Tata Nano Singur Controversy 

refers to the controversy generated by land acquisition of the

Singur gained international media attention since Tata Motors started constructing a factory to

The state government of West Bengal facilitated the controversy by using 1984 land aquisition
act rule to conduct an eminent domain takeover of 997 acres (4.03 km2) of farmland to have Tata
build its factory.[2] The rule is meant for public improvement projects, and the West Bengal
government wanted Tata to build in its state. The project was opposed by activists and opposition
parties in Bengal.

Contents

 1 Small car manufacturing facility

 2 Background

o 2.1 The land acquisition controversy

o 2.2 Fencing off the land

o 2.3 Construction of plant

o 2.4 Procedural lacunae

o 2.5 Business houses' role

 3 Tata pulls out

 4 References

Small car manufacturing facility

The choice of Singur was made by the company among six sites offered by the state government.
The project faced massive opposition from displaced farmers. The unwilling farmers were given
political support by West Bengal's opposition leader Mamata Banerjee. Banerjee's "Save
Farmland" movement was supported by environmental activists like Medha Patkar, Anuradha
Talwar andArundhati Roy. Banerjee's movement against displacement of farmers was also
supported by several Kolkata based intellectuals like Aparna Sen, Kaushik Sen, Shaonli Mitra
and Suvaprasanna. Leftist activists also shared the platform with Banerjee's Trinamool Party.
The Tatas finally decided to move out of Singur on 3 October 2008. Ratan Tata blamed agitation

1
Retrieved: Adv. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar
by Banerjee and her supporters for the pullout decision. On 7 October 2008, the Tatas announced
that they would be setting up the Tata Nano plant in Sanand, Gujarat.

Background

The rapid rise in the population of West Bengal has not been accompanied by significant
economic growth. Key indicators such as unemployment rates, poverty rates, infant mortality
rates, job growth rates, per capita income, mobile phone penetration rates lag the more
industrialized states of India. Local politicians gained power by promising agricultural land to
landless farmers, but given West Bengal's population density, the land-holdings are small and the
yields are insufficient to sustain poor families. While the shift from agriculture to industrial jobs
requires re-training, given India's economic growth, it provides an opportunity for earning higher
income.

Several other states had offered land to Tata Motors for the project.

The people staying in the proposed land were forced to evacuate by the government. The
compensation given was considered inadequate and the new housing facilities offered were
delayed. This led to the protest of the peasants backed by opposition political parties.

The company had made substantial promises. According to their claims, Singur would become a
mini-auto city and approximately 70 vendors would set up shop along with the factory. The total
investment planned is to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore.[3] The project had, however, generated
controversy right from the start, particularly on the question of state acquisition of fertile
agricultural land for private enterprise.

[edit]The land acquisition controversy

On 23 September 2008, Tatas decided to leave Singur in West Bengal, the decision is reported to
have been made by the Tata management and the Bengal government had been informed. On 3
October it became official that TATA will leave Singur (WB) when Ratan Tata announced it in a
press conference in Kolkata.

While the ruling party has gone all out[4] for acquisition of 997 acres (4.03 km2) [2] of multi-crop
land required for the car factory, questions have been raised about the party forcible acquisition
which was made under the colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1894.[2] Others say the provisions of
this act were allegedly not been met.[5]

The law has provisions for state taking over privately held land for public purposes but not for
developing private businesses. The illegality of the acquisition has been substantially conceded
by the Kolkata High Court.

The Tata Motors site is the most fertile one in the whole of the Singur, and the Singur block, in
turn, is among the most highly fertile in West Bengal. Consequently, almost the entire local

2
Retrieved: Adv. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar
population depends on agriculture with approximately 15000 making their livelihood directly
from it.[6] With the number of direct jobs to be created no more than about 1,000, many of which
are expected to go to outsiders, the local populace felt threatened for their livelihood.
[7]
 Environmental degradation is also feared.

