Who is Ajay TG? Political arrests and the tightening noose
The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) strongly condemns the arrest of Ajay TG, widely recognized film maker, journalist and human rights activist by the Chhattisgarh police in Raipur on 4 May 2008 and calls for his immediate release.
Bondimukti Committee members arrested for protesting political arrests
Bondimukti Committee members protesting against political arrests were attacked by police and have been fasting at College Square, Kolkata, from May 6 2008 in protest.
No choice for forgotten Santhals in Bengal
By Shyam Sundar Roy
About 500 voters, belonging to over 160 Santhal families living under Shiromoni gram panchayat in Midnapore Sadar block, do not know which party to vote for in the ensuing panchayat elections, as they say none of them are ready to help them.
From Chhattisgargh to Manipur: The many faces of Salwa Judum
Manipur will arm its civilians to fight militants: A Salwa Judum in the making? - May 3, 2008
Chhattisgargh’s purification hunt - By Shubhranshu Choudhary
4 farmers commit suicide everyday in Chhattisgarh - the highest in the country - By Shubhranshu Choudhary
The Panchayat elections and self-empowerment of the rural poor
This is a translated version of a leaflet from the Krishak Committee (KC), written and distributed at the advent of Panchayat elections in West Bengal. The Sharamik Sangram Committee (SSC), a small fraternal organisation of the Krishak Commitee, leads the union at Hindustan Lever.
My Name is Radharani Ari and This is How My Consciousness Was Raised.
Honourable Chief Minister, I am the same Radharani Ari of Nandigram. How many more times will your cadres rape me?
Yes, I am the same person. The same Radharani Ari, resident of Nandigram Block, village – Gokulpur. Whether or not you remember me, I am not too sure, although by now the entire state of West Bengal has heard about me. I did not catch the limelight due to some creditable act of mine but on account of my misfortunes. I am a housewife of, by now infamous, Nandigram.
Looking back at Khejuri: Our men, their men – the straw men
This eyewitness account appeared in November 2007, and presents an alternative first-hand view of the highly publicised Khejuri camps. It has been translated by Atreyi Dasgupta, Sanhati.
…One of the little ones, when asked his name, immediately parroted, “We need industry, or else how can we have development”. He was ten years old. His sister was just beside him, and she said, “We don’t know how long we have to stay in this condition. If we ask these people, they say, everything will go back to normal in a few days. But where is that happening? You know didi, our friends in Nandigram told us that they have resumed their studies. What will we do?”
Will the “Great Indian Middle Class” show up, please?
By Partho Sarathi Ray, Sanhati. Comments enabled
Where is the “Great Indian Middle Class”? Where are those conspicuously-consuming, frequently-flying, gizmo-toting, big car-driving, globalized offsprings of our jet-setting “new economy”? Don’t we see them all around us: living in highrises with blue-tiled swimming pools, with people living a few miles away getting water once in three days, shopping in glittering malls built on the land of evicted slums, driving around in Toyotas and Chevrolets on roads choked with traffic? From all accounts, and appearances, we have reached the heady days when the Indian middle class has finally arrived. They are the ones who supposedly constitute one of the biggest markets in the world, for whom multinational corporations are falling over one another to invest in India, for whom our governments’ policies are directed, for whom roads and airports are built, for they ARE the “people” of India. This great middle class is our hope, the engine of growth for our economy. So - where is it?
Does Land Still Matter?
By D. Bandyopadhyay
The national economy is growing at double digit rates but neither industry nor non-agricultural activities in rural India provide livelihood for millions of rural workers. The annual growth of agricultural output decelerated from 3.08 per cent pa during 1980-81 to 1991-92 to 2.38 per cent pa during 1992-93 to 2003-04. It is this failure that underlies the spurt in rural violence that has highlighted once again the issue of the poors’ access to land, water, and forests. It is gradually being recognised that further deterioration of economic, social, and political conditions of the rural poor can neither be arrested nor reversed without a significant policy shift towards a comprehensive land reform program.
Predatory Growth
By Amit Bhaduri
Over the last two decades or so, the two most populous, large countries in the world, China and India, have been growing at rates considerably higher than the world average. In recent years the growth rate of national product of China has been about three times, and that of India approximately two times that of the world average. This has led to a clever defence of globalisation by a former chief economist of IMF (Fisher, 2003). Although China and India feature as only two among some 150 countries for which data are available, he reminded us that together they account for the majority of the poor in the world. This means that, even if the rich and the poor countries of the world are not converging in terms of per capita income, the well above the average world rate of growth rate of these two large countries implies that the current phase of globalisation is reducing global inequality and poverty at a rate as never before.
Sibpur BESU - Coercion to join the SFI - Terror and the administration-police-criminal nexus
The political landscape in colleges across West Bengal is barren - the SFI wins mainly uncontested almost everywhere, through an intricate mechanism of nepotism, selection and campus terror.
The students of Sibpur BESU are facing an assault of the college administration- local goons-police. The Vice-chancellor Nikhil Ranjan Banerjea is orchestrating the assault, the aim of which is to terrorize students into joining or supporting the students’ wing of the major ruling party. It is not an accident that all those who are being arrested by the police are distinguished by their non-allegiance to this students’ organisation.
Stages of Revolution in the International Working Class Movement
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati (Open for comments)
This article attempts to throw some light on the following two questions: (1) How does the classical Marxist tradition conceptualize the relationship between the two stages of revolution: democratic and the socialist? (2) Does the democratic revolution lead to deepening and widening capitalism? Is capitalism necessary to develop the productive capacity of a society? The answer to the first question emerges from the idea of the “revolution of permanence” proposed by Marx in 1850, accepted, extended and enriched by Lenin as “uninterrupted revolution” and simultaneously developed by Trotsky as “permanent revolution”. This theoretical development was brilliantly put into practice by Lenin between the February and October revolutions in Russia in 1917. The answer to the second question emerges clearly from the debates on the national and colonial question in the Second Congress of the Third International in 1920. From this debate what emerges is the idea of the democratic revolution led by the proletariat as the start of the process of non-capitalist path of the development of the productive capacity of society, moving towards the future socialist revolution. Rather than deepening and widening capitalism, the democratic revolution under the proletariat leads society in the opposite direction, in a socialist, i.e., proletarian direction. Promoting capitalism is not necessary for the development of the productive capacity of a country.
Civil Liberties under Attack: The “Maoist” Scare and Mithu Ghosh
Today we are witnessing the sharpest assault on democratic rights since Emergency. And as before, the reason is an upsurge from below, in the current case in resistance to the imposition of neoliberal policies. A most ominous event is the recent arrest, by the police of CPI(M)-led left front government, of Mithu Ghosh, an activist of Sharamik Sangram Committee (SSC) and Krishak Committee (KC), along with a senior leader of Nandigram movement and his son on 12th February, 2008 from Sonachuda, Nandigram West Bengal. An allegation of Maoist link under section 120B, 121, 121A and 153 of IPC was charged.
You see, we do back calculations here - Rural employment and Panchayet realities in Bengal
By Swati Bhattacharya. Translated by Debarshi Das, Sanhati
We want work, work, work, work and work. - Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Chief Minister, West Bengal
Anukul Das was from Sonaga village, Gosaba Gram Panchayat (South 24 Parganas District, the Sunderban region). He demanded the right to work for minimum hundred days from Panchayat. Presently he is in the Andamans seeking work. His wife Shikha Das says, he got only nine days of work in two years. So, he went to submit the application for unemployment dole with some other villagers. Panchayat did not want to accept to application, hence they forcibly submitted it. A few days later, works started in the area, and they did not find any. They were allotted works in Rangabelia, about four kilometres away. Cost of travelling to and fro is twenty two rupees per day. One hour by boat, one more on foot. It was absurd to accept such a proposal. Panchayat members had told them openly: you complained about us, we will provide no work to you.
On the CPIM’s draft political resolution
Capitalistic socialism: New Oxymoron - By Sankar Ray
Irony of recent history - A critique of the CPIM’s draft political resolution - By Sankar Ray
Citizens’ Report on Nandigram with specific stress on gender violence
As a result of an initiative by women’s groups, organizations and individuals, an 11-member team of citizens from Kolkata comprising teachers, social activists, researchers and students visited Nandigram on November 24, 2007. Concerned about the repeated disruption of peace in the region, the team decided to go to the affected areas and talk to the local people with the objectives of expressing solidarity with the survivors of violence, documenting people’s needs in the current circumstances, and drawing up recommendations. One of the chief aims was also to investigate the nature and range of sexual violence and its use as a political weapon, towards pre-empting further such occurrences of violence against women.
Click here to read Independent Citizens’ Report on Nandigram [.doc, English 330KB] »
Nude mentally challenged patients - Bengal’s public healthcare at a time of private bonanza
It has been argued that big capital investment in West Bengal “creates a wonderful opportunity to make much larger investments in public education, healthcare, public transport, environmental protection, and other public goods.” (Amartya Sen). On the other hand, the argument has been made that a government with a neo-liberal mindset does not care about people who, because of their purchasing power, are outside the market. If the government has money, it will make malls and flyovers, at the cost of public health. The problem is not one of intention but definition.
The situation in a state mental hospital, a mere 6 km from the seat of government at Writers Building in Kolkata, displays the typically dysfunctional nature of public healthcare, amidst all the rhetoric of development.
Singur brutalizer gets medal, cadres get Nandigram land, cash incentives for officials: Laissez-faire in action
Friedmanite neo-liberalism advocates minimization of the involvement of the state. In reality, neo-liberal policies are imposed and facilitated by the state - from nepotism and incentives to disappearances and massacres.
1. Singur: IPS officer accused of torture awarded Seva medal by Chief Minister - March 3, 2008
2. Bengal govt to distribute vested Nandigram land to party supporters - February 27, 2008
3. Cash Incentives for Officials Who Take Initiative for Land Acquisition - February 2, 2008
Economic Growth: A Meaningless Obsession?
By Amit Bhaduri, B.N. Ganguly Memorial Lecture; CSDS, Delhi, November 2006.
We are living in India at a time when the media is continuously transmitting confusing, even conflicting, economic signals. If we restrict ourselves to the English language print as well as electronic media, our comfort level is likely to be high. The economy is growing at a high rate, the stock market is booming, our foreign reserve is at a comfortably high level, and freer trade is bringing to our doors a variety of goods and services simply unimaginable even a couple of decades ago as a mark of the benefits of globalization. What is more, we are daily reminded that India is poised economically and politically as an emergent world power.
Dankuni - Resistance to Massive Land Acquisition for Real Estate
The “development” process in West Bengal is taking place in a two stage mechanism - conversion of agricultural land into industrial land, and conversion of industrial land into real estate. Land acquisition in Dankuni clearly demonstrates how the aim of the “development” process is really the extraction of maximum profits by private enities from resources, in this case, land. Real estate provides the maximum profit, therefore functioning factories in Dankuni are being shut down to acquire land for a housing project by the powerful DLF group.
Agro-Science Fair in Bolagarh, West Bengal
The ‘Agricultural Science Fair 2008’ was organized by Bolagarh Gana-Bijnan Samiti on 25-26 January, 2008 at the Jeerat Colony High School in the Hooghly district of West Bengal, India. Extensive discussions and programs were carried out on the role of multinationals like Monsanto in promoting genetically modified seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers. Alternative bio-friendly methods of agriculture were discussed.
Anti-POSCO rally and program in Kolkata
February 13, 2008. Kolkata: A rally from College Square to Utkal Bhavan (an office of the Orissa govornment) took place and was followed by a mass-deputation in Utkal Bhavan against the proposed POSCO project in Jagatsingpur district, Orissa. The program was organised by 18 organizations. After a demonstration in front of Utkal Bhavan the protesters conveyed their solidarity to the POSCO movement in the form of a memorandum to the government of Orissa. The authorities at Utkal Bhavan received the memorandum on behalf of the government of Orissa. Afterwards, anti-POSCO activists including Biswajit Roy shared their experiences with political organisations and human rights activists at the Indian Radical Humanist Associations Hall in a discussion called Posco Ebong Tar Protirodh. Activists involved in the protest movement against illegal and extensive stone quarrying in Asansol and Birbhum were also present to express their solidarity to the people of Orissa and speak about the conditions in the regions where they work.
The 18 organisations which organised the program were: APDR, Chhatra-Chhatri Sanhati Mancha, Little Magazine Samannay Mancha, Lok Seba Sangh, Nandigram Ganahatya Birodhi Prochar Udyog, Sahanagarikder Jukta Mancha, Hawker Sangram Committee, TASAM, USDF, NAPM, Sanhati Udyog, PaschimBanga Khetmazoor Samiti, Ganamukti Parishad, Janasangharsha Samiti, West Bengal Gandhi Peace Foundation, Bondi Mukti Committee, West Bengal Government Employees Union, and National Fishworkers Federation.
Malnutrition death in Singur and the Nano-flyover syndrome
1. February 10, 2008 : Kalipada Majhi, a sharecropper rendered jobless in Singur after land acquisition, died from malnutrition.
2. In an article called The Nano-flyover Syndrome, Sunita Narain examines what subsidises the cheap Nano, and who actually pays.
Tall Claims: Employment generated by Haldia Petrochemicals
By Dipanjan Rai Chaudhuri and Purnendu Chakraborty
These articles calculate the actual employment figure in downstream units of HPL for 2005 to be less than 19,301. We are being asked to believe that, in 2 years, the figure has increased from less than 19,301 to 50,000+89,900, an increase of more than 7-fold. The figure of 89,900 is also suspiciously close to 89,895, which is the employment figure for ALL new projects implemented in the state between 1991-2002 (Source: Frontline). It seems that either 89,000 is a favourite number, or that all employment in the state has come from HPL.
Burma’s Freedom Fighters: From Port Blair to a Kolkata Jail
February 4th, 2008, marks the tenth anniversary of the illegal detention of 34 Burmese freedom fighters in Bengal. The Solidarity Committee for Burma’s Freedom Fighters, whose members include Ashok Mitra, Lakshmi Sehgal, and others, carried out a Dharna in protest.
Personal accounts of prisoners and press release of the protest are included.
Neoliberalism, the U.S. economic crisis, and the phases of capitalism
Neoliberal Globalization Is Not the Problem - By Rick Wolff
2008: The Demise of Neoliberal Globalization - By Immanuel Wallerstein
Putting the U.S. Economic Crisis in Perspective - By Leo Panitch
Some critiques of CPI(M)’s 19th Congress and stance on capitalism
On Jyoti Basu’s Embrace of Capitalism as the Only Road to Industrialisation - By P.J. James
CPI(M)’s 19th Congress: The Social Democrats Stand Further Exposed - By K.N. Ramachandran
Study on Closed and Re-opened Tea Gardens in North Bengal
By Anuradha Talwar, Debashish Chakraborty, Sarmishtha Biswas
This study, dated September 2005, was conducted in the wake of the crisis in the tea industry in the Doars between 2002-2004.
Contents: (1) Conditions in re-opened gardens - wages, ration, hours of work, occupational health and safety, drinking water, electricity, housing, transport for school-children, medical facilities, creches, maternity benefits, fringe benefits, latrines and urinals (2) Conditions in closed and abandoned gardens (3) Workers’ dues - tabled by tea estates, categorized under provident fund, gratuity, salary, and total dues (4) Opening agreements (5) Likely non-viability of plantations (6) Role of unions - CITU, UTUC, INTUC, WBTGEA (7) Role of government (8) Plantations Labour Act, 1951
Click here to read study on closed and re-opened ta gardens in North Bengal [PDF, English, 400 KB] »
ShramikShakti Newsletter - January-February 2008
Contents: (1) SEZs stopped in Goa (2) CPI(M) exults in the Nano (3) BJP in power in Gujrat and Himachal - effects on state and national politics (4) Dankuni - huge land acquisition plans (5) Civil society, Karl Marx, and the CPI(M) (6) Economic development and employment generation - a debate (part 2) (7) Vote-based front or unity of struggle? (8) Pollution of drinking water - in search of the source (9) Singur and the High Court verdict (10) Ganashakti’s hypocrisy (11) GM crops - agricultural science meet in Bolagarh (12) Bolagarh - lessons from the polls (13) Movement in Kandi - protests against corruption in public distribution system and cal for permanent flood resistance measures (14) Benazir’s death and contemporary Pakistan (15) HindMotors and the recent elections
Click here to read ShramikShakti January-February 2008 [PDF, Bengali, 612 KB] »
Buddha Weeps in Jadugoda
Click here to watch documentary: Buddha weeps in Jadugoda [Youtube video, six parts]
Click here for photos of affected children
Ragi Kana Ko Bonga Buru (Buddha weeps in Jadugoda) documents the devastating effects of uranium mining by Uranium Corporation of India Limited at Jadugoda, in Jharkhand. For the last thirty years, radioactive waste has been dumped into the rice fields of Adivasis. The complete disregard of the authorities to radioactive waste management rules wreaks havoc on the daily lives of villagers and children, with genetic deformities becoming quite common.
About director Shriprakash Prakash: Shriprakash has directed and produced many documentary films during the last 15 years. He is also the chief co-ordinator of Kritika, a group working in the Jharkhand region since 1990 in the areas of culture and communication. With his films he has attempted to capture the struggles and aspirations of indigenous local communities in Bihar and Jharkhand, and to give them a voice.
Kalboishekhi in Poush: The Aftermath of Nandigram
By Garga Chatterjee, Sanhati
The events in Nandigram have possibly changed the trajectory of contemporary political discourse for good. West Bengal’s “leftist” government started a policy of forcibly acquiring land from peasants, dependents on soil and other communities that live off the soil. Incident after incident followed where discontented locals spontaneously organized, into Krishi Jami Raksha Committee, Bhumi Uchhed Protirodh Committee, Uchhed Birodhi Committee, and more.
What the myopic can’t see
For some time Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has been advising the Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee to disband the organisation since the state government has “abandoned for good” the plan to acquire farmland at Nandigram, while the outfit’s nomenclature means it was formed for resistance against displacement from land.
Forest Rights Act implementation in Bengal - Front allies join protests
A The Telegraph report, January 9, 2008
The RSP and the Forward Bloc have joined NGOs in alleging violation of forest villagers’ rights following a government notification declaring vast swathes of the Sunderbans and the Buxa Tiger Reserve “critical wildlife habitats”. It has, they said, made hundreds of forest villagers vulnerable to the threat of eviction, though the CPM had been championing their cause at the Centre.
Work for Everyone and Amartya Sen
By Dipanjan Rai Chaudhuri. Translated by Kuver Sinha, Sanhati
On the whole, Amartya Sen has distanced his support from the West Bengal government’s disregard for peoples’ suffering and the protest that has emerged in its wake, its shameless espousal of SEZs and its brokering of land for big business. At a time when people of the state are registering their dissatisfaction and protest in the face of daily harrassment from the biggest party of the government, even such indirect criticism from Sen is helpful. But the fact remains that Amartya Sen is a supporter of the West Bengal government’s basic industrial policy. If we strip away all the embellishment, the logic is “to remove poverty, we must increase income”. This “income”, however, is the neo-liberal economist’s “income” – comprising, in the example of the Singur factory, the Tatas’ profits, bank interest, government revenue, and, only as a fourth component, the wages of the employees. In an unequal society like India, an increase in this “income” may leave poverty unaffected or even in an enhanced state…
Goa scraps all SEZs, Center says not so fast!
PANAJI: The Goa government on (1/1/2008) decided to scrap all Special Economic Zone (SEZ) projects in its bid to end the long-drawn public agitation which at one stage threatened to jeopardise New Year celebrations.
The Centre on Wednesday questioned the authority of the Goa government to recommend scrapping of notified special economic zones (SEZs). After a meeting of the board of approval (BoA) commerce secretary G.K.Pillai said: “There is no provision under law (for states) to recommend de-notification. They have no locus standi to withdraw the notifications to the SEZs.”
Press Conference: Recognition of Forest Rights Act and its sabotage - rallies in North Bengal
Nagarik Mancha and NFPFW invite you to a meeting at the Calcutta Press Club on Wednesday 9 January 2008 between 3pm and 5pm to discuss and to develop a strategy for a broader campaign for forest people’s rights.
How long will a Government that talks about people’s rights keep on betraying the interests of more than a crore of forest-dwellers? How long tribals and other forest dwellers will be treated as intruders, thieves and destroyer of national property in their own forests? We solicit your support in this Campaign which seeks to find an answer to these and many other questions.
Binayak Sen - A mother’s appeal
By Anasuya Sen
I am a woman in my eighties. When we were young, people were inspired by the examples of karmayogis who were patriotic, motivated by ideals of service, wise and virtuous. We considered ourselves blessed if we could follow in their footsteps. I had so far been a silent spectator to the injustice and violence that pervades our free democracy today, but only because I was personally untouched by it. But now, as an aged mother, and outraged by the blows of injustice, I wish to break my silence. Inconsolable in my pain at the age of eighty-one years, I now wish to make a humble appeal to the people of free, democratic India.
ShramikShakti Newsletter, December 2007
Contents: (1) Brutal assault on Adivasi tea-garden workers in Assam (2) The 29th November attack on Anti-Posco Movement (3) Buddha at it again - says he’s wrong (4) An interview with Avash Munshi of SSKU on the upcoming elections at Hindmotors (5) On Taslima Nasreen (6) Economic development and employment generation - a debate (7) Nandigram and the Nuclear Deal - an understanding between Congress and CPI(M) (8) Nandigram’s effect clear in Rail Union Elections (9) Cancel SEZ, Posco go back! - ShramikShakti’s interview of Abhay Sahu (10) Nandigram will hold its head high - an eye-wtiness report from the relief camps (11) CPI(M) attacks peaceful anti-acquisition rally in Birshibpur (12) Under U.S. supervision - whither Pakistan? (13) France - workers go on unprecedented strikes
Click here to read ShramikShakti, December 2007 [PDF, Bengali, 720 KB] »
Democracy at Gunpoint - A Report on the Repression of Anti-Posco Movement as of 5th December 2007
This report, and many other resources on Posco, are available from the Environmental Protection Group, Orissa
Contents: (1) Message from Rajendra Sadangi, Convenor, Loka Pakhya (2) Summary of situation (3) Detailed Report: (a) Government of Orissa’s moves (b) Local Administration’s moves (c) Police moves (d) Posco’s moves (e) Situation in Dhinkia (f) Situation in Nuagaon (g) Situation in Gadakujanga (h) Political Responses Against The Govt’s Moves (i) Status of the Movement (j) Overall Situation (k) Demands
Rape and its proof – And that’s how life is
An op-ed by Jagori Bandyopadhyay in Anandabazar Patrika, December 13, 2007. Translated by Suvarup Saha, Sanhati.
We need proof. The government does not take any action until there is sufficient evidence to prove the crime. This is how it should be; this is how it is. Plain words. Plain, yet not so simple. The government will act once it has enough evidence to justify its action. Very good. But the journey from accusations to establishment of crime in the eyes of the law is not a trivial process. Can the Government shrug off its responsibility in ensuring that this process, the journey itself, is executed in a free, fair and lawful manner? These thoughts occurred to me as I was listening to the charges and counter-charges that accompanied the accusations of mass rapes in Nandigram.
Land Acquisition Bill and the Panchayet: things to expect and fear. A case study on Salboni
By Debarshi Das, Sanhati
When the government is not in the scene does the acquisition process become hostage to unwilling, ignorant peasants and scheming speculators? Do the entire paraphernalia of political parties, bureaucracy and other institutions simply sit by and let the invisible hand of market decide what goes where? On 11th January, 2007 at a Kolkata five star hotel Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was spouting Shakespeare and Tagore . He had just concluded a deal handing over 4300 acres of government land at Salboni to the Jindal group to set up a steel factory. Jindal group was supposed to acquire a further 500 acres of land directly from the landholders. How did it go? What has been the role of the Panchayat, both as a mediating agency between the industrialist and peasants and as a collective bargaining body of villagers?
Whither Haripur? - Nuclear energy option splits CPI(M) higher-ups
By Sankar Ray
On the issue of whether the nuclear option should be explored to meet power requirements in the future preferentially over coal-fired power generation, mandarins of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the largest Leftist party in India, are more adherents of Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost than Stalinist orthodoxy of “democratic centralism”. Nonagenarian CPI(M) polit bureau member Jyoti Basu frequently claims that his party is the most democratic and disciplined of all political parties in India and once a decision is taken following inner-party debate, every party member works for implementing the decision.
A Few Desperate and Concerned Questions
By Ashok Mitra. Translated by Debarshi Das, Sanhati
This article appeared on 18th April, 2007 in the Anandabazar Patrika
We know the history of the last fifteen years very well. National output had had a tremendous rise, capitalists have built mountains out of profits, but employment has not risen. The little rise there was, was in the public sector. In private sector employment has in fact gone down. On what basis therefore is the party leadership claiming that unemployment problems would be mitigated if West Bengal is handed over to domestic and foreign capitalists?
Mahishadal SEZ - Farmers boycott meeting with corporate officials
November 5, 2007
After Singur and Nandigram, the embers of protest have spread to Mahishadal. On Sunday, farmers of Bedkundu — one of the three areas identified for land acquisition — shot down the proposals to part with their agricultural holdings to make way for a ship-building factory to be set up by the Apeejay and Bharati groups.
Flotsam and jetsam - corporate retail and the predicament of the neighbourhood grocer
By D Bandyopadhyay
Those who buy cheap and those who depart from the gainful economic scene are two different sets of people. So the joy of one set and sadness of the other can never be seen together. It looks as though we are becoming too modern, little too fast for the comfort of a few to the utter dismay and discomfort of too many.
The age old kirana shops in each mohalla of urban or rural habitats had been a part of traditional life of any average Indian. My Govinda Kaku (Chacha), the owner of such a shop, in our locality in my childhood was not only a shopkeeper but business adviser to our family.
Titanium or Water? Tata Steel, land grab, and local governments - to Sathankulam, from Singur and Kalinganagar
October, 2007
More than 5,000 people converged this month in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to protest a deal that set the stage for the state government to appropriate almost 10,000 acres of land and hand it over to Tata Steel Corporation, a subsidiary of India’s largest conglomerate. The June 2007 agreement allows the giant company to mine ilmenite in Sathankulam, an agrarian pocket of India’s coastal countryside.
The Betrayal of Niyamgiri - Vedanta mining and the Dongria tribals
The Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) had been working hand-in-glove with Britain’s Vedanta Resources Plc to allow them to take over huge tracts of forested land, inhabited by the Dongria tribals, for open-cast mining in Niyamgiri, Orissa. Now, the Supreme Court, by reserving the judgement on a PIL filed by environmental activists from Orissa on 26th October, seems to haven given the go-ahead to Vedanta. This is again another case of the Supreme Court blatantly taking the side of corporations.
1. October 5, 2007 : Govt backs controversial Vedanta mine plan
2. October 10, 2007 : Tribal trouble adds to Vedanta green tension
3. October 26, 2007 : Betrayal of the Law at the Supreme Court; Taro Karma, Amaro Dharma : by Felix Padel
Globalization and land battles - a West Bengal perspective
By Abhijit Guha
Contents : (1) Introduction (2) Land reforms and decentralized planning in West Bengal (3) The winds of change and the contradiction (4) Marginalization of peasants in the era of globalization in West Bengal - A case study (5) Impact on land reforms (6) Impact on the local self-government (7) Peasants against acquisition (8) Governmental initiative towards resettlement and rehabilitation - an incomplete effort (9) In search of an alternative path to reform
Click here to read this article [PDF, English, 98 KB]
Durga Puja as Protest : Small Traders in West Bengal
By Dipanjan Rai Chaudhuri
The four days of Durga Puja signify carnival time in West Bengal. On the main Saptami Puja day, Thursday the 18th of October, a few of us witnessed a tiny act of defiance by the small traders of Nonachandanpukur Bazaar, in Barrackpore, within the area loosely called Greater Calcutta.
Invisible Genocide Of The Poor - PDS, NREGA, MDM and their implementation
By Parshuram Rai, Countercurrents
More than 340 million of Indians still go to bed without food every night .Over 10,000 Indians die of hunger every day and about 40 lakh every year. In other words, every 18 months we are inflicting an “invisible genocide” of Nazi scale on our poor and hungry compatriots.”…
…PDS and NREGS are two most important schemes to fight hunger and ensure food security. But , what is the actual performance of these schemes on the ground ? According to a recent report of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution , “In the last three years, Rs 31,585.98 crore worth of wheat and rice meant for the poorest of the poor was siphoned off from the public distribution system(PDS).
Rizwanur Rehman’s death - a long tradition of Police atrocities in Bengal
This note from Nagarik Mancha traces the long history of police atrocities on ordinary citizens - Ashima Poddar, Archana Guha, Latika Guha, Subhankar Sarangi, Muhammad Alam, Khagen Majhi, Topi Daas, Suresh Barui, Partha Majumdar, Kamal Thakur, and so on - some tortured, some murdered, and almost no justice ever meted out.
How are you Chandmani, after the ‘Change’?
An Eyewitness Report on the present state of Chandmani Tea Estate by Samik Chakraborty
Translated by Suvarup Saha, Sanhati
Do you recall the ‘Chandmani’ saga? It was the year 2003. We were introduced to new jargon by our ‘proletarian’ Left Front government – Satellite Township. A modern township in close proximity to a big city. This project of usurping the land of Chandmani Tea Estate to build a lavish township in the outskirts of Siliguri (in the northern part of West Bengal) and the events that followed soon exposed the true identity of the LF once more. An echo of the recent euphoria of ‘industrialization-development’ that is now centered around ‘Singur-Nandigram’ and the corresponding ‘inevitability’ of forceful land acquisition can in fact be heard four years back in history when Chandmani was ‘CHANGED’.
Sanat Paul, the courts, Nagarik Mancha, and compensation - A Kafkaesque tale
This case profile from Nagarik Mancha tells the story of Sanat Kumar Paul, an unorganised sector worker in 1992. He worked at the ECCO Battery Ltd. of 73 Belgachhia Road Kolkata 700037. He developed Lead Neuropathy from his workplace, and has been looking for justice for over twelve years. Twelve years of joblessness owing to occupational disease means nothing to the system.
In the home ground of the so-called labour movement in India (INTUC, AITUC followed by CITU etc.) a seemingly pro-labour Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923, promulgated by the British, remains virtually unimplemented in parts for 84 long years. This should be a revelation of sorts.
National Tanneries from Birth to Dissolution - Chronicles of a pro-industrialization, pro-workers government
By Subhendu Dasgupta. Translated by Debarshi Das, Sanhati
1905: Birth of National Tanneries.
1950s: Peak performance of the Tanneries. Its products get global recognition.
1969: Shoe manufacturing division is founded. At that time except Bata, no other shoe manufacturing unit existed in East India.
1970s: Company starts to sicken.
Ranihati - an SEZ silently in the making
By Partho Sarathi Ray, Sanhati (based on a report by Sushanta Bose and Pradip Roy, Shramikshakti, August 2007)
The West Bengal government plans to establish a special economic zone (SEZ) in the Ranihati area of Howrah district. Hindustan Foundries, belonging to the Hyderabad-based Ramoji International corporation is going to be the developer of this SEZ. The government plans to bring the small foundries located in the Dasnagar-Tikiapara area of Howrah into this “foundry park”. Recently, the union government has also given its go-ahead. As a result, around 1000 acres of agricultural land is being acquired for setting up this SEZ, a major part of which is fertile land bearing two crops per year. Various machinations of acquiring the land from the farmers are going on. Reportedly, already 50% of the land has already changed hands from the farmers.
Haldia Petrochemicals and Unemployment in East Midnapore : A Lesson in (Non-) Development
By Dipanjan Rai Chaudhury
A number of well-qualified scientists and teachers in the field of chemistry have repeatedly been pointing out the dangers of pollution and poisoning of air, water and soil from the proposed Chemical Hub in East Midnapore. The whole question needs also to be looked at from a different view-point. What has the Chemical Hub to offer to the people of East Midnapore? The government of West Bengal promises jobs. To build confidence in their promises they point to Haldia Petrochemicals HPCL and its downstream units.
So, it is imperative that one find out what exactly in the field of employment Haldia Petrochemicals HPCL has offered to the district.
What it means to be the Left in Bengal - Of Buddhadeb, nuclear power, agri-retail, and on “changing with the world”
The official Indian Left has perhaps reached a crescendo in its opposition to the US nuclear deal and its condemnation of American imperialism in places as far out as Iraq. May Day celebrations this year called for the usual condemnation of neoliberalism. Perhaps the rhetoric should be eased a bit - Bengal tells a different story! The Chief Minister had the following things to say at the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) meeting in Kolkata on September 17.
1. “Environmentalists opposing nuclear power as a viable option are beginning to sound like fundamentalists.”
2. “We should allow big retail companies like Spencers, Reliance and Wal-Mart in agro-retailing business.”
3. “CII should form a committee to go into details on what should be the government’s policy for land acquisition”
4. “We had committed serious mistakes in the sixties and seventies. The world is changing. We are also changing.”
What Amartya Sen said and what he did not
By Anirban Chattopadhyay. Translated by Debarshi Das, Sanhati
Amartya Sen has made his views on industrialisation in West Bengal known. To him, industrialisation is necessary for the development of the state, it is the only way for income growth. How will industrialisation come about, where will it be located – most of these issues will depend on market, on the requirements of those who are going to invest. For example, investors may like to have their industries set up near Kolkata. To facilitate this some farm land may have to be sacrificed. Otherwise industrialisation will itself get hampered, which would imply a lost opportunity for the people of the state. It even means loss for the farmers. Too many people are dependent on land, resulting in a constraint on their earnings. As long as these additional people are not moved away from farming by means of industrialisation, their lot will not improve.
A Brief History of Workers’ Movements in India, with focus on Bengal
This histoy is by SSKU, an independent, non-party affiliated trade-union working at Hindustan Motors, West Bengal.
What was the working condition of the workers in those days? According to a Royal Commission of Labour, instituted by the British imperialists in 1933, the working hours in all the cotton mills were 13 to 15 hours a day. The report of the Textile Factories Labour Committee mentioned in 1906 that the conditions inside the factories were “inhuman”, the workers had to “put in hard labour” and after the shift was over, “they were so exhausted that a large number of them used to get fainted within the factory premises”. The condition of the female workers was deplorable. Employing of child labour was rampant. The factory Labour Commission of 1908 noted that children in the age group 5-7 constituted a major workforce in most of the factories. 40% of the part-time workers were under-age children. In the jute mills, children in the age group 7-9 used to travel about 4 km in the early morning to reach the factory in time!
Nearly 11,500 Farmer Suicides
Around 11,500 farmers have committed suicide in different parts of India in the last six years, most of them due to their inability to pay debts, says a new study that indicates the problem is bigger than what has been reported so far. The study, carried out by a conglomerate of voluntary groups called the National Social Watch Coalition (NCWC), says that at least 11,387 farmers have committed suicide between 2001 and 2006. The situation has gone from bad to worse in several states, the report points out.
An intimate portrait of Shankar Guha Niyogi, and the arrest of Binayak Sen
I first met Sen in 1986 when Shankar Guha Niyogi, leader of the Chhatisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM), had invited me to screen ‘Bombay Our City’ to the mine-workers of Chhatisgarh. Niyogi was no ordinary union leader. Originally a worker in the Bhilai Steel plant, his thinking went far beyond the wage-struggle politics of most unions of the day.