (development). A leaflet of some 1000 words or less don't give you much space to deal with the question of development and the need for revolution; and we already had plan to publish our irregular bulletin krishak path detailing the necessary issues. In mid June we published our bulletin, which also had recent news of Kalinganagar struggle in Orissa, etc.
Ours was the sole organisation to fight head on the development issue as the govt and bourgeois media presented that, to propagate the necessity of revolution for real development of workers and peasants and to expose the danger of falling in trap of TMC etc; while all others, including all the known Communist Revolutionary organisations and their 'frontal organisations', said — we also want shilpayan, but let that be on barren land or sick-industry's land... etc. They could not articulate the inner agitation within the minds of the rural proletariat and poor & middle peasants (themselves toilers and exploited) who appreciated much our stand that 'this is no development at all — rather this is enrichment of the privileged classes'. Also, they failed to see the impossibility of 'industrialisation' in the true sense of the term in an imperialists' depndent country at this stage of history. We were astonished to find a CR leader even depicting our stand as 'bookish' and impractical. Whatever the websites of the CR orgs say on this issue centrally, at the local or state level neither they took up those revolutionary tasks mentioned, nor they made concrete criticism of TMC etc bourgeois parties exposing their real nature. In fact, they are participating in joint-activities with TMC, sharing the same dais. Thus, they are pushing back the necessity of independent revolutionary platform.
The 25th Sept incident was of course deserves condemnation, the govt administration acted indeed brutally on the assembled villagers, even including old persons, even a baby with mother was jailed. A youth in his twenties succumbed to atrocious beating by the police the next day morning, but the matter was hushed up, the family also naturally didn't want hassles and pains of post-mortem. The TMC and SUCI called a BANDH to protest on 9th Oct, 2 weeks after the incident, well calculated to spare the PUJA festival, and obviously which shows putting calculations above spontaneous protest. Surprisingly the CR groups/frontal-organisations, perhaps all barring us, called BANDH on the same day or supported the TMC Bandh!Everybody knows that it is tailing the TMC plain and simple. This tactic doesn't serve and didn't serve to strengthen toiling peoples' struggle, it doesn't fit at all in the logic of that movement; it fits in electioneering fight only. In the coming days of the movement, there is a real danger in front of the CR 'stream', as those organisations are prone to fall in TMC trap (or lap!). How their activities in this issue fit in the effort for development today's struggles towards future revolutionary struggle!
At last, in this end November we are glad to find a leaflet by "Teachers and Scientists against Mal-development" (TASAM) published by Dr Meher Engineer. Nobody should expect such forum to make revolutionary propaganda, but they called spade a spade and confronted the development agenda.
The Role of Media & The Misinformation Drive of the Govt: The majority of media did either news-black-out, or did misinformation propaganda: this perhaps account for those who control almost three fourth market of vernacular print media. They are overt supporters of WB govt's drive matching liberalisation-globalisation policies of the imperialists.
The other, minor part, who staunchly opposes the govt, stood against the govt. They, along with some sections of the bourgeois intelligentsia, totally fabricated and imposed their issue, saying that such 'industrialisation' as is being done by the CPIM govt is to be opposed because it is curbing fertile land that will endanger food-security. They didn't oppose this shilpayan/unnayan calling it a hollow bluff and only serving capitalists and their lackeys.
They did this intentionally. How can they oppose this shilpayan/unnayan of the govt calling it pseudo-development! How can they admit that the village poor never had or have food security? This way of framing the issue obscures the real issues: that this 'development' along the line of liberalisation-globalisation is only furthering enrichment for the haves at the cost of further deprivation, pauperisation, exploitation of the have-nots; that development in real terms can happen only when the workers and all toiling people take the reign of the country in their own hands.
The misinformation drive of the govt is even more loathsome. At first, they did the Goeblesian propaganda saying the singur land was low in fertility; single-cultivation per year is the norm there, etc. When they actually failed to get consent from and give cheques for not even half of the land, and majority of the affected landowners did neither gave consent nor went to get the compensation cheques till date, they always said that more than 95 percent of the peasants gave away land willingly. The major print-media houses propagated this blatant lie. These show again how corrupting and shameful is govt-centric politics. Then why you are posting thousands and thousands of state armed forces there to quell just 'a handful of' opposing peasants?
The Case of Non-Peasant Landowners: It is noteworthy. Generally speaking, it is this section that agreed to 'sell off' land when the govt tried to buy up the land to give TATA. They possessed one of the biggest parts of land among all classes and strata in rural Bengal. They are not working peasants, they perform just the management function while the labourers do the actual agricultural works, or they lease out land, in many cases periodically changing sharecroppers to bypass sharecropping law. Many of them do not even reside within this area or nearby, which means they were absentee-landlords. They have least affinity to land and treat land as any other commodity or 'money-hoard'.
This section awaits confiscation of all their lands, of course without any compensation, and all their land will go to the disposal of the rural working peasants and labourers, in the revolution to come. If this govt can override the 'right to property' for its fabricated 'public interest', then why the revolutionary masses cannot override that same 'right' for greater common interest! The capitalist-friendly govt has shown forcible land-grab to land-hungry peasants, the govt has taught the way.
An Interesting Point: In mid-September we hold a march in those affected villages of Singur on behalf of Krishak Committee and Sramik Sangram Committee. We could gather numerically only a small force on that occasion, perhaps 500 or a bit less. But surprisingly it had a strange effect on the struggling people there. They demarcated this small gathering and demonstration from all other's ones, some of which were several times bigger. They started calling it: workers' march [sromikder michhil] — as industrial and agricultural workers were overwhelming majority in that, overshadowing urban 'educated' 'middle-class', a force that makes up commonly and mostly such rallies at the call of other parties or groups. Not only that, there was another 'strange' characteristic: the speakers in that demonstration were workers too. All these gave the struggling people there a totally different taste. [PS: after the Dec bloodbath and Tapasi rape-cum-murder case, and the usurping the 'Committee' by the TMC and allies, in a situation of somewhat 'void' and disarrayed-ness, some local village-activists requested for a propaganda drive of 'workers' in Jan 07. Workers of some factories complied with the request and went there with their own published literature. In another interesting development, a score or more of Jute workers of Hooghly district conducted their propaganda-agitation on this issue among workers of several Jute mills with their own publication and with their speeches at factory gates — they did not need any non-worker speaker on these occasions.]
The Days to Come: The fate of the singur movement depends mainly, almost solely, on the villagers themselves, because when the 'Day' or 'days' will come administration will not let anybody enter that area — we tried to tell this to the fighting peasants from our experiences. (In case of forcible land acquisition in some Katwa villages for a govt power project in recent times, the govt deployed police forces numbering 3 times or more than the adult population of those villages, who combed and overpowered villagers, the latter couldn't even think of resisting — though, of course, they didn't have any singur like movement.) On the other hand, the involvement of TMC and other party/groups and their taking the helm will complicate the matter. In the condition of rapid spread of workers' and peasants' movements in other places, it would have been easier for the singur peasants. At this moment, it is not visible yet that the singur peasants will get active physical support from surroundings. But there are signs of possibilities of such movements cropping up in other places as the central and state governments have joined a mad rush of grabbing land for the capitalists. Only one thing is clear now, that a good part of the singur villagers will try their best to resist.
P.S: Battlefield SINGUR — 2nd Dec & Day After
The Left Regimes Police showed their true colour — the white terror unleashed in those villages. And their white lies were washed away — that majority of the villagers have consented land acquisition and took cheques! Nearly 20,000 police were deployed!! The area was sealed off from outside world since 30th Nov. On 2nd Dec, after dispersing the assembled protesting villagers from the field by tear gas, rubber bullets, brutal lathi charges... the govt forces entered the villages, ransacked, tear-gassed inside houses, beat people including elderly ones, ladies, children inside the houses or drawing them forcefully out of the houses, burned down hay stacks... ...you have seen all these in TV. Buddha's police was very kind indeed; they were instructed not to use real bullets and they abided by! If police could behave so atrociously and undemocratically with an international luminary like Ms Medha Patekar, then how they behaved with village women can easily be gauged. The elderly ex-teacher MLA sir (TMC) was also not spared from police atrocity. Some prominent figures of Bengali intelligentsia couldn't think out what would be the proper analogy — to call it Hitler-like or like the Emergency of '75! Police arrested many giving false charges with un-bail-able CrPC sections. However, surely, the police did not expect that the peasants would repeatedly show their un-afraid resistance mood even during and after state-terror aided by CPIM agents.
It is very difficult to communicate and keep alive the network. Many had to disperse. Slowly rearrangements are taking place. But take note: The first fight and regrouping efforts are done and could be done without external leaders... parties/groups.... Anyway, our 7th leaflet (Re — Singur Movement) is out today (3/12/06) condemning police brutality and urging toiling people to side with the fight. Some Singur fighters are realising the necessity of propaganda in neighbouring area with the view of drawing their support. But the situation is so tense and the govt is acting so repressively that at this moment it is indeed difficult.
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The Tapasi Malik Rape and Burning-To-Death incident:
On The 18th of December at dawn, a heinous crime was committed against a teen-age girl activist of the movement. The dead body was found by her family, burning in a hole, which was used by the night watchmen for cooking. The villagers alleged gang rape and burning to death. Quickly, the CPIM started a misinformation and character-assassination campaign by pointing at a fabricated love affair. The State Police and CID probe was ridiculous to the villagers as those detectives carefully avoided all such search that could point towards CPIM sponsored watchmen of the fences; rather they de facto harassed the family. Surprisingly, all on a sudden, the night-watchmen team abandoned the spot with lock, stock and barrel after that incident, and the CPIM tried to fabricate another lie by saying there had not been any watchmen team posted there! The police said that no evidence of rape was found as the related body-parts were severely burnt! Police pressurised cremation of the body quickly at Srirampur town, miles away from her village, after their arranged post-mortem and the family was not allowed to bring the dead body home before cremation.
Yielding to public pressure the govt promised a CBI enquiry within a few days, but the CBI got formal intimation probably near mid-January and they arrived the spot a couple of days later. Enough time was provided for natural and un-natural loss of evidences. Suddenly, within just a couple of days of the start of CBI enquiry, Tapasi's father's elder brother, who lived alongside Tapasi's family and worked as a Gang-man of PWI of the Railways, was found dead near a rail line. The police said it was a railway-accident while working. This again roused suspicion among fighting people there. [20.01.2007]
Ratan Tata's Outrageous Remark — The Ugly Face of TATA
While Singur was fighting nightmarish State Terror, the owner of the Tata Empire, Ratan Tata, echoed publicly a deliberate insulting comment previously uttered by CPIM state secretary and Bengal Left Front Chief Biman Bose: that the movement of Singur had a hand of 'competitor car company' behind — to jeopardise Tata's pioneering small car project!! The bourgeois obedient media that was backing the Govt in its anti people moves in Singur forcefully brought Tata's remark in forefront. But those very 'neutral' media so apt in 'investigative journalism' didn't ventured at all to prove it by facts. Surprisingly, the Speaker of the Parliament, another CPIM stalwart, said to the reporters on Jan 20 '07 at Calcutta to think about Tata's remark, which had some basis [as much I could listen from a DD-Bangla News at 7 PM same day]. Why do not these stalwarts give the 'facts', evidences straight out to the public? And why they are not publishing the 'business secret' deal between CPIM Govt and Tata?
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