Chief protesters include the opposition parties spearheaded by the Trinamool Congress
under Mamata Banerjee and Socialist Unity Centre of India. The movement has received
widespread support from civil rights and human rights groups, legal bodies, social activists
like Medha Patkar and Anuradha Talwar, Booker prize-winning author Arundhati
Roy and Magsaysay and Jnanpith Award-winning author Mahasweta Devi.[8] Other intellectuals,
writers like the poet Ruchit Shah, artists like Suvaprasanna, theatre and film personalities
like Saonli Mitra, Aparna Sen etc. have pitched in. The state police force has been used to restrict
their access to the area.[9] The Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen supported the idea of factory but he
however opposed forcible acquisition of land.[10]

The protesters have been attacked, verbally by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M))
leaders and physically by the party's supporters. Benoy Konar, member of the party's state
committee, famously declared that protesting intellectuals would be greeted by women
supporters of the party by showing their behinds [3].

Preliminary surveys by officials of the state and Tata Motors faced protests, and manhandling on
one occasion, from the villagers organized under the Save Singur Farmland Committee with
Trinamool Congress forming its chief component.[11] It is reported that Naxalite elements hold
sway over the direction the agitation takes and the Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee
takes no decisions without consulting them.[12]

The state government imposed the prohibitory Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code for initially
a month and then extended it indefinitely. The imposition has been declared illegal by the
Kolkata High Court [13]

While landless peasants and share-croppers fear losing out entirely, sections of the locals,
particularly those owing allegiance to the CPI(M) have welcomed the factory. These count
chiefly among the owners of bigger portions of the land even as discrimination in the
compensation has been alleged.[14]

A section of those promised jobs at the factory have boycotted classes while training in protest
against the alleged going back on the promise.[15]

In the 2011 state assembly elections, while the sitting Trinamool Congress MLA, Rabindranath
Bhattacharya retained the Singur seat, Becharam Manna, the convener of Krishi Jami Raksha
Samiti, won the adjoining Haripal seat [16][17]

Fencing off the land

3
Retrieved: Adv. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar
The land earmarked for the project was taken control of by the state administration amidst
protests and fencing off commenced on December 1, 2006. Mamata Banerjee, who was
prevented from entering Singur by the state police, called a statewide bandh in protest while
legislators belonging to her party turned violent in the legislative assembly causing damage to
furniture. [4] Later, she went on a 25-day hunger strike [5].During this period she presented
affidavits of farmers apparently unwilling to part with their land.[18]

The fenced off area has been regularly guarded, besides large contingents of policemen, by
cadres of the CPI(M) party. They were accused of the multiple rape followed by burning to death
of teenage villager Tapasi Malik who was active in the protests, on December 18, 2006.
[19]
 Negligence and political interference in the probe into her death have been alleged.[20] Later,
CPI(M) activist Debu Malik and based on his statement, CPI(M) zonal committee
secretary Suhrid Dutta were arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with
the crime.[21]

Intermittent attacks by villagers have since continued on the fence. However, continuing
agitations against the project appeared to have proved ineffective and a farmer who lost land
committed suicide[22]

On the other hand the pro-factory villagers siding with the CPI(M) have made accusations
against the Naxalite faction of the ‘Save Singur Farmland Committee’ of threats and violence
against them.[23]

Construction of plant

Tatas ceremonially initiated the construction of the plant on 21 January 2007.[24] The Tata Group
announced on October 3, 2008 that they are pulling out of Singur due to the political unrest and
agitation.

Procedural lacunae

Other aspects of the process of setting up the factory that have come under severe criticism are
the government's secrecy on the details of the deal and the chief minister's furnishing of false
information, including in the legislative assembly Vidhan Sabha. In particular, the concessions
being given to Tata Motors have not been publicly revealed. The falsehoods of the chief minister
chiefly pertain to claims made by him of having acquired 912 acres (3.69 km2) [25] through
voluntary consent of the owners without the use of force.

The Kolkata High Court declared the acquisition prima facie legal.[26] The air seemed to have
cleared somewhat when the High Court ordered the state government to submit correct figures
following which an affidavit but was not satisfied with the result [6]. In a fresh affidavit filed
later in June 2007, the government admitted to 30 per cent of the land was acquired from farmers

4
Retrieved: Adv. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar
without consent.[27] The affidavit remains unclear on whether the lack of consent is based on
insufficiency of the compensation or refusal to sell altogether.[28]

Business houses' role

The critics of the government's industrialization policy have argued on the other hand that while
India is moving towards a "free market" economy, government has been acting as a broker for
the private sector by forcing private citizens to give up their property at throw away prices.[who?]

