Singur Of Tata Nano Fame Is The 15 Year Old Saga Of A Political Potboiler & An Industrial Wasteland

At independence, and for a couple of decades after, West Bengal was the most industrialised state in India and a great deal of business and industry was head quartered in Calcutta, as it was known as then. People flocked for employment and commerce to a cosmopolitan and elegant former capital of the British Empire in the sub-continent.

But all this changed drastically, and as if forever, with the advent of 34 years of Left front rule, after the earlier Congress governments were vote out. This, soon after a vicious Naxalite agitation, that was brutally suppressed by Congress.

By the time the former chain-smoking Left Front Chief Minister of West Bengal, Buddhadev Bhattacharya finally came into his own, he was keen and eager to turn a page and reindustrialise the state. This was some time after the passing away of anti-capitalist industry, the long-term Chief Minister Jyoti Basu.

Basu enjoyed a titanic stature, reputation and affection amongst the people of West Bengal. This was mainly due to his land reform that gave land to the landless. Then there was his abiding sympathy for the labourer and farm worker. His policies against caste discrimination and a secular approach that enthused the minorities in the state in favour of the Left Front. Basu’s Brown Saheb sophistication endeared him to the middle class and the intellectuals too.

British educated Basu’s three decades at the helm, saw every industry strike- bound, locked-out or closed down, till they all fled West Bengal. All except for  the firms associated with tea and cigarettes. And these two businesses were geographically strapped to stay put. The only person who ran a factory successfully in Jyoti Basu’s time, the joke goes, was his son Chandan Basu, who has since seen fit to repair to Canada, out of the reach of inconvenient questions.

Jyoti Basu was many things to the Left Front and even as a support to Indira Gandhi’s government at the Centre, but he effectively ruined the industrial climate in West Bengal. So much so, that it is much the same today with most investment refusing to come to West Bengal despite exhortations from its government, its intelligent and educated population.

Bhattacharya, in perhaps a Stalinist move in retrospect, had the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) sign an agreement with Tata Motors. It was to set up a green-field factory to manufacture the revolutionary Tata Nano 600cc petrol-powered motorcar that was to be sold initially for just Rs. 1 lakh. It could, the prototypes showed, transport five people comfortably. Ratan Tata’s dream child, it was intended to revolutionise transportation for the lower middle class. The Singur plant would employ about 2,000 persons directly, and provide employment to over 10,000 people indirectly, when it became operational.

The Bhattacharya led government  acquired nearly 1,000 acres of the ‘three-crops a year’ fertile agricultural land at Singur for the project from the none too happy farmers, providing meagre compensation in the bargain. Knowing the political climate in West Bengal, it was an agitation waiting to happen. The Tata Motors and WBIDC jointly chose Singur for its proximity to Kolkata, just  40 km away, and its good connectivity with the highways nearby. It did not, it appears, take care of local sentiment in using a high hat colonial land acquisition law.

But when Trinamool Congress started its agitation against the location of the plant, the contention was why it wasn’t sited in designated industrial areas instead of on fertile agricultural land. Trinamool Congress alleged that the Left Front government had forcibly acquired the land despite farmer protests, and the project could not go ahead.

Despite early trouble, Tata Motors began to pour in an estimated Rs. 1,800 crores into the project from January 2007. Thirty of its vendors set up plant buildings alongside for an investment of over 170 crores.

The Left Front government, despite best efforts, were not able to settle matters with the Singur farmers to their satisfaction. Fed up with the turmoil, then Tata Chairman Ratan Tata decided to relocate the project to Sanand in Gujarat, towards the end of 2008 - on October 3, 2008.

That the Tata Nano was not a great success in terms of sales, despite incentives offered by the Gujarat government, is another story. It is likely, according to some reports. to see a new avatar as an electric car soon.

But all the while, the Trinamool Congress agitation intensified along with attacks against plant personnel. So much so, that the Left Front government of Buddhadev Bhattacharya was brought down by the Trinamool Congress over this matter. Trinamool Congress came to power in its stead, and has been running West Bengal for three consecutive terms ever since. It is no wonder that the Singur agitation has been inserted into the school text books in the state.

Singur is back in the news after 15 years, with the unanimous arbitration award of Rs. 765.78 crores in compensation to Tata Motors payable by WBIDC, one crore in legal expenses in addition, plus 11% interest from September 1, 2016, till the money is paid in full. With interest, the compensation to Tata Motors tops Rs. 1,350 crores if it were to be paid today.

The West Bengal government headed by Mamata Banerjee intends to challenge the award either in the Calcutta High Court or in the Supreme Court.

One argument goes that the initial acquisition of the land was declared illegal later by the apex court in 2016, as it had failed to meet the requirements of the Land Acquisition Act 1894, and was ordered to be returned to the farmers.

However, this may have come as too little and too late. The Leader of the West Bengal Opposition, BJP’s Subhendu Adhikari, has stated that the agricultural land has been ruined by the works put in by the proposed plant, and  was rendered unfit thereafter for cultivation afresh. Industry, as usual, lost out in the bargain.

 Ironically, the arbitration award with its resultant bad publicity has come when the West Bengal government is gearing up for its Global Business Summit shortly on November 21-22. However, previous business summits have never gone well either, with most pledges and promises unfulfilled.

The ruling Trinamool Congress is also battling widespread corruption charges with as many as five of its ministers under arrest or in jail, and crores in unaccounted money confiscated by central authorities like the Enforcement Directorate.

(1,067 words)

November 1^st, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee