 "Joydeb Das (left), an 'unwilling farmer', with his family")
Joydeb Das, 75, was one of the 2,200-odd people in Singur who came to be called 'unwilling farmers'. That was because this group refused to part with its land for the Tata group's global small car project, Nano. Now, after more than nine years, Das has neither got compensation for his land from the previous state government, headed by the Left front, nor his land, as promised by the current Trinamool Congress government.
Yet, Das is an embodiment of contentment. The value of his land has appreciated. Months before the Tata Motors project was announced, Das's daughter-in-law, Jharna Das, had bought six cottahs (1 cottah = 720 sq ft) at Rs 16,000 a cottah. Now, it is valued at Rs 1 lakh a cottah.
That's not all. Das, who lives with his two sons and a daughter-in-law, has something else to cheer about - all the four members are beneficiaries of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's largesse towards Singur: 16 kg of rice at Rs 2 a kg and cash of Rs 2,000 a month. That translates to Rs 8,000 a month and 48 kg of rice for the family in lieu of the 31 cottahs it lost to the project.
Das's third son, who lives separately, also gets the dole by virtue of being the son of an 'unwilling farmer'.
For Das, who has recently booked a loss Rs 3,000 on account of crop damage due to excessive rains, Banerjee's kindness is unparalleled. More so, as one of his sons is jobless and the other, a daily wage earner, makes about Rs 150 a day.
"We don't need to buy rice anymore," he says. Would he have been better off if he had tilled the land lost? "Maybe not," he says at once.
Das is among the 3,500 people getting the monthly dole. But many have been excluded. Shiburam Manna has two sons, but only one gets the Singur dole, which makes it two in the family. "I have been trying to enrol the other son for a while, but it has not happened. Whenever I bring it up, I am offered free pesticides for crops or agricultural equipment," Manna says.
The divide between the 11,000 who willingly gave land for the project and those who didn't was never wider. "How can the state discriminate? Everyone should get the dole," says Singur Shilpa Bachao committee convenor Udayan Das.
A petition seeking parity in this regard has been filed in the Calcutta High Court.
Mamata Banerjee and Singur share a history dating back to 2006. On May 18 that year, then chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, flanked by Ratan Tata and the Tata Sons brass at Writers' Building, announced the project to make the world's cheapest car, the Nano, would be located in Bengal.
Banerjee seized upon the discontent of a handful of those unwilling to part with their land and made it her electoral campaign. The government's heavy-handed action against discontent on the project provided the perfect ammunition.
From August 24, 2008, Banerjee laid an indefinite siege to the area around the plant, demanding the return of 400 acres which she claimed belonged to "unwilling" land losers; the Left government had put the figure at 181 acres. The demand was untenable to Tata Motors. Ultimately, the project was shifted to Sanand in Gujarat.
The obvious casualties were Bhattacharjee, his government, and Bengal. The Left was routed in the state Assembly elections of 2011 by Banerjee's Trinamool Congress.
Now, it was time to return the favour. Hours after taking charge at Writers' Building, the state secretariat, Banerjee announced her Cabinet had decided to return land to those who were unwilling to part with it. The Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Bill was passed by the West Bengal Assembly on June 14, 2011, vesting the entire 1,000 acres allocated to Tata Motors and its vendors with the state government.
Soon, Tata Motors moved the Calcutta High Court.
The first round went to Banerjee. A Calcutta High Court single-judge order declared the Act valid. A division bench, however, set aside the single-judge order and struck down the Act, primarily because it was in conflict with the Land Acquisition Act of 1894. Subsequently, the state filed an appeal in the Supreme Court.
That was in 2012, when Banerjee announced the Singur dole.
But three years on, the apex court is yet to take up the matter. By the end of 2013, Tata Motors told the court it wanted to retain the land in Singur for the Nano project.
"The hearing has not started. No date has been fixed," says Kalyan Banerjee, Trinamool Congress MP and one of the counsels representing the state in court.
With elections in the state due next year, the Trinamool Congress government could be in a catch-22 situation: if it loses the legal battle, its pre-electoral promise would stand to be broken; if it wins, distribution of land could lead to bigger woes. Status quo could be its best bet.
But Joydeb Das and Shiburam Manna might have a problem with that, too. "Can I till the land if I get it back? It's filled with fly ash. It will take five years to make it suitable for agriculture. That is possible only if the state compensates me for the loss," Das says.
How long will Banerjee oblige?
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