Tata pulls out

On October 3, 2008, after a brief meeting with the Chief Minister, Ratan Tata declared his
decision to move the Nano Project out of West Bengal. Tata mentioned his frustration with the
opposition movement at Singur Project led by Trinamool Congress chief Ms. Mamata Banerjee.
Ms Banerjee responded by referring to actions by Tatas and the state government.[29][30]

The CM of Gujarat, Narendra Modi then sent an SMS to Mr. Ratan Tata, which simply said
"Suswagatham", to persuade him to relocate the Nano factory to Gujarat.[31]

It took 14 months to build a new factory in Sanand, Gujarat compared with 28 months for the
Singur factory.[31]

Singur – A Case Study

By Saibal Bishnu

19 September, 2008
Countercurrents.org

The Singur issue refuses to die down. The issue has become like a fresh air to the ones who are
against the ruling communists in Bengal, and a pain in the neck for the ones who prefers to call
themselves pro progress, both in the left and the right sides of the fence. Whatever be the
outcome of the Tata Small Car Factory at Singur, this issue would remain a major case study for
the left in India.

The so called grand alliance against the Singur plant does not have a homogeneous nature, which
itself is the biggest success of the opposition. The opposition to this Singur plant is so broad-
based that it could accommodate a large variety of stains of politics, opinions, beliefs, and ideas
under it. The opposition could successfully accumulate the support of large mass of people from
different walks of life, as the opposition itself was multi dimensional. Let us try to examine the
major strains of the opposition.

5
Retrieved: Adv. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar
Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee has no doubt played the leaders role. Trinamool all
these years have been the strongest voice in Bengal against the so called de-industrialization
process here. One of their MPs once opined they are ready to admit that the West Bengal
government is serious about industrialization only if the Tatas build a factory here. Their
opposition does not stem from any ideological moorings; they would like to carry out exactly the
same process of industrialization if in governance. But they do not want to be left in the lurch,
and let the CPI(M) led Left Front government take all the credits of industrialization of the state.
One of the views hints the Trinamool's opposition to Singur project is at the behest of the
corporate interest of the rivals of Tata Nano, it gained grounds specially since no one challenged
the accusation once Ratan Tata made, "Let me just say it is not just political, because I happen to
know that some of our competitors are also fuelling some of this fire… they would be very
happy if the project got delayed," in an interview to the NDTV.

The traditional support base of Trinamool, a break-away fraction of the Congress, has been the
erstwhile zamindars, jotedars and other parasite classes in the rural Bengal, traders and urban
middle class in the cities and towns. They reinvented their whole strategy after a defeat in the
2006 assembly elections. The new strategy can be best symbolized by their new found catch
phrase, ma-mati-manush (mother-earth-human), vowing to protect the lives and livelihoods of
the rural peasants, which instantly caught the imagination of many. In the urban areas, the
campaigns took a bit different route. To give an example, the Trinamool has been organizing
squads, street corners, posters, and wall graffiti protesting against the policy of providing
licenses to set up foreign liquor shops in the localities. The middle class Bengal also started
identifying with the cause instantly. The campaign was cleverly manufactured against the
backdrop of the same ma-mati-manush by playing on the sentiments, that the Left Front
government is providing a lot of sops to the already rich Tatas to setup their factory at Singur,
and to balance the budget the government is providing few thousands of licenses and plans to
earn revenues, thus endangering the future of generation next.

Interestingly the symbolisms they have started using of late are reminiscent of the erstwhile
communist movements in Bengal, which people can easily relate to. Starting with Tebhaga to
Operation Barga the right to land to the tillers has been the crux, which was immaculately re-
invented by the Trinamool by organizing peasants unwilling to part with their lands for
industrialization. The campaign strategists have been using the slogans, revolutionary poems by
Sukanta Bhattacharya and other poets, revolutionary songs of Salil Chowdhury which were once
used during the Tebhaga movement, the symbols which the people can easily identify as the
symbol of protest. Some of the speakers even address the gathering in front as 'comrades' and the
whole campaign is aimed at putting across the point that the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
has changed after enjoying 'power' for 30 years, have become anti-farmer, and the leaders of the
party now symbolize state authority whereas it is Mamata Banerjee who is the real messiah of
the rural poor and the middle class Bengal. This emotional play is bearing some fruits no doubt,
which is evident by the fact that many prominent cult personalities in Bengal from music,

6
Retrieved: Adv. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar
literature, theatre and cinema have been moved, and openly voiced dissent against the course of
industrialization by the Left Front government. This whole movement of Trinamool gained a lot
of credence and popularity because of the open dissent by the cult personalities. But most
importantly, it is the ultra lefts and their participation in the movement with Trinamool which
changed the face of the movements. The 26-day hunger strike by Mamata Banerjee in 2006 to
occupation movement in Nandigram in 2007 to the blockade in Singur in 2008, the face of the
movements have turned from a Gandhian one to a pure agitation movement which the
communists can easily identify with. There is a distinct possibility of agitations of more anarchic
nature in future.

The ultra lefts have their own ideology to align with Trinamool. According to the Maoists, SUCI,
and some other strains of the ultra lefts, Trinamool represents the national bourgeoisie and urban
petty bourgeois, who are vacillating ally during revolution; whereas the Tatas are comprador
bourgeoisie and the CPI(M) is playing as an agent of the comprador bourgeoisie. So, according
to their analysis of the Indian capitalism and stage of revolution, allying with the Trinamool
Congress against the CPI(M) is their organizational task, by following a policy of unity-struggle-
unity. It is very interesting to note here that, all these strains of ultra lefts are compelled to
organize movements with the help of some bourgeois political party and play a second fiddle to
Trinamool, as they do not have mass support of their own, but they still continue to ignore
participation in the democratic setup of India. Probably they have lessons to learn from the
Maoists of Nepal, but that is entirely a different story beyond the scope of this case study. Some
strains of the ultra lefts found a common cause with Trinamool as they feel it is the CPI(M)
which is implementing neo-liberal agenda in the state, and it is important to ally with Trinamool
to fight against this process. In addition to the ultra lefts of different strains and colors, the
environmentalists found in the small car Nano a major violation to environment on two counts.
Nano being a low cost car can sell in huge number clogging the roads and polluting the
environment, and moreover acres of land are getting transformed from agricultural to industrial
land. Neo-Luddites like Medha Patkar finds industries themselves to be against progress, but
didn't find it difficult to ally with Mamata, who still calls herself a champion of industry in
public, and probably mutters in her mind, if only the industry is built on thin air! Lastly after the
sudden volte face on N-Deal Amar Singh found in Mamata Banerjee an ally and an 'ex-
classmate,' to pin down the Left Front government and thus the CPI(M). Though it is public
domain news that this same Amar Singh extended a red carpet to the Tatas to build the Nano
factory in Uttar Pradesh in 2006, while he was heading the Uttar Pradesh state's Industrial
Development Council. Strange are the bed fellows, but more striking is the way the broadest
possible coalition could be stitched together against a common enemy, the cleverly crafted
imagery of an authoritarian CPI(M) rule.

Some Congress leaders also jumped on this bandwagon, finding it an opportune moment to
remain relevant and gain some television coverage. Seven-time Congress MLA from Sealdah,
Somen Mitra found his political career in jeopardy when he realized that his safe seat will cease

7
Retrieved: Adv. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar
to exist and would merge with Manicktala constituency. For him the next best opportunity is to
contest from the North Kolkata Loksabha seat as the Trinamool candidate and former MP Ajit
Panja is ailing and away to USA for treatment. Interestingly this same Somen Mitra has been
found to have bought agricultural land in Singur itself to build a resort, which was under
construction while he was sitting at the Dharna to protect agricultural land. The ex Trinamool
Mayor of Calcutta Corporation and INTUC leader Subrata Mukherjee in a desperate attempt to
find relevance in Bengal politics, after the drubbing he received in the last election, has joined
this protest. Although he is a labor union leader by profession and his political career ceases to
have any significance without industry and labor.

This movement would not have gained a critical mass, unless the fundamentalists played a
crucial role in it. Jamait-e-Ulema-I-Hind leader Siddikulla Chowdhury, once a Congressman,
campaigned among the Muslims in the rural Bengal, especially in the areas where some
development projects were planned and land acquisition was imminent. The campaign gained
huge momentum when it fueled a primal fear among the Muslim community that the minority
population is the target of the CPI(M) led Left Front government, and the land acquisition means
giving up on whatever they held dearest, the small tract of land they cultivate, the small cottages
they call home, the village mosques they pray in, and the nearby cemetery they bury their near
and dear ones. The propaganda was orchestrated underground with video CDs distributed
throughout the rural Bengal. Clerics from foreign countries started visiting the village mosques
just before the recent Panchayat polls. The target was again the common enemy, the cleverly
crafted image of an authoritarian CPI(M) rule.

This political strategy was a success story, as equating the CPI(M) with the state government,
and thus with state power and authority was easy and Singur provided a golden opportunity. The
West Bengal state government was desperate to attract investments to setup manufacturing
industries. The victory with a huge margin in terms of number of seats in the 2006 assembly
polls was taken by CPI(M) as a landslide mandate to industrialize the state at a very fast pace. At
this time the Tatas were planning to setup their Nano factory at Pantnagar, as they were getting
100% outright excise duty exemption for a period of 10 years, with 100% income tax exemption
for the first 5 years and then 30% for the next five. This kind of incentives possibly help to bring
down the real cost of the small car by a few thousands rupees. This also helps the investors to
recover the investment much faster. In order to attract the Tata Nano Factory the Left Front
government tried to match these incentives and signed an agreement with them. Other than the
financial incentives, the Tatas were given a choice to choose the site for their project. They chose
Singur, which has been a fertile land, but at the same time probably the best location logistically
to setup this project of small car. Also the low operating cost in Bengal was a major factor for the
Tatas to decide in favor of Singur as this is a very cost sensitive project. The expectation of the
government was again two fold, generating employment and earning tax revenues after few years
to the tune of estimated 500 crores per year, which can then be spent on the social sector facing
crunch in budgetary allocation. This project was also seen as a harbinger for fast industrialization

8
Retrieved: Adv. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar
and building up investor confidence. The resistance movement at Singur germinated almost from
the very beginning of the land acquisition notification, and this became a melting pot for all
those strains of political colors. The government offered a good price for the land acquired and
the compensation for the first time in India included Bargadars, but the resistance movement
could organize a good number of people who did not collect the compensation money, and thus
can be termed 'unwilling.' More transparency from the government could have avoided this
situation too some extent but there were several confusions and questions in the air on the
fertility of the land acquired, the cost benefit analysis of the project, question of rehabilitation
etc. The use of police force during the land acquisition added fire to the fuel and strengthened
this protest movement, the broad-based coalition was achieved and led to the incidents in
Nandigram. The success of the movement at Nandigram were two folds, the government had to
roll back its plans for the chemical hub and the defeats of CPI(M) candidates in the Panchayat
polls there. This success story further encouraged the movement to go in for a stronger agitation
which led to the siege at the Singur project site. The government recently declared an
unprecedented rehabilitation package (http://www.wbidc.com/images/pdf/ad1.pdf) which can be
attributed to this movement to a great extent.

The state government was in a peculiar situation, with the fiscal crunch it is facing under neo-
liberal agenda of our country, it was very difficult for the government to protect the gains it has
achieved through land reforms and Panchayat decentralization. The social sectors like health and
education were getting neglected as avenues to raise resources were becoming increasingly
limited. According to a document of CPI(M), rapid industrialization was the only way forward, it
stated, "there is constant fragmentation and division of land holdings and a high proportion of
rural population dependent on agriculture along with a high proportion of landlessness, it is
essential that this population dependent on agriculture finds avenues for employment which will
be mainly provided by industrial development." Accordingly, the idea of industrialization was to
generate alternate employment opportunities to the surplus labor in agriculture so that
dependency on land decreases, considering the crisis agriculture is facing because of economic
liberalization. The idea was also to earn tax revenues so that priority social sector spending can
be achieved.

The CPI(M) and its mass organizations were supposed to play a very important role here. The
government and its agenda of industrialization had the potential to displace farmers from land
and destroy livelihoods for many, especially at the Singur project site. They were caught in the
middle of the contradiction between the aspirations of the middle class to gain employment
through industrialization and the farmers who were getting dispossessed from their land precisely
because of this. The educated middle class is more enthusiastic about the industrialization since
the modern industry provides good scope of employment for them, whereas the poor peasants
being dispossessed are not that excited, as there is not a direct relation between their own
employment and this kind of industrialization. It was absolutely necessary that the Left take up
the issues of the peasants, understand their sentiments, and organize movements on behalf of the

9
Retrieved: Adv. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar
land losers. It was thought impossible for the ruling party to organize movements against its own
government. As a result the peasants found in Mamata Banerjee their leader to protest against the
acquisition.

Here the distinction and a dialectical relation between the party and its government was ignored
and in reality the party with its mass organizations was used to drive down the administrative
agenda of land acquisition in the drive for industrialization. This alienated a large mass of
people, including a part of the intelligentsia. The support base of the party eroded even among its
long time ally, the peasantry. The combination of the two features, withdrawal of the CPI(M)
from the forefront of struggle on behalf of the peasants, and well timed propaganda by this broad
based alliance created a huge turmoil in the political scene in Bengal, not seen in the last few
decades. The situation has led to such a paranoia that the infrastructural projects like building a
thermal power station at Katwa is facing protests. People are protesting against any kind of land
issues and even erecting high tension electric posts in the rural Bengal has almost stopped, and
progress of rural electrification has become a question. An anarchic Bengal is not impossibility
in future if this continues and the trouble with Gorkhaland increases.

There are both ideological and social reasons for the CPI(M) not to play the desired role as
expected by the people. Ideologically for them the accent is on delivering an alternate policy and
governance with relief to people of Bengal, which includes employment generation, and thus
industrialization. At the same time fiscal squeeze through neo-liberalism has restricted the scope
for state governments, where delivering alternate policies has become increasingly difficult. The
only possible way out is inviting private and even foreign capital with huge sops, a case study
being Singur, and then earn from the tax revenues to spend on social sector. They didn't try to go
back to people educating them on the limitations, the difficulties, costs and pains of
industrialization. Even after the government Tata agreement, the peasant front organization didn't
take up the issues of the peasants to the government. The long-time allies were left in the lurch
and the grand alliance happily grabbed the opportunity.

Thus Singur will remain a case study for the left in India, on how to go about deciding and
implementing policies under a restricted condition, also the dialectical relation between the party
and its government would have to be sorted out in cases of these contradictions. As long as the
CPI(M) continues to promote the political line of providing relief by participating in state
governments as a tactics to build the left democratic front towards revolution, continuation of the
government will remain a primary aim, and with the constraints increasing, implementing
alternate policies will be an increasing challenge. The idea of using the Left Front government as
an icon of the left's politics and policies of alternative to attract masses to build the proposed left
democratic front is still not being questioned even under increasing fiscal squeeze under neo-
liberalism, so situations like these might happen again. For the opposition of the left this was a
case study on how to stitch a grand alliance and wean away a part of the core support base of the
left. Both have learned, next time these lessons will again be implemented with much more

10
Retrieved: Adv. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar
finesse here or elsewhere, possibly there will be more situations like this as the contradictions are
indeed sharpening.

The Singur issue is one of the most hotly debated political, economic and ethical issues that have
ever crept up in West Bengal. With many hands stirring the soup, large number of vested
interests, this issue has caught the public attention in an unexpected fashion.

I would be giving a vivid analysis of the integrated set of various reasons which led to the
widespread turmoil and tumult due to the implementation of the expensive project by the Tatas.
Ultimately the project was a failure. As a researcher I will highlight the various loopholes in the
contract and lack of negotiation between various parties. It will try to unravel the complex issues
of corruption and the legal ambiguity which the Tatas undertook to confuse the legal picture
while trying to define the nature of their project.

The moot question that comes up is- who is responsible? Given the complexity of the situation,
no single party can be blamed completely. The arguments below seek to unravel some of the un-
discussed but undeniable reasons for the failure of this project-

 It is the lack of ground presence and high-handedness of the government which

 There was total lack of transparency on the part of the government. The government
worked in an injudicious manner and did not do adequate research before implementing
the project.

 The government did not include sub-contractors within the ambit of compensation due to
vested interests.

 There was also duality on the part of the TATAs.

The above mentioned arguments will be dealt more elaborately under the following heads:

Lack of ground presence and extensive planning:

One of the most essential aspects of any sort of developmental job undertaken by the government
is transparency. Any government which starts being autocratic is bound to suffer in almost all its
endeavors even if they are good ones. Public sentiment is one which resembles a storm. It can
only grow bigger and dies down in its own time.

11
Retrieved: Adv. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar
The ruling Left Front government made this very mistake. Let us diagnose the error in   detail:

1. More than 60% of the farmers just knew two things i.e. their land is going to be taken
away and a factory is going to come up in its place, implying that they would die of
hunger and abject poverty.

2. There was practically no role played by the local panchayat to educate the locals about
industrialization and its utilities.

3. There were hardly any presence of political workers who would take trouble of
explaining to the farmers the pros and cons of giving up land for industrial benefits and
which would help them in turn.

4. Extreme red-tapism and high levels of lethargy in the state bureaucracy created a huge
gap between the farmers and the planning department for the Singur project. According
to some reports the government officials also committed crime in dealing with the
agitated localites of Singur. Speaking to the Statesman about convicted IPS officer Mr.
Asit Paul, eminent writer and Magsaysay award winner, Mahasweta Devi said, “He has
tortured farmers, assaulted women mercilessly.” Mr Paul had assaulted women farmers
and Ms Anirudha Talwar, a human rights activist near the Singur factory for protesting
against land acquisition[1].

5. Most farmers being illiterate refused to sign documents that they did not understand. The
bureaucracy forced them to sign it. They did so grudgingly and hence a large amount of
discontent was initiated in the general public sentiment.

6. The opposition made use of this huge gulf between the government and the people and
extracted maximum political mileage out of it.

7. The procedure under the Land Acquisition Act 1894 was not followed fully and fairly.

8. The compensation was only monetary and no state level rehabilitation policy was
ordered.

The above arguments all point to one factor: Lack of planning. The high handedness of the
government proved to be the nemesis of this project even though the project would have actually
proven to be a gem in the Left Front government’s industrial initiative. It is but imperative that
every major change is accompanied with resistance. To counter or placate this resistance requires
extensive planning down to the grain. This was entirely missing.

While the compensation paid to the farmers was generous, the government did not in any way try
to create a sustainable model (micro-financing etc) around which the dispossessed farmers could
earn their livelihood. The TATAs said that they will be trained and recruited as daily workers.

12
Retrieved: Adv. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar
This did not give much comfort to the farmers since they signed no such document guaranteeing
such an understanding. It was only word of mouth that spread from media discussions.

While the business minded immediately invested their newly earned money in banks and
partially in starting a new business primarily of supplying construction material to the factory,
the sub contracting farmers were not able to do that. This is primarily because the government
did not do any ground research before planning and implementation, because if they had done so
then they would understand the complex third party Barga system that is followed in Singur and
most of West Bengal where the fragmented farming is the general norm. The government
practically did nothing to actually make sure that the sub contractor farmers got compensation
which now points to the issue i.e. corruption.

The issues of corruption by the TATAs and the government

The angle of corruption is undeniable and quite much possible. A few simple questions will
prove the point:

1. Why did the state government not care to include the sub contractors in the ambit of
compensation?

Lack of knowledge is not admissible since this government has been in the picture for more than
30 years in West Bengal. Ideally they should possess the best knowledge of the Barga system of
fragmented farming in West Bengal. Till the 1928 amendment of the Bengal Tenancy Act
1885 the bargardars were formally denied to any kind of legal rights over the
lands[2]. Operation Barga was a Land Reform movement throughout rural West Bengal which
bestowed on the bargardars (sharecroppers) the legal protection against eviction by the landlords,
and entitled them to the due share of the produce. Operation Barga was launched in 1978 and
concluded by the mid 80’s.The ultimate aim of it was to facilitate the conversion of the state’s
bargardars into landowners, in line with the Directive Principles of State Policy of the Indian
Constitution(Art 34)[3]. Inspite of this they chose to ignore the sub contractors when dolling out
the compensation. The main question is why?

The answer can be extremely simple. The government wanted the land. They were ready to pay
generous amounts for it. But they did not have any constructive re-employment plan ready. Also
they were running short of time and they had to improve the picture of West Bengal as an
investment friendly state which had taken a beating lately. So the fastest possible approach
would be to pay the owner of the substantial quantities of land without paying any to the sub
contractors. This would be easy since it is easier to convince the landowners than the sub
contractors. Also it will have the picture of clear legality. However, what one might fail to notice
is how exactly is the government might have imagined managing such a hopeless inadequate
plan and getting away with it? The answer to that will be corruption. They paid extra to each
landowner who would promise hassle free land transfer. Also the government would use political
clout to obtain lucrative business deals with the landowners and factory construction contractors.

13
Retrieved: Adv. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar
The business deal could be anything ranging from supplying construction material to providing
transport.

2. The TATAs are repeatedly attempting to confuse the legal picture while trying to define
the nature of their project.Why?

The TATA factory is essentially a private endeavor. However, they are repeatedly oscillating in
court and sometimes name their project as public and sometimes as private. Such duality gives
development a bad name. This lack of clear definition from a company like TATA points to the
vested interests that it holds in the project. The Calcutta High Court had passed an interim, two-
week stay on an order by the West Bengal information commissioner, asking the state
government to make public the agreement on the Nano project between the government, the
West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIC) and Tata Motors[4].

Parts of the agreement are already available for public viewing on the state industrial body’s
website. But a right to information activist Amitava Chaudhary (leader of the opposition in the
state assembly) asked for the entire details of the agreement, including certain annexure, to be
made public and filed petitions before the state information commission[5].Tata Motors argued
in court that the agreement between the 3 parties was a trade secret and hence should not be
revealed in its entirety.

The implicit assumption here is that the deal between Tata Motors and West Bengal involves a
private commercial project[6].

The interests could range from massive tax sops from the state government started taking over
the land by stating public good as the legal justification. So naturally they asked TATA to define
their project as a public project. Once the people revolted, the TATA started backing out to
Sanand and immediately termed their project as private. The reason behind this oscillation is
fairly clear.

While Maruti takes around 300 acres to produce more than 3 lakh cars,the TATAs need more
than 900 acres to produce 1 lakh cars? The factory of Maruti at Gurgaon  is spread over 300
acres[7].It is hard to believe that TATA company has such low operational efficiency. This leads
us to the question that what exactly are the TATAs and the government planning with all that
extra land. It is entirely possible that the TATAs would later renounce that land as not needed
and the government would auction that. The TATAs would then re-purchase the same land for a
much cheaper auction rate and use it for subsidiary factories and hence make substantial profits
on the fly.

[1] http://sanhati.com/articles/687/(last visited,Feb 8th2011)

14
Retrieved: Adv. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar
[2] Dharma Kumar,Tapan Raychaudhuri and Meghnad Desai,The Cambridge Economic History
Of India,(Cambridge University Press,1983)p.161
[3] Tim Hanstad& Robin Nielsen, West Bengal’s Bargadars and Landownership

[4] TATA Motors moves High Court on Singur land allotment,THE HINDU,December 3,1990

[5] High Court asks petitioners to move info panel for details on NANO deal,INDIAN
EXPRESS,February 5,2010

[6] http://www.livemint.com/2008/09/14215308/Confusing-the-Singur-issue.html# (last

[7] http://www.marutisuzuki.com/facilities.aspx(last visited,Feb 9th 2011)

15
Retrieved: Adv. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar