Tata Nano Singur controversy
Encyclopedia
Tata Nano Singur Controversy refers to the controversy generated by land acquisition of the proposed Nano factory of Tata Motors at Singur
in Hooghly district
, West Bengal
, India
.
Singur gained international media attention since Tata Motors
started constructing a factory to manufacture their $2,500 car, the Tata Nano
at Singur. The small car was scheduled to roll out of the factory by 2008.
The state government of West Bengal facilitated the controversy by using an old rule to conduct an eminent domain
takeover of 997 acres (4 km²) of farmland to have Tata build its factory. 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, displaced land owners and opposition parties in Bengal.
. Banerjee's "Save Farmland" movement was supported by environmental activists like Medha Patkar, Anuradha Talwar and Arundhati 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 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.
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. The project had, however, generated controversy right from the start, particularly on the question of state acquisition of fertile agricultural land for private enterprise.
While the ruling party has gone all out
for acquisition of 997 acres (4 km²) 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. Others say the provisions of this act were allegedly not been met.
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 population depends on agriculture with approximately 15000 making their livelihood directly from it. 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. 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
. 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. The Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen
supported the idea of factory but he however opposed forcible acquisition of land.
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 http://content2.msn.co.in/News/National/NationalHT_160307_0905.htm.
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. 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.
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
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.
A section of those promised jobs at the factory have boycotted classes while training in protest against the alleged going back on the promise.
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
in protest while legislators belonging to her party turned violent in the legislative assembly causing damage to furniture. http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=1&id=166070 Later, she went on a 25-day hunger strike
http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/dec/29mamta.htm.During this period she presented affidavits of farmers apparently unwilling to part with their land.
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. Negligence and political interference in the probe into her death have been alleged. 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.
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
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.
. 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 (3.7 km²) through voluntary consent of the owners without the use of force.
The Kolkata High Court declared the acquisition prima facie legal.
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 http://content.msn.co.in/News/National/NationalPTI_020507_1718.htm. In a fresh affidavit filed later in June 2007, the government admitted to 30 per cent of the land was acquired from farmers without consent. The affidavit remains unclear on whether the lack of consent is based on insufficiency of the compensation or refusal to sell altogether.
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.
It took 14 months to build a new factory in Sanand, Gujarat compared with 28 months for the Singur factory.
Singur
Singur is a census town in Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. Singur railway station is 34 km from Howrah Station on the Howrah-Tarakeswar line. It is 2 km ahead of Kamarkundu junction, the crossing point of Howrah-Bardhaman chord and Howrah-Tarakeshwar lines. It is on...
in Hooghly district
Hooghly District
Hooghly district is one of the districts of the state of West Bengal in India. It can alternatively be spelt Hoogli or Hugli. The district is named after the Hooghly River.The headquarters of the district are at Chinsura...
, West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
.
Singur gained international media attention since Tata Motors
Tata Motors
Tata Motors Limited is an Indian multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Mumbai, India. Part of the Tata Group, it was formerly known as TELCO...
started constructing a factory to manufacture their $2,500 car, the Tata Nano
Tata Nano
The Tata Nano is an inexpensive, rear-engined, four-passenger city car built by the Indian company Tata Motors and is aimed primarily at the Indian domestic market....
at Singur. The small car was scheduled to roll out of the factory by 2008.
The state government of West Bengal facilitated the controversy by using an old rule to conduct an eminent domain
Eminent domain
Eminent domain , compulsory purchase , resumption/compulsory acquisition , or expropriation is an action of the state to seize a citizen's private property, expropriate property, or seize a citizen's rights in property with due monetary compensation, but without the owner's consent...
takeover of 997 acres (4 km²) of farmland to have Tata build its factory. 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, displaced land owners and opposition parties in Bengal.
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 BanerjeeMamata Banerjee
Mamata Banerjee is the 11th and current chief minister of the Indian state of West Bengal. She is the first woman to hold the office. Banerjee founded All India Trinamool Congress in 1997 and became chairperson, after separating from the Indian National Congress...
. Banerjee's "Save Farmland" movement was supported by environmental activists like Medha Patkar, Anuradha Talwar and Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy is an Indian novelist. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and has also written two screenplays and several collections of essays...
. 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
Ratan Tata
Ratan Naval Tata is the present chairman of Tata Sons and therefore, Tata Group. Also, he is one among the few in the world...
blamed agitation 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 BengalWest Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
has not been accompanied by significant economic growth. Key indicators such as unemployment
Unemployment
Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
rates, poverty rates, infant mortality rates, job growth rates, per capita income, mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
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
Tata Motors
Tata Motors Limited is an Indian multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Mumbai, India. Part of the Tata Group, it was formerly known as TELCO...
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. The project had, however, generated controversy right from the start, particularly on the question of state acquisition of fertile agricultural land for private enterprise.
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
for acquisition of 997 acres (4 km²) 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. Others say the provisions of this act were allegedly not been met.
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 population depends on agriculture with approximately 15000 making their livelihood directly from it. 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. Environmental degradation is also feared.
Chief protesters include the opposition parties spearheaded by the Trinamool Congress under Mamata Banerjee
Mamata Banerjee
Mamata Banerjee is the 11th and current chief minister of the Indian state of West Bengal. She is the first woman to hold the office. Banerjee founded All India Trinamool Congress in 1997 and became chairperson, after separating from the Indian National Congress...
and Socialist Unity Centre of India
Socialist Unity Centre of India
The Socialist Unity Centre of India , previously called the Socialist Unity Centre of India, is a communist party in India. The party was founded by Shibdas Ghosh in 1948.-Ideology:...
. The movement has received widespread support from civil rights and human rights groups, legal bodies, social activists like Medha Patkar
Medha Patkar
Medha Patkar is an Indian social activist. She is known for her role in Narmada Bachao Andolan. She has also filed a public interest petition in the Bombay high court against Lavasa along with other members of National Alliance of People's Movements , including Anna Hazare.-Personal life:Medha...
and Anuradha Talwar, Booker prize-winning author Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy is an Indian novelist. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and has also written two screenplays and several collections of essays...
and Magsaysay
Magsaysay
Magsaysay commonly refers to Ramon Magsaysay, the third President of the Philippines, several places in the Philippines are named after him:* Magsaysay, Davao del Sur* Magsaysay, Lanao del Norte* Magsaysay, Misamis Oriental* Magsaysay, Occidental Mindoro...
and Jnanpith Award
Jnanpith Award
The Jnanpith Award is a literary award in India. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, it is one of the two most prestigious literary honours in the country...
-winning author Mahasweta Devi
Mahasweta Devi
Mahasweta Devi is an Indian social activist and writer.- Biography :Mahasweta Devi was born in 1926 in Dhaka, to literary parents in a Hindu Brahmin family. Her father Manish Ghatak was a well known poet and novelist of the Kallol era, who used the pseudonym Jubanashwa...
. Other intellectuals, writers like the poet Ruchit Shah, artists like Suvaprasanna, theatre and film personalities like Saonli Mitra, Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen is a critically acclaimed Bengali Indian filmmaker, script writer, and actress. She is the winner of three National Film Awards and eight international film festival awards.-Biography:...
etc. have pitched in. The state police force has been used to restrict their access to the area. The Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
supported the idea of factory but he however opposed forcible acquisition of land.
The protesters have been attacked, verbally by the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
Communist Party of India (Marxist)
The Communist Party of India is a political party in India. It has a strong presence in the states of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura. As of 2011, CPI is leading the state government in Tripura. It leads the Left Front coalition of leftist parties in various states and the national parliament of...
(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 http://content2.msn.co.in/News/National/NationalHT_160307_0905.htm.
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. 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.
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
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.
A section of those promised jobs at the factory have boycotted classes while training in protest against the alleged going back on the promise.
In the 2011 state assembly elections, while the sitting Trinamool Congress MLA, Rabindranath Bhattacharya retained the Singur
Singur (Vidhan Sabha constituency)
Singur is an assembly constituency in Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal.-Extent:As per orders of the Delimitation Commission, No...
seat, Becharam Manna
Becharam Manna
Becharam Manna is an Indian politician representing Trinamool Congress.He won the Haripal seat by a margin of 22,000 votes, in the 2011 West Bengal state assembly elections...
, the convener of Krishi Jami Raksha Samiti, won the adjoining Haripal
Haripal (Vidhan Sabha constituency)
.# Swing calculated on Congress+Trinamool Congress vote percentages taken together in 2006.-1977-2006:In the 2006 state assembly elections Bharati Mukherjee of CPI won the Haripal seat defeating Safiul Islam Sarkar of Trinamool Congress. Contests in most years were multi cornered but only winners...
seat
Fencing off the land
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 bandhBandh
Bandh , originally a Hindi word meaning 'closed', is a form of protest used by political activists in some countries like India and Nepal. During a Bandh, a political party or a community declares a general strike....
in protest while legislators belonging to her party turned violent in the legislative assembly causing damage to furniture. http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=1&id=166070 Later, she went on a 25-day hunger strike
Hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...
http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/dec/29mamta.htm.During this period she presented affidavits of farmers apparently unwilling to part with their land.
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. Negligence and political interference in the probe into her death have been alleged. 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
Central Bureau of Investigation
The Central Bureau of Investigation is a government agency of India that serves as a criminal investigation body, national security agency and intelligence agency. It was established on 1 April 1963 and evolved from the Special Police Establishment founded in 1941...
in connection with the crime.
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
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.
Construction of plant
Tatas ceremonially initiated the construction of the plant on 21 January 2007. 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 SabhaVidhan Sabha
The Vidhan Sabha or the Legislative Assembly is the lower house or the sole house of the provincial legislature in the different states of India. The same name is also used for the lower house of the legislatures for two of the union territories, Delhi and Pondicherry...
. 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 (3.7 km²) through voluntary consent of the owners without the use of force.
The Kolkata High Court declared the acquisition prima facie legal.
The air seemed to have cleared somewhat when the High Court ordered the state government to submit correct figures following which an affidavit
Affidavit
An affidavit is a written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by an affiant or deponent under an oath or affirmation administered by a person authorized to do so by law. Such statement is witnessed as to the authenticity of the affiant's signature by a taker of oaths, such as a notary public...
but was not satisfied with the result http://content.msn.co.in/News/National/NationalPTI_020507_1718.htm. In a fresh affidavit filed later in June 2007, the government admitted to 30 per cent of the land was acquired from farmers without consent. The affidavit remains unclear on whether the lack of consent is based on insufficiency of the compensation or refusal to sell altogether.
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.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.The CM of Gujarat, Narendra Modi
Narendra Modi
Narendra Damodardas Modi is the current Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat.He was born in a middle class family in Vadnagar; and is a member of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh since childhood, as also an active politician since early in life. He holds a masters degree in political...
then sent an SMS to Mr. Ratan Tata, which simply said "Suswagatham", to persuade him to relocate the Nano factory to Gujarat.
It took 14 months to build a new factory in Sanand, Gujarat compared with 28 months for the Singur factory.