Learning Nandigram Lessons by Praful Bidwai

Learning Nandigram Lessons

By Praful Bidwai

26 March 2007
Khaleej Times

West Bengal's Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist
(CPM), has barely pulled back from a potentially self-destructive
disaster following the Nandigram carnage by adopting an 8-point agreement.

This acknowledges that the March 14 Nandigram incident, in which 14
people were gunned down, "was tragic" and won't be repeated; the
government "will not acquire any land in Nandigram for any industry"
and the police "will be withdrawn in phases".

The agreement says the Front's partners will "meet more frequently" to
take "all important political decisions... after discussion."

The agreement became possible primarily because of the public outrage
Nandigram caused and the tough stand taken by the CPM's main
partners-Communist Party of India, Forward Bloc, and Revolutionary
Socialist Party. They condemned the police firing as undemocratic and
"brutal and barbaric", and threatened to withdraw from the government.

Critical here was the role of the Grand Old Man of Bengal politics,
former Chief Minister Jyoti Basu. He said the CPM is running
"one-party rule in this state. It doesn't look like a coalition
government at all..." He reprimanded Chief Minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee, and told the Front's non-CPM leaders to quit if the CPM
doesn't change course.

The agreement represents a victory for the people - and forces of
sanity. The victory was costly. And yet, it doesn't settle all issues:
Will the Front completely abandon its Special Economic Zones (SEZs)
policy? Will it refuse any truck with Indonesia's Salim group - a
front for the super-corrupt Suharto family-for whom 10,000 acres was
to be acquired in Nandigram?

Will it revise Bhattacharjee's "industrialisation-at-any-cost"
orientation, with total disregard for social and environmental
consequences? And will the CPM consult its allies on policy issues in
advance, rather than throw the weight of its 176 seats in the
294-member Assembly, against their 51 seats?

It's necessary to place Nandigram in context. The immediate cause of
the violence there wasn't land acquisition, put on hold after popular
protests in January. It was the CPM's attempt to regain control of the
area for its "cadres". The "cadres" brook no challenge to their power.
But on January 7, they faced the people's anger. Many were driven out.
They were itching to come back.

Nandigram wasn't solely a fight between the CPM and assorted
Opposition groups, including the Right-wing, thuggish Trinamool
Congress, backed by the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind and other factions, which
had collected arms and blockaded the area. Like the TMC, the CPM too
employed strong-arm methods, revealed by the arrest of 10 of its
cadres. The blockade was a spontaneous people's initiative. As CPM
general secretary Prakash Karat admitted, the local "people turned against
us."

The plain truth is, CPM apparatchiks instigated Black Wednesday's
operation to settle scores in the "cadres'" favour by using the
state's might. They imposed collective punishment, an obnoxious
method, on the residents.

The 4,000-strong police didn't use non-lethal anti-riot water cannons,
rubber bullets and smoke grenades until their utility was exhausted-as
mandated by police manuals.

The police shot to kill. Most bullet injuries were above the waist
level. Many people were shot in the back. At Bhangabera Bridge, the
police pumped 500 bullets into 2,000 people.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has gathered evidence that CPM
"cadres" also fired into the crowd, many disguised in police uniform.
It recovered 500 bullets from them. It also found a 657 metre-long
"blood trail", which suggests "a gunny-bag holding a body was being
dragged".

It will take long to heal the wounds of Nandigram. It's worst outrage
to have occurred under Left Front rule in West Bengal. Even Karat
concedes that the firing was "disapproved by the people of West
Bengal... [who] have a high democratic consciousness."

The pivotal question is whether the CPM will learn the right lessons
from Nandigram. Or else, it'll forfeit its greatest gains, which have
ensured its victory in election after consecutive election for three
decades - a record unmatched in any democracy.

Sadly, Bhattacharjee hasn't lost any of his zeal for
"industrialisation-at-any-cost". Bhattacharjee has a crude, dogmatic
view of history, which sees industrialisation of any kind as progress.
He fails to understand that corporate-led neoliberal industrialisation
doesn't produce the collective Blue-collar worker (Marx's proletarian)
and that it lacks the employment and social potential of classical
capitalism. Rather, it bases itself upon
Whiter-collar workers, is extremely capital-intensive, and creates
enclave-based growth.

Neoliberal industrialisation involves capital accumulation through
expropriation of livelihoods. A progressive state must not condone it;
rather, it should discipline and regulate capitalism in the interests
of society.

But for Bhattacharjee, the Tata car plant at Singur, being built on a
neoliberal pattern, is the model. In reality, it's a stark case of
crony capitalism, with subsidies equalling a fourth of its capital
costs! It's also an instance of elitist, socially inappropriate,
high-pollution industrialisation.

Bhattacharjee is also an unreconstructed believer in "stages" of
historical development. For him, semi-feudal India must first achieve
capitalism and then attempt socialist reform. He says he's working
strictly within "a capitalist framework".

This view severely underestimates the possibilities for social
transformation available within India's backward capitalism and for
progress towards a more just society free of social bondage and
economic serfdom.

For Bhattacharjee, the ideal model to follow is China, with its giant
SEZs like Shenzen, unfettered freedom for multinational capital, and
legalisation of private property. He should know better.

Shenzen is a workers' nightmare, where no labour rights exist. The
mere loss of an identity card can reduce workers to destitution.
Chinese vice-minister Chen Changzhi has just revealed that 80 per cent
of the 1.84 million hectares of farmland earmarked for industrial
development was illegally acquired.

The Left, especially the CPM, must decide whether it wants to fight
for socialism, or merely manage capitalism Chinese-style, however
honestly. If it chooses the second option, it will go into historic
decline. It must also make a decisive break with the undemocratic
organisational culture it has inherited, which punishes dissidence and
encourages a "my-party-right-or-wrong" attitude.

Unless the Left undertakes ruthless self-criticism, it can't effect
course correction.